Skull Man (Original)

 

Skull Man A.K.A. スカルマン (Sukaru Man)

Release Date - January 1970

Country of Origin - Japan

Written by Shotaro Ishinomori

Artwork by Shotaro Ishinomori

Many people who are fans of manga A.K.A Japanese comics (manga actually does mean comics in Japanese and is used to describe all kinds of comics, not just what we Westerners refer to as manga) like to debate who the best mangka is (the Japanese word for a comic artist or cartoonist). The names thrown out in said debates can honestly range all over the place. Somebody might say that Osamu Tezuka is the best while somebody could say Akira Toriyama is the best, or maybe even Masahshi Kishimoto will get a mention. To put it simply, while people may share the same opinions on who is the best, it is not uncommon while discussing the subject of who the best mangaka is to hear a variety of opinions.

So who do I your esteemed critic say is the best person to ever hold the title of mangaka? Why it is quite simple my darlings. Shotaro Ishinomori. ‘Nuff said. Okay maybe I should explain a wee bit more.

 

Shotaro Ishinomori (石ノ森 章太郎 Ishinomori Shōtarō) born as Shotaro Onodera (小野寺 章太郎 Onodera Shōtarō) before changing his family name to Ishinomori in 1986 has quite the pedigree in Japanese entertainment. Ishinomori has created many long running series in Japan in manga, anime, and tokusatsu (Japanese for special effects). His career started in 1963 with the series that gave Japan it’s first team of super heroes: Cyborg 009 (サイボーグ 009 Saibōgu Zero-Zero-Nain). Super heroes would become Ishinomori’s thing as he went on to create many popular dramas (mostly for the Toei Company) such as Android Kikaider (キカイダー Kikaidā), Hneshin Ninja Arashi, Inazuman (イナズマン), Kaiketsu Zubat (快傑ズバット Kaiketsu Zubatto), and countless others. However his main source of fans and everlasting impact comes from being the creator of the hit tokusatsu franchise Kamen Rider (仮面ライダー Kamen Raidā), as well as creating Himitsu Sentai Gorenger (秘密戦隊ゴレンジャー Himitsu Sentai Gorenjā) which is the first entry in the equally big franchise Super Sentai which would later lead to the creation of Power Rangers in America (Ishinomori also created the second sentai called J.A.K.Q. Dengekitai). In short Shotaro Ishinomori is a beloved and much (and rightfully so) admired mangaka whose work has had an everlasting influence on both Japanese entertainment, but also American entertainment.

So it is at this point that it becomes quite obvious that we are going to be looking at one of Ishinomori’s works. The work we are looking at today is a simple one shot, a story which was told in a single volume and left at that (well until 1998 that is). But this is also the story that is considered to be the grandfather of Kamen Rider and in fact, the original Kamen Rider is an adaption of this story. Today we look at Skull Man (スカルマン Sukaru Man).

Skull Man first appeared in 1970 in Weekly Shōnen Magazine (週刊少年マガジン) and upon release became an immediate sensation within Japan. Skull Man is actually one of the first antiheroes in manga, and along with how dark the story is made the short so successful. Think of Skull Man like Batman, except he dresses like a skeleton (not really though) and has a gun, and kills people, on purpose. Can you see why in 1970 this would have been successful? I’m not the biggest reader of old school manga but from what I have seen, Skull Man is definitely quite the oddity considering most series back then were either romantic, comedic, and while action packed, they weren’t as in your face/dark as Skull Man was.

Now as I mentioned, Kamen Rider is an adaption of Skull Man…sort of. Skull Man was used as the basis of the show, however Toei and producer Toru Hirayama made several changes to the story, as they felt it was too dark and gruesome for a children’s television show (this coming from the company which has a kid’s show about a Battle Royale esque story where people fight to death). So the story was changed to be more kid friendly and Skull Man lost his skeleton appearance and took on the appearance of a grasshopper (supposedly the image of a grasshopper was picked by Ishinomori’s son after seeing some doodles). However Ishinomori through the changes and all considered Skull Man to be his preferred version of the story, which isn’t shocking if the rumors of Shin Kamen Rider: Prologue being his favorite Kamen Rider is true. Anyways I think you get the picture. I’ve rambled on long enough; let’s dive into the story that started it all! Fair warning, there will be spoilers. Lots and lots of them. So if you don’t want the story ruined for you, you may want to just stop reading this review (perhaps even check out another review from the Poe Ohlin library).

