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Your Definitive Guide to Shirow Masamune
June 20th, 2008
by Ken Haley
Since then I’ve been hooked on Shirow: Appleseed, Ghost in the Shell, Dominion. Love his work. The highly detailed artwork, the reoccurring themes of technology and how it changes our relationship with the environment and what it means to be human, the incredible depth and thought he puts into crafting the world for each of his works—I can’t get enough. Nowadays, though, he almost seems to be overlooked and forgotten. Seinen isn’t “in” anymore—it’s all about the shonen, so hopefully this little guide will introduce him to some new readers. It’s the perfect time for this too, what with Dark Horse re-releasing all of his work in the unflipped and unedited format for the first time. Well, all of his work except for Ghost in the Shell and Ghost in the Shell 2:
Sadly, for the past several years Shirow hasn’t been quite as active a creator as he has been in the past. Several announced books have yet to materialize, and in some cases these are projects announced in the mid 1990s such as Dominion: Conflict 2 and Appleseed 5. One can only hope. A fantastic Shirow resource on the web is the Masamune Shirow Hyperpage. It has news and pictures on various new Shirow related products ranging from movies to toys, from art books to USB Tachikoma’s. AppleseedArguably Shirow’s unfinished magnum opus, Appleseed is an epic sci-fi story following the lives of two former SWAT team members, Deunan Knute and Briarerios Hecatonchires as they find themselves trapped into the political machinations of a war-ravaged earth. Shirow’s love for speculation on how technology, humanity, and nature interact and effect each other is the focus of this four-volume series, as Deunan and Briarerios are brought to Olympus, an artificial island run by artificial people, as it attempts to over see the reconstruction and restoration of the world. Life extension treatments, clones, advanced cybernetics, solar power systems are all part of a society where all the utilities are controlled by a massive super computer in an attempt to make human interaction as environmental harmless as possible. Appleseed has it all, plus a healthy dose of paranoia and political intrigue as not everyone is content to leave the fate of humanity in the hands of clones and a massive computer. While it may not be as ambitious as Shirow’s work in Ghost in the Shell 2: Man/Machine Interface, it’s probably the stronger of the two works. Unlike GitS2, Appleseed manages to juggle many different balls, and keep them all in the air without one overshadowing the other. The mystery of Deunan’s father’s involvement with Olympus, the various intrigues both from within and without, the concepts of how man relates and interacts with nature through technology, they all stay afloat without becoming too dense or intricate. While readers may find themselves a bit pressed to keep everything straight, at no time should they feel completely and utterly adrift like they probably will during the last 100 pages or so of GitS2. The techonobabble never overwhelms the dialogue, and the philosophies never overwhelm the plot. It’s a nice line that Shirow manages to walk for the entirety of the series. The series itself spans a decade and four volumes, along with two volumes’ worth of supplementary material. For ages it was the Shirow work of note, over shadowing Orion, Dominion and Black Magic. There are three movies and OVAs based upon them, with a TV series on the way. Sadly, the manga will most likely remain unfinished, as Shirow’s studio was affected by the 1995 Kobe earthquake. It was essentially destroyed and with it all the artwork and manga he was working on at the moment. All that remains of Appleseed 5 is reprinted in Appleseed: Hypernotes, and sadly it’s not that much. One can only hope that with all the renewed interest in the series due to the success of the movies that Shirow will eventually revisit the world of Appleseed and finally complete the series. Until then we can only speculate on the resolution to the various mysteries that populate the series. –Reviewed by Ken Haley Black MagicLike Shirow’s more sprawling Ghost in the Shell saga, this one-volume title grapples with Big Issues: what separates men from machines? When does the right of society trump that of the individual? What do omnipotent female bioroids look like? (To no one’s surprise, the answer is “blonde and busty, with an aversion to loose fitting clothing.”) Black Magic tells the story of an ancient Venusian civilization that rose and fell around the same time dinosaurs roamed the face of neighboring Earth. To govern their sprawling, interplanetary civilization, the Venusians engineered a supercomputer named Nemesis and a team of bioroids to carry out Nemesis’s orders. Not content with their apparatchik status, the bioroid “executors” began to chip away at Nemesis’ authority, prompting Nemesis to create a secret weapon to protect its very existence: Duna Typhon, a bioroid possessing tremendous physical and psychic powers. With an army or spiderbots and