WARNING: Features graphic violence and nudity.

• Title: Inner Universe
• Composer: Origa
• Length: 4:54

Notes: Expanded version, regular version used in the first season of the Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex anime series.  Footage is from the original Ghost in the Shell movie produced by Youtube user “fenman01.”

Lyrics (English Translation):

Angels and demons circle above my head
cleaving through thorns and Milky Ways
He who does not perceive his calling,
does not know true happiness…

Watch in awe! Watch in awe!
Heavenly glory! Heavenly glory!
Watch in awe! Watch in awe!
Heavenly glory! Heavenly glory!

I am Calling Calling out!
Spirits, I am calling!!!
To remain myself longer…
Calling Calling, in the depths of longing!
To remain myself longer!

Watch in awe! Watch in awe!
Heavenly glory! Heavenly glory!
Watch in awe! Watch in awe!
Heavenly glory! Heavenly glory!

Stand alone… Where was life when it had a meaning…
Stand alone… Nothing’s real anymore and…

…Endless running…
While I am alive, I can try not to fall while flying,
nor to forget how to dream…to love…
…Endless running…

Calling Calling out! For The Place of Knowing!
There’s more that what can be linked!
Calling Calling, Never will I look away!
From what life has left for me.
Yearning Yearning, for what’s left of loving!

To remain myself longer…
Calling Calling, in the depths of longing!
To remain myself longer!

Watch in awe! Watch in awe!
Heavenly glory! Heavenly glory!
Watch in awe! Watch in awe!
Heavenly glory! Heavenly glory!

Personal Thoughts:

I post this today in response to the recent announcement of the Dreamworks backed Ghost in the Shell live-action movie, starring Scarlett Johannson.  I can’t really care. I know what Scarlett Johannson looks like shooting guns and acting badass in some sexy outfit. If they want to add a cyberpunk setting and put some familiar situations to GITS fans using a shit ton of CGI FX, than whatever. Of course, there is the whitewashing..off to a good start with its star. I’m sure the removing of Japanese elements will not stop there.

But what matter in the end, is original content can not be ruined.. The original movies and the follow-up animated series of series will always be out there in some obtainable form. I will go deeper into what makes GITS so great, another time. For now, I just really like this opening to the follow-up animated series (with choice visuals from the classic). And, I will always best remember the GITS movies and series as fantastic animated science-fiction drama.

– Orion T