1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,920 I'm MJ Munoz bringing you a little notice, a little advertisement. 2 00:00:05,920 --> 00:00:16,000 Ishinomori Shatari Ishinomori's birthday is January 25th, 2025 this year. 3 00:00:16,000 --> 00:00:19,040 However, Shatari Ishinomori is no longer with us. 4 00:00:19,040 --> 00:00:20,040 He died. 5 00:00:20,040 --> 00:00:25,260 He would have been 87 years old this year. 6 00:00:25,260 --> 00:00:27,000 He died at 60 years old. 7 00:00:27,000 --> 00:00:32,880 It's been 27 years since his death and interestingly enough he died January 28th which is just 8 00:00:32,880 --> 00:00:39,360 a couple days after his 60th birthday which is kind of an interesting factoid. 9 00:00:39,360 --> 00:00:46,360 I have been thinking a lot about Ishinomori because I have a very strong emotional attachment 10 00:00:46,360 --> 00:00:48,600 to some of his work, not all of his work. 11 00:00:48,600 --> 00:00:50,840 I'm not going to pretend that I've read everything. 12 00:00:50,840 --> 00:00:53,160 I haven't even read all of Cyborg 009. 13 00:00:53,160 --> 00:00:56,320 I haven't read all of Kikaiiter, Ori Nazuman. 14 00:00:56,320 --> 00:01:00,000 I've watched a decent amount of Kamen Rider for me. 15 00:01:00,000 --> 00:01:03,880 I'd like to watch more and I've read all of the Kamen Rider manga which I absolutely love. 16 00:01:03,880 --> 00:01:06,800 There's so much good in the Kamen Rider manga. 17 00:01:06,800 --> 00:01:09,160 I've also read Skull Man which I have a review of. 18 00:01:09,160 --> 00:01:13,080 I also have a review of the official Seven Seas Go! 19 00:01:13,080 --> 00:01:18,480 Ranger and the official Seven Seas Kamen Rider collections that they did which is the original 20 00:01:18,480 --> 00:01:20,560 1971 Kamen Rider and the Go! 21 00:01:20,560 --> 00:01:23,320 Ranger from whenever that was, 75 or something like that. 22 00:01:23,320 --> 00:01:27,360 Anyway, I have reviews of both of those up on my website and on the YouTube channel and 23 00:01:27,360 --> 00:01:30,280 wherever else you can get it in the podcast feed and whatnot. 24 00:01:30,280 --> 00:01:35,960 But as we're coming up on Shitao Ishinomori's first anniversary, 87 years, I decided I'll 25 00:01:35,960 --> 00:01:42,840 go ahead and check out some things of Ishinomori because I again have been thinking about him 26 00:01:42,840 --> 00:01:47,000 a lot recently for various reasons, mostly because of my own creative work that I'm doing, 27 00:01:47,000 --> 00:01:48,520 the creative projects that I'm doing. 28 00:01:48,520 --> 00:01:52,560 And I decided I'm going to put a little thing out for people to say, hey, you know what, 29 00:01:52,560 --> 00:01:55,760 why don't you read something from Shitao Ishinomori? 30 00:01:55,760 --> 00:02:00,600 Why don't you, yeah, why don't you read something that he wrote or watch the, I think it's the 31 00:02:00,600 --> 00:02:03,560 Scissors Jaguar episode, no, Scissors Jaguar is from V3. 32 00:02:03,560 --> 00:02:08,600 Anyway, there's a specific episode that I know like Iggy Devil from a long time ago, 33 00:02:08,600 --> 00:02:11,160 Paul, had suggested that people check out. 34 00:02:11,160 --> 00:02:14,680 Ishinomori is, I think he's the director of the episode of Kamen Riders, like episode 35 00:02:14,680 --> 00:02:15,680 78 or something like that. 36 00:02:15,680 --> 00:02:17,360 You can look it up on a wiki, I'm sure. 37 00:02:17,360 --> 00:02:18,360 You can watch that. 38 00:02:18,360 --> 00:02:25,200 I think he makes an appearance in it or you can go ahead and read some of his officially 39 00:02:25,200 --> 00:02:28,200 released manga or you can read some of his unofficially released manga, whatever you 40 00:02:28,200 --> 00:02:29,200 want to do. 41 00:02:29,200 --> 00:02:33,920 But just to kind of tap into and tune into the wavelength of the, and the frequency of 42 00:02:33,920 --> 00:02:39,680 this genius mangaka, I really do think that the manga, the Go! 43 00:02:39,680 --> 00:02:42,560 Ranger manga, the Kamen Rider manga are wonderful. 44 00:02:42,560 --> 00:02:43,560 They do have their flaws. 