highly trained soldiers on her trail, Typhon must fight for her survival… and Nemesis’s. I’d be the first to admit that Black Magic is not A-list Shirow. The art is, by his own admission, “old fashioned,” with dated character designs and clumsy application of tone. The story, too, feels a little aimless; after an introduction explaining the history and purpose of Nemesis, the story quickly devolves into a protracted and rather confusing battle in which we never quite get a handle on what’s at stake. The best reason to read this vintage slice of eighties sci-fi is the appendix, in which Shirow explains his rationale for casting a woman as his lead bioroid: “to provide a lower center of gravity, and to make this manga more attractive.” Couldn’t have said it better myself. –Reviewed by Katherine Dacey Dominion: Tank PoliceDominion is an odd creature. The first volume, Dominion: Tank Police, came out in the mid to late 1980s and was Shirow doing comedy with an awkward and unclear environmental message tacked on: a future Earth ravaged by warfare and pollution, a special branch of the police that used futuristic mini tanks on their patrols, criminal gangs involved in political protests, and a woman who was waaaaay too into her tank, all mooshed together with the usual eye for detail that comes with any of Shirow’s work. The police are a special group assembled for the sole purpose of capturing the terrorist Buaku Gang. It’s mostly zany comedy with some occasional mentions of the massive pollution problems, and experiments with an eye towards the possibility of genetically modifying humans to survive and clean the horribly polluted air. Most of the story centers around Buaku’s various attempts to prevent this from happening, while gaining lots of money for himself along the way. Massive property damage ensues, as do crazy action sequences with tanks being chased by giant spider robots up the sides of building. Quite the nutty little piece of fiction. Then, ten years later Shirow cranked out another Dominion book, Dominion: Conflict 1 (No More Noise). It has several of the characters from the original book, and a few of the visual concepts, yet it has nothing to do with the original at all! The pollution and environmental message that Shirow tried to work into the comedic tale are completely removed, several of the characters have gone through some heavy re-workings—most notably the main character Leona—and some have been removed completely. Leona’s gone from a slightly ditzy, yet competent tank pilot with an unhealthy obsession for her custom tank, to a much more mature and down-to-earth squad leader. The only returning villains are Anna and Una Puma, and this time they’re good guys thanks to some nebulous legal status since they’re androids. The story focuses on the investigation of criminal who’s in cahoots with a corrupt businessman and lacks a lot of the comedic punch of the original. It’s still funny, just not as funny as the first Dominion. In both books Shirow’s love for detail in evident. The first volume contains a short essay where Shirow speculates and discusses his various ideas for tank design and the evolution of tanks within the world of Dominion, while the second contains detailed information about the internal structure of the police department, their equipment and more. The entire series is definitely one of his lightest works, and while it lacks the impact of Appleseed or Ghost in the Shell, it does manage to bring the funny and is a nice glimpse into Shirow’s sense of humor. –Reviewed by Ken Haley Ghost in the ShellIf Appleseed was Shirow’s magnum opus, then what the hell is Ghost in the Shell? While even Shirow has cited Appleseed as his life’s work, Ghost in the Shell is easily the most popular and well-known manga series he’s ever created. The anime was one of the key movies in popularizing anime in the US, and the subsequent TV series and movie have both had wide releases in the US (to mixed reviews). The manga, on the other hand, seems to have slipped under many people’s radar. Chances are if you mention Ghost in the Shell to your average anime/manga fan the first thing they’ll be thinking of is the movie or TV series. Odd that. But still, Ghost in the Shell has clearly become one of the seminal works from Shirow, exploring in greater depth the effect of technology upon humanity, but turning the focus inward on how it effects being a human rather than the outward examination present in things like Appleseed. The very nature of the soul, memories and other issues are all touched upon at some point within the three volumes that comprises the Ghost in the Shell saga. The first Ghost in the Shell series focuses on Public Security Section 9 and several of their cases involving cyber terrorism, while stringing a subplot about a mysterious “Puppeteer.” At the end of the series the main character, Major Motoko Kusanagi, merges with another entity to create a new life form. The second series, Ghost in the Shell: Man/Machine Interface switches the focus onto Kusanagi almost exclusively. It’s set years after the original one and there are next to no