Ishinomori Mangakan

This museum (also known as the Ishinomaki Mangattan Museum) is dedicated to the manga artist Shotaro Ishinomori, creator of such masterpieces as Cyborg 009 and Kamen Rider, offering a three-dimensional representation of his imaginative world.
Shotaro Ishinomori was born in Nakada-cho, Tome District, Miyagi Prefecture (now Tome City). After making his manga debut in 1954 with Nikyu Tenshi (Second Class Angel), he worked on numerous hit comics and had a major impact on Japanese special effects and animation. During his student days, he used to visit movie theaters in the Nakaze area of Ishinomaki City. He decided to build a museum in the same area to create a lively atmosphere in the city center of Ishinomaki. The spaceship-inspired shape of the museum is based on his own idea.
The building is located in Nakaze at the mouth of the former Kitakami River, and the first floor was flooded by a 6.5-meter-high tsunami due to the Great East Japan Earthquake. The exhibits on the first floor were washed away, but learning a lesson from the tsunami that hit the area 100 years earlier, the original drawings and other valuable materials had been stored at a height of 8 meters or more, and they escaped the flooding.
The museum’s interior is all about amusement with exhibits that emphasize movement and convey the fun of dreams and manga to visitors.
The walking route from JR Ishinomaki Station to the museum is called “Ishinomaki Manga Road” and is dotted with murals and statues of characters originally created by Shotaro Ishinomori. Walking along the pathway is an enjoyable treasure hunt, with characters hidden everywhere, such as on a bench or postbox.