Novels

Taima Keisatsu (Warding-off-evil Police) is a novel published by Cosmo Engineering.

Code: ISBN 4-07-309246-4
Price: 700 yen
Publisher: Cosmo Engineering
Dimensions (mm): 150x105
Pages: 268
Publishing date: 7/10/1998

Shirow (from ID2): "Taima Keisatsu illustrations took approximately one month, since I also had to do some other jobs at the same time (I actually did most of the work in the latter part of March [1998])." "A novel doesn't seem complete without illustrations, but sometimes the illustrations kind of get the way of reading. If you place the illustrations at a logical place in the book, with the right timing in the story, they're effective, but this isn't always easy. In this collection I'm glad to be able to include a few of my book illustrations that I think worked quite well." "The story itself is quite serious, but sometimes characters appear that are rather likable, so I tried to make the designs for them really come alive."

Picture page in the book	Picture in ID2	Page in ID2
Cover 2 15 23 53 65 111 115 149 163 193 210 214 241 261	2179 2199 2188 2194 2189 2182 2195 2192 2198 2183 2191 2196 2190 2193 2197	073 083 076 083 077 074 083 080 082 075 078 082 079 081 082

"I like to do full color illustrations for novels because I regard such illustrations as laying the groundwork for full color manga in Japan some day. Of course, for this to happen, there first of all has to be a demand for full color manga..."

This is a comment about a detail of one illustration: "Say... looking closely at the background, I see plants where the leaves are separated from the branches... (gack!)."

Looking at the images, this novel takes place in present time and is about a special Police department whose officers possess magical powers and fight monsters. Probably another argument is the rivalry between the main characters and one of his colleagues.
Unfortunately this single book doesn't contains any more pictures than those reprinted inside ID2 "Blades" (pages from 073 to 083). Note that the real order is different (look at the table on the left).

The creation of this review has been possible thanks to Retep.

Shirow has illustrated Jashin Hunter, a Japanese novel by Izumi Makoto, published during April 1998.

Vol. 1: ISBN4-87892-142-0
Vol. 2: ISBN4-87892-143-9
Price: 740 yen (each)
Publisher: Seishinsha
Dimensions (mm): 148x104


It relates the tale of Sarah Nanamori, a beautiful "battle girl", who is confronted by a mysterious man, named Rabbi Lash, who claims to be her long lost father. Deciding not to believe him, Rabbi Lash must find another way to convince Sarah that she is Earth's best hope in defeating the evil Gregor, whose human features hide a terrible tentacle monster, and his hanger-on Slusha. When Gregor orders the Deepones (monsters who look like anthropomorphized fishes) to capture Manami Ayase, Sarah's best friend, Sarah has no choice but to enter alone into the base of the Dagon's secret religious organization to confront the beasts in a sort of fighting tournament and attempt to rescue her friend.
Each book features 11 full color illustrations (included cover art) by Shirow. A soft porn story (not so "soft" looking at the pictures), Jashin Hunter is also know as Demon Hunter. Thanks to Asrafrate.

Jashin Hunter is one of Shirow's works explicitly not included inside ID2 "Blades" (the other is the Orion NRPG). Shirow: "Had I included material from Demon Hunter - produced in the 1997-1998 time frame - it would have skewed the content of this book in a much more erotic direction, so it's not included [...]."

The picture on the right has appeared, amongst others, on sale at Franken on-line manga shop. I'm sure that these images were created for Jashin Hunter (Sarah, Gregor, Slusha and Manami are easily recognizable) but they weren't used for the two books. Perhaps they were rejected by the publisher and later recycled this way.

Book 1		Book 2
Chapters	Page	Chapters	Page
Prologue - Power and Glory Ultimate Warriors Federation Captured Second Rendezvous Symphony of Destruction Suzukake do - ri 3cho - me O-Fortuna	7 14 62 101 192 233 241	O-Bumbrata Into the Arena Flame of Mind Mortal Combat Epilogue - Go! Go! Heaven	8 33 138 177 263

Valeria File is a novel divided in two books, published by C*Novels - Fantasia. Book 1 Code: ISBN 4-12-500584-2 Price: 1,200 yen Pages: 445 Publishing date: 3/15/1999 Publisher: C*Novels - Fantasia Dimensions (mm): 175x111 Chapters Page File 001 Valeria File 2122 File 002 Hunting Falcon File 003 Lavoisier Crater 7 179 349 Full page illustrations: pages from 1 to 8, 179, 180, 349, 350. Illo: pages 90, 115, 177, 206, 232, 275, 333, 348, 422, 445. Shirow has illustrated this novel using a lot of computer graphic for both the serious and the super deformed pictures. Some of the 20 pictures are really impressive. Looking at the images only (Japanese text), the plot seems to be hard science fiction, about characters connected to the "Astraea Police Dept. 32". Initially the action takes place in the Astraea City, then the characters go in the space and make a trip to the Moon. Also there is an attack flying vehicle called "Hunting Falcon", which has to have an important role. On the cover of Book 1: Valeria (female in background), Hunting Falcon (under the title) and Matsuyama Kou (the man on the right). Book 2: Letitia Rodriguez (right background); she is a computer technician and perhaps the main character (many pictures are about her). Book 2 Code: ISBN 4-12-500595-8 Price: 1,200 yen Pages: 453 Publishing date: 5/15/1999 Publisher: C*Novels - Fantasia Dimensions (mm): 175x111 Chapters Page File 003 Lavoisier Crater File 004 Hack the Moon-Lab File 005 Spacejackers 7 75 239 Full page illustrations: pages from 1 to 8, 75, 76, 239, 240. Illo: pages 43, 92, 116, 181, 225, 238, 324, 432, 448.

Book 2 cover story These images have been scanned from the advertisement pages at the end of the two books. As you can see the work to create the cover of Book 2 has been long. Note the differences about the type of title and the position of the Hunting Falcon compared to the cover utilized (look above).

	Pictures Copyrights From the Top: 1) Taima Keisatsu ©1998 Shirow/Cosmo Engineering. 2-3-4) Jashin Hunter ©1998 Shirow/Seishinsha. 5-6-7-8) Valeria File ©1999 Shirow/C*Novels. Left: Orion ©1991 Shirow/Seishinsha.