Shaman King anime reboot (2021)

Okay I've been curious about this for a while, but whats up with the whole legal issues surrounding Shaman King?

Like it was originally published in Jump but stuff happened & now its no longer considered a property? Like I recall thats one reason why Yoh can't show up in Jump Force.

Whats the whole deal behind that?

Oh my god, I just realized HOW long it took the original anime to get to the Patch village. In the manga, it took 108 chapters out of 300, and much of the Shaman King tournament takes place in the arena in the Patch village. In the anime, it took 45 episodes out of 64. In the manga, it was around 1/3rd of the way through the story, in the anime, it was around 2/3rds of the way through the story.

For some reason, the anime decided to adapt multiple fights that were originally in the Patch village arena as fights during the trek to the Patch village, including Team The Ren vs Tsuchi-Gumi, the X-Laws vs the Niles, and Team Funbari Hot Springs vs the Icemen.

Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Jun 14th 2020 at 9:03:59 AM

Kodansha bought the IP from Shueisha

We don't really know why this happened, but it's been speculated for a while that Takei didn't get along well with the folks at Shueisha

Edited by Hylarn on Jun 14th 2020 at 9:03:04 AM

Another thing I realize is that, once they get to the Patch village, the anime goes full filler. Almost everything from this point forward was not in the manga.

So to recap, the anime is similar to the manga with light filler up until episode 25. From that point on, it starts diverging from canon heavily until episode 37 where they should have made it to the Patch Village but instead, they just adapt the canon fights from the tournament while continuing the trek to the Patch Village, which happens on episode 45. From that point on until it ends at episode 64, the anime goes completely original and nothing even vaguely resembles anything that happened in the manga.

Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Jun 14th 2020 at 9:10:39 AM

It's less filler and more the narrative going completely off the rails set by the manga, as you've picked up on (e.g X-Laws having their whole narrative transplanted). Namely by way of the aforementioned Lily Five, who are actually around a lot more than I remembered upon rewatch and get a whole character arc dedicated to them. There's even a fillertastic episode where one of the Lilly Five gets her oracle stolen by a Australian Shaman with a spider spirit who didn't classify for the tournament and is thus trying to get in the tournament by stealing her oracle. It's some shit.

That episode also features one of the gags that made me laugh the most in the whole thing: Ryu calling BILLY ANDERSON in the middle of the goddamn woods and him inexplicably showing up just when Horohoro and Ren are pointing out how illogical it'd be for him to show up at this point.

I'm now exactly at the midway point of the anime. Stray observations:

• I forgot how long it takes for Faust to show up back again. Half the series has gone by and still no sign of him.
• The aforementioned episode involving the Australian Shaman is the silliest and wackiest thing in the entire anime so far and it's 10/10.
• Actually pretty interesting how the anime uses the filler bits to chip away at Lyserg's confidence in the group since they keep getting side-tracked by random (mostly filler) quests and Lyserg just wants to move along to the Patch Village (setting up Lyserg joining with the X-Laws later on). Lyserg just hates filler that much, I suppose.
• One of the filler episodes has the pretty interesting idea of letting Horohoro (a conservationist Ainu Shaman) bond with a filler character called Allen (a conservationist Native American Shaman). It's pretty cool seeing those two vastly different ethnic groups (yet bound by a history of colonial oppression) bond and discuss perspectives. It's not as profound as it could be but it's one of the nicest filler episodes so far.
• Hao is a genocidal madman who deserves to burn in Hell. Just a reminder.
• The Br dub had one of its finest hours so far. There's a minor Shaman enemy called Green Garam (the old guy with the clown spirit) alongside two others named Savage Pan and Mr. Little Lake. In the BR dub the old man speaks in a Northeastern drawl and is named "Gonzaga", while Little Lake is called "Luis". The Northeastern drawl and the names "Luis" and "Gonzaga" are references to a legendary Northeastern Brazilian musician Luiz Gonzaga. It's a completely random reference with no real bearing in the plot, but it's a pretty neat one.

Although I am still annoyed that 4kids again really tried to take out the fact it was a Japanese based series, I can understand them taking out the violence but renaming characters that are heavily tied to Japanese customs and lore is just pure stupidity. Acknowledge it's Japanese based and just tone down the violence. And ironically, some parent groups still complained because they really don't know how violent anime can get.

Gaon where are you watching the show?

Through perfectly legal means and not Youtube, where the whole series is available dubbed in Portuguese.

I don't judge on this issue.

Who currently has the rights for this show then?

You know, the more I read about this anime adaptation, the more I hate it. The manga has such a strong story and pacing and the anime just completely screwed it up. I'm SO glad that Shaman King is getting the Brotherhood treatment, it really deserved a good adaptation that did justice to the story. There's so many moments and characters I'm really looking forward to from the manga.

