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In a near future where the boundary between human and machine has become blurred beyond recognition, Major Motoko Kusanagi, a cyborg operative, leads an elite public security unit tasked with combating cybercrime and terrorism in the fictional Kansai metropolis of New Port City.
That, in a nutshell, is the premise of Masamune Shirow’s Ghost in the Shell, a franchise that since 1989 has gone from an obscure manga serialised in Young Magazine Pirate Edition to a global cultural reference point influencing cinema, contemporary art and digital culture as a whole.
Revered for its dense visual detail, speculative technological realism and philosophical depth, Shirow’s creation hit the big time by way of multiple animated adaptations – from Mamoru Oshii’s 1995 original to Innocence and later series such as Stand Alone Complex – that would redefine the aesthetics and intellectual ambitions of anime worldwide.
The entire anime history of one of Japan’s most influential sci-fi franchises can now be explored at Tokyo Node. Until April 5 2026, the Toranomon Hills venue hosts ‘Ghost in the Shell: The Exhibition’, the first major showcase to offer a comprehensive review of Ghost in the Shell as a cultural phenomenon.
Reframing the question of humanity
Conceived as a cross-sectional exploration, the exhibition brings together manga, animation, installation art, architecture and cutting-edge technology to reexamine a question that has defined Ghost in the Shell for more than three decades: what does it mean to be human in a networked, cyberised world?
The show adopts the deliberately reframed Japanese title ‘Ghost and the Shell’ – a conceptual shift that separates the two elements usually fused in the franchise’s name. Here, the ‘ghost’ signifies consciousness, memory and identity, while the ‘shell’ denotes the body – organic or artificial – that contains it. By disentangling the two, the exhibition revisits the franchise’s philosophical core, asking how identity persists, mutates or dissolves in a world where bodies can be replaced and minds networked.
Entering the network: immersive installations and cyberspace
At the heart of the exhibition is an extraordinary archive of more than 1,600 items, including original drawings, storyboards, layouts and production materials spanning all animated iterations of Ghost in the Shell. Displayed across Tokyo Node Gallery A and B, these materials offer an unprecedented view into the creative processes behind the series while previewing key drawings from a new anime project scheduled for release in 2026.
The journey begins in ‘Node’, an experiential zone that transforms the gallery into a ‘living cyberspace’. Large-scale installations such as the ‘Nerve Net’ visualiser and ‘World Tree: Ghost and the Shell’ envelop the viewer in pulsating networks of light, data and sound. Drawing on architectural design, generative visuals and interactive technology, these works allow visitors to ‘dive’ into the information structures that underpin the series’ worldview, teasing the sensation of becoming a node within a vast digital consciousness.
Digging into creation: original drawings and analogue memory
The immersive approach extends into visitors’ physical encounter with the archive itself. In Gallery B’s ‘Dig’ section, original drawings and production documents intersect with the physical space, encouraging close, almost forensic engagement with the visual language of the series.
A hands-on experience titled ‘Analog Dig’ invites visitors to open production cut bags and take home reproductions of original drawings, emphasising the tactile, human labour behind works going all in on digital futurism.
Stars of the art world assemble
Contemporary artists and creators play a crucial role in translating Ghost in the Shell into the three-dimensional space of the exhibition. The environment that visitors move through has been shaped by architect Daisuke Motoki and the DDAA team, while artists such as Shuhei Matsuyama and Norihiko Terayama have constructed monumental installations that function as visual representations of networks, memory and information flow.
Among the most striking new works on display is Hajime Sorayama’s Sexy Robot_The Ghost in the Shell type 1, a sculpture reimagining Motoko Kusanagi through Sorayama’s signature exploration of the boundary between human flesh and machine form. Presented here for the first time, the piece situates Ghost in the Shell within a broader history of post-war techno-aesthetics.
AR, AI and the cyberised body
Augmented reality technology is used to further expand the exhibition’s sensory scope. Through the AR experience ‘Cyber Vision’, visitors can explore the galleries alongside Tachikoma, the iconic walker robots from the series, while interfaces and scenes from the anime appear in the physical space. An interactive AI installation, ‘Tachikoma AI’, even enables you to engage in dialogue with the spider-like character.
Marking the 30th anniversary of the 1995 film, ‘Ghost in the Shell: The Exhibition’ is both a celebration and a critical reexamination. By merging archival depth with immersive technology, it demonstrates how a work rooted in late-20th-century anxieties continues to resonate in an era of AI, all-encompassing networks and digital selves. The exhibition makes for a meditation on consciousness, embodiment, and the quiet, unsettling question that echoes through the franchise: where does the human end, and the machine begin?
Ghost in the Shell: The Exhibition is on show at Tokyo Node daily until April 5 2026.
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