One of the mangaka most responsible for the prevalence of Cyberpunk themes in anime and manga since the early 1980s, Masanori Ota, better known by his pen name Masamune Shirow, specializes in stories about technology-gone-berserk and post-apocalyptic madness.
Born on November 23, 1961, Shirow began his career in college, with such works as Intron Depot and Black Magic. He eventually struck gold with Dominion, one of the funniest dystopian fantasies ever written — which was later turned into the successful OAV series Dominion Tank Police. The more serious Appleseed manga was also successful.
However, he is currently best known for his hard-SF saga Koukaku Kidoutai, known overseas as Ghost in the Shell; not only did GITS have an extremely successful print run, but it was turned into a film by Mamoru Oshii and adapted — with help from Shirow himself — into a TV series (GITS: Stand-Alone Complex) that has run for two seasons.
In 2008 he worked on Real Drive with Production I.G, which have been responsible for the GitS series Stand-Alone Complex. Another Production I.G work he participated in was Sampaguita, the 3rd game of the interactive anime Visual Novel series Yarudora, providing character design. He also did the cover art for the TurboGrafx-CD Shoot 'Em Up Lords of Thunder, and was involved with character design for the PlayStation Light Gun Game Project: Horned Owl and Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light for the Nintendo DS; the true extent of his involvement with the latter game beyond drawing official artwork (below his normal skill level in places) for the game is unknown, but the in-game character designs do suggest he did have quite the influence on the general style direction.
Shirow's art style is characterized by an obsessive attention to technical detail (rivaling that of his contemporary Katsuhiro Otomo), and a similarly detailed — if unrealistic — approach to character design that would make Rob Liefeld proud.
Shirow is a very private and reclusive individual, having often been called the J.D. Salinger of Japan; like many mangaka, he is best known by his pen name. All that anyone knows about Masanori Ohta, the man behind the pseudonym, is that he lives in Hyogo, Japan (where he moved after losing his house in the 1995 Kobe earthquake), and that he was formerly a high school teacher. He also is a fan of FN guns and the FAMAS.
He also draws a loooooot of Hentai these days. His H work has become so exclusive that detractors wish he would go back to mainstream material.
Notable series:
- Appleseed
- Black Magic M-66
- Project: Horned Owl
- Dominion Tank Police
- Ghost in the Shell
- Intron Depot
- Orion
- Real Drive
- Pandora in the Crimson Shell: Ghost Urn (in collaboration with Koshi Rikudo)
