He is so interested in the nuts and bolts of how the universe works that he creates vibrant landscapes in which fully realized characters really draw you into the story. In other words, Shirow is to cyberpunk manga what Tolkien is to fantasy literature. From the comic ' Ghost in the Shell ' (1989-91) Ghost in the Shell He never lets the message of the story get in the way of telling a good story.įig.2. His stories frequently tackle philosophical ideas and social commentary without getting bogged down or feeling preachy. Shirow's manga are characterized by their high tech themes and pseudo-realistic "mecha" an information-dense visual and narrative structure and an entertaining, often tongue-in-cheek approach that never lets anything get too serious. He is both a fantastic character designer with unique, often ethnically oriented figures, as well as a great mechanical designer who adds realism by looking very critically at the workings of all the items he designs, often dedicating entire panels or even pages to explain how this particular mechanical device works. But this doesn't mean he isn't a great manga artist. In fact, Shirow was a pin-up and calendar artist and a designer who first and foremost decided to create manga just so he could earn a living making these things. ' Appleseed ' (1985) Ethnically Oriented Figures Shirow lives and dies by the creed 'I'm doing what I want to do.' So he started doing manga because it interested him, and his background as an oil painter made his style so unique more in the line of Frazetta and Moebius instead of the traditional mangaka.įig.1. Legendary Swordsmithīeing a private man, and a bit unconventional, he decided he needed a pen name and named himself after the legendary swordsmith Masamune. This fascination led to his first cyberpunk manga Black Magic, which would later be adapted into a OVA (Original video animation) entitled Black Magic M-66. Somewhere a long the way, Shirow developed an interest in manga and after seeing the movie The Terminator (1984) became fascinated by dystopian technology. He went to the Osaka University of Arts where he studied oil painting.
The info about his childhood is very sparse as the eccentric Shirow has gone to great lengths to keep this a secret. Masamune Shirow whose real name is Masanori Ota was born in Kobe on November 23rd 1961.
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