mentions of Section 9 or the rest of the supporting cast. Also, unlike the original that jumped between short one off’s with a lengthy subplot, Man/Machine Interface is one massive epic tale. It’s easily one of the most ambitious mangas I’ve ever come across. Almost 80% color, full of CGI graphics and effects, loaded with more technobabble than you can shake a stick at, plus a sprawling story that takes place in both the real world, cyberspace, and some deeper level of consciousness, the book is a visual treat and a heavy read. It combines Shiow’s penchant for philosophical meanderings, and speculative looks at technology, with the idea that, not only does technology effect what it means to be human but it could give birth to something completely new. Not simply a new life form as was the case in the original Ghost in the Shell, but something new and different on the spiritual level. Ghost in the Shell 1.5: Human Error Processor is also an odd creature. Intended to be the original Ghost in the Shell 2, this series was only just released in the US last year and follows the ensemble cast of Section 9 as the investigate various cyber crimes sometime after the end of the original Ghost in the Shell. It’s an unfinished piece, as Shirow scrapped the work part way through in favor of the story we see Man Machine Interface. What this essentially means is that Human Error Processor just kind of… stops. Several short stories, some hints of a larger plot and conspiracy with echoes of the Puppet Master case, but no resolution. It’s a bit disheartening, especially since Human Error Processor, aside from the absence of the Major, is probably the work that most mirrors the popular Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex anime series. –Reviewed by Ken Haley OrionWayward sorceress Seska’s abilities to summon are no great shakes until an accident imbues her with godlike potential. Covered in divine markings, Seska finds herself an unlikely vessel in a world about to be engulfed by the karma-eating Naga dragon, who threatens the very survival of her home galaxy. Time is short, the stakes are high, and the convergence of gods, technology and magic promises the battle of the century. Orion may be ambitious in artistic value, but when it comes to weaving a plot, this hot mess of a comic brandishes plenty of verbosity but very little substance. The whole affair can be boiled down to a rote set of events: Seska aquires divine markings. A god descends. Things blow up for hundreds of jargon laced pages. The end. Seska herself, an appropriately ambitious and hard drinking female lead, seems wasted when most of book is devoted to unrelated beat-downs and costume changes that alternate between “skimpy” and “skimpier.” Flaws, perhaps, but not enough to sink the whole affair—that honor goes to the dialogue, so laden with jargon that it approaches the unreadable. Shirow’s world dynamics, while an attractive mix between future sci-fi and Asian mysticism, are awash in something like math, physics, and tantric Buddhism in one—the series’ so-called “psychoscience.” Characters muse about “time metrics,” “harmonics,” and “psych-element engineering,” generally in an effort to sound like something of substance is happening, but it’s difficult to tell when the words essentially mean nothing. Orion is perhaps the first manga that is ameliorated by a hearty understanding of graphing, polarity and vectors; it’s like mystic high school math class with more explosions than you can shake a stick at. The explosions, at least, are well-rendered exercises in mushroom clouds and crumbling buildings. Shirow clearly knows how to turn a two-page spread to his advantage, employing it several times throughout the work to convey the enormity of the events. It’s a good choice, particularly as some of his smaller panels can begin to crowd with his overactive renderings of destruction and hand drawn gutters and panel lines. The future is clearly where Shirow is most at home, as his mechanical renderings demonstrate a kind of fine tuned detailing that has since become a trademark of his. The 1990s character designs are nothing of note, but the overall artistic package is an impressive one. Orion thus seems a bit of a mixed bag; an impressive artistic sense of space still can’t quite make up for the thin stretch of plot and headache inducing amounts of in-universe language. Shirow’s notes at the back are perhaps the best indicator of this, as while they indicate a kind of detailed, fanboyish glee for his creation, they also demonstrate his inability to compact a wealth of ideas into a single volume work. For now, it remains, as Shirow says, “a little confusing.” –Reviewed by Chloe Ferguson | |
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One of the first manga I ever read was by Masamune Shirow. I came across a volume of Appleseed in a CD store one day and was absolutely ecstatic! Prior to this, I had only seen the anime OVA and actually had no idea that a manga version existed. Hell, at that point I wasn’t even aware of the term manga at all. 
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