Masamune Shirow - PIECES 2 Phantom Cats

Title: PIECES 2 Phantom Cats
タイトル: 士郎正宗プレミアムギャラリー PIECES2 Phantom Cats
Pages: 88
Release date: 04/12/2010

Reading Time: 2 minutes

PIECES 2 Phantom Cats is essentially a small and compact version of the popular and rare Galgrease Galhound poster books that Masamune Shirow released circa 2002 and 2003. The illustrations were originally magazine posters, but you can now have it all in one with PIECES 2.

I haven’t been an avid collector of Masamune Shirow’s works since most came out before my prime collecting days, so PIECES 2 serves as a nice gathering of illustrations I had only previously seen online. This full color book is A5 size, so it’s slightly larger than a manga volume, but smaller than the average doujinshi. Surprisingly, it’s also hard cover. Even though it’s just 88-pages, it’s great quality.

Though they may have just escaped my notice on previous publications, I believe the first three illustrations in the book are new. After that begins the re-collections of the Galgrease Galhound series. These illustrations have aged really well because even after all these years, I think Masamune Shirow’s style still looks amazingly polished. I never feel like his works are unfinished. And as expected with this artist, there are quite a few lewd images, but for some reason they seem so much more tame than I remember…

Since the original Masamune Shirow Galgrease Galhound poster books aren’t really an option anymore, PIECES 2 does a great job of bringing those works all together. Maybe we’ll see something similar for Hellcat or Wild Wet West in the future. Either way, the low cover price of ￥1440 ought to entice even marginal fans to grab a copy.