Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex/Episodes

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex is a Japanese animated television series, based on Masamune Shirow's manga Ghost in the Shell. The series was directed by Kenji Kamiyama and written by Yoshiki Sakurai. Masamune Shirow, author of the original Ghost in the Shell manga, provided plot for several episodes, sketches of characters and mechanical designs (including the Tachikoma), and gave his approval to the scripts before production. Stand Alone Complex was animated by Production I.G, and produced by Bandai Visual, Bandai Entertainment, Dentsu, Nippon Television Network, Tokuma Shoten, Victor Entertainment, and Manga Entertainment. The series received a record breaking 800 million yen investment to begin production. Kenji Kamiyama decided to make the anime TV series as a "relative" to the manga and film, serving as a separate parallel world from both.

The anime television network Animax first licensed and broadcast the series in 2002 across most of Asia, as well as in Latin America. It was subsequently licensed by Bandai Entertainment/Bandai Visual and Manga Entertainment in the North America, and Madman Entertainment in Australia. It was broadcast in the United States on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim programming block, in Canada by YTV and in the United Kingdom by AnimeCentral. A series of associated short comic animations, titled Tachikomatic Days, aired immediately after each episode of the series. These shorts star the Tachikoma "think-tanks" from the main series, and typically relate directly to the story of the preceding Stand Alone Complex episode.

Stand Alone Complex contains 14 "Stand Alone" (SA) episodes and 12 "Complex" (C) episodes. Stand Alone episodes take place independently of the main plot and focus on Public Security Section 9's investigation of isolated cases. Complex episodes advance the main plot, which follows Section 9's investigation of the Laughing Man incident: the kidnapping and subsequent release of a Japanese CEO by a sophisticated hacker.

The English adaptation of the anime was released in seven DVD compilations, each containing four episodes, by Manga Entertainment and Anchor Bay Entertainment between July 27, 2004 and July 26, 2005. Complete DVD collection boxes were released by Bandai Visual as a Limited Edition on July 27, 2007 in Japan, and by Manga Entertainment on October 31, 2006 in the United States.

Ghost in the Shell
Ghost in the Shell is a 1995 Japanese anime science fiction film based on manga of the same name by Masamune Shirow. The film was directed by Mamoru Oshii, animated by Production I.G, and scripted by Kazunori Itō, with voice acting by Atsuko Tanaka, Akio Ōtsuka and Iemasa Kayumi.

A reproduced version of the original film titled, Ghost in the Shell 2.0 was made in celebration for the release of The Sky Crawlers in 2008. For the film's Version 2.0 release, all the original animations were re-produced with latest digital film and animation technologies, such as 3D-CGI. The original soundtrack was also re-arranged and re-recorded.

In Japan, the film was released in VHS on April 26, 1996. The DVD version was released on February 25, 2004, and in Blu-ray on August 24, 2007. In North America, the film was released in DVD on March 31, 1998, by Anchor Bay. A special edition of the film was scheduled to be released on December 2004. The special edition contains an additional disc containing character dossiers, creator biography, director biography, Ghost in the Shell trailers and previews.

The "2.0" version was released in theatres in Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Fukuoka, and Sapporo on July 12, 2008. The film was released in DVD and Blu-ray on December 19, 2008, in Japan. The North American release for the film was scheduled to be distributed by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment on the DVD and Blu-ray format. The Special Edition release was scheduled to include the original 1995 release alongside the Version 2.0 on a Double Layer Blu-ray, and complimented with the inclusion of a soundtrack CD and booklet with commentary detailing the Version 2.0 production. This has since changed and Manga Entertainment released the film on Blu-ray on November 24th, 2009. The original version of the movie is included on the disc, but it is merely the 480i laserdisc master encoded in 1080i. The original English dub was used for the new 2.0 version with the new sound effects.

Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence
Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, known simply as Innocence in Japan, is a 2004 anime/computer animated science fiction film and sequel to the film, Ghost in the Shell. Released in Japan on March 6, 2004, and in the United States on September 17, 2004, Innocence had a production budget of approximately $20 million (approx. 2 billion yen). To raise such a large amount of money, Production I.G's president, Mitsuhisa Ishikawa, asked Studio Ghibli's president, Toshio Suzuki, to work on the project with him as a co-producer. The film is written and directed by Mamoru Oshii, with a story loosely connected to the manga by Shirow Masamune.

In order to better market the film outside of Japan, the Ghost in the Shell 2 moniker was added to the title of the film, with Innocence simply becoming the subtitle. This was seen by some fans as conflicting with Oshii's statements that the film wasn't in actuality a standard Hollywood-esque sequel, and was able to, and intended to, stand alone.

On December 28, 2004, DreamWorks (parent company of theatrical distributor Go Fish Pictures) released Innocence on DVD in the United States., Reviews immediately began appearing on Amazon and other websites criticizing the movie's subtitle track. Instead of including the overlay subtitles from the theatrical release, DreamWorks produced the DVD subtitles using closed captioning. The result was a script that intruded on the movie's visual effects; and in addition to reading dialogue, audiences saw unnecessary alerts like "Footsteps..." or "Helicopter approaches..." After receiving numerous complaints, DreamWorks released a statement saying that unsatisfied customers could exchange their DVDs for properly subtitled ones, postage paid; and that version 4 already had the proper subtitling.

Bandai Entertainment has released the film on Blu-ray and DVD in the United States, with an English dub also featuring the cast used in Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. Bandai had licensed the film for a short period from Paramount.

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex - The Laughing Man
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex - The Laughing Man is a feature-length OVA that was released in Japan on September 23, 2005, and in North America on October 2, 2007. The OVA retells the first season of the TV anime series with minor alterations to the storyline to accommodate an abbreviated take on the Laughing Man affair. Some additional animation and voice work was also added. Although the Japanese language version retained the voice cast from the anime series, the English version has a new cast of voice actors. The dialogue recording for the English version was produced by Ocean Productions. A Blu-ray version was released on December 22, 2010