Anchor Bay is set to release a Blu-ray edition of Mamoru Oshii’s 1995 anime film Ghost in the Shell in August or September of this year.  The film, which successfully tackled the philosophical themes such as the differences between artificial and human intelligence raised in Masamune Shirow’s GIS manga, was, along with Akira, one of the key anime releases of the 1990s that crossed over to non-anime fans and expanded the audience for anime in North America.  Ghost in the Shell was also one of the first anime films to combine computer animation and cel animation with the characters animated in the traditional 2D format and the backgrounds often produced with 3D computer animation. 

The new Blu-ray edition of Ghost in the Shell is being extensively reworked.  The tremendous improvements in computer animation over the past 15 years have allowed the filmmakers to enhance the look of the CGI sequences.  Viewers of the new Blu-ray version will be able to see the difference especially in the rendering of the opening credits, in the cityscape backgrounds and in the scenes set in cyberspace, which have all been re-digitized and dramatically improved.  The 2D figure animation has been cleaned up, but remains basically unchanged.  Look for more information concerning the Blu-ray Ghost in Shell edition as its release gets closer.