Review of The Ghost in the Shell

Well since I covered the original Ghost in the Shell anime, I figured it would be appropriate to also talk about the actual original version of the same story and what more of an opportunistic way to do it than by going over its newest adaptation?

Ever since the teasers dropped there seemed to be some people worried about how this version would fare, after basically 20 years of underwhelming entries for the franchise. And once the trailers came out and it was confirmed to be a faithful manga adaptation for the first time, the opinions about it were mixed between the actual fans of the source being excited about it, and people who claimed that it was going to be a big failure for betraying what the “true” Ghost in the Shell was and what actually positioned it as the anime and cyberpunk landmark it is, completely ignoring that the original version was already an important work for the genre and otaku media in general. Apparently the clashes between those two groups grew enough to become a controversy, even lasting to these days in the forums, for I fortunately missed it for the most part.

I already mentioned the basic consistent concept of the franchise in the other review but let’s go at it again. Three years from now in the Ghost in the Shell universe, after a third and fourth World War, technology is advanced to the point where people have prosthetic cybernetic implants all over their bodies and computerized brains and there’s a unit within the Japanese forces, branded as Section 9, supposedly in charge of hunting down terrorists and criminals but also keeping other parts of the government in check and extra officially they also specialize in assassinations.

The basic reason for the clashing opinions regarding this and the 1995 movie comes down to how different they are, but on my review of the film I did mention all the stuff that the latter took from the manga, and thus are actually also present in this version, here it is:

-The famous opening sequence can be found in the first five minutes of the anime and the prologue of the manga which is 14 pages long.


-The iconic “Making of a Cyborg” scene is based on the fifth chapter of the manga which was adapted at the 17:39 minute mark in the third episode here. An important difference is that the body made there is not Motoko’s.


-The foreign interpreter being hacked at 10 minutes in the movie appears at eleven minutes of the second episode of this series and page 8 of the third chapter of the manga. An important difference is that in this version she used to be a girlfriend of Togusa, thus giving him a personal motivation in the conflict, but that goes to waste a bit by not giving him a part in the plot afterwards.


-At 40 minutes Batou tells Aramaki that Motoko has behaved weirdly ever since the case with the Puppetmaster. This actually is done better in the eighth episode of the 2026 series because there’s a cerebral connection between the protagonist and antagonist by that point, something which does not happen until later in the movie.

-At 42 minutes, Motoko tells Batou that maybe she died and is a replica made with a cybernetic body and a computerized brain, something which she tells to the women building a cyborg body in the last page of the fifth chapter of the manga and at 21:20 minutes of the second episode here, in a comical manner, not as an existential crisis like the movie.

-The iconic scene at 1:05:20 in the movie in which the tank grabs Motoko’s head with the
intent of smashing it for her to be saved by Batou, is based on her fight against Soma Toru from the chapter 8 of the manga (pages 38 and 39, but the fight starts from pages 28 to 32), and episode 6 (minutes 19:39 to 20:10, with the fight starting from 15:40 to 16:30) of this anime. And here she is saved by her boyfriend from Section 1 and Boma from Section 9 instead.

-This leads directly to Batou connecting the two cyberbrains and their final fusion, based on the chapters 9 (pages 31 to 44) and 11 (pages 16 to 18) of the manga and episode 7 (minute 14 onwards) and 10 (minute 17:20 to 20:20) of this anime. The two versions are way too different to point out their differences.

-And the monologues of the Puppetmaster appear in episodes 7 (minute 7:30 to 8:30) and 10 (minute 11 to 17:19) of this anime, and chapters 9 (page 14) and 11 (pages 10 to 15) of the manga.

So like I said on that other review, it’s not like Oshii made up all that stuff on his own, he took aspects of the manga, concentrated them in one short tight storyline and added a little bit of Christian symbolisms to focus on the existential topics of the original work and the concept, but it’s not like this anime lacks any of them. In comparison, it’s lighter on them mainly due to its comedic, lighthearted tone but the themes are there, and in fact at times they are more prominent and complex than in the movie, such as everything that has to do with the Puppetmaster at the end. It’s just that most of the time the philosophical elements are brought up casually during a conversation and glossed over, like something that could happen in real life.

On that aspect, plenty of people dismiss the 1995 movie as what Oshii imagined a cyberpunk society would be, contrary to the manga and thus this anime, which is what a cyberpunk society would actually be. The reasoning itself is stupid worded that way because it’s basically “X wouldn’t be how A said it would be, it would be how B said it would be” and because it lacks any substantial basis to back up that claim other than personal preference. So it needs to be complexized a little bit in order to become something worth talking and discussing about.

