Shirow's Minor Works 3

Shirow has drawn five illustrations for the Ultra Jump magazine by Shueisha. In fact he has created a two-sides poster for issue 24 (even if one of the two pictures is the "old" ID2 cover) more the cover and another poster for issue 26 (February 1999, 420 yen). The name of this series is Ultra Graphics and most of the images have a sea setting.

CD-ROM cover Have you ever heard anything about Aoki Uru (Blue Uru)? In 1992, it had to be the second major motion picture by Gainax (the first being Wings of Honneamise in 1988), Shirow design but this flight action film was suspended (due to "various vicissitudes") and Neon Genesis Evangelion came into the place.
But in 1998 Gainax announced they were going to resurrect this project and to remake it to fit with present day animation. As a consequence, they have edited a CD-ROM named Blue Uru Frozen Designs Collection, which shows how the original Uru had looked like. The CD is an hybrid Macintosh/Windows and costs 5,800 yen. The "Designs Collection" part contains over 300 images in all: mechanical, character, and background designs. The fighter planes were designed by Shirow and Miyatake Kazuki. There are also 134 pages of storyboards, by Anno Hideaki and other staff members, as well as Yamaga Hiroyuki's screenplay (in Japanese). More the "Concept Gallery" and "Colorboards".
Please, if you know more, help me! Much of these information come from Gainax. Thanks to Kyle.

Machine Head 5 cover Machine Head was a magazine published by Byakuya Shobo (during 1989 and 1990) which didn't survive to its seventh issue. Shirow drew all the existing covers and more for the issues (at least until #10) that were never published (you can find them and some information inside Intron Depot 1). Machine Head 5 page Anyway there wasn't much Shirow's stuff, except few illos and a sort of commentary called The Ghost in Machine Head (few pages for each issue) which included some short manga.
Much of the Machine Head material has been republished inside the Appleseed Hypernotes (16 pages) by Seishinsha. On the right there is an original page from MH #5, which you can compare with page 142 of Hypernotes.
Thanks to Lee Barber! Machine Head illo

Shin Taimasenki is a table talk RPG produced by Cosmo Engineering. You should have already read this name before since it is quoted inside Intron Depot 2 "Blades" (YOU haven't it!?) at pages 071 and 072. The pictures shown there have been drawn on September 1997, but Shirow also said: "As of September 1998, this "warding-off-evil" series was still continuing, and it's a tad unfortunate that I couldn't include all the illustrations in the series in this collection. Still, waiting until the story is completed would have diminished the value of this collection as a record of my work. I guess collections that claim to be complete records of everything an artist does in a particular category have to wait until the artist dies...."
Taima... characters

The series was really going on since at least another episode of this series has been released on August 1998. Unlike the previous, this time it should be a mail talk RPG and it looks to be connected to the Taima Keisatsu novel published by Cosmo Engineering again. In fact its two main male characters appear in a corner of an image drawn for the game and the police as the same name (S.M.A.P.) and uniforms (look ID 2 from page 073 to 083).
Shirow has also used again the technique to draw the characters on different layers and then place one upon the other. At least he did the same for the cover of the Yamatotakeru (a mail talk RPG) first manual: "I usually don't create background layers that'll be hidden by foreground elements, because it's a waste of time and leads to terrible inefficiencies in my work. This time I did, however, because I foresaw the need to make some subtle adjustments to the character's positions." (from Intron Depot 2; page 070).

Flying Shirow Pictures Copyrights
Title: ManMachine Interface ©1997 Shirow/Kodansha. From the Top: 1-2) Ultra Graphics ©1999 Shirow/Shueisha. 3-4) Blue Uru ©1999 Shirow/(?) respective authors/Gainax. 5-6-7) Machine Head © Shirow/Byakuya Shobo. 8-9-10) Shin Taimasenki ©1998 Shirow/Cosmo Engineering. Left: Orion ©1991 Shirow/Seishinsha.

This page hosted by Get your own Free Home Page

	Pictures Copyrights Title: ManMachine Interface ©1997 Shirow/Kodansha. From the Top: 1-2) Ultra Graphics ©1999 Shirow/Shueisha. 3-4) Blue Uru ©1999 Shirow/(?) respective authors/Gainax. 5-6-7) Machine Head © Shirow/Byakuya Shobo. 8-9-10) Shin Taimasenki ©1998 Shirow/Cosmo Engineering. Left: Orion ©1991 Shirow/Seishinsha.