IQUNIX Ghost In The Shell EV63 Reviewed

I tested the IQUNIX EV63 recently and despite finding an excellent HE keyboard I wanted to tone down its look to something more minimalist and clean. I measured, designed and 3D printed some parts and ended up with something I really liked. Clean, simple, understated.

IQUNIX’s Ghost In The Shell EV63 range is the polar opposite of this. And you know what? I absolutely flippin’ love it. IQUNIX sent me the Shell Core, Nova Switch variant which their pre-release marketing pictures did not do justice. It’s a luscious metallic mint green hued silver with mint green details, and a complement of busy – if somewhat oddly – themed keycaps in both opaque and translucent varieties. Unlike the stock EV63 the Ghost In The Shell theme ties all the fussy details together into something that feels right. It begs your hands to split into dozens of tiny fingers and start hacking up a storm. The other variant – dubbed Cyber Blue – is black/purple/blue and less my style, but it’s got some great looking keycaps that really sell the look.

The Ghost In The Shell EV63 is based upon the stock EV63, a 63%, hall-effect, USB-only board with web software (works on macOS but a Chrome-a-like is required) and, out of the box, a really nice quiet, soft but distinctly mechanical typing feel. The GITS version, however, ships with KeyTok’s popular Nova Switch.

If you’re partial to the cyberpunk aesthetic and, in particular, Ghost In The Shell itself (in whatever flavour you care to swear fealty to) then it’s an all-round upgrade to the plain EV63 and a heck of a centerpiece for your desk.

Look ‘n’ Feel

The EV63’s Shell Core’s styling seems to draw much of its inspiration from the 1995 anime movie, with the large GHOST in/the SHELL logo on the front edge of the keyboard reflecting that of the original DVD box art. The keycaps also feature Major Motoko Kusanagi in her unmistakable movie depiction and the spacebar includes a quote from her monologue in the film.

It probably goes without saying that the 1995 and 2004 movies are the most iconic and familiar iteration of Ghost In The Shell, and are certainly (in addition to the Stand Alone Complex series) the ones I am personally familiar with. It’s clear, however, that the Ghost In The Shell EV63 is aimed squarely at the renewed buzz of the upcoming 2026 series. With the new series leaning so strongly into the 90s anime aesthetic – and doing so beautifully at that – the EV63’s stylings will fit right in.

The end caps of the Shell Core EV63 are a complete redesign over those of the stock EV63, making the board not just a simple recolour. In lieu of the carbon fibre inserts IQUNIX have swapped to an interlocking mint green detail backed by translucent plastic, letting some of the backlight glow bleed out of the sides.

On the back of the board is a line drawing of the iconic cyborg body – Major Kusanagi in the making – suspended in the air on an intricate mint green bottom weight. It’s notably different again from the stock EV63, leaning more into the geometry of Ghost In The Shell’s world and technology.

Regrettably there’s no love for the T08A2 hexapod tank, but at least someone’s giving the T08A2 the love it deserves.

Keycaps

The custom keycaps for the Shell Core colourway are generally pretty good, with the translucent ones being among my favourite and pairing beautifully with a carefully chosen blue/green backlight. They aren’t perfect, however, with the alpha sublegends being a bit of a Ghost In The Shell word salad when they could, instead, have reached into genuine vintage keyboard nomenclature. This would have given IQUNIX a myriad control codes which would feel far more at home in GITS’ gratuitous tech noir computing montages than the on the nose words like “Cyborg” and “Japan.” What about Line, End, Resume, Clear, Hold, Stop, Status, Break, Abort, Pause, Strike… okay so I’m struggling to come up with 26 good words but that doesn’t excuse 26 poor ones. For the most part, though, they’re just visual noise so it doesn’t really matter what they say.

The keycaps are finished with a bit of a sparkle, matching the anodised aluminium of the keyboard itself well. With the right colour of backlight – having such a strong theme does limit your colour choices somewhat – they look great. Though, as always, the spacebar could have used a couple extra LEDs.

