Short answers, pulled from the story.
Ghost in the Shell was directed by Mamoru Oshii from a screenplay by Kazunori Ito, based on the 1989 manga by Masamune Shirow. It was a Japanese-British co-production between Kodansha, Bandai Visual, and Manga Entertainment, with animation by Production I.G.
Ghost in the Shell follows Major Motoko Kusanagi, a cyborg public-security agent working for Section 9 in the fictional New Port City of 2029, as she hunts an enigmatic hacker known as the Puppet Master. The film explores themes of consciousness, identity, and what it means to be human in a world where minds and bodies can be augmented or replaced.
The Wachowskis screened Ghost in the Shell for producer Joel Silver and told him they wanted to do it for real. The digital rain in The Matrix was directly inspired by Ghost in the Shell's opening credits, and the ports in characters' necks used to access the Matrix parallel the electronic brain communication depicted in Oshii's film.
Ghost in the Shell was initially considered a box-office failure, failing to recoup its production costs in theatres. However, it became the first Japanese film to top the Billboard video sales chart in August 1996, selling over 200,000 VHS copies. By 2002, worldwide home video sales had surpassed 1.6 million units.
Kenji Kawai composed the film's score. The main theme, "Making of a Cyborg", blends Bulgarian harmony with traditional Japanese music and min'yo folk tradition; its choral vocals are drawn from a wedding song sung to dispel evil influences. Kawai's original soundtrack was released on the 22nd of November 1995.
Ghost in the Shell received five nominations at the 24th Annie Awards in 1996, including Best Animated Feature, making it the most-nominated Japanese animated film at the Annie Awards at the time. All five nominations were lost to Toy Story. That record stood until The Boy and the Heron and Suzume each received seven nominations at the 51st Annie Awards in 2024.