# Ghost in the Shell

22 Hacker News commenters recommended Ghost in the Shell and 5 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 8 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Recommended as a cerebral cyberpunk story about autonomy, consciousness and what it means to be human, with striking art. Critics find some versions formulaic and the 1995 film weak.

## Why people recommend it

- Ranked among the best anime (5 comments): "up there with ghost in the shell, akira, and serial experiments lain" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47835007)) "Akira/Ghost in the Shell are great too." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47835213)) "amazing movie and holds up to this day" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47582066))
- Deep questions on consciousness and autonomy (2 comments): "It's high-speed political action wrapped around deep questions about autonomy, embodiment, and consciousness." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46206202)) "Motoko questioning if she was human, and what it mean to be human, it all worked for me." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48893936))
- Striking hand-drawn art direction (2 comments): "I really like the art direction of the new GitS adaptation (I hope this retro style gets used more)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48886290)) "the new Ghost in the Shell (coming out next month) is also hand drawn" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48674130))
- Logical, strong story progression (2 comments): "Story-wise, Gits and Akira do have a kind of logical story progression." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46255036)) ""Ghost in the Shell" was a far better story." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46688894))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Spirited Away](https://hackerapproved.com/p/spirited-away.md): 14 recommend
- [Who Framed Roger Rabbit](https://hackerapproved.com/p/who-framed-roger-rabbit.md): 11 recommend
- [Princess Mononoke](https://hackerapproved.com/p/princess-mononoke.md): 9 recommend
- [Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind](https://hackerapproved.com/p/nausica-of-the-valley-of-the-wind.md): 9 recommend
- [Porco Rosso](https://hackerapproved.com/p/porco-rosso.md): 9 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Ghost in the Shell", https://hackerapproved.com/p/ghost-in-the-shell/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).