Voice actor Chikahiro Kobayashi has been cast in the ongoing The Ghost in the Shell TV anime series. The anime began airing in Japan and streaming on Prime Video on July 7, 2026.
Kobayashi voiced Lee in the anime’s eighth episode earlier this week. He is most well-known for voicing Saichi Sugimoto in Golden Kamuy.
Other voice cast members to join the series earlier this month include Kikuko Inoue as Puppet Master and Shigeru Chiba as Nakamura.
Meanwhile, the anime’s main voice cast stars:
- • Maaya Sakamoto as Motoko Kusanagi
- • Kazuhiro Yamaji as Daisuke Aramaki
- • Hiroki Yasumoto as Batou
- • Yuichi Nakamura as Togusa
- • Kosuke Goto as Ishikawa
- • Toru Nara as Saito
- • Marie Ooi as Operator
- • Tomoko Kaneda as Fuchikoma
- • Chafurin as Minister of Internal Affairs
- • Atsushi Miyauchi as Borma
Shingo Natsume (One Punch Man, Sonny Boy) also illustrated the end card for the eighth episode.
Mokochan (DAN DA DAN Season 1 assistant director) is directing the The Ghost in the Shell 2026 anime series, with EnJoe Toh (Godzilla Singular Point, author of Self-Reference ENGINE and Code Buddha) as series composer and scriptwriter and Shuhei Handa (Scott Pilgrim Takes Off co-character designer) as character designer and chief animation director. Science SARU is handling the animation production.
Other staff include Emi Katanosaka (My Happy Marriage) as background art director, Osamu Masuyama (My Happy Marriage) as background art supervisor, Satoshi Hashimoto (Yaiba: Samurai Legend) as color designer, Hikari Ito (Sanda) as compositing director, Yuji Tange (Puniru is a Kawaii Slime) as sound director, Taisei Iwasaki (MARRIAGETOXIN) as music director and co-composer, and Ryo Konishi and Yuki Kanesaka as co-music composers. Shota Yaso is credited with the sound effects.
The original cyberpunk manga by Shirow Masamune debuted in the May 1989 issue of Young Magazine Kaizokuban, a special supplement of Kodansha’s seinen magazine Young Magazine. Kodansha USA publishes the manga in English.
Previous anime adaptations of the series include Mamoru Oshii‘s Ghost in the Shell and Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence films and Kenji Kamiyama‘s Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex TV anime series, its second season, and anime film. These were followed by the Ghost in the Shell: Arise films, which had a younger version of Motoko; and the 3DCG Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045, which is set after Stand Alone Complex. Production I.G produced these titles, with SOLA DIGITAL ARTS assisting for SAC_2045.
Prime Video is exclusively streaming the anime in select countries and territories worldwide, except in Russia and China (with an exclusive early window for Japan). Its synopsis is described as:
The year is 2029. In near-future Japan, where the world has become highly information-intensive, with a vast corporate network covering the planet, electrons and light pulsing through it. But the nation-state and ethnic groups still survive. Motoko Kusanagi, a full-body cyborg, leads an elite combat unit, including Batou. While commanding her team, Kusanagi envisions the creation of a specialized task force to preemptively strike against emerging threats.
Meanwhile, Daisuke Aramaki of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, who had been planning to establish a similar unit, recruited Kusanagi and her team. Together, they begin operations as Public Security Section 9—an offensive tactical unit known as “Shell Squad.” As they confront complex cybercrimes and international conspiracies, the existence of a mysterious, unidentified hacker known as The “Puppet Master” emerges on the horizon of their investigation. What fate awaits Kusanagi? And what is the Puppet Master’s true objective? A new era of cyberpunk action begins.
Sources: The Ghost in the Shell Official Japanese X/Twitter (2), Anime News Network, Comic Natalie
