Assuming this series gets dubbed who do you think would be the new voice actors for the cast?
Personally I envision Yoh to be voiced by Bryce Papenbrook as both Yoh and Hao, Zach Aguilar as Manta and Erika Harlacher as Anna
For the Imperium!!!Anyone think they're gonna alter the Early-Installment Weirdness where Yoh didn't know what an Oversoul is despite that being the main way a Shaman fights?
It's possible they can just change it to Yoh not realizing it was an Oversoul back then, and it taking a while for him to make the connection. And then it's only after he's figured it out and merged Amidamaru with the sword that he realizes he's done this before.
That might fix it.
One Strip! One Strip!Well, re-reading Yoh's backstory, he actually did mention that he did not understand the term Oversoul back then, but his fight with Silva has him saying it's the first time he heard of Furyoku, something Matamune explained that him running out of it was why he's going to disappear. Yoh himself used said term too back then so there's no way he doesn't know that. Not to mention him being surprised at ghosts interacting with the real world when Matamune was a thing.
His human partner is a real shady manipulator type that's intentionally trying to break one of the antagonist characters, Black Maiden, mentally so that they can become a better tool for them to use in the F.O.M. It's to the point that he froze time and shot Iron Maiden Jeanne in the face, but set it up so that Black Maiden would believe she did it, even though she didnt have it in her to pull the trigger when Jeanne refused to defend herself.
YVS, the actual previous Great Spirit, believed that the world was a perfect utopia before Hao took over. Money is like food to him, and the upper class that can amass capital are the only people that matter to him.
Edited by Zeromaeus on Jun 19th 2020 at 2:22:53 PM
Well, it's very vague but Matamune says that he cannot maintain his current form without Hao's Furyoku, Anna saying that he's similar to her Onis, Tamao saying he's not a normal animal spirit and Hao saying he's turning him into a Guryoshin, a special spirit employed by Onmyouji as a protective spirit, suggesting that he's more of a created spirit by Hao changing his original pet cat into his protective spirit
Final stretch of the anime.
Stray observations:
- I forgot to comment but Silva working on a goddamn fast-food chain called "Patchdonalds" will never not make me laugh.
- It took a while but the BR dub finally managed to differentiate "Oversoul" and "Great Spirit" by calling Oversoul "Great Spirit(s)" and the Great Spirit "Good Spirit". It's still easy to confuse but hey, it's something.
- Manta's Shaman journey ("Shamanta"?) kicks in. I have to say pairing Manta (Yoh's tech-savvy best friend) with Mosuke (Amidamaru's tech-savvy best friend) was a stroke of brilliance on the anime's part, even if the decision itself to make manta a Shaman is divisive. Manta's Shaman moments are really awesome, though there's not much space for them (he does get to nearly single-handedly save the day against the previously mentioned Exorcists and gets an awesome Big Damn Heroes part to play in the final bout against Hao).
- Funny how despite the two radically different storylines, The X-Laws go out the same way in both: a Heroic Sacrifice that is ultimately fruitless. In this case by way of the gameplan of "The Gates of Babylon" (a spirit prison), which fails miserably to stop Hao and segways directly into the Darkest Hour. Though it's moderately more useful here as it leads to Lyserg unlocking his supreme final form of "Angel Morphine" (Morphine fused with all the X-Law angels).
- Said Darkest Hour is the entire shaman tournament derailing to shit. After eating Jeanne's guardian spirit a juiced-to-the-gills-in-power Hao decides he's tired of this tournament shit and decides to just take the Great Spirit by force by eating God because fuck being a Shaman King and Hao listened to one too many heavy metal albums. Interesting to note that in the manga Yoh is the one who technically sabotages the tournament (by giving up and trying to assassinate the shaman king) while in the anime it's Hao.
- This leads to a fairly interesting subplot of a Patch Tribe Civil War of sorts where Silva and Kalim go to stop Hao while Nichrom and Zinc (anime counterpart to Magna who kind of shows up outta nowhere) throw their lot with Hao. This leads to Silva and Kalim vs Nichrom and Zinc, the best fight to never happen in the manga, though its way too brief.
- Ren vs Yoh round hundredth. Stupid that they decided to have this fight in the midst of Hao trying to commit deicide but it's brief.
- Tao Jun and Pai-Long get to participate in the final battle, which is nice.
- Cryptically, Opacho is shown in the ending watching the Shaman tournament begin anew. Might have been the future antagonist had the anime somehow been brought back.
- Well, there goes the ending. It's rushed and more traditional, but it's a satisfactory one. Yoh doing a All Your Powers Combined routine with all the participants of the Shaman tournament is a good conclusion and calls to mind the literal meaning of "Shaman King" (i.e a King of shamans, so Yoh gets "crowned" by his Shaman "subjects"). The Everybody Lives quality of it is also touching (Marco, Tao Jun, Silva and Kalim are all Spared by the Adaptation, so it's nice seeing them living).
Overall, it was a satisfactory trip down memory lane.
I might go on to read Shaman King Flowers (I don't have the time nor the patience to re-read the Shaman King manga too, there are only so many hours in the day) if I can stomach the whole "mass-murdering genocidal bastard in charge of the universe" thing.
"All you Fascists bound to lose."I haven't caught up with the end of the manga but from what I've been hearing of it, I think the problem sounds less like "Hao wins" and more that the manga validates his misanthropic perspective despite the fact that it's extremely abhorrent.
Also, I think making Manta a shaman was at least a good idea (can't speak for the execution of it since it's been ages since I watched the anime) because it helps to keep him relevant to the story, from what I hear in the manga he's basically shooed off eventually because he has no power to impact the plot in any way.
Edited by Draghinazzo on Jun 19th 2020 at 11:40:58 AM
Especially for Shonen Manga. I'd say they struggle with it more than anyone.
Though I'd say Muggle Girlfriends have it even worse.
One Strip! One Strip!It apparently did not.
The fact that it didn't is mentioned on the Shaman King page on this very wiki. In fact, it's theorized that he was deliberately left out so that he couldn't be used as such an argument, since the story was going in a direction that Manta's mere presence would have countered.
One Strip! One Strip!

Huh thats a rather quick instance.
Most shonen take a couple volumes of monster of the weeks before they find their groove & go serialized.
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."