The Ghost in the Shell phenoneom was created by the legendary author Masamune Shirow. It all started back in 1990 when Kodansha’s Young Magazine Kaizokuban first published the manga. With a mixture of being part political thriller, part action-adventure, part philosophical drama, Ghost in the Shell raised the bar for both storytelling and art due to Shirow's awe-inspiring attention to detail.

After a successful manga this of course paved way for the very first Ghost in the Shell anime movie. Produced by Production I.G. and directed by Mamoru Oshii, this film introduced state of the art animation techniques and highly sophisticated storyline that blew audiences away. It is still considered to be one of the most awe-inspiring movies of all time.

In 2003, the Ghost in the Shell franchise was boosted with the announcement of a new 26 episode TV series: Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex. With production I.G. behind the production once again this was one of the most talked about anime series’ of the year in Japan. Stand Alone Complex also introduced a new way of airing anime on Japanese TV with a 2 episode per month Pay Per View format, this allowed more time between production which resulted in a very high value and quality production. The GitS 2 manga was also published in 2003, which was a remake of the original manga with alternate scenes and some changes to the story.

Currently in 2004, the second Ghost in the Shell movie: Innocence was released into theatres, this is a direct sequel to the original movie unlike the SAC TV series which was set before the events of the first movie. The second TV series: 2 nd Gig is also continuing to air on Pay Per View in Japan.