Talk:Masamune Shirow

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Contents

[edit] Major/Minor Works Bifurcation

If the list of Shirow's works are to be bifurcated into major and minor listings, then there ought to be explanation of how the determination is made. I changed the heading "'Minor' Works" to simply "Minor Works" because to qualify the heading title with quotation marks and never address why is simply poor writing form. 63.100.44.98 15:07, 18 October 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Erotic Art

It seems that there is absolutely no mention of all the pornographic hentai Shirow has made. Is it because Americans are simply ignorant, or fans fear this will sully the author's more cerebral philisophical work?63.100.44.98 00:33, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

I added information that Shirow is also a hentai artist, but someone edited it out. I have added it once more. If someone thinks it shouldn't be mentioned (despite the fact that it is true), then they should explain why here, rather then editing the data out.63.100.44.98 00:33, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

It's my perception (it may be wrong, although I am a Shirow fan) that his hentai stuff is more recent. In the past he seemed to stick more to actively avoiding drawing anything pornographic, until Ghost in the Shell (e.g. the Lesbian scene removed from the English version of the comic/graphic novel, which is preserved in the first Intron Depot book anyway). Some people may indeed feel it will sully his cerebral work, but I also think it's worth noting somewhere, as this is an encyclopedia after all ;) Particularly the more recent Galgrease stuff, which seems to be the primary hentai form of his work I've seen. --ElectricSkrill 18:53, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I have cleaned up the paragraph once more, and relabeled "inspiration" as "erotic art" as it is what it deals with entirely. I will watch this paragraph for apologetic and biased edits.63.100.44.98 00:33, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

It should be mentioned that a great many of Shirow's art books (Wild Wet West/Wild Wet Quest/Hell Cat/Hell Hound etc.) are far more than simply 'erotic', as they contain explicit hard core pronography.203.118.187.169 06:49, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

I have those; I would not consider them hardcore per se, but then again, that may be because they are not hardcore enough by my standards to count as such, because a lot of the penetration is not explicitly shown, but is covered up by heads, hands, etc. --BrokenSphere 04:14, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

It's quite easy to catalogue japanese material, if a comic is published in a hentai magazine then it's hentai, and the same for another kind of material (shojo, shonen and such), So if Masamune published material in a shonen magazine then it's shonen!. Some material of Masamune can be considered etchi, but still cannot apply to be hentai. --Magallanes 21:07, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I made a slight edit to two links in the section in question, combining them because they both resolve to the same page: Hentai. Is the term "hentai" now being used in English to mean exclusively "hentai manga"? That seems an unfortunate narrowing of the meaning of the original word. --SandChigger 10:43, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Kanji

Would anyone mind adding the kanji for his real name? I can't find it. --138.238.96.38 02:15, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Heck, where di you find his real name to begin with? --Ray Radlein 06:27, Mar 12, 2005 (UTC)
IMDb, Google, etc. Anywhere his birthdate is listed, his real name is too, it seems. --138.238.96.38 18:44, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)
The name is listed as "Ota" but the hiragana says "Oda," so which is it?--Lord Shitzu 22:04, 14 February 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Gundress

He did character designs for Gundress (blech) but I can't figure out where to add that...any suggestions? (Maybe we souldn't...Gundress was really horrible) --Trent Arms 07:33, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Gundress was horrible because the "geniuses" behind it's crew changed everything late in the process. As for finding images of Gundress, I picked up an art book a little while ago that was, simply, a General collection "Art of Masamune Shirow" that had plenty of Gundress characters. I don't have a scanner or anything, unfortunately. --NWalterstorf 20:08, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Typo

This line is very confusing:

Masamune Shirow (former star of James Bond movies)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, namely in the UK, where he is known as "Roger Moore".

But I think this is just a typo and should read:

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, namely in the UK, where he is known as "Roger Moore"(former star of James Bond movies).

It sounds like a joke to begin with? Why the bluzzlefudge should he be known as "Roger Moore" in the Blokesburg to begin with? I'm waiting for someone with more knowledge to see if it should be deleted... 惑乱 分からん 23:29, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
I've reverted it as it was clearly nonsense (unless Roger Moore has a huge secret). It does appear that someone tried to revert it a few times already in the history, but each time the user who posted the graffiti changed it back again. ElectricSkrill 11:24, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Themes of his work.

