Ahead of its newly announced July 7 broadcast start date, The Ghost in the Shell has gotten its longest trailer yet: a 77-second look that presents Section 9 in action, displays its exaggerated animation philosophy, and highlights some overt facial expressions from the Major. It also has a mention of the familiar Ghost in the Shell antagonist, the Puppet Master.
The trailer’s description comes with more staff credits, among them:
• Background art director: Emi Katanosaka (My Happy Marriage)
• Background art supervisor: Osamu Masuyama (My Happy Marriage)
• Color designer: Satoshi Hashimoto (Yaiba: Samurai Legend)
• Compositing director: Hikari Ito (Sanda)
• Sound director: Yuji Tange (Puniru is a Kawaii Slime)
• Sound effects: Shota Yaso
In addition to the trailer, there’s a new key visual that has the Section 9 team armed and suited up.
The Ghost in the Shell is a new adaptation of Shirow Masamune‘s cyberpunk manga, directed by Mokochan (DAN DA DAN Season 1 assistant director) at Science SARU with EnJoe Toh (Godzilla Singular Point, author of books like Self-Reference ENGINE and Code Buddha) on series composition and script duties. Shuhei Handa (Scott Pilgrim Takes Off co-character designer) is the character designer and chief animation director.
Prime Video will be streaming the anime (exempting Russia and China), with an exclusive early window for Japan.
The synopsis reads:
The year is 2029. In near-future Japan, where the world has become highly information-intensive, with a vast corporate network covering the planet, electrons and light pulsing through it. But the nation-state and ethnic groups still survive. Motoko Kusanagi, a full-body cyborg, leads an elite combat unit, including Batou. While commanding her team, Kusanagi envisions the creation of a specialized task force to preemptively strike against emerging threats. Meanwhile, Daisuke Aramaki of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, who had been planning to establish a similar unit, recruited Kusanagi and her team. Together, they begin operations as Public Security Section 9—an offensive tactical unit known as “Shell Squad.” As they confront complex cybercrimes and international conspiracies, the existence of a mysterious, unidentified hacker known as The “Puppet Master” emerges on the horizon of their investigation. What fate awaits Kusanagi? And what is the Puppet Master’s true objective? A new era of cyberpunk action begins.
Previous anime adaptations took the form of Mamoru Oshii‘s Ghost in the Shell and Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence movies; the Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex series and movie; the Ghost in the Shell: Arise films, which feature a younger version of Motoko; and the 3DCG Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045, which is set after Stand Alone Complex. Production I.G produced these, with SOLA DIGITAL ARTS assisting for SAC_2045.
The original manga debuted in the May 1989 issue of Young Magazine Kaizokuban, a special supplement of Kodansha’s seinen magazine Young Magazine.
