Starters for internal combustion engine

Provided are starters for securely starting an internal combustion engine. The starters have a reel rotatably mounted in a case, a starting rope wound on the reel, a rotor rotatably mounted in the case, a spring for storing energy with rotation of the rotor in a predetermined direction, an engaging mechanism for engaging the reel with the rotor with pullout of the starting rope to transmit a torque of the reel to the rotor to store energy in the spring, and an engagement release mechanism for releasing the engagement between the reel and the rotor at the start of rewinding of the starting rope onto the reel to rotate the rotor by a restoring force of the spring. This arrangement permits the internal combustion engine to be started readily and securely.