45 00:02:43,560 --> 00:02:48,320 There are imperfect things in there that either because I'm not Japanese or because he made 46 00:02:48,320 --> 00:02:53,440 me messed up and you know, it may sound ridiculous and it may sound like cope, but I'm suggesting 47 00:02:53,440 --> 00:02:56,280 those two things as reasons. 48 00:02:56,280 --> 00:02:59,720 There were some things in the manga, panel to panel, in some areas that I just didn't 49 00:02:59,720 --> 00:03:03,600 understand and connect with, didn't make sense to me, didn't like, honestly, and thought 50 00:03:03,600 --> 00:03:04,680 like, hey, why'd you do that? 51 00:03:04,680 --> 00:03:11,180 You wasted time and energy drawing this cityscape or whatever, as opposed to just giving me 52 00:03:11,180 --> 00:03:13,080 more story. 53 00:03:13,080 --> 00:03:17,520 And the thing is, I'm into the stories I enjoy, the media I enjoy, because I love the stories. 54 00:03:17,520 --> 00:03:23,400 And I do think there's a deep, beautiful, emotional story in Kamen Rider, in Go! 55 00:03:23,400 --> 00:03:29,880 Ranger, to a lesser extent in Skullman, mostly because I think that's just so nihilistic, 56 00:03:29,880 --> 00:03:32,640 although I do want to revisit that this year. 57 00:03:32,640 --> 00:03:37,240 I'm actually, I pulled it up, I had bought the Skullman when the comicsology was still 58 00:03:37,240 --> 00:03:41,880 a thing, and now it's just ported over to my Kindle store, so I have Skullman. 59 00:03:41,880 --> 00:03:45,520 I'd like to read that and revisit it this year for sure. 60 00:03:45,520 --> 00:03:49,200 But also, this isn't something that Ishinomori made, but it's something about his creative 61 00:03:49,200 --> 00:03:52,320 process, and I'm hoping to get some insight into him and the other people who made Kamen 62 00:03:52,320 --> 00:03:56,160 Rider, which is by checking out The Men Who Made Kamen Rider, which is a, I think it's 63 00:03:56,160 --> 00:04:01,120 a pretty short, like 50 or so page, one-shot manga. 64 00:04:01,120 --> 00:04:04,560 And I'm definitely interested in checking that out this year, because I just kind of 65 00:04:04,560 --> 00:04:09,560 want to get a little closer to the old man, get a little closer to Ishinomori and get 66 00:04:09,560 --> 00:04:13,960 a little more insight into what he was doing when he was creating Kamen Rider, what he 67 00:04:13,960 --> 00:04:16,960 was thinking when he was creating Skullman. 68 00:04:16,960 --> 00:04:21,440 I knew that Crossfire is kind of like an in-between design thing, which is something that actually 69 00:04:21,440 --> 00:04:28,880 got rolled into the Shin Kamen Rider manga, which is the Shocker manga, really, which 70 00:04:28,880 --> 00:04:34,120 I can't remember what, it's like the ugly world or something like that. 71 00:04:34,120 --> 00:04:39,840 Anyway, but there's a Shin Kamen Rider prequel manga that seems really fabulous, and I just 72 00:04:39,840 --> 00:04:43,880 haven't checked it out enough, but Crossfire ends up being in there, which is pretty cool. 73 00:04:43,880 --> 00:04:49,840 Anyway, I'm talking about early pre-Kamen Rider stuff, because when, I think it was 74 00:04:49,840 --> 00:04:55,680 Toei or maybe it was just TV Asahi at the time, when they wanted this Tokusatsu show, 75 00:04:55,680 --> 00:05:01,640 they went to Ishinomori because I believe he had done some designs for some other stuff, 76 00:05:01,640 --> 00:05:04,520 and they liked his design work. 77 00:05:04,520 --> 00:05:08,160 I'm sure they liked him as a mangaka, but they liked other TV design work that he'd 78 00:05:08,160 --> 00:05:10,720 done, so they went to him again. 79 00:05:10,720 --> 00:05:18,240 And then he, as I understand it, he upcycled Skullman into Kamen Rider and just made it 80 00:05:18,240 --> 00:05:22,960 a different thing and gave it kind of a different flair, but you can see some of the bones there 81 00:05:22,960 --> 00:05:26,720 of Skullman in Kamen Rider. 82 00:05:26,720 --> 00:05:31,920 And anyway, yeah, so I thought it hit me, like, I should check that out and see if it's 83 00:05:31,920 --> 00:05:33,280 available, and sure enough, it is available. 