genuinely believes in the best for the refugees and helps rally for their independence from Japan. Throughout the investigation, Kusanagi discovers she may know Kuze from her childhood. Ultimately, Gōda is found guilty of his part in the refugee incidents and killed before he can defect to the American Empire, but not before his ministrations also result in the death of Kuze. Production For the second season, Mamoru Oshii contributed with his ideas to the concept of the entire series and initial planning stages. In an interview, Oshii described his role in 2nd GIG as supervising the entire series and writing the plots for each episode. Dai Sato stated that they were initially going to concentrate on how Japan was going to participate in war after 9/11 as intended to portray a fictional future. But by the time they were working on the episodes, the Iraq War had already started and Japan's Self-Defense Force was sent to Iraq. During this time Japan also had an election. Sato continued to state that he created the "Individual Eleven" episodes to express irresponsibility of the Japanese people when they voted for the politicians that planned to send Japanese troops to Iraq and Afghanistan. The opening theme for S.A.C. 2nd GIG is "Rise" performed by Origa (written by Tim Jensen), while the ending theme is "Living Inside the Shell" performed by Steve Conte (written by Shanti Snyder). 2nd GIG also used alternate opening and closing themes when it was re-broadcast on terrestrial television, with "Rise" was replaced by "CHRisTmas in the SiLenT ForeSt" performed by Ilaria Graziano (written by Shanti Snyder), and "Living Inside the Shell" was replaced by "Snyper", performed by Ilaria Graziano (written by Tim Jensen). The second season of Stand Alone Complex aired on Animax from 1 January 2004 to 8 January 2005. The production of a second season was immediately decided after the first season's TV airing. The second season was initially hinted when Bandai has extended the episode list to 52 episodes at Otakon of 2003. On Halloween of 2003, Production I.G officially announced a second season for Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. It premiered on 1 January 2004 in Japan on SKY PerfecTV!'s Perfect Choice (Animax), on a pay-per-view basis. The series was later aired on the terrestrial Nippon TV from 6 April 2005. Animax also later aired the series across its other networks worldwide, including