This is a hard core Sci-Fi animated film. The setting is a future Tokyo, where cyborgs live among regular flesh and blood humans. Technology has advanced to the stage where human thought can be transported across the global network. Being human, what has not changed are the same vices, distrusts, and the old rivalries between nations.

The focus of the film is on Major Kusanagi, a cyborg who is in a secret SWAT team working for government security. Her team is involved in a mystery involving the 'PuppetMaster' - world's most wanted cyber criminal, specializing in mind control crimes. The threads of the mystery are slowly revealed, while the audience is brought along to witness Major Kusanagi's breath-taking special missions.

A sub-plot of the movie asks the question of "what it means to be human?" As we watch Kusanagi's life on and off the job, we notice her desire to search out her human nature. At the same time, we gradually realize Kusanagi is no longer human, but a strange hybrid entity somehow from her numerous enhancements and brain taps. At the final union with the PuppetMaster, a newly emerged Kusanagi steps forth. With the entire net as her playground, where will the child of a new specie go?

While this movie is probably too esoteric to appeal to the general audience, it has all the ingredient for an underground cult hit. As a fan of Anime, and Science Fiction, I enjoyed "Ghost in the Shell" immensely.