He returned to Tokyo and began a bohemian existence, living out of cheap pensions while translating André Gide's Les Caves du Vatican and Molière's Le Misanthrope and Tartuffe.

[1] In early 1938, when Japan's war against China was at its height, Ishikawa published the brilliantly ironic Marusu no uta (マルス の 歌, Mars' Song), an antiwar story soon banned for fomenting antimilitary thought.

Along with the likes of Osamu Dazai, Sakaguchi Ango, and Oda Sakunosuke, Ishikawa was known as a member of the Buraiha (literally "Ruffian") tradition of anti-conventional literature.

In the post-war period, he wrote Ogon Densetsu (黄金 伝説, Legend of Gold, 1946) and Yakeato no Iesu (焼跡 の イエス, Jesus in the Ashes, 1946).

On the other hand, Shokoku Kijinden (諸国 畸人伝, Eccentrics and Gallants from around the country, 1955–1957), is a series of biographical sketches of unusual persons from various points in Japanese history.