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Masamune Shirow

Masamune Shirow is related to Japanese Manga

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Masamune Shirow (士郎 正宗 Shirō Masamune) is a manga artist of international renown. "Masamune Shirow" is a pen-name, based on a type of sword.

Most well known for the manga Ghost in the Shell (which was later turned into both an anime movie and a PlayStation video game).

Fame

Masamune Shirow is now one of the most famous anime and manga creators. Though he was originally only popular outside of Japan. He was choosen as an early author to bring to the west because of many stylistic similarites between his work and traditional American comics. His work Ghost in the Shell is a famous anime in the west that is based off of his work, hence the reason why he is popular. The problem is that many people mistake him for being the creator in the anime when he had no major role in the production, the film is very much a Mamoru Oshii film.

Heroine with a single face

Many of his works ("Ghost in the Shell", "cyberpunk influences.

His female lead characters (Kusanagi in "Ghost in the Shell", Leona in "Tank Police", Deunan in "Appleseed", and Seska in "Orion") look nearly identical, with the exception of hair color.

Shirow got his start as a pornography artist and this is reflected in how he draws his women, providing them with very exaggerated sexual features. He is still drawing fanservice pornography in addition to sci-fi thrillers.

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)
• 1995) (No more noise)
• 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 has been translated and made it's run as individual issues in the US; a collected version is due sometime in late summer 2004)
• Intron Depot 3 - Ballistics (2003) (military-themed color illustration and CG artbook featuring female characters with guns)
• Intron Depot 4 - Bullets (2004) (color illustration artbook collecting his work between 1995 to 1999)

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Anime adaptations

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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

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Television

• Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (2003) by Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex 2nd GiG (2004)by