A brand-new Ghost in the Shell anime is officially in production at Science SARU, giving the franchise a second project from the studio in the same year. The reveal arrived with a single announcement visual and no premiere window, leaving the new project's format as the biggest open question.
The official website of The Ghost in the Shell revealed the new animation project and confirmed Science SARU as its animation studio. The announcement visual carries the English line "NEW ANIMATION PROJECT UNDERWAY" alongside the Bandai Namco, Science SARU and Kodansha logos.
Almost everything else about the project is still under wraps. No format, premiere date, episode count, cast or staff beyond the studio was confirmed with the announcement, so whether the project is a series, a film or something else entirely remains unannounced.
A Second Science SARU Take, Weeks After the First One Ended
The new project is separate from the studio's first The Ghost in the Shell anime, which aired earlier this year. That series ran for ten episodes from July 7 to September 8, 2026, and streams worldwide on Prime Video.
Moko-chan, an assistant director on DAN DA DAN, directed that first series at Science SARU. Toh EnJoe, of Godzilla Singular Point, handled series composition and scripts, while Shuhei Handa, of Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, designed the characters and served as chief animation director.
The music for the first series came from Taisei Iwasaki, working alongside Ryo Konishi and Yuki Kanesaka. None of that staff has been named for the new project, and the announcement does not say whether the creative team will carry over.
That first series took a manga-first approach, leaning into the brighter, more expressive tone of Masamune Shirow's original work. A second project announced this soon after its finale suggests the studio and its partners see more of that version of the franchise worth building.
What is The Ghost in the Shell about?
The Ghost in the Shell is based on the science fiction manga written and illustrated by Masamune Shirow. The cyberpunk action series was serialized in Kodansha's Young Magazine, a seinen publication, from April 1989 to November 1990, and Kodansha USA publishes the manga in English digitally.
The story is set far into the twenty-first century, in a world where the boundary between humans and machines has blurred. Humans enhance themselves with mechanical implants, robots are upgraded with human tissue, and criminals known as ghost hackers exploit the human-machine interface to reprogram people into puppets.
At the center of the series is Major Motoko Kusanagi, a cyborg superagent with Public Security Section 9. Kusanagi tracks the most dangerous terrorists and cybercriminals, and her pursuit of one master hacker, the Puppeteer, pulls her into questions about consciousness and the human soul that sit beyond information and technology.
Further details on the new anime, including its format and premiere timing, are still to come. For now, the project stands as a confirmed second Ghost in the Shell production from Science SARU, announced while its first is still fresh.
Source: official website of The Ghost in the Shell, official X account
