Shirow Masamune

Looking into Shirow Masamune.
Shirow Masamune is just a pen name derived from Japans greatest Swordsmith 'Masamune' his real name is 'Masanori Ota' and he was born on November 23, 1961.  Shirow studied oil painting at the university of art in Osaka. While there he created his first manga 'Black Magic'

Black Magic Cover

This caught the eye of Harumichi Aoki a noted publisher, who in turn published Black Magic in 1983.
Out of this came 'Appleseed' (1985) Which took him straight to the top with a Seiun Award for Best Manga. Shirow Created three more volumes of Appleseed between 1985 and 1989 before he started work on his multimedia franchise 'Ghost in the Shell'

Appleseed