Core77

Masamune Shirow's Ghost in the Shell, an anime and series of movies set in a dystopian future, has long been renowned for having some of the best and most through anime industrial design in the genre. Everything from guns to cars and parking meters to telephones have been well-rendered and thoughtfully considered to convincingly depict what objects might look like in the future.

Now, those rendered objects may actually be accurate. The next Ghost in the Shell movie, Solid State Society (released last year in Japan but not due to hit American shores until July '07) features actual Nissan concept cars: The Sport Concept and the Infiniti Kuraza (both below) are both driven through the film by principle characters.

From an article in World Car Fans:

"This is a revolutionary collaboration made possible by direct exchanges between both young and more experienced creative talents from both companies and is different from product placement," said Shiro Nakamura, Nissan's senior vice president and chief creative officer. "Japanese animation is being taken more seriously as art every year around the world, and the concept cars in this film are rendered with particularly high quality; they're just wonderful."

[Photos via World Car Fans.]