Overview
Masanori Ota (太田正典, Ōta Masanori), pen name Masamune Shirow (士郎 正宗, Shirō Masamune), born and living in Kobe City, is a Japanese manga artist.
His style is characterized by a great deal of difficult and informative information, and his [[manga[[ are full of tangents and explanations of settings and terminology outside the frame of the panels.
His mechanical designs and elaborate settings are highly acclaimed, and he has provided many designs as a mechanical designer.
He is the originator of the generalization of the expression "invisibility made possible by scientific technology" in the form of optical camouflage. The technique of "visually camouflaging the body by putting a filter on the body that reflects images of the surroundings" was first used in Ghost in the Shell, and has since been used in many subsequent works as a gadget without occult elements.
Background
In 1985, Seishinsha, a publishing company in Osaka Prefecture, took notice of his work, and without any experience in magazine publishing, he made his debut in a way that was unusual at the time: he suddenly wrote a new book, which immediately became very popular.
Like many manga artists of his generation, he was heavily influenced by Katsuhiro Otomo, and is known for his cyberpunk style works such as Ghost in the Shell and Appleseed.
He was also a taciturn and slow writer, as is often the case with artists who draw in great detail. However, the Great Hanshin earthquake of 1995, which caused a drastic change in his life, as well as his father's nursing care, made it difficult for him to pursue his creative activities, and since then, he has only been active as an illustrator.
Currently, while working on illustrations for adult-oriented magazines, he is also involved in creative work in the form of drafts, as in the case of Pandora in the Crimson Shell: Ghost Urn.
