Shaman King

Shaman King
Original title	シ ャ ー マ ン キ ン グ
transcription	shāman kingu
Shaman King logo
genre	Adventure, comedy, drama, shons
Manga
country	Japan
author	Hiroyuki Takei
publishing company	Shueisha
magazine	Weekly Shōnen Jump
First publication	June 30, 1998 - August 30, 2004
expenditure	32
Anime television series
Country of production	Japan
original language	Japanese
Year (s)	2001-2002
Studio	Xebec
length	24 minutes
Episodes	64
idea	Hiroyuki Takei
music	Toshiyuki Omori
First broadcast	July 21, 2001 - September 25, 2002 on TV Tokyo
German-language first broadcast	October 30, 2004 - February 5, 2006 on kabel eins
synchronization

Shaman King ( Japanese シ ャ ー マ ン キ ン グ , Shāman Kingu ) is a manga series by the Japanese illustrator Hiroyuki Takei , which was published from 1998 to 2004. Between 2001 and 2002, the series was adapted as an anime television series.

action

Every 500 years, a tournament between shamans from all over the world takes place to determine the king of the shamans, who should maintain the balance between life and death. Among them the 13-year-old Yo Asakura with his guardian spirit Amidamaru. In the fight against other shamans, Yo is supported by his best friend Manta Oyamada, his fiancée Anna Kyouyama and many other friends. But for Yo himself there is a very specific goal, which was already set when he was born. He has to defeat his twin brother Hao Asakura, who lived 1000 and 500 years ago and is now reborn for the second time, because he wants to destroy all people in order to found a kingdom of shamans. So begins a long and dangerous journey for Yo and his friends.

Characters

Yo Asakura ( 麻 倉 葉 , Asakura Yō )

Yo comes from one of the most powerful shaman families in Japan. This is why Yo was always lonely in his childhood as everyone thought he was crazy when he talked about ghosts until one day he met Manta Oyamada. Yo doesn't seem to upset anything (which is also the reason for his power) and is always raving about music (his favorite singer is Bob). His trademarks are orange headphones and a chain of bear's claws around his neck, which he always carries with him as a reminder of his first ghost friend Matamune. In his childhood he was trained by his grandfather Onmyo Yomei Asakura ( 麻 倉 葉 明 , Asakura Yōmei ), but was anything but a good student. Later Anna, Yo's future fiancée and an Itako, took on him. During the tournament, in which two teams of three shamans fight each other, Yo becomes the leader of the “Funbari-Spa” (Tr ん ば り 温泉 チ ー ム , Funbari Onsen Chīmu ) troop . Yo's ghost is called Amidamaru. Yo's personal goal for the shaman tournament is Hao to stop his twin brother who wants to destroy humanity so that he can then live in peace.

Amidamaru ( 阿 弥陀 丸 )

Amidamaru (age 24 at death) is Yo's ghost and best friend. During his lifetime he was known as the "demon man Amidamaru" because he is said to have struck down 50 of the king's soldiers for no reason and was apparently invincible. When he was a child, Amidamaru was with a group of street children in a country full of robbers and bandits. As a result, he had to learn sword fighting quickly to protect himself and his friends. Amidamarus' best friend during his lifetime was the blacksmith Mosuke ( 喪 助 ). He made Amidamaru's first sword "Spring Rain " ( 春雨 , Harusame ) which he forged from his father's knife due to a lack of metal. Shortly before Amidamaru's death, Mosuke forged the sword of light. However, Amidamaru never got around to using it. Yo now wields Mosuke's last sword.

Manta Oyamada ( 小 山田 ま ん 太 , Oyamada Manta )

Manta is very small, a realist and has the gift of seeing ghosts. His father owns a company and is very rich. Manta enjoys reading scary stories and met Yo on the way home through the cemetery. Yo is his first real friend. In the anime, Manta also has a guardian spirit locked in his laptop. His name is Mosuke. Furthermore, despite the fact that he is not a shaman, Manta is an irreplaceable member of the team.

