A New Collaborative Project by
Production I.G and Shirow Masamune
Premiering in Japan April 4, 2008 on NTV

Introduction
After the world-hit Ghost in the Shell animation franchise and following the highly anticipated Ghost Hound, Production I.G and manga artist Shirow Masamune collaborate once more in creating the world of Real Drive (original title: RD Senno Chosashitsu).

This brand-new neo-futuristic SF suspense animation TV series will be directed by Kazuhiro Furuhashi of Le Chevalier D'Eon fame, while the screenplay is entrusted to Junichi Fujisaku, director of Blood+ and scriptwriter for many episodes of the Ghost in the Shell S.A.C. series. Manga artist Tetsuro Ueyama (Metal Guardian Faust) is in charge for the character designs.

Story
2061 AD. Fifty years have passed since mankind developed the Network society. It was anticipated that this new infrastructure would realize a utopia where people connected with each other at the level of consciousness. However, new social problems such as personal data leaks and proliferation of manipulated information began to surface. Nevertheless, people still relied on the Network to exchange information, and proved unable to opt to abandon it.

In due course, a new Network realm with more effective security measures was developed. This was called Meta-Real Network, usually abbreviated as "the Metal."

The Metal accommodated personal memory data within protected virtual stand-alone organic cyber enclaves called bubble shells and eventually pervaded the everyday lives of people.

However, people gradually learned to release and explode their instincts within the secure environment of the Metal. The unleashed instincts pushed each individual's consciousness to drown in the sea of information and to be exposed to the pressures of desire. Meanwhile, norms and regulations continued to bind their real world lives. Thus, strange friction between the two worlds began to manifest themselves as aberrations beyond the bounds of the imaginable.
Experts who challenged the deep sea of the Metal to investigate and decipher such aberrations were called cyber divers.

This is a story of a cyber diver, Masamichi Haru, who investigates the incidents that lie between Reality and the Metal.

official website (Japanese only)
http://www.ntv.co.jp/RD/

© Production I.G/Shirow Masamune
© 2008 DNDP, VAP, Production I.G