Bandai Namco Filmworks announced on Saturday that The Ghost in the Shell franchise is getting a new television anime series in 2026. Science SARU will produce the anime, which is tentatively titled Kōkaku Kidōtai (The Ghost in the Shell). Bandai Namco Filmworks, Kodansha, Science SARU, and Production I.G are on the production committee for the series.
© 士郎正宗／講談社
Bandai Namco Filmworks also announced that Masamune Shirow will have an exhibition in spring 2025.
© 士郎正宗／講談社
The latest anime based on Masamune Shirow‘s manga franchise is Kōkaku Kidōtai SAC_2045 Saigo no Ningen (Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045 The Last Human), the compilation film for the Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045 anime’s second season. The film opened on November 23.
The first season debuted on Netflix worldwide in April 2020 with 12 episodes. Kōkaku Kidōtai SAC_2045 Jizoku Kanō Sensō (Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045 Sustainable War), the compilation film of the first season, opened in Japan in November 2021. Netflix began streaming the film in May 2022. The second season premiered worldwide on Netflix in May 2022.
Entertainment company TOHO announced on Thursday that it will make Science SARU its consolidated subsidiary from the second quarter (June-August) of the fiscal year ending in February 2025.
Director Masaaki Yuasa and animator Eunyoung Choi co-founded Science SARU in February 2013. The studio produced Yuasa’s 2017 film Lu over the wall, which won the Animation Grand Prize at the Japan Media Arts Festival Awards and the top “Cristal for a Feature Film” award at the Annecy International Film Festival, and his Golden Globe-nominated 2022 film INU-OH. The studio’s other works include Ping Pong, the “Food Chain” episode of the American animated series Adventure Time, Night is Short, Walk On Girl, DEVILMAN crybaby, Ride Your Wave, Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!, Japan Sinks: 2020, The Heike Story, two Star Wars: Visions shorts, Yurei Deco, Tatami Time Machine Blues, Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, and Garden of Remembrance. Naoko Yamada and Science SARU‘s The Colors Within anime film will open on August 30.
Yuasa stepped down as the president of the studio in March 2020, and Choi has since been the current head of the studio.
Source: Press release
Disclosure: Bandai Namco Filmworks Inc. (Sunrise) is a non-controlling, minority shareholder in Anime News Network Inc.
