Masamune Shirow (士郎 正宗 Shirō Masamune) is a manga artist of international renown. His real name is Masanori Ota (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 was later turned into both an anime movie and a PlayStation video game.

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 arguably more popular outside of Japan. He was chosen as an early author to bring to the west because of many stylistic similarites 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 anime, but he had no major role in its production. Mamoru Oshii is the true creator of the film.

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 (Kusanagi in Ghost in the Shell, Leona in Tank Police, Deunan in Appleseed, and Seska in Orion ) tend to look very similar to each other, with the exception of hair color.

Bibliography

• Black Magic M-66 (1983)
• Appleseed 1 (1985)
• Appleseed 2 (1985)
• Dominion (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)
• (No More Noise) (1995)
• Intron Depot 2 - Blades (1998) (fantasy-themed color illustration artbook featuring female characters with armor and edged weapons)
• (2001) (the "true" sequel to Ghost in the Shell, 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)
• (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)

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
• Ghost in the Shell (1995) by Mamoru Oshii
• Innocence: Ghost in the Shell (2004) by Mamoru Oshii
• Appleseed (2004) by Shinji Aramaki

Television

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

External links

• Extensive Masamune Shirow fan website
• Masamune Shirow Hyperpage
• New Masamune Shirow Hyperpage (since Jan 2005)
• Artistic Genius