Hideo Kuze
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Hideo Kuze (クゼ・ヒデオ Kuze Hideo) is a fictional character in Masamune Shirow's Ghost in the Shell anime series Stand Alone Complex 2nd Gig. Kuze is a full cyborg and is a main suspect in Section 9's investigation of the Individual Eleven. He is unusual among prostheticized individuals since he has chosen to have a sculpted face, which is far more difficult to manipulate than a standard prosthetic face. Due to this, Kuze's mouth typically remains motionless while he speaks.
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[edit] Background
Hideo Kuze is one of the known eleven members of the terrorist group known as the "Individual Eleven". During a mass suicide by the Individual Eleven, Kuze alone survived, leaving and hiding out in the Refugee Residential District. He spearheads a revolutionary independence movement by the refugees in Japan.
[edit] Childhood
During his childhood years, Kuze was involved in a plane crash at the age of 6. He was one of 2 survivors found, the other being Motoko Kusanagi. Kuze was paralyzed and his left arm was his only functional body part. As he laid in the hospital bed, he began to feel sorry for the girl who laid in a bed next to his. He knew she would never recover, so he learned how to fold origami cranes with his only functional body part. In Japanese Culture if a thousand cranes are folded, then a wish will come true. The girl underwent a procedure to replace her damaged body for a fully cyberized one.
After the procedure, the girl visited Kuze while he was still recovering from his injuries, although Kuze did not know who she was, believing the girl died. During one of the visits, Kuze asked the girl if it was possible to fold cranes with a cybernetic body. The girl tried and failed, unable to adeptly manipulate the fine motor skills of her prosthetic parts. She soon left, saying she would return when she was able to fold cranes; he never saw her again. A few days later, he underwent the same full cyberization procedure as the girl.
During a visit to a university, Kuze found the girl's empty body in one of the laboratories. He knew this was the girl he had been looking for since he was a child. Years later, while Section 9 was testing out their new recruits, Major Kusanagi wandered into another part of town. When she entered an antique shop, she found her cybernetic body from when she was a child. The boy's body sat beside her. The shop owner told her that years after the girl's body was found, the boy tried to locate her but was unsuccessful. At the end of the episode the Major reveals that Kuze was the first person she ever loved.
The relationship between the Major and Kuze is heavily implied throughout 2nd Gig. After diving into Kuze's cyberbrain, the Major becomes bothered by the suspicion that she knows him from somewhere. Both characters are shown folding paper cranes single-handedly in several episodes.
[edit] The Peninsular War
Before joining the Individual Eleven, Kuze was a former peacekeeper for the SDF. In 2024 after World War IV, The American Empire deployed UN troops to where internal conflict continued in North Korea. Japan was offered excavation rights if they deployed their Special Defense Forces troops. Kuze was stationed with the PKF-issue hybrid cyborgs, they were ordered to circle north of Shinuiju and launch a preemptive strike on the People's Army. During the ascent of the mountain, Kuze's platoon found a refugee camp along a river located on a border. The area was not mentioned in the intelligence report issued by the SDF.
At the time, the camp was being looted by the soldiers of The People's Army whose intentions were to become bandits. Seeing this, Kuze's platoon engaged in combat and, one by one, soldiers of the People's Army began surrendering. Kuze's men saved the remaining villagers in a very lopsided battle between crack cyborg commandos and starving People's Army soldiers, which turned out to be the only real combat they ever saw. After fighting the People's Army, the platoon were advised to be aware of possible guerrilla style attacks on the camp.
A problem later arose in the platoon camp, when the soldiers began suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder due to the experience of gunning down people in their first battle. Most of the soldiers who retained their original body organs began drinking synthetic alcohol and took cannabis smuggled in by the refugees to escape the nightmares of the massacre.
When order began breaking down in the SDF, the Japanese media began pelting insensitive comments at the platoon. The criticism of the platoon's behavior was more severe due to censorship of the massacre which hadn't reached the media. The soldiers' freedom was later restricted due to policies designed to prevent further disgrace. Many of the soldiers were barred from returning to Japan. Some footage of the refugee camp massacre was leaked to certain broadcast stations.
A false rumor began to spread that the JSDF executed the massacre. Riots broke out demanding an explanation to the massacre, while soldiers couldn't defend themselves from an outbreak of rumors. One day while a journalist was commenting on one of the soldiers, Kuze approached him and agreed with the man's remarks of foreign invasion. Kuze demanded to trade his gun in for the journalist's camera. When the journalist handed over his camera, Kuze walked into the refugee camp and was not seen by any of his platoon scouts again.
[edit] Refugee camps
Kuze became a refugee after not returning back to Japan. He walked from camp to camp, observing the life of refugees by taking pictures. While traveling through the camps, the elderly became interested in Kuze and offered him drinks, children asked him to fold paper planes. Men and women stood in lines, telling their life stories to Kuze, who never spoke a word. He often smiled at them and took their photographs.
Three months later, The People's Army surrendered and the SDF was cleared of its obligations and the media stopped talking about the massacre. A day before the SDF was to withdraw, Kuze disappeared from the camp, leaving behind only a photograph. He was believed to have crossed the border and headed west into Taiwan. While investigating the "Individual Eleven" case Ishikawa mentions he met a man who has seen Kuze in the Taiwanese refugee camps.
[edit] End of 2nd Gig
During the last episode of 2nd Gig, Motoko Kusanagi and Kuze are both trapped underneath rubble together. Motoko asks Kuze if he can still make paper cranes with only his left hand. Kuze realizes that the Major was the little girl who was in a coma in the bed next to him, when he was hospitalized after being the only survivors of the plane crash which forced both of them to undergo full cyborgization when they were children. Both are later rescued by Batou.
Aramaki later corners Gouda with a few Section 9 operatives. When Gouda tries to escape in an elevator, the Major is waiting for him inside with her optical camouflage activated. She shoots Gouda down and realizes that the American Empire is going to target Kuze. She rushes away and jumps out the building, desperate to get to Kuze before he is killed. She is too late to save his body from contamination by micromachines, but Kuze's last words imply that he may not have been killed after all. He says "I'll go on ahead". His plan for a revolution was to lead the refugees into cyberspace and leave their bodies behind (ironically this concept is similar to what was stated by Project 2501, better known as the Puppetmaster, in the movies and in the manga). "I'll go on ahead" may mean that he went into cyberspace ahead of the others in order to save himself. It is possible that, to this day, he is still waiting for the refugees to follow him. It has been speculated that the Major's failure in saving Kuze may have sparked her departure from Public Safety Security Section Nine.
