Audience reviews
10 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
MercuryFalcon
The Skull Man is more than just an adaptation. It adapts the story of the original manga, weaving in themes and characters from Ishinomori's greatest works from Kikaider, to Cyborg 009, Kamen Rider, Robot Detective K, the Flying Phantom Ship and many more. When I first saw the Skull Man I was curious and intrigued by its dark subject matter and mystery elements. When I learned of its connection to Kamen Rider and Cyborg 009 I began digging into the works of Shotaro Ishinomori. The more I dug the more I loved this series and I can confidently say that Yutaka Izubuchi and the staff at Bones deeply understand the soul of Ishinomori. Moral ambiguity is a key theme of many of Ishinimori's works and the Skull Man embodies these ideas. Someone with a nature for good but falls for dark temptations…
Read at the sourceephemerry
The story of Skull Man is an oh-so important one, the character is not only one of the first anti-heroes in anime history, whose design would later be the inspiration for the titular hero in Kamen Rider, but this series contains crucial subtext about Japan's political affairs. Shōtarō Ishinomori's Skull Man is a tale for the ages, it has the same gravitas as some of the most profound literary classics, though, sadly, is not as known in English-speaking countries as much as it should be.
⚠️ This review of Skull Man will contain spoilers ⚠️
—Story/Characters
Until I watched this series, I had only seen Shōtarō Ishinomori's "Android Kikaider"! The "Kikaider" story is one of the first things that really got invested in anime. I caught it on Adult Swim in elementary school (during fifth grad…
Read at the sourceMugetsu-
“Edgy Kamen Rider”? You wouldn’t be wrong, in fact, we’d be quite congruous. The concepts of Ishinomori Shotaro are what pushed what would become Kamen Rider forward and into the public eye. I can’t help but poke around and find this show very similar in many respects to the latest foot into the Samurai Jack franchise, both creators penned an idea that was censored and had its vision change to a different audience, and both made series afterwards that were more true to their original creation - Ishinomori has gone down and said this is the closest to the original spirit of his design. What does it do to separate itself from its nescient precursor? Quite a lot, and that’s not always a good thing.
The show itself, produced by studio Bones, is cold and roughly drawn in a dark, almost 90’s co…
Read at the sourceBiogundam
Warming this review may contain spoilers.
First impressions, so my first thoughts where that is was one of those anime remakes of a classic manga and it's sounds some what interesting based of its primise. So I thought this would be one of those anti hero story's which I am a big fan of.
Story, 3/10
Are story begins with main character hayato who has come back to his home town of otomo city,Which have become home for a mysterious cult and other dodgey dealings.
in order to investigate the mysterious the story's of monsters in the streets and a
Mysterious person known as the skull man who leaves a trail of body's in his wake.
So from what you can tell its one of those anti hero story's,
Which I am quite a big fan off.
The story in nut shell is main character is going around town look…
Read at the sourceKiraieAeterna
The thing which initially drew me into watching this anime was the poster for it. The skullman kneeling in a pool of blood. When I first saw that glorious picture I thought to myself, "yes! this is going to be legendary!"...little did I know that this would be the hope which propelled me into watching the whole series and not to drop it half way through. Let me explain.
The anime starts by introducing the characters and setting the mystery at hand, which is good. It doesn't just drop you into the story without any explanation. However, as I continued to finish one episode and go onto another, I felt a sort of heaviness. This was because I had the preconceived notion that this anime was going to be action packed, and due to this dissapointment, one after another in the first 9 episodes I f…
Read at the sourceramimanify
Yet another hugely underrated anime
the skull man is a refreshing story of man versus fear
and right from the very beginning you can tell how awesome the plot is going to be
true to its genre skull man gives off a nice complement to tragedy mixed with hardcore action, and a magnitude of gore thrown in for good measure, different from other anime of the same genre, skull man is made for mature audience, I find that clearly evident in the fact that it could provide its own taste of Realism as the story progresses to its final part
all combined, you get a nearly-crafted masterpiece
I myself enjoyed this show, and I could safely say that I was left with something good as it ended
I just cannot wait for another release as the ending was a major tease :)
Read at the sourceTo_aru_Oni
This had been something I've wanted to watch for a while, having first watched the promo years ago right before it aired; unfortunately, never managed to catch it when it first came out.
This was definitely an extraordinary series, with rich scenes and a wonderful musical score to boot. This brought me back to the days of Lupin and other mystery/suspense series that I enjoyed some time ago. The cast was quite colorful and the setting was an interesting change of pace. I did a bit of reading on this, and hadn't realized this was supposed to be a prequel for the Cyborg 009 series (it sets up the events that take place before and give birth to its main antagonist).
The series was solid, with great action, fluid animation and very human characters. I liked the supernatural element that was…
Read at the sourceTigerruby
I thoroughly enjoyed Skull Man. I found it randomly when I was surfing the internet and usually when that happens I don't find such good quality. There were some issues finding subbed episodes and places that had all of it but once I found a place I sat down and watched it. It's very confusing so I don't recommend that you just watch it every once in awhile. The plot has a very interesting layout and all of the characters are well defined but not so well as to give away much of what is to come. It's one of the first really mysterious and suspenseful anime's I've watched but overall I enjoyed it.
Read at the sourcejmoriarty84
This is based on an old manga by the legendary Ishinomori Shotaro, which would later pave way for Kamen Rider. Despite that, it is very much different from that series. The Skull man is a background character shrouded in mystery as well as why people turn into monsters. The anime is very slow if you don’t give it much attention, it isn’t really action oriented and emphasizes more on cracking the case, and yet defining what true evil is and covers a lot of philosophical and social issues on a local to international level such as corruption in relation to martial law and organized religion. It takes awhile to really develop the characters but the wait is worth it. Because some of the main characters are adults at a certain age, the only thing they have left to develop is a defini…
Read at the sourceVenneh
Title: The Skull Man
Manga, Anime: The Skull Man was originally a 100-page one-shot story done by Shotaro Ishinomori (famous for Cyborg 008 and Kamen Rider), released in Shonen Magazine's 1970 issue, and is cited as one of manga's first anti-heroes. Ishinomori did a rework of it just before he started work on the live-action show Kamen Rider (translated as Masked Rider) in 1971, as Toei wanted to use it for the basis of the show, and it was just a bit too dark and gory for a kid's show. And then in 1997, just before his death, he contacted Kazuhiko Shinamoto with plot points for a remake that would have a continuing storyline and have more complex artwork than the original. This version was released by Media Factory, and ran from April 7th, 1998 to May of 2001. The latest version is the o…
Read at the source