Crescent Moon Publishing – förlag

THE ART OF MASAMUNE SHIROW

VOLUME 3: EROTICA

by Jeremy Mark Robinson

This is a study of the erotic art of Masamune Shirow (real name Masanori Ota, born in 1961, Kobe, Japan), a Japanese artist best known for the comics Ghost In the Shell, Appleseed and Dominion: Tank Police. 

Masamune Shirow is one of the great creators in the world of Japanese manga and animé - his works have been the basis of several important franchises, with Ghost In the Shell the best-known. Shirow's art is marked by futuristic, cyber-punk settings, fabulous, often eccentric designs, elaborate mecha (such as tanks and mobile suits), attractive warrior women and detailed storytelling (accompanied by his famous, sometimes arcane notes). 

The impact of the work of Masamune Shirow has been immense in animé and manga: Ghost In the Shell alone led to not one but two classic movies, two outstanding TV series (plus a third, the Arise series), and spin-off movies. Add to that the live-action Ghost of 2017, and more Ghosties on the way. Then there's the Appleseed digital animations and Appleseed cel animation, plus Black Magic, Real Drive, Ghost Hound (Unseen World) and Dominion: Tank Police. It all adds up to a remarkable presence in TV and movies. 

In cinema, Masamune Shirow's influence is easy to spot in the Star Wars prequels, in the Matrix movies, in Avatar, in Minority Report, in the Avengers series, and in many a superhero flick. 

This is one of the first studies of the erotic art of Masamune Shirow in the West. 

Eroticism has always been a part of Masamune Shirow's art, from his earliest works. Shirow has produced a significant amount of erotic art since the 1990s in the form of single images (his pin-ups), collections of images with a theme (his calendars and posterbooks), and groups of images with a simple plot (his erotica, published in colour books such as Gallhound, Pieces, Galgrease, Greaseberries, Wild Wet Quest, Wild West Quest, W Tails Cat and Hellhound). 

The Art of Masamune Shirow: Volume 3: Erotica includes a biography; chapters on Shirow and the Japanese manga industry; Shirow's signature works in erotic art (such as his posterbooks and pin-ups); on the Intron Depot series; on the sexual content found in his well-known works (such as Appleseed and Ghost In the Shell); and on his other manga. 

Each of Masamune Shirow's erotic publications are studied in this book, including Hellcat (pirates), Hellhound (horror/ fantasy), Galhound (sci-fi), Wild Wet West (cowgirls), Wild Wet Quest (action-adventure), and the Greaseberries series and the W Tails Cat series (sci-fi teams). 

Fully illustrated with over 300 images from Masamune Shirow's whole output. There is also a censored version of the book's text. 

The Art of Masamune Shirow is published in three volumes: 

Volume 1: Manga

Volume 2: Animé

Volume 3: Erotica

Over 18's only. 

Hardcover - full colour laminate cover with a colour jacket. 

Bibliography, resources and notes. 544 pages.

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THE SACRED CINEMA OF ANDREI TARKOVSKY

A major new study of Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky (1932-1986), director of seven feature films, including Mirror, Andrei Roublyov, Solaris and The Sacrifice. ?This book explores every aspect of Andrei Tarkovsky's output in the most detailed fashion - including scripts, budget, production, shooting, editing, camera, sound, music, acting, themes, symbols, motifs, and spirituality. Tarkovsky's films are analyzed in depth, with scene-by-scene discussions.

This is an important addition to film studies, the most painstaking study of Andrei Tarkovsky's work available.

Contains 150 illustrations, of Tarkovsky's films, Tarkovsky at work, his contemporaries, and his favourite painters.

Andrei Tarkovsky is one of the most fascinating of filmmakers. He is supremely romantic, an old-fashioned, traditional artist - at home in the company Leonardo da Vinci, Pieter Brueghel, Aleksandr Pushkin, Fyodor Dostoievsky and Byzantine icon painters. Tarkovsky is a magician, no question, but argues for demystification (even while films celebrate mystery). His films are full of magical events, dreams, memory sequences, multiple viewpoints, multiple time zones and bizarre occurrences.

As genre films, Andrei Tarkovsky's movies are some of the most accomplished in cinema. As science fiction films, Stalker and Solaris have no superiors, and very few peers. Only the greatest sci-fi films can match them: Metropolis, King Kong, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and 2001: A Space Odyssey. Tarkovsky happily and methodically rewrote the rules of the sci-fi genre: Stalker and Solaris are definitely not routine genre outings. They don't have the monsters, the aliens, the visual effects, the battles, the laser guns, the stunts and action set-pieces of regular science fiction movies.

No one could deny that Andrei Roublyov is one of the greatest historical films to explore the Middle Ages, up there with The Seventh Seal, El Cid, The Navigator and Pier Paolo Pasolini's 'Life' trilogy. If you judge Andrei Roublyov in terms of historical accuracy, epic spectacle, serious themes, or cinematic poetry, it comes out at the top. Finally, in the religious film genre, The Sacrifice and Nostalghia are among the finest in cinema, the equals of the best of Ingmar Bergman, Luis Bunuel, Robert Bresson and Carl-Theodor Dreyer.