I think we need to mention that the most common theme in Masamune Shirow's works is the emergence of machine consciousness. This a major part of Tank Police, Appleseed and Ghost in the Shell and is hinted at in Black Magic. Generally it's his technophile main female lead who encounters the AI first and has some sort of a relationship with it.

[edit] Product Design: Elecom MAPP Mouse

Shirow was commissioned by Elecom to design one of two MAPP mice (the second by Hajime Katoki, both available via Shinza, a japanese technology fetishist exporter). The mouse comes bundled with a booklet giving a visual walk through of the prototyping process - in Japanese - and a 3 inch windows driver cd. [1]

ps. im posting this, unless someone has issues... c

I've trimmed it, get back to me if you like --Argav ۞ 02:52, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Photo

I've found a photo of the man here: http://www.filmfestivalstv.com/filmfestivalstv_videoblog/film_news/index.html (do a keyword search for "Shirow").

I'm thinking of posting it with the text at the bottom showing his name cropped out. Thoughts? --BrokenSphere 23:00, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I dunno', Shiro is known to be a very private man and often avoids photo oppertunities. Heck, in the Ghost in the Shell DVD extras, the interview segments with Shiro are done over the phone and the visual components are an animation of a self-drawn caricature of himself. Actually, I think that the caricature of himself (which can also be found in the rear part of some of his mangas, in the "About the Author" segment) would be a good picture for this article. Considering that he likes to hide his face from cameras so much, I think that we can qualify that as fair use. - Fearless Son 20:15, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
It may be appropriate (and amusing) to paste a Ghost In the Shell "Laughing Man" symbol over his face on the picture shown above. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 136.159.197.187 (talk) 23:24, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Spelling

What's with the non-standard romanization of his name? Does anyone know why he likes to stick a pointless letter W in there? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.72.21.221 (talk • contribs) 03:08, June 12, 2007

[edit] Autistic?

I noticed that this page is in the category of people on the autistic spectrum. Why is that? I never heard that Shiro was autistic, can anyone verify that? If not then he should not be in that category. - Fearless Son 18:31, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

It was added in May by an anonymous account for no apparent reason. I can find no supporting evidence on the web. I've removed it. Incidentally, "on the autistic spectrum" does not necessarily imply "autistic". Tualha (Talk) 13:34, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
Thank you. - Fearless Son 20:09, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Overplotting

Shouldn't we mention somewhere that many of his works are heavily overplotted, and that his "serious works" tends to be plagued by a proliferation of notes on real and invented items, to such a degree that they can be confusing? "Yinerons and yangerons" in Orion ?

Or that Appleseed was originally conceived as a ten books project, then Shirow "killed it" in order to start Ghost in the shell, who may be seen as a more refined version (It's a case that, in the last pages of Appleseed fourth book, Deunan and briareos seems dressed like members of Squadron 9') of the first, pretty much because the plot was spinning out of control.

I love the man, but I must admit that sometime he has lingered on the border of bad storytelling...

On the other hand, he is a prodigious "creator of worlds" who gave materials to work on to much of the science fiction comics creators of this late twenty years (much of the "technology" of the italian comics Nathan Never came from Shirow's along with Kia Asamiya material - Antonio Serra, co-creator of the series, admitted it in many occasion).

Only, sometimes it appears that others, more interested in storytelling, have done a better work with the material he created, keeping the plot more linear and focusing on telling a comprehensible story.

For example, I find that Mamoru Oshii's first "Ghost in the Shell" movie told the essential of the first cycle of the manga, "cutting" much of the techno-blabbing our beloved endears in order to focus on the soul of characters- and he did well.

Shirow is a genious as an illustrator-even if, sometimes his anatomies were far from flawless (mostly when he's drawing men)- but surely he is not a storyteller as good as Osamu Tezuka, Carl Barks or Hugo Pratt.Woongah (talk) 09:08, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Only if you can find third party critiques that also mention this. I agree with you to some extent, but otherwise it comes off as opinion and OR. BrokenSphereMsg me 15:54, 20 March 2008 (UTC)