Where to Start with Shotaro Ishinomori
— Choosing Between Cyborg 009 and Kamen Rider

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If you are reading Shotaro Ishinomori in English for the first time, open Kamen Rider: The Classic Manga Collection. It puts the whole original manga in one hardcover. If you would rather have a long science fiction story, look for the 10 English volumes of Cyborg 009, which stop at the point where the story first comes to a close.

It is easy to feel lost here. Ishinomori’s complete works edition runs to 500 volumes, and it earned a Guinness World Record for the most comics published by one author. Ishinomori drew science fiction, period dramas and even manga that explain economics, so the books on the shelf hardly look like the work of one person. We will not try to cover it all. This guide narrows things down to four ways in.

The best place to start

If you read in English

English editions are limited, so the list is short.

Why not Cyborg 009 first? For Japanese readers it is our first pick. In English it is harder to get. Tokyopop’s 10 volumes appeared from 2003 to 2005, and a 2013 guest column by Shaenon K. Garrity on Anime News Network said that this edition was out of print. Comixology licensed Ishinomori’s entire catalog from Ishimori Productions in 2012, and English Wikipedia says it made the first 10 volumes available digitally. Comixology announced in 2023 that its app would merge into Amazon’s Kindle app. We could not confirm that those digital volumes are still on sale, so search Amazon.com and check the listing before you go looking for used copies. Comixology also released Kikaider, starting with volumes 1 and 2, and the original Skull Man, and the same caution applies.

Know what is in the Kamen Rider book. Seven Seas compiled all four volumes of the original manga into this omnibus, in a new translation, with bonus material and color inserts. The Japanese digital edition divides the same manga into 3 books. We could not confirm which Japanese edition the English book follows.

For much of Ishinomori’s other work, we could not confirm an official English edition: Sabu and Ichi, Hotel, Jun, Ryu no Michi, Genshi Shonen Ryu, Bancho Wakusei, the Genma Wars manga, Sarutobi Ecchan and the Kamen Rider Black manga. The database MangaUpdates lists all of them as not licensed in English. Links in the Japanese path below search for Japanese books, and Amazon.com may show few results.

If you read Japanese

Pick the way in that fits your mood. You do not need to follow them all in order.

If you cannot decide, we recommend Cyborg 009. It stands beside Kamen Rider as a signature work, and it shows clearly a theme common in Ishinomori’s manga: a hero who betrays the people who gave them power and goes on fighting alone. If it suits you, Kamen Rider and Kikaider should come easily.

If you want to sample first, two 2026 Kawade Bunko paperbacks collect nothing but first chapters. They are introduced in the Kamen Rider section below.

Books that are easy to mix up

Several English books carry a famous name but are not the original manga.

“Ishimori” and “Ishinomori,” and who drew what

If you hunt for older Japanese books, watch how the name is written. Cyborg 009 and Kamen Rider both first appeared under the name 石森章太郎 (Ishimori Shotaro). According to the official chronology of Ishimori Productions, the artist changed it to 石ノ森 (Ishinomori) on July 1, 1986, to mark 30 years since their debut (some sources say 1985). The name comes from their hometown of Ishinomori. It was meant to be read “Ishinomori,” and the reason given for the change is that people only ever read it as “Ishimori.” When you search for used books, try both spellings.

Also, the name on the cover and the person who drew the art are not always the same. Ishinomori drew nearly all of the Cyborg 009 that ran in magazines, but the art for works such as the Kamen Rider series is said to have often been left to others. There are also works by other manga artists, such as Cyborg 009 BGOOPARTS DELETE by Tsuguo Okazaki. If you want Ishinomori’s own drawing, check the artist’s credit. The Japanese book counts in this article all refer to the Ishinomori Shotaro Digital Taizen e-books.

Treat Cyborg 009 as a story that first ends with the Yomi arc

Cyborg 009 is the story of nine cyborgs built by the arms dealers of Black Ghost who turn against the organization. Ishinomori drew it right after a trip around the world, so the nine come from all over the globe. The number nine came from the “nine” of a baseball team. Ishinomori described this work as a first work as a manga artist, drawn with a professional’s awareness (our translation).

