One of sci-fi anime’s most iconic franchises is back — and if you haven’t started watching yet, you have seven episodes of catching-up to do. The Ghost in the Shell, produced by Science SARU and streaming exclusively on Amazon Prime Video, premiered on 7 July 2026. It’s available in Singapore right now, with new episodes dropping weekly every Tuesday.

A Fresh Ghost in the Shell, Faithful to Shirow’s Original Manga

Science SARU — the studio behind the breakout hit Dan Da Dan and Scott Pilgrim Takes Off — is adapting Masamune Shirow’s original 1989–91 manga directly, a first for a TV anime series. Earlier adaptations, including Mamoru Oshii’s beloved 1995 film, drew from the same source but charted their own course. This 2026 series goes back to the pages, following Major Motoko Kusanagi in 2029 Japan as she builds the unit that will become Public Security Section 9 — an elite tactical force that hunts cybercrime and terrorism in a world where the line between human and machine has all but dissolved.

At the helm is Mokochan (Toma Kimura), a key animator and storyboarder on Dan Da Dan making his full directorial debut. Series composition is handled by EnJoe Toh, whose genre-savvy script work on Godzilla: Singular Point established him as one of the more interesting voices in sci-fi anime today. Character design, which stays close to Shirow’s distinctive manga look, is by Shūhei Handa. The production is entirely hand-drawn 2D animation — no generative AI involved, as the production committee explicitly confirmed.

The central mystery of the series is the Puppet Master: a hacker capable of infiltrating human minds through cybernetic implants, forcing Section 9 to question where a person ends and a program begins. It’s the kind of question Ghost in the Shell has always been best at asking.

Maaya Sakamoto Takes the Seat as Major Motoko

The casting choice carries real weight. Maaya Sakamoto steps in as Motoko Kusanagi, succeeding the late Atsuko Tanaka, who had voiced the Major across nearly every anime entry in the franchise since 1995 and passed away in August 2024. Sakamoto — known internationally for roles including Aerith in Final Fantasy VII, Haruhi in Ouran High School Host Club, and Ciel in Black Butler — brings a different register to the character: warmer in some moments, colder in others, and unmistakably her own.

The rest of Section 9 has been completely recast as well. Kazuhiko Yamaji plays Chief Daisuke Aramaki; Hiroki Yasumoto is Batou; Yuichi Nakamura voices Togusa; Kosuke Goto is Ishikawa; Toru Nara voices Saito; and Tomoko Kaneda returns to a franchise tradition by voicing the Fuchikoma spider-tank units. It’s a complete generational reset for the voice cast, and the early consensus from viewers has been that it works.

King Gnu Opens, Millennium Parade Closes

The music is another strong point. King Gnu’s opening theme “Go Ghost” leans into the band’s propulsive, slightly unhinged energy and fits the series better than most anime opening assignments fit their shows. The ending theme, “Blue” by Millennium Parade featuring Saya Gray and Canadian singer-songwriter Daniel Caesar, is the kind of collaboration that sounds like a playlist recommendation and turns out to be an anime ED — unexpected, gorgeous, and worth staying through the credits for. Music composition across the series is handled by Taisei Iwasaki, Ryo Konishi, and Yuki Kanesaka.

Seven Episodes In — Here’s Where to Jump On

Episode 7 aired on 18 August; Episode 8, titled Intermission + Brain Drain i, arrives on 25 August. If you’re starting fresh, Amazon Prime Video has all seven existing episodes available right now, so a weekend catch-up is entirely possible before the new episode lands. The series is streaming in more than 240 countries and territories, and is available dubbed in eight languages alongside the original Japanese audio.

For Singapore fans who grew up with the 1995 Oshii film or the Stand Alone Complex series, this is a very different entry point — more manga-faithful, more vibrant in colour palette, and younger in its animation sensibility thanks to Science SARU’s house style. Whether that reads as refreshing or jarring will probably depend on how attached you are to the Oshii aesthetic. Either way, seven episodes is enough to know if it’s for you. More anime coverage here.