Japan is in a state of fear as a string of mass murders happens. Investigating the case is the police, specifically the Tachiki Detective Agency. As they investigate the most recent crime (a laboratory that was assaulted and blown up) a survivor of the attack reveals to them that the person behind the crime is Skull Man. Skull Man is a man dressed in black attire (including a cape) and wears a white mask/helmet on his head. He carries a gun with him and apparently can hypnotize people with the eyes of the mask (they glow but I’m not 100% positive it hypnotizes people, they could just glow for an eerie effect). Along with Skull Man comes his aide Garo, a man who has the ability to shape-shift into different animals, though we only see him turn into a bat, werewolf, and alligator man throughout the story. A police chief named Tachiki recognizes the name, as apparently Skull Man and Garo have been behind all of the recent killings.

Soon after the investigation into the latest case begins, a young man named Tatsuo Kagura barges into their office, he carrying a detective in who died. As it turns out, Tatsuo is the son of the man behind the Kagura Gang, he even acting as the gang leader when his father is away. Tatsuo is a bored little boy and demands to be put on the Skull Man case so that he has some entertainment. Tachiki is hesitant at first but allows Tatsuo into the detective agency after performing a background check. The two begin working on the case together, Tachiki even telling Tatsuo the background of Skull Man.

The back story of Skull Man goes that when he was three years old his parents were killed. According to Tachiki, they were pretty dangerous people. Since then the police have been looking for that boy, they believing him to be the man behind Skull Man. To try and track him down, the agency investigates every three year old in Japan. With every year that passes, they investigate a new age group. All they know is that since Skull Man’s reign of terror has gone on for 15 years, he must be 18 since the prime suspect disappeared 15 years ago when the crimes began.

While Tachiki and Tatsuo continue to investigate, Skull Man strikes again. A body is found with a gunshot to the head, they recover a car from a river, four people were murdered in a forest, and a commercial airplane is blown up. Tatsuo ends up not coming to work for a week, he soon returning though. His absence comes a bit suspicious to Tachiki, as Tatsuo was missing when the most recent crimes (the four murders in the forest and airplane explosion) happened. Tachiki has actually been suspicious of Tatsuo for a while, especially considering how he randomly popped up and asked to be a part of the detective agency.

Tatsuo leaves the police HQ that day and returns to a mansion hidden with the woods/swamp (it’s kinda both), the same mansion where we the reader saw Skull Man and Garo emerged from earlier. This confirms what the reader already knew (seriously I’m not even kidding. You can tell its Tatsuo from his first appearance if you pay attention to how he and Skull Man speak); Tatsuo is Skull Man. Tachiki already knew this however, for as quick as Tatsuo arrives at his hideout the police surround the place. Garo ends up bursting out of the mansion to fight the guards, as well giving Tatsuo a chance to escape.

Tatsuo doesn’t escape though; he ends up appearing behind Tachiki dressed as one of his guards. Tatsuo then explains that the reason he killed everybody is because he is trying to find the man that murdered his parents (Tatsuo was adopted by the Kagura family). Tatsuo learned that certain people were connected to his parents’ murderer, and thus decided he would kill all of them and work his way up to the killer. After hard pressing Tachiki for a bit, Tachiki gives up the man’s name. Tatsuo kills him and heads off to the home of a man called Kogetsu Chisato.

