Masamune Shirow

Masamune Shirow (士郎正宗 Shirō Masamune) is a manga artist of international renown. His real name is Masanori Ota (太田　まさのり Ota Masanori, born November 23, 1961).

"Masamune Shirow" is a pen name, based on a famous swordsmith, Masamune. He is best known for the manga Ghost in the Shell, which has since been turned into two anime movies, two anime TV series and several video games. Masamune is also a popular hentai artist. Born in the Hyōgo Prefecture capital city of Kobe, he studied oil painting at Osaka University of Arts. While in college, he developed an interest in manga, which lead him to create his own complete work, Black Magic, which was published in the manga fanzine Atlas. His work caught the eye of Seishinsha President Harumichi Aoki, who offered to publish him.

The result was Appleseed, a full volume of densely-plotted drama taking place in an ambiguous future. The story was a sensation, and won the 1986 Seiun Award for Best Manga. After a professional reprint of Black Magic and a second volume of Appleseed, he released Dominion in 1986. Two more volumes of Appleseed followed before he began work on Ghost in the Shell.

Fame

Masamune Shirow is now one of the most famous anime and manga creators in the world. Indeed, for a time, he was more popular outside of Japan than inside. He was chosen as an early author to bring to the West because of many stylistic similarities between his work and traditional American comics. Ghost in the Shell is a famous anime in the West based on his work, hence his popularity. Many people mistake him for the creator of the original anime movie, but he had no major role in its production. Mamoru Oshii directed both movies, which were adaptations of several chapters of the original manga put to film. However, he did play a role in the development of the TV anime series Stand Alone Complex.

Heroine with a single face

Many of his works (Ghost in the Shell, Dominion: Tank Police, Appleseed) follow a common form: a strong female law enforcement officer/warrior battles external threats while facing difficulties from internal politics, in a near-future setting with strong cyberpunk influences.

His female lead characters (Motoko Kusanagi in Ghost in the Shell, Leona Ozaki in Tank Police, Deunan Knute (or Deunan Nats) in Appleseed, and Seska in Orion) tend to look very similar to each other, with the exception of hair color.

Inspiration

Although his work is clearly contemporary Manga in style, Masamune Shirow shares many attributes with the originators of pinup girl art. A substantial amount of his work has been released in artbook or poster book format, almost universally focusing on female characters in provocative poses. Much of this can be considered H manga (called "hentai" in many non-Japanese locales), although a similar percentage is no more erotic than classical pinup girl posters.

Some earlier pinup artists that have styles from which Masumune may have been influenced are George Petty, Olivia de Berardinis, and Alberto Vargas. In addition, some of Masumune's work has been used in advertising such things as telephone cards, much as the earlier pinup girl art was used.

Bibliography

Black Magic M-66 (1983)
Appleseed 1 (1985)
Appleseed 2 (1985)
Tank Police (1986)
Appleseed 3 (1987)
Appleseed 4 (1989)
Ghost in the Shell (1991)
Orion (1991)
Intron Depot 1 (1992) (sci fi-themed color illustration artbook collecting his work from 1981 to 1991)
Conflict 1 (No More Noise) (1995)
Intron Depot 2 - Blades (1998) (fantasy-themed color illustration artbook featuring female characters with armor and edged weapons)
Man/Machine Interface (2001) (released in collected form in America on January 19, 2005)
Intron Depot 3 - Ballistics (2003) (military-themed color illustration and CG artbook featuring female characters with guns)
Human Error Processor (2003) (original version of Ghost in the Shell 2, scrapped when Ghost in the Shell 2 was collected in a single volume, but recently rereleased in Japan)
Intron Depot 4 - Bullets (2004) (color illustration artbook collecting his work between 1995 to 1999)

"Minor" works

Areopagus Arther (1980), published in ATLAS (fanzine)
Yellow Hawk (1981), published in ATLAS (fanzine)
Colosseum Pick (1982), published in Funya (fanzine)
Pursuit (1982), published in Kintalion (fanzine)
Opional Orientation (1984), published in ATLAS (fanzine)
Battle on Mechanism (1984), published in ATLAS (fanzine)
Metamorphosis in Amazoness (1984), published in ATLAS (fanzine)
Arice in Jargon (1984), published in ATLAS (fanzine)
Bike Nut (1985), published in Dorothy (fanzine)
Gun Dancing (1986), published in Young Magazine Kaizokuban
Pile Up (two parts) (1987), published in Young Magazine Kaizokuban
Colosseum Pick (1990), published in Comic Fusion Atpas (fanzine)
Neuro Hard - The planet of a bee (two parts in 1992, four in 1993, four in 1994), published in Comic Dragon

main source: shirowledge

Anime adaptations

Film

Black Magic M-66 (1987) by Hiroyuki Kitakubo and Masamune Shirow (this is the only anime Shirow played a direct role in the production of)
Appleseed (1988) by Kazuyoshi Katayama
Dominion Tank Police (1988) by Takaaki Ishiyama and Kôichi Mashimo
Ghost in the Shell (1995) by Mamoru Oshii
Innocence (2004) by Mamoru Oshii
Appleseed (2004) by Shinji Aramaki

Television

Stand Alone Complex (1st GiG) (2003) by Kenji Kamiyama (26 25-minute episodes; also called Alone on Earth or GitS:SAC)
S.A.C. 2nd GIG (2004) by Kenji Kamiyama (26 25-minute episodes; second season of GitS:SAC)