As other anime studios lean into the use of AI, the director of Science Saru's upcoming The Ghost in the Shell anime series promises the remake will stay clear of GenAI.
Toma Kimura (otherwise known as Mokochan) took to the stage at the 2026 Annecy International Animation Festival and gave fans an insight into how the team achieved the finer details of the upcoming anime remake. "We wanted every street sign to be specifically designed, but it became too much of a burden,” he said. “Instead, we used this worm-like lettering that looks like kanji but is actually gibberish."
This led Kimura to the topic of AI. "We decided on this before generative AI became prevalent, so please know that zero GenAI was used on the project." Complex reports that after that statement, the crowd "erupted" into applause.
The Ghost in the Shell's "zero GenAI stance" is a breath of fresh air for anime fans. AI has slowly crept into the genre over the past few years, starting with subtitles, but it has now spread to generating art and animation too.
Earlier this year, Wit Studio, best known for producing the first three seasons of Attack on Titan and the hit show Spy x Family, admitted to using AI to generate backgrounds in the opening sequence of Ascendance of a Bookworm season 4. Once outed, the studio quickly apologised, stating it is still committed to hand-drawn animation, and removed the AI-generated images.
But Science Saru won't make that mistake. At Annecy, producer Kohei Sakita added, "The feeling of something drawn by a person is the whole appeal of animation to me."
Based on the hit manga of the same name by Masamune Shirow, The Ghost in the Shell is set in a near-future "where information networks envelop the world and advanced cyborg technology has enabled the creation of a cyberbrain," as per Amazon. The upcoming cyberpunk show follows "the story of the full-body cyborg Motoko Kusanagi and the combat unit she leads in the fight against cybercrime."
Ghost in the Shell arrives on Prime Video on July 7. For more on what to watch, check out our guide to the best anime to watch this year and keep up with new anime.