What the group against the movie using that argument is saying is basically that people in a cyberpunk society like the one in Ghost in the Shell wouldn’t be all that existentially depressed like in the film but rather casual and ironic about it like in the anime and manga. To those options I raise a third which I find true to life and our current world, but most readers would probably find lukewarm: both positions are perfectly possible and even compatible. In our reality there are those two kinds of people and a third one that doesn’t care about any philo/psico/sociological nor political issue, or that think that nothing of that has any incidence in their lives, as long as they have a home and a source of income. What I’m getting at is that both takes on the concept and setting are valid, which makes taking any as a sole and the whole argument for the discourse ridiculous to me.

In either a negative or a positive way, you could probably say that the movie focuses more on the existential aspects, and while that might be true of the series as a whole compared to the film, the same cannot be said regarding the monologues of the Puppetmaster, especially during the last episode, which takes it in a much further, bigger and more complicated way that Oshii did. So once again, reading people claiming that the new anime and the manga are slop with no substance that has nothing on the 1995 version, as well as those that jumped on to the original or this adaptation just to see action and Motoko’s ass and lesbian threesome, and those being the reasons why they prefer this iteration, only to find such a philosophical and even religious sequence right before the end, are all funny to me, to no say dumb, because then I would seem like a self righteous know it all above all asshole.

What can be said about this version is that minus the seventh and tenth episode, it doesn’t focus on those aspects much, because of its tone more focused on action and comedy, it certainly isn’t the same existential masterpiece as the first movie.

What this anime focuses more on than the other one is in political aspects, I mean there is definitely a political dimension in the film but not to this degree. Practically every case and episode here explores some kind of internal corruption. Covering up some foreign guy, attempting to kill some minister, coordinated attacks on someone between internal and external politicians with some hacker employed in the middle of it, some section making deals with a criminal to supposedly catch another bigger one, heck, even the main antagonist was created by another section as well. At some point the protagonist is even pursued and exposed by Israel in the manga and Latin American dub, as the first version and translations of the source material weren’t afraid to namedrop real countries, which were changed for fictional ones in later editions and other dubs and even the original sub of this show. The conflict sparks a lot of internal political debate and conflict. Shoutout to México for being so based to stick to the original version and portray the state that’s slowly buying them and the rest of Latin America from within as the bad guys with interests in nuclear weapons and control over mass media…before that dub version also got censored later on, thus kinda proving the point.

With that said, partially because of the not all that serious tone, partly because of the writing itself that doesn’t focus completely on one thing before moving to another in the following chapter or episode, and also due to the semi episodic with thin continuity narrative of the source material and by extension the anime, it’s not like this version handles the topics amazingly.

Still, enslaved kids working on automatized factories, brainhacks altering the perception of reality and making people commit crimes, cyborg children girls being forced by a pedophile to hack androids to attack if not outright kill politicians and other important people, and an advanced AI accessing to so much information that it declares having developed a conscience and have become a living organism that should get diplomatic protection, before wanting to fuse its cyberbrain with another to die and reincarnate as its own offspring, are all really cool concepts and at its best the anime handles them with as much quality that the medium hasn’t shown since Pluto, which was the best 2023 anime as far as I’m concerned.

As discussed already, the anime does have its issues as an adaptation. Some can’t be excused, such as chickening out on the Israel thing, but others can, such as the pixelated censored violence which can be explained as people seeing that as their cyberbrain are destroyed, even if we all know that the real reason is that Japanese television doesn’t allow showing headshots and beheadings. Let’s wait for the Blu-Rays and see.

Others can be treated fairly, such as exaggerating some of the silly moments and expressions of the source material, but toning down others or straight up omitting other ones for balance. And no I’m not including what they did with the cyber lesbian threesome which was straight up hentai in the manga, no one would actually expect to see that in this version. If you have read my reviews in the past you know that I usually condemn fanservice, but I don’t consider what is displayed here as such, because exploring even if briefly that advanced technology can even have sexual uses counts as theme exploration, even if other anime like Real Drive, also by Masamune Shirow, did it further and better and more seriously and with more subtlety. See? I don’t always shit on ecchi, only when it is fanservice, meaning, when it doesn’t add to the narrative, and when it is used to treat female characters as objects, because it goes against characterization, which wasn’t the case here. Even as it is in the series, the anime balanced it out better than removing it completely as later editions of the source material did. Again, jerk-offs will have to pray and wait for the Blu-Rays to see if there’s something more extreme in there, but I hardly doubt it. I could criticize Motoko’s buttshots I guess but they were just two in the whole anime so meh, Stand Alone Complex had a lot more of that.

