Shaman King

Shaman King (シャーマンキング, Shāman Kingu?), also known as "Mankin", is a manga and anime series by Hiroyuki Takei. The manga ended prematurely in Japan with 32 volumes in total. The anime concluded its run with a total of 64 episodes.

The Shaman King series started in Shueisha's Weekly Shōnen Jump in Japan, eventually leading to the creation of an anime series, which was directed by Seiji Mizushima, co-produced by TV Tokyo, Nihon Ad Systems and Xebec and aired on TV Tokyo. This is a Shōnen anime. In North America, the manga was initially printed in Viz Media's Shonen Jump, but stopped as of the September 2007 issue, choosing instead to release one volume every two months.

The Shaman King trading card game is available in Japan and North America.
Plot
Main article: List of Shaman King characters

Manta Oyamada, a shrimpy, studious middle-school student from Tokyo, attempts a shortcut one night through the graveyard to get home after a late night of cram school. While traveling through it, he encounters Yoh Asakura and his "companions": a graveyard filled with ghosts. Yoh reveals himself to be a shaman, a medium between the worlds of the living and the worlds of the dead. Yoh also demonstrates Shamans' ability to unite with ghosts to achieve a shared goal. Over the first few chapters, Yoh and Manta become best friends while Yoh uses his shamanic abilities to help them out through various normal tasks.

Yoh soon encounters Tao Ren, a Chinese shaman, and his ghost Bason. Ren is on a quest to destroy humanity as well as prepare for the upcoming "Shaman Fight" being held in Tokyo. The Shaman Fight is a battle held once every 500 years between competing shamans to choose a winner who will become the highly sought-after "Shaman King", one who is able to contact the Great Spirit (the spirit that every soul will eventually go back to). The winner gains the ability to reshape the world in any way they want. Anna Kyoyama, Yoh's fiancée, soon enters the picture and prescribes a brutal training regimen, in order to prepare Yoh for the tournament. Thus begins the plot that will lead Yoh on a journey that will lead him to many friends and adventures.

Through a series of events and also through participation in the Shaman Fight, Yoh meets and befriends numerous characters and changes their lives through friendship and authentic concern, which seems to be a pervasive theme throughout the series. Yoh must also face his ultimate destiny, connected to one of the most powerful participants in the Shaman Fight who desires to win the fight and annihilate all of humanity for destroying the world, leaving only a world of shamans such as himself.

[edit] Media

[edit] Manga
Main article: List of Shaman King chapters

The chapters of Shaman King were written and illustrated by Hiroyuki Takei. They were published in Shueisha's Weekly Shōnen Jump from 1998 to 2004.[1] The 285 chapters were collected into 32 tankōbon volumes by Shueisha. The first volume was released on December 3, 1998, and volume 32 on January 5, 2005.[2][3] Only 31 volumes were released once the publication ended, and the release of volume 32 (meant to be published on December 3, 2004) was delayed. Shueisha reported they would only publish volume 32 if they receive evidence of demand from approximately 50,000 people.[1]

During the Jump Festa 2008, Shueisha announced a kanzenban reprint of the entire series. The series is called Shaman King Kanzen-Ban, or Perfect Edition. This release reprinted the entire series in 27 volumes complete with new clear image overlays on the covers while concluding with the never-before-published "true ending." They are a total of sixteen new chapters which expanded the chapters' numbers to 300. It also added two chapters showing the fight between Marco and Luchist Lasso which was skipped in the original publication.[4] The first volume was released on March 3, 2008, and volume 27 was published on April 3, 2009.[5][6]

Viz Media licensed the series for an English-language release in North America, with chapters initially being serialized in the Shonen Jump. It started in the issue 3 from 2003, but stopped as of the September 2007 issue.[7][8] Viz is also publishing the volumes from the manga first at irregular date and now every two months. Volume 1 was released on September 3, 2003 and as of March 3, 2009, 21 volumes have been published by Viz.[9][10] In the US release, VIZ Media began editing the lips of Chocolove, an African-American character. The lips are reduced in size to avoid a Blackface stereotype. The language in reprints of early volumes was revised to remove profanity.[citation needed]