Shirow Masamune

Masamune Shirow is the pen name of Masanori Ota, a renowned manga artist who has even won the Seiun Award, which is awarded for the best science fiction works in Japan.

Fans know Shirow as the creator of both of the wildly popular sci-fi manga Ghost in the Shell and Appleseed. Along with video games, those two series have continued beyond the original manga in works like Stand Alone Complex, S.A.C. 2nd GIG, Arise, Appleseed Ex Machina and Appleseed Alpha.

Art books are also a major part of his career, with Shirow having worked on the Intron Depot series, the Pieces series, and the W-Tails Cat series. Additionally, he has also worked on several video games unrelated to his original works, like Horned Owl, Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon, and Yarudora Series Vol. 3: Sampaguita!