Another important issue is of course being too faithful to the source material at times, such as including, even if simplified, the indexes of the manga about technobabble stuff, which looks silly on a visual medium, and weren’t even presented in an artistic way like the Monogatari franchise when it includes whole passages of the light novel in blink and you missed it scenes. The biggest offender is the pacing, following the order of the chapters to a tee to the point of displaying their names on screen, and finishing the episodes sometimes at inappropriate moments, making some cases last more than an episode, while others are adapted together in a single episode. Even outside of that, it feels like everything gets the same amount of screentime without letting some sequences last longer and become more memorable that way and thus lacking a stronger lasting impact, and not letting the anime breathe at any scene as well. The show definitely needed that regular 12 or 13 amount of episodes instead of the 10 we got.

As for characterization, the cast have more character appeal and personality than in other iterations, they are badasses, funny, sarcastic, they joke a lot, they complain about their job, salaries and lack of vacations, but also don’t hesitate to switch when needed and even kill in come blood. This makes them more appealing and memorable and likeable for lots of viewers, but they also lack backdrops and fleshing. I know there exist people that want their characters to remain mysterious for some reason, but not me, give me those backdrops if possible, how can exploring a character be remotely bad? Well over here almost no one gets anything like that, only the antagonist, and it’s material not present in the manga, but still good, so cheers to whoever was responsible for improving on an already good character. Development is reserved only for Motoko and in little doses, and catharsis for her and the Puppetmaster, in a very similar way to the 1995 movie. As a whole I found the roster very likeable but not as well established as in the first movie, nor as fleshed out as in Stand Alone Complex, and that also goes for the Fuchikomas, renamed as Tachikomas over there, that version was also better at handling sociopolitical themes by the way.

Now it’s time to talk about the dressing of the anime and man I should stop labeling titles from this year as the best at something that I have seen so far because soon afterwards I watch another one that proves me wrong, guess that speaks well for the medium as far as 2026 is concerned. In this case is the audio design which surpassed the other Science SARU show of the season, Tenmaku no Jaadugar. The sound effects are loud, impactful, immersive, there are differences in volume and sound whenever the voices need to be muffled, distorted, when the characters are in the cyberspace or in the real world, whenever they are thinking or talking, whenever they are inside the Fuchikomas or outside of them. The franchise was always great at this at least before SAC 2045 and I’m glad after this return to form.

The casting is also great, everyone did their job as good as it could have been. The standouts are Kikuko Inoue voicing a younger looking Puppetmaster than Yoshiko Sakakibara’s version, and Maaya Sakamoto taking place as the main Motoko seiyuu after the passing of Atsuko Tanaka. Although you can hear a bit of her silly high pitched sounds when needed at comical moments, she also pulled off a mature and badass tone well, in fact there were moments when she sounded similar to the Major’s previous voice actress as well to me. And I’m glad that Kazuhiro Yamaji is getting bigger roles these days, as I like his work ever since I watched the fifth Saint Seiya movie.

The opening shows the personalities of the characters well and key moments of the story without coming off as spoilers. The ending is more relaxed and static and blue (heh). Musically both combine alternative pop with hiphop, R & B and synths in the back. I can’t say I really like them but they give off the tone of the series right and sound fittingly modern for the setting, so they are good. There’s a special ending used for the last episode and it’s a sexy vocal jazz, that one I liked.

I’m listening to the soundtrack as I write and remembering some tracks from when I was watching the anime. It basically feels like a combination of background music from previous versions. Some choruses and shamisen slowly transitioning to slow electronic guitars like in the first film, some alternative pop songs combined with electronic music and jazz like what Yoko Kano composed for Stand Alone Complex, and some more modern synthwave-like electronic and lo-fi stuff like Arise did. Nothing is incredible but was used well in the show, it fits the vibe needed and the tone of the anime, and on its own is good. I place it below Kawai and Kanno’s scores but above what I remember from Arise’s and 2045’s. As for this year I rank it below Jaadugar and Frieren. There are three composers credited, two of which worked separately on Kekkai Sensei, Hisone to Maso-tan and Dr. Stone, the latter which is made up of six albums that I also heard recently and is overall good as well, and the third one who…never worked on anything big before and this is his first major work? That’s crazy.

