What Are the Intron Depot Art Books?
Shirow’s color archive, self-published in installments since 1992.
Intron Depot 1, published by Seishinsha on July 17, 1992, gathers Shirow’s full-color illustration work from 1981 to 1991: 148 large pages, 226 illustrations, 193 of them in full color, spanning Appleseed, Dominion, Orion, and Ghost in the Shell. Shirow’s own foreword explains a deliberate omission: he left out 34 color pages from Ghost in the Shell, including pages drawn specially for the tankobon, so as not to devalue the book itself, an artist rationing his own archive. The series continued for decades (Blades in 1998, Ballistics in 2003, Bullets in 2004, and beyond), making Intron Depot the standard shelf for Shirow’s color work.
THE DEPOT FILES
Selected volumesIntron Depot 1 (1992)
ISBN 978-4-87892-011-0. The 1981–1991 survey: 47 works published for the first time, with the Ghost in the Shell chapter drawn from covers, posters, and the tankobon’s color pages.
Intron Depot 2: Blades (1998)
209 fantasy illustrations from 1992 to 1998, with bilingual commentary and technique notes for each piece: the analog-to-digital transition, documented by its author.
The 1997 game art book
Kodansha published an official art book for the PlayStation game, presenting Shirow’s character and mecha designs for it: the rare case of the manga author designing his own adaptation’s machinery.