Ghost in the Shell 2026: Prime Video Secures Streaming Rights

• Prime Video acquired worldwide streaming rights to The Ghost in the Shell, excluding China and Russia.
• Science SARU's adaptation premieres July 2026, directed by Mokochan with scripts by Toh EnJoe.
• The manga and anime licensing market is projected to hit $58.2 billion by 2034 (market.us).

Amazon Prime Video has acquired worldwide streaming rights to The Ghost in the Shell TV anime, covering every market except China and Russia. The deal, announced at Prime Video's first International Originals showcase in London, puts Amazon in direct competition with Sony's Crunchyroll and Netflix as all three platforms race to lock up premium anime intellectual property.

The series is based on Masamune Shirow's original 1989 Ghost in the Shell manga and will be produced by Science SARU, the studio behind Dandadan, Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, and Inu-Oh. It premieres in July 2026 on the Ka-Anival!! programming block on Kansai TV and Fuji TV, with Prime Video holding an early exclusive streaming window in Japan and exclusive rights internationally.

The adaptation is directed by Mokochan (making his directorial debut after storyboard and key animation work on Dandadan and The Heike Story) and scripted by Toh EnJoe, the novelist behind The Empire of Corpses who also wrote for Space Dandy and Godzilla Singular Point. Early production visuals suggest a tonal and aesthetic shift back toward the cyberpunk source material, moving away from the darker palettes that defined previous adaptations.

Why the Ghost in the Shell franchise needed a reset

Ghost in the Shell's influence on science fiction is hard to overstate. The Wachowskis have cited the 1995 animated film as a direct inspiration for The Matrix, and the franchise has shaped cyberpunk storytelling across film, television, and games for three decades.

But the property has stumbled in recent years. The 2017 live-action film starring Scarlett Johansson grossed $169.8 million worldwide (per Box Office Mojo) against a production budget of $110 million. After factoring in marketing costs north of $45 million, the film lost at least $60 million.

The 2020 anime series Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045, produced for Netflix, drew a polarizing reception from longtime fans, many of whom criticized its 3D animation style and narrative direction. The series ran for two seasons through 2022 before concluding with a compilation film.

Science SARU's involvement signals an attempt to rebuild the franchise's credibility. The studio, which Bandai Namco Filmworks, Kodansha, and Production I.G are backing on the production committee, is known for taking creative risks and producing visually distinctive work.

How anime became a streaming battleground worth billions

This acquisition is part of a broader pattern. Anime has gone from a niche content category to one of the most contested areas in global streaming. Crunchyroll, the largest anime-dedicated platform, reported more than 17 million paid subscribers as of March 2025 (per Sony's fiscal year-end earnings) and a catalog exceeding 25,000 hours of content across more than 1,000 anime series. Netflix, meanwhile, reported that anime viewership exceeded one billion global views in 2024, with more than half its worldwide subscriber base engaging with anime content.

In 2023, anime generated an estimated $5.5 billion in streaming revenue globally, according to Parrot Analytics, with Netflix alone accounting for roughly $2.07 billion of that figure. Anime still represents only about 6% of total global streaming revenue, but that share is climbing as platforms invest more aggressively in the category. The genre's audience continues to expand worldwide, with on-demand viewing habits driving growth across North America, Europe, Latin America, and increasingly, South and Southeast Asia.

What Amazon's anime spending means for the $58 billion licensing market

The Ghost in the Shell deal arrives as anime licensing enters a period of aggressive expansion. Market.us estimates the global manga and anime licensing market will grow from $20.3 billion in 2024 to $58.2 billion by 2034, at an 11.1% compound annual growth rate, with digital platforms driving a substantial share of that increase.

Amazon is not treating anime as a side bet. Alongside Ghost in the Shell, the company has invested in a Fist of the North Star: Hokuto no Ken remake (also premiering in 2026) and the second season of From Old Country Bumpkin to Master Swordsman. The strategy is straightforward: convert anime viewers into long-term Prime subscribers, bundling content with the broader Prime ecosystem of shipping, music, and gaming.

Whether this approach will chip away at Crunchyroll's position as the default destination for anime fans, or simply grow the overall market, will depend on how aggressively Amazon pursues future exclusives and how effectively it markets anime to its existing subscriber base. For now, Ghost in the Shell gives Amazon something it has lacked in anime: a franchise with genuine cultural weight.