Masamune Shirow
The author of such manga/anime as Ghost in the Shell, Black Magic M-66 and Dominion: Tank Police, Masamune Shirow studied drawing and painting at the Osaka University of Art where he wrote and drew his first manga, Black Magic M-66 for the fanzine Atlas. For many years he taught art on the high school level, during which time he published Appleseed in 1985 and Dominion in 1986 which won the Galaxy Award (Japanese Hugo) for best science fiction manga. Around 1990, Shirow began working on Ghost in the Shell which appeared in Young Magazine Kaizokuban. In November 1995, the movie for Ghost in the Shell was released worldwide, directed by the award-winning Mamoru Oshii. All of Shirow's works take place within the same universe which is a futeresque cyberpunk and androids and robots are ubiquitous. Many of his stories deal with what it means to be human and the merging of humanity and machine. Masamune Shirow is a pseudonym and little is known about Shirow or what he looks like -- he is a private individual and would like to remain that way. What is known is that he was born in Japan on November 23, 1961 and has lived in Hyogo, Japan since 1995 when his house was destroyed by the Kobe earthquake. He enjoys reading and keeping pets.