Youko Kayabuki

Yoko Kayabuki is Japan’s newly elected prime minister in Stand Alone Complex 2nd GIG.

Kayabuki first appears in the second season of Stand Alone Complex and is elected as Japan’s first female prime minister. She reinstates Section 9 after a deal was made with Aramaki in the Stand Alone Complex, 2 years after the raid by Umibozu commandos on Section 9’s headquarters.

Politically, she was selected by the ruling party as an internal political movement to conservatism in the wake of the Laughing Man scandal that brought down the previous government. However, she was perceived as being politically weak—the Cabinet at this time was increasing in political power and becoming led by personality rather than by electoral responsibility, and in addition the undercurrent of secret manipulation by the Cabinet Intelligence Agency through the Individual Eleven / Refugee Crisis sought to make the Prime Minister a rubber stamping figurehead—it is a tribute the Kayabuki and her wisdom of selecting Daisuke Aramki and Major Kusanagi as personal advisors that prevented potentially cataclysmic events during the beginning of her premiership. This demonstration of capability, and the calling in of favours owed at the height of the crisis increased her ability to control Japan in the wake thereof. She also demonstrated that she held clout from a military stand-point: The JASDF was her tool of choice for reminding the contending land and sea force commanders where Japans true military prowess was to be found, from both a domestic and military stand-point.

Kayabuki becomes a victim of the Individual Eleven and is involved with Section 9’s investigation into the case. During the refugee crisis, she is arrested under charges of treason for requesting the UN to intervene in the crisis, though this action on the part of the Ruling Party chairman was not sanctioned by either party, or electorate—her escape from custody and the aid of Section 9 prevented this secret coup d’etat from becoming a reality, and also then sent a clear signal to the American Empire that Japan prefers a Stand-alone status within the international community.

She appears briefly in Ghost in the Shell: S.A.C. Solid State Society, where she remains Prime Minister, and Daisuke Aramaki’s immediate superior.