Ishinomori Shotaro was a Japanese manga artist born in Ishinomori, Toda, Miyagi, Japan. His real name was Onodera Shotaro (小野寺章太郎). Until 1984, he used the name Ishinomori Shotaro (石森章太郎).

In 1950, as a middle school student, Ishinomori sent a fan letter to Tezuka Osamu, which inspired his interest in manga. During his second year of high school, he published his first four-panel comic in the "Mainichi Chugakusei Shimbun." He entered Miyagi Prefecture’s Sanuma High School in 1953. By his second year, Tezuka recruited him as an assistant for "Tetsuwan Atom."

Ishinomori made his manga debut in 1954 with "Nikyu Tenshi" in "Manga Shonen." Despite his father's opposition, he moved to Tokyo after graduating from high school and began living in the Tokiwa-so, a residence for manga artists, including Tezuka.

In 1959, he briefly worked on the Toei Animation film "Journey to the West" and was persuaded to focus on manga by Shirakawa Daisaku. His work was eventually adapted into animation, leading to connections with the Toei Group and involvement in tokusatsu program planning.

Ishinomori left Tokiwa-so in 1962 and co-founded the animation studio "Studio Zero" in May 1963. He joined the Japan Manga Artists Association in 1964 and became a board member in 1981.

His wife, Onodera Toshiko, chairs the Ishinomori Group, while his sons include actor Onodera Jo and Onodera Sho, president of Ishinomori Pro. His cousin, Ishinomori Shiro, was a scriptwriter, and novelist Konno Satoshi is a distant relative.

In April 1992, Ishinomori was hospitalized with malignant lymphoma. Despite continuing to write, his condition deteriorated, leading to his death from heart failure caused by lymphoma on January 28, 1998, at Juntendo University Hospital in Tokyo, at the age of 60.

(Source: MyDramaList) Edit Biography