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The Ghost in the Shell — How Japanese Fans React

攻殻機動隊

What Japanese fans actually said about The Ghost in the Shell — new PVs, the latest episodes, and iconic scenes, pulled from Japanese YouTube comment sections and translated into English. Every quote is a real comment with its original like count, linked back to the source video.

6 reaction roundups · Updated Aug 20, 2026

Anime — How Japanese Fans React

This week's most relatable comment from Japan on The Ghost in the Shell

As an old guy myself, I can't do anything but thank these young people for pouring everything into adapting a manga from way back when with a modern sensibility.

ジジイからするとこんなに若い方々が今は昔の原作を今の感性で精一杯映像化してくれて感謝しかない

404 likesRead the full roundup

More of what Japan said about The Ghost in the Shell

20 comments pulled from the comment sections of 6 roundups of this title. The selection changes every day.

One from the stack

I'm just grateful this got made and aired at all. Thank you to everyone working behind the scenes.

放送してくれたことに 感謝しかない 裏方の皆様、本当にお疲れ様です

@kiwami1052 · 191 likesThe Ghost in the Shell Making-Of: Japanese Fans Thank the Staff for Staying Faithful

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  • I just really love how human and vulnerable the Major is in the original manga.

    原作の人間味あふれる少佐が好きなんだよな〜

  • Everyone involved with this must be sitting there thinking, 'wait, am I actually working on Ghost in the Shell right now...' That's such an experience.

    作品に関わる全員「まさか自分が攻殻を...」ってなるに決まってるもんな すごい経験だよな...

  • Honestly my reaction is just: don't demand realism from anime, you idiot.

    アニメに現実を求めんなカスって思っちゃうよ

  • Precisely because Ghost in the Shell sticks so closely to the manga, I think it's always going to filter out a chunk of the audience. I've watched a bunch of foreign reaction videos to it, and from episode one's opening wall of text — moving at a pace that's hard to follow even for Japanese viewers — through the scheming politicians' dialogue and Motoko's, uh, cheeks-out action scenes, every single reactor looked at least briefly lost. Watching that, I figured a lot of viewers are getting filtered right at the start. Some reactors even said the storytelling — which really is "Shirow-style" rather than conventional narrative — should be presented in a way viewers can actually follow. You can piece together the meaning of the story and all those small actions if you read or rewatch it enough times, but there's no way to get that on a first watch. Personally, though, Shirow's Ghost in the Shell is still the best. lol

    攻殻は漫画に忠実だからこそ、どうしても見る人を選んじゃうと思いますね。 外国人のアニメリアクションを色々見ましたが、日本人でも読み切るのが難しいスピードで過ぎていく文章のごり押しで始まった1話の始まりからの、悪だくみの政治家たちの言ってる事、オケツむき出しの素子の行動の文章など、どのリアクションの人もしばし混乱してるので、これは多くの視聴者が冒頭でふるいにかけられるな…と見てて思いました。 ストーリー展開についても普通のストーリーテーリングとは違ったシロマサ節なので、視聴者に理解できるように表現すべきだ、と言っているリアクションの人も居ました。 そのストーリーやこまごまとした行動の意味は何度も読んだり、視聴したりすることで分かるんですが、そんなのは初見じゃ無理でしょうね個人的には、シロマサ攻殻最高!!ですがw

  • A heroine who suddenly breaks into a goofy face — I love how expressive that is.

    突然ギャグ変顔するヒロインって表情豊かで大好きなんだよね

  • Personally I love feeling the source material's affection mixed in with god-tier animation, so I'm just going to completely ignore the criticism.

    個人的には原作愛感じつつ神作画も合間って大好きなので批判はガン無視する

  • It's not 'moe-ification' — the earlier versions just went off and did their own thing until she became basically a different character.

    萌化っていうか今までが勝手やりすぎていて別人化してただけじゃん

  • I'm a fan of the original manga, and I'm satisfied enough that I want to personally thank every single person who worked on this.

    原作ファンだけど製作ひとりひとりに感謝を述べたいぐらい満足してます

  • If you love the laws of physics that much, just go watch reality. It's extremely faithful to them.

    そんな物理法則好きなら現実見るといいよ。物理法則にめっちゃ忠実だよ

  • I think Jaadugar is the textbook case: adapt strong source material faithfully, actually understand it, and put in the time and budget — and it gets recognized even if nobody was hyped for it going in.

    ジャードゥーガルは『質の高い原作を、きちんと原作を理解した上で、手間暇とコストをかけてアニメ化すれば、たとえ事前の注目度が低くても評価される』という典型だと思う。

  • Sorry to the people who love it, but I'd read the manga first, so Oshii's anime felt so off that it left me genuinely unsettled.

    好きな人には申し訳ないけど、原作漫画を先に読んでたから押井版のアニメは違和感デカ過ぎて相当モヤモヤした。

  • As Motoko herself once said: 'If you have complaints about the world (the animation), change yourself. If you can't do that, close your ears and eyes, shut your mouth, and live alone.'

    「世の中(作画)に不満があるなら自分を変えろ。それが嫌なら耳と目を閉じ、口を噤んで孤独に暮らせ。」と素子も申しております

  • I mean, who exactly are you calling 'the original' besides... the original?

    そもそも、原作以外が誰だお前?

  • The anime industry has a reputation for brutal working conditions, so putting this many people on one production and still making it work as a business tells me the management side must be genuinely competent. By the way, that material the cinematography director calls a 'nylon bag' is actually a film stock called Septet Film.

    ブラック職場になりがちだったアニメ制作の現場に,これだけの人材を投入して,しかもビジネスとして成り立つのだから マネージメント側も優秀なのだと思います。 ちなみに撮影監督が使われた「ナイロン袋」と呼ばれているのは「セプテットフィルム」という素材です。

  • Professor Physics-Law here would pass out foaming at the mouth watching Dragon Ball.

    物理法則博士ドラゴンボール見たら泡吹いて倒れるやろ

Editor's note

Japanese fans are relitigating a 30-year question through the 2026 series: which Motoko is the real one (“every version of me is still me”). The praise for the manga-faithful battle scenes comes with teasing — “just admit you like the Oshii movie” — which is about as Ghost in the Shell as discourse gets.

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FAQ

Where do the Japanese reactions to The Ghost in the Shell come from?
From the comment sections of official Japanese YouTube channels. We pull top comments, quote real posts only, and show the actual like counts at the time of collection.
How accurate are the translations?
Each article keeps the original Japanese alongside the English translation. We adapt slang so it reads naturally, but we never change the meaning or invent quotes.
How often are new The Ghost in the Shell reactions added?
The site updates daily. Whenever The Ghost in the Shell has a new trailer, episode, or piece of news, a fresh roundup lands on this page — 6 so far.