I just want to complain. I am disappointed. Sigh. That’s it.
I’m on the opposite end of the spectrum. As someone who’s been a huge fan of Ghost in the Shell for literal decades, I’m excited to see a new series that’s not only a faithful adaptation of the original manga, but the first video media to replicate the original art style and preserve personalities from the manga. I’m tired of seeing a Major who’s either borderline robot or a strict leader/boss type. Her character has depth and emotions in the manga! She could be hot-headed too!
Other variations of the media have been interesting in their own isolated universes, but nothing has come close to recreating the original work.
I’m actually binging the whole 2026 series right now. I haven’t seen the final episode yet, but my wife was getting lost on the overall plot, having only watched it one episode per week as it’s releasing. So we’re re-watching everything, including the final episode, tonight. I’m excited for the conclusion!
I’m also curious if they’ll make a season 2 that follows volume 2 of the manga. The original work was written as a singular isolated volume, but its popularity led Shirow Masamune to write a second volume after the fact. Plus a volume 1.5 to fill in some gaps between the two volumes.
Regardless, this sole season should tell a complete story without any additional episodes or seasons. That is, if it stays loyal to the manga. And I’m fine with that.
EDIT: I just finished the show. Yup, it was loyal to the manga, right to the end. The Puppet Master bit near the end felt a bit sudden and rushed. They had a few episodes where they could’ve done a better job building it up instead of info-dumping at the very end of the final episode. But otherwise, I highly approve. I’m glad to see a manga-accurate retelling for once.
The 1995 Ghost in the Shell movie was the closest thing to retelling the original manga we’ve had before, and if you’ve seen it, you’ll probably recognize similar scenes and stories in this 2026 show.
But the movie changed the look and personality/behavior of everyone. Not to mention, it had to condense an entire volume of manga into an 80-minute film, so it solely focused on the Puppet Master story, with a few philosophical discussions mixed in. Gotta touch on the philosophy of what the “ghost” in the “shell” is all about, right?
The 2017 Ghost in the Shell was just a live-action retelling of the 1995 movie, with a slightly altered plot. But it flopped because they cast ScarJo to play a typically Japanese main character. Even if they provided an in-universe explanation for why the Major looked American. It didn’t sit well with audiences.
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex is its own thing, set in a similar world and maybe touching on a couple familiar stories from the manga, but mostly creating its own plot to explore. It’s excellent on its own, but it has almost nothing to do with the original manga.
Same with Ghost in the Shell: Arise. It was a prequel series, showing the Major’s early days, but it’s not connected to the source material at all. If I recall, I don’t think it’s even canon with Stand Alone Complex either.
Overall, I’m very pleased with this 2026 version and it will be the version I recommend to anyone who wants to get into Ghost in the Shell without reading the original source manga.
I found the anime being exactly like the manga and it make me a little sad. That’s my take anyway, it will be forgotten really fast
And I’m interested in your opinion
What aspects disappointed you, personally?
I’ve still got two episodes to go, and while it won’t be topping any lists, I don’t regret watching it. It was different.
I found the intentional lean into a more retro style to be fun, but my biggest gripe is also related to that - because they didn’t commit to it hard enough.
The show may look visually somewhat retro, but it felt crazily fast-paced like it was designed for the attention span of a tiktok addict. In that sense it was a thoroughly modern show (in the worst sort of way) and failed to embrace what was supposed to be its selling point.
It would have been a much better show in my opinion if it had simply slowed down a bit.
[…] it felt crazily fast-paced […]
It would have been a much better show in my opinion if it had simply slowed down a bit.
To be fair, the original manga that this show is faithfully reproducing was kind of disjointed and jumped around between plots, while also having the Puppet Master plot lingering in the background until it became relevant at the end.
Those small Japanese paragraphs that pop up randomly in the corner of the screen? Those were etched in the margins of the manga. Shirow Masamune had so much world-building in his original work that he didn’t want to slow down his story to explain everything. So he would write blurbs between manga panels explaining the details of the world so you didn’t have to stop the story to absorb more lore. If you wanted to learn more about how the world worked, the info was there, but it was not essential to the plot.
So yes, it was definitely rushed. But a product trying to faithfully recreate the original manga was going to be, as the original work itself crammed a handful of random stories into a single volume.
If they try to make a season 2 based on volume 2 of the manga, expect it to be even more disjointed. With the Major no longer a central focus of the story, the manga started really bouncing around between plot points and characters, not having a real solid focus on anything. It’s probably why there was never a volume 3 made. Volume 2 just wasn’t as interesting or easy to follow as volume 1. It got really absorbed in world-building and not as interested in telling an actual story.
I found the 2026 show to be much easier to follow by binging it as one extra-long story. It feels rushed if you’re watching one episode per week as it’s airing. But if you view the whole show in one sitting as one story stretching across a year or so, each episode feels more like pieces of an overall plot that start to fit together near the end.
My wife and I had to binge the whole show at the end because she was having a hard time following the threads of plot that each episode was weaving. But it all made sense when we saw it all at once.
I found the intentional lean into a more retro style to be fun, but my biggest gripe is also related to that - because they didn’t commit to it hard enough.
That was one of the things I loved the most about this show. It actually replicated Shirow Masamune’s original art style from his manga. No other version of Ghost in the Shell looks anything like the original manga.
If anything, I really appreciate them replicating his art, but modernizing it a bit to look cleaner and more detailed. The original manga was written in the late '80s/early '90s, so none of it is very high-def in appearance and it can be hard to make out what’s going on in some extra detailed panels. But he has an unmistakable unique style that’s not seen in any other manga or anime. So it’s nice to see an anime series done in his particular flavor.
If they had truly committed to “retro” anime style, it wouldn’t look anything like Shirow Masamune’s art. So I’m glad they stuck to his work exclusively.
Those are all good points and thoughts.
Having now seen the rest of the show I do feel it picks up in the second half, and the narrative becomes more cohesive, so my overall opinion of it is improved :)
When I suggested the show could lean harder into being retro, I didn’t mean only the art style - it’s good this is a close fit to the original - but also the production style and cinematography, which were all very different then than now.
What I’m saying is that I’d love to see what a faithful anime adaptation of the source material would have been like, if that adaptation was done in the 90s.
But in the end, we can’t turn back time.
It’s quite hard to pin point my exact disappointment - but I think I either wanted something new, or something with greater depth. Preferably both.
I personally feel like there was not the level of character development I wanted. In the second gig, when the guy at the end had his brief soliloquy, “I’ll go on ahead.” It was great. I was connected. And the music in that show, amazing, the whole plot of international deceit with “terroristic immigrant populations.” It was amazing.
Dunno. I know that we are in “rerun territory” but, I expect better.
I’m ok with people disagreeing with me though. Maybe this one isn’t in my style or something.
I think the main complaints from most people are that the pacing is a bit hard to watch. I know the original manga was fast paced and a little goofy, I read quite a bit of it back when I got super into gits years ago, a far cry from the slow and cerebral movie adaptations, but I think I had hoped this more direct and true adaptation would find the middle ground.
I’m enjoying it, but it’s hard to watch, i’m nearly 40 and have always preferred “slower” media, and some shows can be either fast or slow paced and an episode is over in what feels like 5 minutes, regardless of how much or how little has actually happened, but this one is often a bit of a slog, never quite getting me into that flow state in a lot of episodes.
I doubt it’s the last GITS adaptation we get though, I love when we get different interpretations of a source material whether every one is better than the last is irrelevant.
Seconded on the short attention span, fast paced design. My partner hadn’t watched the original movie and couldn’t follow the plot at all.