Visually this anime might be the one I liked the most from the year, at least until I watch the new Edgerunners which seems to be the only title left in 2026 that can rival it for that title. The artwork is always solid, combines modern looks and coloring with the retro and manga accurate character designs perfectly, the female androids look sexy and a bit revealing but not to the point of being distracting and although their faces are a bit samey, that is excused in-setting as shown in the third episode. The dudes look funny or cool when needed, the goofy facial expressions are full of life and cartoony in an old way, and as a whole the cast doesn’t look as serious as they did before 2013 and considerably younger, Aramaki being the most obvious case, but they look mad fine. In terms of character designs nothing else from 2026 compares to this series, so far at least.

The backgrounds are detailed and beautiful, the special effects are great too, prioritizing traditional visuals to look as close as possible to the original artstyle of the source material, even if there was CGI as it is credited in some episodes. The scene that stood out the most for me was when a car was going inside a tunnel and the light over the faces of the characters received from outside the vehicle was constantly changing, and as pointed out in Twitter and Reddit some time ago, the team behind this anime used datamoshing and pixel sorting techniques (melting glitch effects) on episode 5 when Motoko connected her cyberbrain to some disc, very interesting sequence. The actual animation, the motions, are usually very good but at times they can be a bit meh. The only complaint I have comes from the manga itself, and is the presence of public phones with card readers on the streets, which at least Science SARU updated to feature digital screens, and CDs and…floppy disks? Well, it’s an alternative 2029 and the last item was retrieved from what looked like an antiques sales stall.

There are also very cool holographic effects used when the characters enter the cyberspace, not as detailed as they were in Stand Alone Complex but definitely updated in looks and overall better and what looked like electric waves when they transferred information from one cyberbrain to another, something which the 1995 movie never had nor matched in any way. As far as directing goes, this anime is probably still behind Nippon Sangoku and Atelier from this year, but there were still very cool panning and dynamic and POVs transitions to make the whole visually very fun to watch.

Apparently the finale of the series teased some type of continuation which intrigues me a little bit, as both manga sequels are even shorter than the first. If it is an adaptation of 1.5 then I’d be fine with it, if it’s Man Machine Inferface then I don’t know. I should probably reread before saying this but in my memory the story is quite complex in themes, far more than the prequel and even the first movie, the plot is not very clear, the finale doesn’t feel complete, and Motoko is naked almost the whole time, which would probably please the horny dudes if they didn’t have to put up with everything else, and it would likely be a problem to translate to screen.

In conclusion, this series has had some of the highest points both in writing and animation I got so far from the year and is overall good at combining theme exploration with fun characters and action and some comedy and ecchi, with amazing visuals and audio. The semi episodic structure of the narrative and the short duration of the show does affect pacing, writing and characterization but even so this is one of the best anime of its kind that I have watched, in my opinion surpassed only by Cowboy Bebop, which although had some way worse episodes, at its best was unmatched and with a much better cast, and Stand Alone Complex, which fleshed out this same roster and handled a lot of its same or similar political themes and topics a lot more and better.

As far as the year goes, I still rank it below the other Science SARU show of its season, Tenmaku no Jaadugar, which had stronger plot continuity and the best characters of the year up until now. When it comes to Ghost in the Shell itself, yeah, I still think the 1995 movie and Stand Alone Complex are better, but hey, third or second place among three lists of “bests” of something ain’t bad at all. What’s definitely the best of is in audio design in 2026 and in the title from this franchise that came out in twenty years, as it far surpasses Arise and SAC 2045, and now let’s stop the silly discourse around it please, it’s good stuff, in a different way that you knew up until now if you never checked the original, and if you did, it was a modern adaptation of a retro classic that did it justice, how cool and rare is that?

Suggestion list

The 1.5 manga
The 1995 movie and the original Stand Alone Complex versions, meaning, not 2045
The Patlabor franchise minus the third movie
Jin-Rou
GUNNM (the first two mangas only)
Eden: It’s an Endless World (Manga)
Akira (Both versions)
Blade Runner (Movie)
The Matrix (first movie)

I didn’t venture much into them, I should, but they are commonly associated as extended similar media

Black Magic M-66 (Anime and manga)
Appleseed (Anime and manga franchise)
AD Police (Anime)
Mardock Scramble (Anime trilogy)
Armitage (Anime)
Oni (Videogame)
Deus Ex (Videogame franchise)
Altered Carbon (Book and tv series)
The Neuromancer (Book)
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheeps? (Book)
Metal Gear and Metal Gear Solid (Videogame franchises)
Ace Combat (Videogame franchise, particularly the third entry)



7/10