Anna Kyohyama ( 恐 山 ア ン ナ , Kyōyama Anna )

The Itako (traditional Japanese shaman) Anna is Yos fiancée. Since she wants to become a shaman queen by his side, she trains him hard (she calls this training method "hell training"). Sometimes it seems like Anna is heartless, ice cold and selfish, but in extreme situations she takes care of her friends. Her prayer beads give her great power. Through this it was also possible for her to defeat Haos Shikigami Zenki ( 前 鬼 ) and Goki ( 後 鬼 , Gōki ), who then serve her faithfully as her guardian spirits. After he saved her as a child, Yo promised her that he would marry her as soon as he is the shaman king.
The figure of Itako Anna appeared in Hiroyuki Takei's earlier works Itako no Anna from 1994 and Butsu Zone from 1997.

"Wooden sword" Ryu ( 木刀 の 竜 , Bokutō no Ryū )

Ryu, actually Ryūnosuke Umemiya ( 梅 宮 竜 之 介 , Umemiya Ryūnosuke ), is a feared thug and leader of a rockabilly gang at the beginning. At the beginning of the epic, he falls in love with Anna. However, when he learns that she is Yo's fiancée, he develops an enormous hatred for his rival. Since the ghost Tokagero wants to take revenge on Yo's ghost Amidamaru for killing him 600 years ago, he takes possession of Ryu and wants to kill Yo and his ghost in this way. Yo shows Tokagero ( 蜥蜴 郎 , Tokagerō ), however, that his hatred is pointless and that he should make friends with them. This is how Ryu learns that he is also a shaman and is trained by Yo's father. Since then he has been at Yo and Anna's side. He takes part in Yo's team with Tokagero as guardian spirit in the shaman fight.

Ren Tao ( 道 蓮 , Tao Ren )

Ren is the youngest offspring of the Tao family and Yo's most bitter enemy and yet also a friend. He wants to become the shaman king in order to create a world without hatred and violence. In his childhood he was taught to kill. After meeting Yo, however, he realizes that all people deserve to live. In order to break the curse of his existence, he plans to defeat his uncle. Instead, however, they reconcile and Ren goes on a search for the village of the Patcheen together with Yo, Ryu, Horohoro and Lyserg. Ren's guardian spirit is called Bason and was a Chinese warrior who served the emperor. Bason is one of the fiercest warriors of all time. There is a mighty Chinese warrior soul in him. He learned the Chinese martial art from scratch and has mastered it down to the smallest detail. Ren is stubborn, selfish and, above all, easily irritable, which is why he pulls his gun straight away when it comes to small things. In some situations, however, similar to Anna, his good heart shows. His trademark is a bundle of his hair that he has pointed and his chosen way of expression. First he uses Ein Kwan Dao as an over-soul medium, and later the "Jewel Thunder Sword" that his uncle gave him (a family heirloom).

Horokeu "Horohoro" Usui ( 碓 氷 ホ ロ ケ ウ (ホ ロ ホ ロ) )

Horohoro is an Ainu shaman from Hokkaidō whose goal is to save the Kolopockulu ( コ ロ ポ ッ ク ル , koropokkuru for Ainu korpokkur ), which means “dwarf among the coltsfoot ”, from extinction by having a large coltsfoot field as the shaman king plants. He is also Yo's first opponent in the first round. He later joins Yo's group and takes part in the main round in "Team Ren" ( THE 蓮 ). His guardian spirit is a Kolopockulu named Kororo ( コ ロ ロ ) who uses ice techniques. At first he used his snowboard as an over-soul medium, and later an Ikupasi carved for him by his sister, Pilika ( ピ リ カ , Pirika ).

Hao Asakura ( 麻 倉 葉 王 , Asakura Hao )

Hao is Yo's ancestor and the most powerful shaman in the Asakura family. A thousand years ago, Hao mastered the pentagram of Japanese culture and became so powerful that he made a pact with the King of Hell, Taizanfukun , and was reborn as a patchee 500 years later at the next shaman tournament. At the last moment, however, one of his descendants managed to defeat the Shugenja Yoken Asakura ( 麻 倉 葉 賢 , Asakura Yōken ) Hao. Another 500 years later, he was reborn again, this time as Yo's twin brother, to take revenge and finally to become the shaman king. Hao fights with the Spirit of Fire, one of the five great nature spirits that he got in his second life as a Patchee. Its element is fire and its medium is oxygen in the air.

