Where to Watch The Ghost in the Shell (2026)

Short answer: the 2026 Ghost in the Shell streams exclusively on Prime Video, in more than 240 countries and territories, with new episodes every Tuesday. The detail worth knowing before you go looking: the official site names mainland China, Russia and Vietnam as excluded from that rollout — so in those three the honest answer is that there is no official way to stream it. Everywhere else the release is simultaneous worldwide, 30 minutes after Japan’s TV broadcast. Below: exact times, the excluded list with its source, and what is genuinely new about this adaptation.

The three countries left out — and why that matters here

Most ‘where to watch’ pages stop at naming the platform. This one is worth a second sentence, because the official global site explicitly lists mainland China, Russia and Vietnam as excluded from the 240-plus territory rollout. If you are in one of those three, the Prime Video simulcast does not cover you, and no amount of searching will turn up an official option — that is a licensing decision, not a fault in your account.

We think stating that plainly is more useful than pretending a title is universally available. The full country-by-country picture, with sources, is in our availability database entry.

The timing is simultaneous worldwide

This is a cleaner release than most simulcasts. Japan’s broadcast goes out at 23:00 JST on Tuesdays on the Kansai TV / Fuji TV network, in the ‘Ka-Anival!!’ block. Prime Video then posts the episode at 23:30 JST — 30 minutes later — and that same moment is the international drop: 7:30 a.m. PT, 10:30 a.m. ET, 3:30 p.m. BST. So there is no overnight gap between Japan and the rest of the world.

One wrinkle inside Japan: Prime Video holds the fastest streaming slot on Tuesday, and the other nine domestic services do not get the episode until Wednesday at 23:30 — a full day later. The season opened on July 7, 2026 with an hour-long premiere covering the first two chapters.

A different studio, and a return to the manga

Science SARU animates this series — the first Ghost in the Shell anime not animated by Production I.G, which is a genuinely notable break for a franchise defined by that studio’s look since 1995. Worth being precise, though: Production I.G has not vanished, it remains part of the production committee alongside Bandai Namco Filmworks and Kodansha.

The creative team is Mokochan directing, Toh EnJoe — a novelist, not a career anime writer — on series composition and scripts, and Shuhei Handa on character designs and chief animation direction. King Gnu performs the opening theme, ‘GO GHOST’. It adapts Masamune Shirow’s original manga rather than continuing SAC or SAC_2045, so no prior viewing is required.

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Travelling, or living outside your home country? Because Prime Video’s catalogue is set per country, a title you can stream at home may simply not appear elsewhere — and for this series, three countries are excluded outright. How region locks work, and how existing subscribers handle travel, is covered in our anime streaming VPN guide. Each service sets its own terms; where a local official option exists, start there.