It was originally printed in Japan from 1998 to 1999 in the monthly manga magazine Dengeki Comic Gao!, published by MediaWorks.

[1] Teenager Ken Kurosawa is a Japanese-American freelance martial artist turned street thug, who hires himself out for money in order to care for his sickly younger sister Mariko, after their parents died.

One other key difference between the original comic and the manga version of Spawn, was that the Hellspawns in the manga are said to not die off completely and return to Hell, as was supposedly going to happen to Simmons at first, but rather they would be recharged and sent back to Earth, potentially losing more and more of themselves as each time happened, supposedly growing ever stronger, but also becoming just flat out evil, or else simply losing touch with that which made them originally wish to return to life to begin with.

Since Kurosawa is brought back to Earth seven years after his death, he apparently is 'born' as a Spawn literally simultaneously with Al Simmons, as, again, events in the American comic book, at least partially, had an effect on a character in the manga (namely Clown/Violator), and thus the Spawn manga may be viewed to be an alternate universe that has unofficial, but still partially visible ties to the original material.

On a side note, images of the reporters in the American Spawn comic can be seen on TV screens when Kurosawa is studying with Cheveyo.

In Jason Thompson's online appendix to Manga: The Complete Guide, he describes Shadows of Spawn as having "crude" art and ultimately being a "tedious read".