Yea, Appleseed could have been something huge. It had all the foundation of GITS and could have gone any number of places indefinitely.
I have to wonder if his well went dry or there were creator vs. corporate vision issues that led to him going the route he ultimately did. The guy was a rock star with GITS even before the first movie. I mean I’m not opposed to the finely rendered boob mind you but if you have talent and sit atop a goldmine, why not dig?
I always heard that the Appleseed manga was actually much more popular in the US than Japan at the time. It was one of the first Japan comics I can recall from my time on the comic scene, from eclipse with studio proteus doing the flip and translation. Blew most everything I had seen from US comics out of the water.
I did hear he wasn’t thrilled with some translation stuff but nothing about why he quit making awesome comics altogether. Every once in a while I look for interviews with Shirow, and have heard all sorts of stuff. If you squint you can have the appleseed world being later in the timeline of the GitS world.
Freegards