Once there, Tatsuo and Garo come across a blind mute girl named Maya, as well as Chisato himself. The sight of the man responsible for the death of his parents sends Tatsuo into an intense rage, he threatening Chisato as well as explaining his plan. Before he can kill Chisato however, Maya uses telepathy to persuade Tatsuo to not kill Chisato. She also reveals some big news to our antihero. This news is major, this is the news the whole comic was…not really working up to. So what is the big news? Well it turns out that Maya is Tatsuo’s sister and Chisato is their grandfather. But oh wait, that isn’t all.

Turns out that Tatsuo and Maya’s parents were (get a load of this) mutants. Yes you read that correctly, mutants. Tatsuo’s father and mother were really smart when it came to science, so smart that Chisato describes them as inhuman geniuses. The couple was also conducting experiments that if they wanted to, could destroy humanity. Scared of this Chisato killed Maya and Tatsuo’s parents’ right after Maya was born. He planned to kill Tatsuo as well; however Garo took Tatsuo and escaped. He also thought about killing Maya but could not bring himself to do so. With Tatsuo gone, Chisato took Maya in as his own and raised her.

After dropping the bomb, Tatsuo starts freaking out and Maya tries to calm him down. Chisato however brings the four into a room with glass walls and traps them there. He sets the place on fire and eventually the four die in the inferno in a tragic, horrible fashion. The end.

So that was Skull Man. How was it? Well let me dive into my thoughts about the work.

The story of the manga isn’t really all that bad, especially for a one shot. One shots being one volume long sometimes tend to not succeed well in the story department. That’s not to say all are like this, but it isn’t uncommon. Skull Man though has a nice story which fits the one shot format really well. It moves along quite well enough so that everything builds onto each other. When you get to the final sections of the comic, you’re pumped and ready to see how it all resolves. It has a (somewhat) clear beginning middle and end. It’s also easy to see why Toei wanted to change the story around for Kamen Rider, as it’s a pretty dark story. I rarely ever see the darkness in stories people tell me are really dark, but this is a case where I see it fully. Tatsuo is definitely an anti-hero in all senses of the word here. He has a goal of revenge which has taken over his life. A goal that he wants to reach so much that he will kill people to achieve. And not just people involved with the person he seeks revenge against, he’ll kill innocent people such as the couple in the woods, passengers on the plane he blew up and the train he derailed, he’s willing to do whatever it takes to reach his goal even if he has to sacrifice the lives of innocent people to do so. That is why the story is so dark. Tatsuo’s main goal which is the driving force behind the story is simply revenge and that he’ll tear through anybody who gets in his way or just happens to be around when he acts. But enough of the darkness how is the story in the end? Well as I said when I started, it’s a really nice story for a one shot, and it fits that format very well. It has good pacing, memorable moments, some nice lines; it’s just an all around good story, albeit a really dark one.

But what is a story without its cast of characters? Probably something really boring, but luckily Skull Man has an interesting cast of characters. I pretty much already talked about Tatsuo n the last paragraph and the only other thing I can say is that he’s a nicely done character. So what about the other characters? Tachiki comes off as your regular old detective. But like Tatsuo, he’s obsessed with his end goal, the goal being to capture Skull Man. Because of that he falls into the typical character that an obsessed cop has, however he doesn’t get overly obsessed to where he shuns everything to work on the case. So for that I congratulate Ishinomori for not writing him that way. Overall, he’s not that bad of a character. As for Chisato and Maya, they aren’t really in the comic long enough to have developed characters to speak of. They come in right at the last minute and the only purpose of them seems to be to drop the information bomb. I would have preferred it if Tatsuo and Chisato fought for a little bit and then Maya came in and dropped the bomb of information on Tatsuo. It would have made for a better ending to me as well as given Chisato at least some more purpose other than being the giver of news. And as for Maya, yeah I don’t think her role here could be improved unless she was older, dated Tatsuo, and then in the end they pulled an Oldboy on the reader. But that’s just a little too much out there, so Maya is pretty much worthless as a character to me. And outside of those four, the other characters (including Garo) are just worthless and throwaway characters. Now out of the four, only Tatsuo and Tachiki really shine through as being good characters. Chisato had potential to be a good character, but he ended up being a missed opportunity. And as for Maya, she’s as pointless as the rest of the characters. So I would have to say that the characters here are pretty poor outside of Tachiki and Tatsuo.

