Ishinomori’s Heroes Cameo in The Skull Man Manga

Can you identify them all?

Yes, you are not blinded. That is the last page of the final volume of the Skull Man written and illustrated by Kazuhiko Shimamoto. In case you are wondering, where is Ishinomori in it? Well, he was credited as the original creator and this manga was created as a follow-up of the original 70’s one-shot.

In case you are wondering, how Shimamoto ended up in it, here’s how. As revealed in the afterword in the first volume of Skull Man, after he agreed on collaborating with Ishinomori in Cyborg 009, one of his staffers asked him that Ishinomori wants to give Skull Man to him. Since he is a fan, he agrees. Of course, it’s a dream come true for a fan. After this, he was faxed with the notes and illustrations regarding the follow-up. He later discuss further details with Ishinomori, those details include the plot, the villains and some minor details. On one of their conversations, he was surprised to learn that Ishinomori-sensei wanted him to do what he would like to do with the manga.

Since you have a brief detail about the guy, you now have the idea why he decided to place the cameos in the end of the manga. Heck, all fans wanted to see cameos of older heroes in other Ishinomori related titles that is one of the reasons why Kamen Rider Decade: All Riders vs. DaiShocker was a hit in Japan!


Aside from those heroes, in which I challenge you to identify all of them if you can, Kamen Rider made an appearance in the manga… well on a different persona. To give you a short answer regarding the Rider that appeared, let me burst your bubble. Skull Man had a different Rider. Instead of the Showa Riders, we have an original character in a form of a police officer named, Hioka who was kidnapped by the Syndicate to be turned into one of their mutants.

It was successful but his mind is stronger he was able to control himself and use his newfound mutant abilities to escape… and gets the hang of it. His first appearance when he escaped looked like a mix between Shin and ZO (Which Shimamoto created a manga version based on the film.). Which he use to fight off the guards in the lab in which he was taken, so is the rest of the praying mantis (As Hioka sees it, but it looks like a grasshopper to me.) mutants that would later appear in the final volume. He would later appeared wearing, I repeat, wearing the garments that looked similar to the design of Kamen Rider in THE FIRST movie. However, like THE FIRST, he never had a transformation sequence, instead, he just transforms into a grasshopper mutant if he wanted too.

Aside from that, in some chapters, Ryusei (the name that Tatsuo Kagura adopted later on after learning the truth) and his sister, Maya wear garments similar to the garment wore by the cyborgs from Cyborg 009.

As a fan of Skull Man and Kamen Rider, I am jealous on what happened to Shimamoto-sensei. Doing a sequel of a title created by Ishinomori-sensei, the King of Manga with his blessing will surely make one fan jealous… and one fan proud.