Silver ( シ ル バ , Shiruba )

Silver is a shaman who belongs to the Patchee Indian tribe and one of the referees at the major shaman tournament. He checks Yo to see if he can admit him to the shaman tournament and over time has growing sympathy for him, which is a problem as he has to remain objective as a referee. Its spirits are nature spirits (a wolf, an eagle, a snake, a bison and a turtle). As a medium, he uses five rings on his right hand. It is later learned that he is a descendant of Hao Asakura from 500 years ago, who was reborn as a Patchee.

Faust VIII ( フ ァ ウ ス ト VIII 世 , Fausuto VIII-sei )

The guardian spirit of the necromancer Faust VIII is his late lover Eliza ( エ リ ザ ・ フ ァ ウ ス ト , Eliza Fausuto ), whose skeleton serves as his medium. He is the descendant of the famous Johann Georg Faust , who made a pact with the devil . The parallel to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust is, of course, intentional, since not only does the name of the protagonist match the local necromancer, but also both made a pact with the devil. Like his ancestor, Faust VIII was initially a doctor. However, when his wife Eliza died, he devoted himself to necromancy to revive his beloved, which is why he wants to become the shaman king. At the beginning he is an opponent of Yo, who really hurts Yo in the first round of the shaman fight. In the main round of the shaman fight, however, he even becomes a comrade-in-arms with Yos, as he doesn't have a team yet and Yo coincidentally needs a comrade-in-arms due to the disappearance of Lyserg.

Chocolove McDonell ( チ ョ コ ラ ブ ・ マ ク ダ ネ ル , Chokorabu Makudaneru )

Chocolove is a dark-skinned shaman who wants to become the shaman king to make the world laugh. His guardian spirit is the jaguar Mick (an allusion to Mick Jagger ), who actually belonged to Chocolove's teacher, and the Indian hero Pascal Avaf. Even if he calls himself a comedian, his jokes are far from funny. He joins the "Team Ren" team in the main round of the shaman fight and impresses his colleagues with his extraordinary over-soul. He uses his eyes and fingernails as a medium for the jaguar spirit. In the US version of the anime, Chocolove was renamed Joco, since Choco is considered a racist name for African Americans.

Lyserg Diethel ( リ ゼ ル グ ・ ダ イ ゼ ル , Rizerugu Daizeru )

Lyserg is from London and meets Yo and his friends during their trip to Patchee Village. His mind is an elemental being called Cloey. As a medium he uses a pendulum with which he can track down other shamans. Lyserg takes part in the shaman fight to get revenge on Hao, who murdered his parents in his childhood. Lyserg later joins the X-Laws and receives the angelic spirit Zelel from them.

Jeanne, the iron maiden ( ア イ ア ン メ イ デ ン ・ ジ ャ ン ヌ , Aianmeiden Jannu )

Jeanne comes from Mont Saint-Michel in France and at the age of eleven is already a powerful shaman. Jeanne is the leader and symbol of the X-Laws. In the shaman tournament her Furyoku was used up and therefore she had to be eliminated. Jeanne has the highest of Furyoku according to Hao, so she is stronger than she seems. It is usually transported in an iron maiden.

Publications

Manga

Shaman King appeared in Japan from 1998 in individual chapters in the manga magazine Weekly Shonen Jump of the Shueisha publishing house, until it was abruptly ended in 2004 after 285 chapters. The individual chapters have been summarized in 32 edited volumes.

Between March 4, 2008 and April 3, 2009, the series was republished in Kanzenban as Shaman King Kang-Zeng-Bang . It consists of 27 volumes and, according to an announcement at Jump Festa 2008, contains the “true ending” of the story. For this purpose, two chapters have been added to the 24th volume of the new edition and the remaining numbering of the chapters has been corrected. The actually last chapter 285 (in the new version would correspond to chapter 287) was no longer included in the new version; instead, the plot began here and ended with chapter 300. In addition to the printed version, the end of the series was also posted online on the official website.