Eh, I'll stand by it. It does some things better than the manga, some things worse. Both have their strengths. The manga is probably the better work on the whole, but the anime has the considerable advantage of not having one of the worst endings in manga history.

I prefer the manga ending, and I think it's one of the best endings in manga I've seen. It's more thought-provoking and subversive, and this series has never been a typical shonen, it absolutely is the kind of series to go "okay, so the main villain isn't completely redeemed, but he is willing to change his mind enough to give humanity another couple decades to see if we can prove to him that we're worth keeping around", and I always love stories that end with kind of a "you, too, can prove that humanity is worth saving today by doing something good" message at the end.

Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Jun 14th 2020 at 10:54:21 AM

And I’ll say is I really hope the dub of the reboot keeps Hao’s name change to Zeke.

I cannot tell you how much I love that name change, it’s fucking hilarious.

Unlikely as it is, I hope they go right through into Flowers/All Stars afterward.

I have never been in such virulent disagreement with you. I don't think an ending where a genocidal mass-murderer gets 100% vindicated with next to no change in his soul and becomes God with no repercussions would be acceptable in any medium or genre. I find it downright insulting and nihilistic, rendering much of the previous narrative practically void in meaning both in terms of character progression and themes. It's a hair-brained attempt at outsmarting the plot that crashes on a brick wall and collapses under the weight of its own staggering incompetence.

Both endings interestingly suffer from the same problems: being rushed, lacking in execution and poorly thought-out. It's just the anime ending is a more traditional shonen one (if more open-ended than usual) and works on a more basic scale.

Myself, if I had to come up with some sort of ideal ending blending what I liked of both, I'd probably end up on something akin to Hao gets taken down and the tournament ends with no Shaman King. There is no god in charge anymore and these future 500 years will be guided by mankind and mankind alone, for only the world can save itself. Maybe have it shades of The Magic Goes Away allá the ending of The Lord of the Rings where the Shamans have to, for the first time, live in a world without a Great Spirit and try to integrate themselves in the new world rather than hiding from it.

I feel like that might be a possibility depending on the success of the reboot. The fact Flowers came back and a anime was announced in relatively close proximity (well, two years, but still close) seems like something indicating that.

Edited by Gaon on Jun 14th 2020 at 11:16:49 AM

I'd be down for adding some of the backstory and side-story content to the main manga series at various points, then moving into the sequel after it ends (as long as the sequel is finished, I don't want a repeat of the same situation that prompted this decision in the first place).

Well, I disagree, and I have no intention of changing my mind.

Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Jun 14th 2020 at 11:18:38 AM

I suppose the fact we have technically two concurrent sequel series would presumably help.

The fact we're getting a reboot at all really does indicate that Shaman King as a property is still successful enough to be worth the investment.

35 million manga sales really does mean something. So the sequels (or sequel since Super Star is just Flowers that got saved from cancellation) may get adapated.

At the very least, they will definitely be reprinting the manga in brand-spanking new special editions/omnibuses to celebrate & sell off of the animes return.

I mean if I were a business man, I think thats the smart thing to do when something thats already over gets a new show.

Edited by slimcoder on Jun 14th 2020 at 11:21:25 AM

They already announced they were going to re-print the manga. It came at the same time they announced the anime, the wording was something like "this anime will be a faithful adaptation of all 35 volumes of manga, which will also be re-printed".

I'm with Pushover here. I love the manga ending. I find it to be nearly profound. It made me stop and think and it evoked emotions that wholly defied my expectations. It's not a happy ending, but it's a hopeful one.

Edited by Zeromaeus on Jun 14th 2020 at 2:28:15 PM

Ahhhhhh. Good, thats good.

Huh so Viz is the one who originally localized the manga. I wonder if this will inspire them to bring in the sequels as well.

Edited by slimcoder on Jun 14th 2020 at 11:26:37 AM

Agreed. Definitely better than "Spirit Bomb". It's a very complex and thoughtful way to end a series and apparently the sequel numbs a bit of the Fridge Horror from it, so there's not even that much to complain about, really. It's not like the sequel isn't canon, it was canon before the ending was even canon.

@Gaon: Really just sounds like a personal problem, tbh. I don't think such endings should be rendered "unacceptable in any medium or genre" as that not only disrespects artistic integrity, but also sounds pretty didactic. Especially when Hao's target of genocide is against the human race as a whole and not a specific group of them.

Didn't Viz lose the rights when the publisher went from Sheushia to Kodansha?

Edited by Rynnec on Jun 14th 2020 at 1:34:23 PM

Besides, Hao is pretty different in the manga than he is in the anime, a lot more tragic and sympathetic.

Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Jun 14th 2020 at 11:37:39 AM