Trivia / Ghost in the Shell (1995)

• Channel Hop:
  • Innocence had no less than three distributors. The film in sub-only format was first acquired by Dreamworks, then later acquired by Paramount following the former's purchase of the latter. Then it was later re-released in a dubbed version by Bandai under license from Paramount, that was in turn re-released by Funimation.
  • Weirdly, both of the anime films had different co-producers.
    • The first movie was a British co-production with Manga Entertainment, which retained its share of the rights as it was acquired first by Palm Pictures and then by Anchor Bay Entertainment.
    • Innocence, on the other hand, was co-funded by various Japanese companies who usually fund the production rights for Studio Ghibli's films, including one name you'd least expect to be associated with violent, artsy mecha product: Walt Disney Pictures. Disney likely co-funded production due to Studio Ghibli co-producing the film, and they had been part of Ghibli's production committee since 1999. Disney also handles the home video distribution for the film.
• Creator's Favorite: In the Latin American Spanish dub, Motoko Kusanagi is this for her voice actress, Gabriela Willert, who not only voiced her in the original movie, she also voiced her in the dub of Innocence, despite that movie was dubbed in Cuernavaca, while the original movie was dubbed in Mexico City. And she is working in the dub of the TV series as well, despite it wasn't originally dubbed at first.
• Dueling Dubs: Innocence was dubbed twice in English. It was first released in the US subtitled-only in a limited theatrical release and on DVD by DreamWorks Pictures' GoFish banner. Because of this, Manga Entertainment's UK division and Madman Entertainment in Australia teamed up with Epcar Entertainment to co-produce a dub of the film for their respective releases in 2005. The dub used the same cast as Animaze's Stand Alone Complex TV series dub under the direction of Richard Epcar, the voice of Batou. However, this dub was recorded to PAL standards, and was not compatible with the US NTSC standard. In 2009, Bandai Entertainment licensed the US home video rights from GoFish (who were then under Paramount), and produced a second dub with Animaze, and Kevin Seymour reprising his directing duties from the TV series. The main cast was identical, but supporting characters had different voices. The 2005 dub was included as an alternate audio track on their DVD and Blu-ray, with a noticeably distorted, lower pitch due to the PAL-NTSC conversion. Funimation's 2017 Blu-ray re-release features only the 2009 dub, which was given a slight remix by the original studio.
• International Coproduction: Both films are this, as the first film was a British co-production with Manga Entertainment, while the second film was co-produced by the Japanese division of the American company Disney.
• The Other Darrin:
  • In 2002, Mimi J. Woods, the original English Motoko, moved away from Los Angeles, effectively retiring from acting altogether, so Mary Elizabeth McGlynn replaced her in Innocence and most of everything else in the GITS animated franchise. Many consider Mary's take to be the one they prefer on the English side of things, feeling that Mimi's was too monotone/flat by comparison.
  • There's also Crispin Freeman replacing David Richard Thompson (who used the pseudonym "Christopher Joyce") as Togusa in Innocence and all other bits of L.A.-dubbed GITS media. In a similar vein, Michael McCarty replaced Michael Sorich as Ishikawa.^note Sorich had previously been replaced in the role in the PS1 game by the late Bob Papenbrook.
  • For the 2.0 version, some roles were recast with more current actors (at the time) from SAC. The Puppet Master's original actor, Iemasa Kayumi, was replaced by Prime Minister Kayabuki's actress, Yoshiko Sakakibara. There's also the Section 9 operators who were voiced by Atsuko Hayashida in the '95 cut but were redubbed by the SAC actress Eri Ono for 2.0.

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