84 00:05:33,280 --> 00:05:36,880 There's a scanlation of it, so I'm going to be, I'd like to read that, I'd like to read 85 00:05:36,880 --> 00:05:37,880 Skullman. 86 00:05:37,880 --> 00:05:42,800 I'm going to kind of review and talk about both of them, because I think that doing that, 87 00:05:42,800 --> 00:05:47,840 taking a second pass at Skullman will help me for my creative projects that I'm doing 88 00:05:47,840 --> 00:05:54,000 on my own, because I basically, through a convoluted bunch of stuff I won't tell you 89 00:05:54,000 --> 00:05:58,800 about right now, I've decided to look at Skullman and think about Skullman for a little while 90 00:05:58,800 --> 00:06:05,520 and consider kind of doing my own not Skullman, and maybe even an old, my own not Skullman 91 00:06:05,520 --> 00:06:10,440 literary universe of Tokusatsu Heroes, Henshin Heroes, and I think that could be pretty 92 00:06:10,440 --> 00:06:14,360 cool, I think there's a lot of good, I think there's a lot of merit to that idea, and it's 93 00:06:14,360 --> 00:06:17,080 something I'm planning to explore, but I thought, you know, while I'm doing that, let me just 94 00:06:17,080 --> 00:06:22,280 check out Skullman itself and see what it's like, and it's, that project is actually something 95 00:06:22,280 --> 00:06:25,280 I was thinking about, because I was thinking, ah, I want to do something, do a short story 96 00:06:25,280 --> 00:06:30,840 or something, as like an homage to Isshin Amori, because the man created so much stuff. 97 00:06:30,840 --> 00:06:35,480 I don't know about any beef he had with people, I don't think he was like a spiteful person, 98 00:06:35,480 --> 00:06:39,200 I don't really know much about him as a person other than what he put into his stories, and 99 00:06:39,200 --> 00:06:43,480 I definitely think he was an interesting guy, but something important about him is that 100 00:06:43,480 --> 00:06:48,240 he was a man who focused on work, whether it's because he desperately needed the money, 101 00:06:48,240 --> 00:06:52,360 or because he just loved the work, I think it was definitely rooted in his love for the 102 00:06:52,360 --> 00:07:03,000 work, in drawing and writing stories that captivated people, I think that's, you know, 103 00:07:03,000 --> 00:07:09,880 I think that was core to his prolific-ness, yeah, his prolific-ness as a writer, or as 104 00:07:09,880 --> 00:07:15,240 a manga artist, which is why he has the, what is it, the God of Manga award that he was 105 00:07:15,240 --> 00:07:20,720 given, or the title that he was given, and I just admire his ability to work so fast 106 00:07:20,720 --> 00:07:24,280 and to work so hard and to do so much, and I thought, you know, maybe I should write 107 00:07:24,280 --> 00:07:29,940 a short story, like a one-shot kind of deal, kind of homaging his work, maybe with some 108 00:07:29,940 --> 00:07:34,960 of my work, and then the more I thought about it, I thought, you know, maybe I should do 109 00:07:34,960 --> 00:07:38,960 a little something else, a little something a little more expansive, and I realized I'm 110 00:07:38,960 --> 00:07:43,400 not going to have time to do everything I'd want to do to honor him and to say thank you 111 00:07:43,400 --> 00:07:47,960 to him for his work, which has impacted me deeply, which the real thing that impacts 112 00:07:47,960 --> 00:07:51,760 me about GoRanger and more specifically Kamen Rider, and maybe there's a little bit of something 113 00:07:51,760 --> 00:07:57,240 there in Skullman, especially with the notes that he gave to have the Skullman reboot done, 114 00:07:57,240 --> 00:08:00,920 is the finding redemption, like no matter all the dark things you've done, no matter 115 00:08:00,920 --> 00:08:04,960 all the bad things you've done in your life, there is a path to redemption, and you can 116 00:08:04,960 --> 00:08:09,760 do it, and you can do good even if you're unworthy, even if you're not a good person, 117 00:08:09,760 --> 00:08:14,980 you can do good and make a difference in the world, and I think that beautiful core message 118 00:08:14,980 --> 00:08:20,720 is what's at the heart of Kamen Rider specifically, and it's part of what draws me to it so dearly, 