The reason it lasted so long is a little unusual. The serial in Shōnen King was canceled when the editor in chief changed, and the last arc ended unsatisfyingly. According to an editor at the time, Weekly Shōnen Magazine then asked Ishinomori to draw the true ending in its pages. The result was the Underground Empire Yomi arc, and the story came to a close there for the time being. But readers flooded in with requests for more, and new stories went on being drawn in one magazine after another.

The English volumes

English Wikipedia lists Tokyopop’s 10 volumes against the first 10 of Akita Shoten’s Sunday Comics edition. They cover the same ground as the first goal we suggest for Japanese readers. Shaenon K. Garrity called the end of Volume 10 a nice wrap-up to the main story arc, so stopping there leaves you at a natural place.

The Japanese digital edition

Past Volume 8, you do not need to go in order. If you want short stories, Volume 20, with its 8 stories, is a handy choice. If you like the Immigration arc, you can jump to Volume 27, its sequel. That arc, People Drifting Through Time and Space, is also the last one Ishinomori serialized.

One thing to know up front is that this story has no ending by Ishinomori’s own hand. The Angels and Battle of the Gods arcs were left unfinished. Ishinomori kept working on plans for a final chapter but died without completing it. Ishinomori’s eldest son, Joe Onodera, finished the novel 2012 009 conclusion GOD’S WAR (3 volumes) from the notes and manuscripts left behind. It is not a manga, and its setting is a new interpretation that makes the warriors people of the 21st century.

If you came to this through the anime Cyborg 009: Nemesis (3 episodes), which began streaming in Japan in July 2026, it is fine to start the manga from Volume 1.

In Japanese paperback, Volume 1 is not the beginning

If you buy Japanese print editions, take care here. In Akita Shoten’s paperback and deluxe editions, buying Volume 1 does not get you the start of the story.

Volume 1 of the paperback and deluxe editions is the “Myths and Legends” collection. The paperback “Birth” arc fills the 4 books of Volumes 5–8 and runs from the start of the story through the Mythos Cyborgs. If you buy used paperbacks, collect from Volume 5, “Birth Part 1.” Akita Shoten’s Sunday Comics edition, 15 volumes from 1966, does not include the Battle of the Gods arc.

The Kamen Rider manga is not quite the source of the TV show

Kamen Rider is short, but it does not retell the TV show. In 1971 it began in Weekly Bokura Magazine, ahead of the broadcast, and moved to Weekly Shōnen Magazine when that magazine closed. It is often called the “original,” but strictly speaking it was drawn from the TV project. The show did not adapt this manga. Ishinomori is credited as creator because of contributions at the planning stage, such as the setting and character designs. The early part is close to the TV show, and from the middle it becomes its own story.

The difference shows in the setting too. Ishinomori thought of Kamen Rider as a body that had changed, but the design made for TV could only look like someone wearing a costume. So the manga added the idea that he wears a mask to hide his altered form. The meaning of the “mask” changes, and the more you know the show, the more you will enjoy that difference.

What you should know before buying is how it ends. The serial has only 6 chapters, each running over several weeks, and it stops without settling the fight with Shocker. If you expect to follow the battle to the end, as on TV, you may feel let down.

In English, the single Seven Seas hardcover is the simple choice. In Japanese, the easy way is the 3 digital books. If you care about the physical book, Fukkan.com publishes Kamen Rider: Original Edition (2 volumes, A5 size). It includes all the pages added for the collected edition and restores pages that had been printed upside down to their original state. It is an expensive set, so we would not make it your first book.

If you want more of the Rider that Ishinomori personally drew, the next step is Kamen Rider Black (5 books), serialized in Weekly Shōnen Sunday from 1987. It, too, differs in many ways from the TV series Kamen Rider Black. The one-shot Skull Man, said to be the prototype of the Rider, has a continuation drawn by Kazuhiko Shimamoto, which you can read in a Japanese collector’s edition (3 volumes). The same artist’s work came out in English from Tokyopop, as noted above.

Next, Kikaider

Kikaider (5 books) is the story of Jiro, who has an unfinished “conscience circuit.” Built on the Italian tale The Adventures of Pinocchio, it follows a robot with an imperfect conscience trying to come closer to being human. If you open it expecting a hero of justice defeating evil, you will probably be surprised. For a taste of the bitterness in Ishinomori’s work, this is the one to read after Kamen Rider.

