Man, playing this game takes me back. I first played this game back in middle school, and even back then recognized its win. But what I didn't recognize then were the direct anime references scattered throughout the game. Now, being many years older, wiser, and nerdier, they stick out like a sore thumb for the most part. The "CURV" (Instead of Evangelion's "NERV") poster in Sanjuro's room got a chuckle out of me. What really threw me for a loop, though, were the other officer's quarters. I instantly recognized R. Hunter (Rick Hunter from Robotech, AKA Hikaru Ichijo from Macross) and M. Kusanagi (Makoto Kusanagi from Ghost in the Shell). I don't recognize the other names though. Help?

N. Izumi and A. Shinohara are Noa Izumi and Asuma Shinohara from Patlabor. Im not sure about that last one though.
Im in the same boat as you. I played this game back in the day and loved it, but did not realize what i was missing out on. Its not just the references either. From the minute the theme song starts playing its nothing but pure anime goodness.

No other game did anime like Shogo. It really nails my favorite era of anime.

Just finished Shogo. It was a lot of fun. I missed it the first time around. I'm glad GoG made it available.
Some other anime references I found throughout the game include:
Batou and Aramaki (from Ghost in the Shell) are written on a pair of buildings.
There is a billboard which features a red motorcycle that looks an awful lot like Kaneda's bike in Akira.
The name Ikari (as in Shinji and Gendo of Evangelion) is used in conversation late in the game.
As far as other anime-themed games go, Oni nailed the anime feel pretty well (athough it doesn't have anywhere near as many anime references as Shogo).

Oni - for me it's the best fighting game on PC, with great anime-like atmosphere and plot. I hope it will be available on GOG.com someday.
And thanks for these references - I played Shogo long time ago and didn't recognized any of them back then. :)

A few others no one has picked up on are.
The "Who is Caleb" poster is in reference to Caleb from the Blood series. Blood II is made with the same game engine as & by the same company. One of my favourite dark heroes ever... I love the way he laughs when throwing dynamite at people :P
The "Major Claw" sqeaky toy is in reference to "Captain Claw" game by the same company.

actually at the release of this game blood was NOT on this engine, it was on the build engine blood2 was on this engine but was released after shogo.