Finally we come to the artwork. Ishinomori’s artwork is very similar to that of Osamu Tezuka, which makes sense since Ishinomori did in fact study under Tezuka. It’s a very distinct style when it comes to the way people are drawn. The human character designs are pretty nice, though some do look really similar (especially when you first are introduced to the detective agency). Skull Man’s design is very nice; I especially love the jacket part with how regal it looks. There’s just one thing though, he doesn’t looking like a skeleton! Serious how can he be called Skull Man but not look like a skeleton, or at least have a helmet that looks like a skull? Thankfully though, the 2007 version rectified this. But I digress. It is a good design; I just wish it looked more like the character’s namesake. However the true beauty of the artwork comes from the set pieces. My God do these look amazing. The scene in which Tatsuo and Garo ride through a swamp are some of the best pieces of artwork I’ve ever seen in a comic. The opening pages are also great and just scream good old gothicness. Once again, they’re some of the best I’ve ever seen. So as a whole, the artwork in Skull Man is really good. The character designs are good and the landscape/set piece artwork is just perfection.

Well after all of this, is Skull Man the dark grotesque masterpiece it is praised to be? Not really. First off while the story is in fact dark nothing is really all that grotesque. There’s some blood but not enough to be considered gory. While the artwork can be scary at times, it never comes off as gruesome. So I’d have to say that the comic is in no way grotesque, but it is as dark as people say it is. But darkness and grotesquery aside, how is the total package? While it isn’t the masterpiece some people make it out to be, it is a very good work in the realm of comics. Its story is nice and compact (though I do have one gripe I’ll go over in a minute), it has some phenomenal artwork, and while its character amount is small, the ones that are meant to be important are…slightly important. Maybe I should get to my criticisms now.

As I mentioned I do have a gripe with the story. I think they throw way too much at you in the final pages of the comic. First we are told that Tatsuo is Skull Man and given his reason for being Skull Man, that’s fine. But just a few short pages later the reader is hit with another twist about Tatsuo’s past. All of this comes too quickly right after each other in my opinion. Plus, I really don’t like how the final twist is rushed to where it’s just blurted out. I honestly do believe it should have been dragged out a bit with a fight between Tatsuo and Chisato before it was revealed, not immediately when Tatsuo arrives. The other complaint I have is in fact about the characters. We have four characters that play an important part in the story: Tatsuo, Tachiki, Chisato, and Maya. The problem is that only two of them are treated like major deals. Chisato doesn’t show up until the end and he doesn’t really do anything except spill knowledge that affects Tatsuo in a major way. He should have been portrayed as a really important character but in the end wasn’t. As for Maya, she’s pointless. Utterly pointless. She’s like Chisato but handled even worse with no purpose at all except for adding a bit of shock value. But that doesn’t make her a character; it just makes her a plot point. This along with the seemingly rushed/back to back twists just sort of bring the whole product down some, at least to me they do.

However those are my only strikes against the book. Everything else is great stuff to me. As a fan of Kamen Rider, it was really great getting to read the story that gave birth to the franchise I love so much. Plus it allowed me to finally read some of Ishinomori’s work that wasn’t a Kamen Rider story. So personally, I found it a great ride for those reasons. Critically I found Skull Man to be a really nice little comic. It’s a got a nice compact (If slightly muddled) story with great artwork to back it up. The original Skull Man has not been released physically outside of Japan yet. However it was released digitally in 2012 by Ishinomori productions and can be found online on a few manga sharing/reading websites.

The Skull Man is a must read in my opinion for any fan of Shotaro Ishinomori’s works, or is a fan of Kamen Rider. If you’re neither of those things, I’d still say it’s definitely worth a read. In the end, it gets my seal of approval and is one of the better comics I’ve read in recent years, regardless of what time it comes from.

A

*Images courtesy of Google*