It is hard to know which of the other heroes to try. That is where the two paperbacks in Kawade Bunko’s first-chapter collection, published in 2026, come in handy. These are Japanese books. Henshin Hero Tanjo (“The Birth of Transforming Heroes,” our translation) gathers the openings of 10 works, including Kamen Rider, Henshin Ninja Arashi, Kikaider, Robot Detective and Inazuman. Shudan Hero Tanjo (“The Birth of Team Heroes,” our translation) gathers the openings of 13 works, including Cyborg 009, Himitsu Sentai Gorenger and Genma Wars. Compare the first chapters and buy only the works you want to continue. Nothing goes to waste that way.

If you want stories for adults

Sabu and Ichi (Sabu to Ichi Torimono Hikae) is a linked series set in Edo in the Bunsei era, in which Sabu, a young assistant to a police officer, and Ichi, a blind masseur, solve cases. It began in Weekly Shōnen Sunday in 1966 and moved to Big Comic in 1968. After the move, the art gradually grew more realistic, and the stories deepened into adult dramas about people.

Where to begin depends on the edition. In the 18 digital books, Volumes 1–2 are the Shōnen Sunday stories and the Big Comic stories start at Volume 3 (the last books, 16–18, also include work from other magazines). Shogakukan’s complete edition of Sabu and Ichi (4 volumes), which began publication in 2026, is the reverse: it presents the Big Comic stories in serial order and puts the Shōnen Sunday stories in the last volume. If you want to start with the adult art, open Volume 3 of the digital edition. Ishinomori said that it is interesting to compare how the same heroes change when the readership changes, so we also recommend going back to Volume 1 afterward.

Away from period drama, there is Hotel (30 books), set in the huge hotel Platon. If you like economics, there is Manga Nihon Keizai Nyumon, published as 4 volumes in Japan. The 3 e-books at BOOK☆WALKER are set at a bank, an accounting firm and the Economic Planning Agency, and they appear to match Volumes 2–4 of the print set. We could not find the first volume, about a trading company employee. It portrays the Japanese economy of the 1980s, so it is better read as a story of that time than as a guide to today’s systems.

In English, Japan Inc. came out from University of California Press in 1988. MangaUpdates also lists a second volume from Lanchester Press. We could not confirm how the English books match the Japanese volumes.

If you also want something short and strange

Jun (Shotaro’s Fantasy World: Jun) has almost no dialogue and is read through its pictures and the flow of its panels. It ran from 1967 in COM, a magazine founded by Osamu Tezuka, and won the Shogakukan Manga Award. An editor has also left an account of Tezuka angrily saying that it “isn’t manga” (our translation). According to the same account, when Ishinomori raised ending the serial, Tezuka visited in person to apologize, and it went on to its conclusion. The digital edition is 2 books. Read the first one first, since the second gathers stories from other magazines and late works. This is a work that does not explain itself in words, so it will not be for everyone. Check a sample to see.

For long science fiction, there is the Ryu trilogy, in this order: Ryu no Michi (8 books), set in the future; Genshi Shonen Ryu (2 books), set in the past; and Bancho Wakusei (5 books), set in the present. Genma Wars (2 books), made with Kazumasa Hirai, is said to have ended when its serial was canceled. If you want to read a long story through to its end, open it knowing that.

If all the dark stories wear you out, take a breather with Sarutobi Ecchan (5 books), a bright comedy about a transfer student with strange powers who stirs up a school.

When you finish, try artists of the same era

Ishinomori moved to Tokiwa-so in the same year as graduating from high school and coming to Tokyo. Stories of how fast Ishinomori drew appear in Fujiko A. Fujio’s Manga Michi, and Ishinomori wrote about those days in a book of memories, published in Japanese. Go Nagai later served as Ishinomori’s chief assistant, and Leiji Matsumoto is a manga artist born on exactly the same date. Read them side by side and you can see how the manga of one era branched apart.

Whichever way in you choose, one book is enough to begin. For Cyborg 009, that book is Volume 1, where this long story starts moving as a kidnapped boy comes to be called 009.