119 00:08:20,720 --> 00:08:25,120 so neatly, so keenly, I don't know how to say that, but I'm very drawn to Kamen Rider 120 00:08:25,120 --> 00:08:28,880 and the ideas within it, because not only is it his pursuit of justice, but it's also 121 00:08:28,880 --> 00:08:35,880 his reclaiming of his humanity that's beautiful to me, and I feel like I should be a better 122 00:08:35,880 --> 00:08:42,160 person than I am, and I feel like Kamen Rider gives me the permission to keep trying to 123 00:08:42,160 --> 00:08:48,960 be that better person even though I fail, because well, that's who I am for now. 124 00:08:48,960 --> 00:08:52,640 Anyway, so I encourage you to please read something by Shitaru Ishimori. 125 00:08:52,640 --> 00:08:57,760 He's a great manga car, great storyteller, there's beautiful messages in his work, and 126 00:08:57,760 --> 00:09:02,800 they are spectacular to look at and to behold as a visual medium, and so I plan on doing 127 00:09:02,800 --> 00:09:09,480 that, and before I did that, I wanted to invite you to do the same, and anyway, yeah. 128 00:09:09,480 --> 00:09:15,160 This is MJ, I just wanted to make it clear real quick that I did in fact read Skullman 129 00:09:15,160 --> 00:09:19,480 again, and I have a re-review that I made. 130 00:09:19,480 --> 00:09:23,640 I say it's short, but it's actually closer to 20 minutes long, which is fine, and then 131 00:09:23,640 --> 00:09:30,200 I also read and kind of did a review of chapter one of The Men Who Made Kamen Rider. 132 00:09:30,200 --> 00:09:32,560 I don't know if there's actually a chapter two, which I talked about in that review, 133 00:09:32,560 --> 00:09:35,980 so I won't talk about it here anymore, but just letting you know, I did end up doing 134 00:09:35,980 --> 00:09:38,160 some reading, and I'm going to get those out. 135 00:09:38,160 --> 00:09:41,000 These will probably all come out on the same day because of time constraints, but I'll 136 00:09:41,000 --> 00:09:46,800 kind of space them out, and hopefully folks check them out, and they check out at least 137 00:09:46,800 --> 00:09:51,880 some of Ishimori's work, but yeah, definitely Skullman is a hard recommend, and so is The 138 00:09:51,880 --> 00:09:52,880 Men Who Made Kamen Rider. 139 00:09:52,880 --> 00:09:56,320 It's really interesting, really fascinating. 140 00:09:56,320 --> 00:10:00,760 Check out his work, and I encourage you to stick around because I plan on making more 141 00:10:00,760 --> 00:10:02,240 and getting back into the swing of things. 142 00:10:02,240 --> 00:10:09,280 I had some family medical issues to deal with that kept me away from making my regular Tokusatsu 143 00:10:09,280 --> 00:10:16,240 review content, and I hope that now that that's over, or forever, much at the end of it, that 144 00:10:16,240 --> 00:10:20,960 I will get back into the swing of that, and I will get back to writing my own projects 145 00:10:20,960 --> 00:10:26,800 because I feel the need, I feel the drive to create, and when I'm not writing and creating 146 00:10:26,800 --> 00:10:32,960 stories it hurts me somewhere in my soul, and I feel a kinship with Ishimori because 147 00:10:32,960 --> 00:10:35,880 I think he probably felt the same way about his manga. 148 00:10:35,880 --> 00:10:39,140 Anyway, that's all I have to say for now. 149 00:10:39,140 --> 00:10:40,560 Check out everything I have going on. 150 00:10:40,560 --> 00:10:45,020 Go to MJWinters.com to keep up with me, and you can even check out GrowBugs.com for some 151 00:10:45,020 --> 00:10:48,000 information about my middle grade novel that I'm working on. 152 00:10:48,000 --> 00:10:56,360 You can sign up for the newsletter and find out updates on the book, find out little insights 153 00:10:56,360 --> 00:11:00,680 about what it's about, and also find out when it's going to come out, and you can preorder 154 00:11:00,680 --> 00:11:06,280 and all that good stuff and help me get this book going because it'd be really great. 155 00:11:06,280 --> 00:11:08,000 Thank you so much for your time and attention, folks. 156 00:11:08,000 --> 00:11:09,000 Take care. 157 00:11:09,000 --> 00:11:31,040 I'll see you next time.