A part of Shaman King was published in German from December 2001 to December 2005 in individual chapters in the now discontinued manga magazine Banzai! from Carlsen Comics . The publisher also published the series in full paperback. In the 32nd volume the sequel to Shaman King was shown; the name is "The Song of Funbari - Funbari Spa". The German publisher Tokyopop has been publishing a new edition of the manga since April 2020 .

Anime 2001 to 2002

Based on the manga series, the animation studio Xebec produced an anime television series with 64 episodes, which ran from July 4, 2001 to September 25, 2002 on the Japanese television station TV Tokyo .

The television series was fully broadcast in German from the end of 2004 on kabel eins , ATVplus and Fox Kids and was repeated from 13 September 2006 on the German television station RTL II . The German-language anime version is based on the version licensed and edited by 4kids Entertainment for the USA.

The anime also aired in other countries such as Italy, Spain, Greece, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Chile, Brazil, Russia, Argentina, Canada, Mexico, South Korea, Poland, Taiwan, the Philippines, the Netherlands, and the United States.

Voice actor

role	Japanese speaker ( seiyū )	German speaker
Yo Asakura	Yūko Satō	Hubertus von Lerchenfeld
Amidamaru	Katsuyuki Konishi	Crock Krumbiegel
Manta Oyamada	Inuko Inuyama	Andrea Wick
Anna Kyohyama	Megumi Hayashibara	Beate Pfeiffer
"Wooden sword" Ryu	Masahiko Tanaka	Claus-Peter Damitz
Tokagero		Thomas Rauscher
Ren Tao	Romi Park	Manuel Straube
Run Tao		Kathrin Gaube
Bason		Gerhard Jilka
Trey Racer	Yūji Ueda	Dirk Meyer
Seki Asakura	Minami Takayama Hikaru Midorikawa (500 years earlier)	Hubertus von Lerchenfeld
Silva	Hikaru Midorikawa	Frank Röth
Faust VIII	Takehito Koyasu	Manfred Trilling
Joco	Motoko Kumai	Oliver Mink (episode 1–51) Philipp Brammer (episode 52–64)
Yo's grandfather		Donald Arthur
Mikihisa Asakura (Yo's father)		Claus Brockmeyer
Pilica		Julia Haacke
Kalim		Walter von Hauff
Marco		Pascal Breuer
Lyserg Diethel	Yōko Soumi
Jeanne	Yui Horie	Sonja Reichelt

Anime 2021

In June 2020, a new anime was announced for April 2021, which should adapt the new manga edition.

reception

According to the specialist magazine MangasZene , Shaman King's concept is reminiscent of series such as Flame of Recca, but also of sports series. Team spirit and friendship later played a major role. However, since many shamans appear, a large part of them only embody clichés. Nevertheless, some of the one-dimensional figures are able to win the audience's sympathy. Despite the limitation of the plot to duels and the introduction of new characters, there are surprising twists and turns. Despite all the action and violence, the series is humorous and therefore also interesting for younger audiences.

The backgrounds, animations and figures are simply designed. Fights were "spiced up" with computer effects . However, the anime is more of a "weak copy" of the manga.

Web links

• List of all Japanese manga volumes (Japanese)
• Official homepage of TV Tokyo for the anime series (Japanese)
• Official homepage of Carlsen Comics for the manga series

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Shaman King Under Strain. Anime News Network, November 15, 2004, accessed March 28, 2009 . 
2. ↑ Shaman King Manga's New Ending Anticipated in 2009. Anime News Network, February 6, 2008, accessed March 28, 2009 . 
3. ↑ New Shaman King Manga Finale Being Posted Online. In: Anime News Network. March 2, 2009, accessed August 24, 2016 . 
4. ↑ ^{a b} Endymion: "Shaman King" gets new anime. In: Anime Sushi. June 12, 2020, accessed June 12, 2020 .  
5. ↑ MangasZene No. 24, p. 27 f.