There’s a missed opportunity to make the alphas and numeric keycaps shine-through, since in the dark the translucent mods really pop and everything else is dark. W, A, S and D are picked out with little yellow up/down arrow details, not useful but a little variation. Overall the design is busy but very tastefully done.

You get a Ghost In The Shell “攻殻機動隊” backspace keycap which my phone hilariously translated as “Attack On Titan.” In Japanese the franchise is widely known as Mobile Armored Riot Police, a title I’m sure would not have done the 1995 many favours…

Switches

IQUNIX stress the use of KeyTok’s Nova switches (https://www.keytok.com/products/nova-switch) in the EV63 and indeed they look, sound and feel great. I mentioned that the Magnetic X Pro switches in the EV63 were crisp and snappy, the Nova in the Ghost In The Shell EV63 are noticeably different.

For starters they are somehow quieter, and I’d already praised the stock EV63 for being quiet. The Nova switches are also pitched down audibly, shifting from the “clack” territory of the stock EV63 Magnetic Pro X switches towards a deeper “thock.” They don’t quite make it, but the result is a far more pleasing sound and typing experience- at least for me, I prefer quieter, deeper boards when I can get them.

I feel they’re not as thocky as Wuque’s Flux “Deep Clacky” which are among my favourite HE switches, but I actually prefer the Nova switches for feel- they feel a bit crisper, more deliberate, it’s hard to – hah – put a finger on it.

Software

My board shipped with software version 1.5.13, a check for updates now reveals version 3.0.0. There were, at first, no release notes in the app, (most users will probably now see a big splash for the 3.0.0 version) but a post in their Discord suggests this is their “HyperCore V3” update with a slew of significant improvements which I’ve detailed at the bottom of my EV63 review. Most of these seem related to latency, accuracy and repeatability but the list is exhaustive with improvements touching wake times and backlight brightness too. Naturally I updated the GITS EV63 which went through an eight step process of backing up the keyboard config, switching to bootloader/update mode (prompting me to reconnect the board), installing the update and restoring the config. A “Welcome to HyperCore V3” pop-up immediately confirmed my suspicion, with their up-front claim being improved end to end latency, followed by smart auto calibration.

Judging by the buzz in the EV63 Discord channel there are still some latent issues with the EV63, including my own woes with the backlight refusing to stay off when it’s set to sleep after a minute. So far I haven’t had any other issues with either the stock EV63 or the Shell Core version, but for users with issues on newer firmware there’s no rollback feature and no recourse but to wait. Here’s hoping the remaining rough edges are bashed off the software because this keyboard looks and feels phenomenal.

I recently discovered that Wuque’s Flux60 HE PCB fits into the EV63 enclosure so I set it up and took that software for a spin. To put it very bluntly the Flux60 HE software is absolutely terrible and IQUNIX’s efforts, while they’re still missing a trick or two, are far, far better.

Interestingly I also had the same backlight issue which I mentioned in my EV63 review on the Flux60 HE. My desk must be cursed since there’s no real discernable similarity between these PCBs other than their layout and size, the software, routing and silicon are very different.

Overall

The Ghost In The Shell EV63 (the “Shell Core” colorway in my case) somehow manages to be an all-round upgrade over the stock EV63. The GITS theme gives it a good reason for the bold, fussy design, the mix of translucent and opaque keycaps are so much more fun, the Nova switches are noticeably better and…

Well that’s about it. Like the 1995 film, this review comes to an abrupt end because I’m growing weary of finding things to say about keyboards. If you’d like to read more about the EV63 – much of which applies here – then you can find my review of it here.

If you’d like to pick up a Shell Core (or Cyber Blue) EV63 you can grab one for $249 direct from IQUNIX.

This board is definitely going to be a mainstay on my desk, so I’ll update this review if anything new crops up!

All I need now is a Tachikoma deskmat.

Saturday, June 6th, 2026, Mechanical Keyboards.