The Laughing Man (, Warai Otoko?) is a fictional character in the anime series Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. His voice actor is Kōichi Yamadera, while he is voiced in Bandai Entertainment's English dub by Steven Blum. "In the Ghost in the Shell series, Laughing Man proves to be the ultimate hacker, capable of such feats as hijacking multiple video streams simultaneously, taking over someone’s cybernetic brain entirely, or even editing his own images out of someone’s cybernetic eyes, and all in real time." The character's name is taken from the title of J. D.

Salinger's short story, The Laughing Man. The Laughing Man logo is an animated image of a smiling figure wearing a cap, with circling text quoting a line from Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye, which reads: "I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes." The supposed Laughing Man's name is Aoi. In the last episode of the first season, there is his red hat with the name Aoi patched on the inside.

In episode 11, "Portraitz", the director of the vocational aid center also calls him by this name when introducing him to Togusa (although they are both unaware at the time that he is the Laughing Man). The Laughing Man logo was designed by Terratag. Based in the UK, Terratag was asked to read a short story by J.D. Salinger, The Laughing Man, and to base the logo on that.

The story centers around a boys' after school organization called the Commanche Club. The Commanche Club's Chief often brings the boys to Central Park for baseball games, and these games are the source of the baseball cap featured in the logo. The text was given to Terratag by Production I.G. and reads: "I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes".

The phrase is an excerpt from The Catcher in the Rye, also written by J.D. Salinger. In the book the text continues to read: "That way I wouldn't have to have any goddamn stupid useless conversations with anybody. If anybody wanted to tell me something they'd have to write it on a piece of paper and shove it over to me.

They'd get bored as hell doing that after a while, and then I'd be through with having conversations for the rest of my life".

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