Origa - "Inner Universe" (Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex opening theme)

I think the chances are pretty good that you have seen this anime, if you watch any anime at all. There have been two 26-episode series (or one 2-season series, depending on how you look at it), as well as three movies, the first was which was remade several years later to take advantage of more modern animation and sound technology. The series has been running almost continuously on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim weekend anime lineup for several years. This post refers to the opening theme for the first series, Ghost in the Shell: Stand alone Complex.

This series along with the movies has generated a lot of really good music, and there are several CD soundtracks available.

The music for the opening and ending themes of this series was written by Japanese composer Yoko Kanno. The lyrics for this song were written by Origa and Shanti Snyder, and sung by Origa.

Origa, real name Ol'ga Vital'evna Yakovleva, is Russian but works mostly in Japan. The lyrics of this song are mostly in Russian, with some English and a little Latin. This following is the only version of the opening I could find on YouTube. Unfortunately the username of the person who uploaded it is overlayed on the entire video, which is annoying but can't be helped.



Although this post is about the music, not the show, I should point out (if you've never seen it), that the "primitive" computer animation in this opening is used only for the opening. The series itself is done in conventional animation.

Fortunately for my purposes, someone uploaded the full song to YouTube with no graphics to clutter things up, only the original lyrics accompanied by the English translation. And here it is.