Anime Classic Ghost In The Shell Comes To 4K Ultra HD

Twenty-five years after its original debut, the landmark cyberpunk anime Ghost In The Shell will be getting a 4K Ultra HD release on September 8. Widely considered one of anime's most beloved films--whose fans include James Cameron (The Terminator) and The Wachowskis (The Matrix)--the 1995 movie based on the 1989 manga of the same name by Shirow Masamune is set in the now, not-so-distant 2029.

In the movie, a female cybernetic government agent, Major Motoko Kusanagi, and the Internal Bureau of Investigations are hot on the trail of "The Puppet Master," a mysterious and threatening computer virus capable of infiltrating human hosts. Together with her fellow agents from Section 9, Kusanagi embarks on a high-tech race against time to capture the omnipresent entity.

This new release of director Mamoru Oshii's film comes with a full-length audio commentary with Mary Claypool (animation writer and English language scriptwriter), Eric Calderon (animation producer and writer), Richard Epcar (voice of Batou), and Charles Solomon (animation historian and critic). There will also be two all-new bonus featurettes--one on the film's science-fiction view of the future, and another on Ghost In The Shell's art and architecture. Additional archival features, including the original theatrical trailer and a featurette with the production report, will be on the disc.

The release includes both 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray discs, along with a 4K digital copy of the film. The 4K Ultra HD version supports both Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos. Check out out the artwork for the new release at the end of this story.

You can read our original review of Ghost In The Shell from way back in 1997 here.

A live-action version of Ghost In The Shell, directed by Rupert Sanders and starring Scarlet Johansson, was released in 2017. This year, Netflix debuted the Japanese-language Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045, a new anime that picks up from 2002's Stand Alone Complex, a previous spin-off anime.