Style: Shotaro Ishinomori « = Rag ‘N’ Azure =

Style: Shotaro Ishinomori

I’m told to pick a designer or artist which I admires and follow one of his style, be it color treatment or style of drawing.This is the manga artist I have chosen,

Shotaro Ishinomori,
章太郎石ノ森
image from http://wikipedia.org

As a fan of super powered hero shows since young, I have always wonder who created such awesome (in my context) shows. So when I had my computer, I went on and search the guy who created my childhood heroes. And there, Shotaro Ishinomori was there, waiting for me to worship him and continue to be addicted to his shows.

As quoted from Wikipedia:

Cyborg 009, created in 1963, became the first superpowered hero team created in Japan. That same year, Kazumasa Hirai and Jiro Kuwata created Japan’s first cyborg superhero, 8 Man (which predated Kamen Rider by eight years). The success of the tokusatsu superhero TV series Kamen Rider, produced by Toei Company Ltd. in 1971, led to the birth of the “henshin” (transforming) superhero (human-sized superheroes who transform by doing a pose, and use martial arts to fight henchmen and the weekly monster), and resulted in many sequel shows to this day.

Ishinomori’s art is quite reminiscent of that of his mentor, Osamu Tezuka. The true story of his first meeting with Tezuka was illustrated in a short four-page tale drawn up as supplementary material for the 1970s Astro Boy manga reprints. Around 1955, Ishinomori submitted work to a contest seeking new talent in the magazine, Manga Shonen. Tezuka was impressed by his drawings and asked Ishinomori to help him with Astro Boy. In the American release, this story can be seen in Volume 15, along with Ishinomori’s earliest work on the “Electro” story arc.

I also found out that he also draw comics for one of my favorite games, Link to the Past, or better known as Zelda, and many super powered heroes anime like Cyborg009.

During his later life, a young mangaka called Kazuhiko Shimamoto approached Shotaro Ishinomori to do Skull Man at the end of 1997. Little did Shimamoto dream that, one of many whom Ishinomori had inspired was chosen for the collaboration and resurrection of Skull Man. However, this has became his final collaboration work of his life.

Shotaro Ishinomori died of a heart failure on January 28, 1998. His final work was the tokusatsu superhero TV series, Voice Lugger, televised months later. A manga museum named in his honor opened in Ishinomaki, Miyagi in 2001.