Book Review: Intron Depot 1

Blast from the past. An art book that was published in 1981. Intron Depot 1 collects the illustrations created by Masamune Shirow from 1981 to 1991. There are 226 illustrations with 193 in full colour.

The series of work included in the book are:

• Appleseed
• Black Magic
• Black Magic M-66
• Game art & etc
• The Ghost in the Shell
• Dominion
• Cover art& etc
• Orion
• Black white sketches
• Okuzuke

A quick flip through will tell you that this is a book about manga girls and mecha robots. There are lots of elaborate mecha and costume designs. The full page illustrations done in heavy manga style rendered in ink and watercolour, with occasional pages from his manga comic series. The Chinese and English captions are first person account of Masamune Shirow looking back and commenting on his art.

Now that Appleseed has been made into a 3D movie, it's pretty cool to see the similarities and differences in the mecha robots design. And the lady lead sure wears a lot less in the concept art, not to mention that the costume designs are radically out of the world.

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