As many times as I've watched any GiTS show/movie, I hadn't thought about how solid the opening sequence was. It is definitely great story telling. Thank you.
Everything about Ghost in the Shell is off the scale. The animation is exceptional. It's easily feature film quality stuff. Head and shoulders over most anime. The storytelling is far too good. There are so many layers and interesting philosophical doorways it opens. The few times it lapses into some trope or Macguffin it stands out even more. Music is pretty exceptional for the most part. (Lithium Flower gets on my nerves) Then you have the original movie, which by itself is amazing. And before that the manga where it originated with Masamune Shirow.
Ghost in the shell, is by a big space the best story teller media, on normal animé you read the manga for more info, for this one the manga and the animé are two diferent entities and can stand alone, giving the chance of see or reed one and ignore the other one