SHAMAN KING

This review is going to be very short and concise, so I suggest anyone wanting to give this a shot should consider reading my review. The rest of my review after the paragraph after this sentence goes a bit more into detail, so whether you choose to read it or not is up to your discretion. Again, I suggest anyone wanting to read this to check out this review.

Imagine a car driving up a hill. The only way up this hill is a very steep and treacherous one way slope. Just when that car is about to climb up to the peak, like literally just when it happens, it stops. That's right, it completely stops functioning. The engine goes off, the headlights stop beaming, and it does a completely nose dive backwards into the ravine and causes a big ass explosion.

That's this manga tbh.

Hao is still the same person he was when he first debuted. He's still that dude who wants to annihalate all the humans who don't believe in shamanism, and he gets little character development at all, even after making peace with his Mom, which was the source of the reason why he was doing what he was doing.

It'd be one thing if he'd change a bit, but nope. He's still the same. It's like Hiroyuki's message was that nothing will ever change. Which it most likely was, and that's why I can't accept it or how it ended. For a manga that wasn't as long as the Big Three (in manga and perhaps animu as well) but still managed to sell more/outclass/rival the Big Three, the way it ended was just all around bad to me.

So yeah, I wouldn't recommend this manga to anyone, but don't take what I'm saying to heart as this is just my opinion.

Shaman King, much like most other shonen manga is a story made to appeal to, of course, children as the primary audience, so I'm going to go out of my way instead of spending time being productive to allocate effort on writing a review on a 20 year old manga not aimed towards me as the primary audience.

I like Shaman King despite its flaws, the first half of the story was fantastic and held up as a shonen worth reading. Things start to get rotten plot-wise when resurrections are introduced to what seemed like a pretty straightforward story.

In Shaman King, if you suffer a near-death experience, you get a higher power level, which is called mana, so you can control your ghost partner and power yourself up with them depending on how you expend your mana.
What's worse than a shonen manga with no sense of risk/reward? Terrorism, but this isn't about that, what I'm complaining about is the countless fake-out deaths the main and supporting cast go through to justify getting powered up.

The battles, character interactions, artwork, and setting had enough of a charm to lull me into a false sense of security, and I only finished this manga before realizing it was too late, with the epiphany that what I've been reading the last 100 or so chapters were a trainwreck. Characters are killed off at first with buildup and drama, not knowing if they're going to make it through their near-death state, but the author kept providing fake-out after fake-out. As a reader you quickly realize this is going to be the norm, where for example, a character named Horohoro is foreshadowed to have a tragic backstory as he keeps quiet about his true name, and a few chapters later Horohoro along with some other main characters are laying face-down in a hot bath drowned to death, killed offscreen. Since there wasn't any closure you can safely assume he'll be back, and hey, shows up he does.

At a certain point the deaths become more common than actual battles, and the characters able to resurrect the dead become less and less rare as more Jesuses pop out along with frequency of death. As you can assume, it becomes hard to track who stays dead and who is resurrected, since there are some characters who have very emotional deaths and have to be hammered into the head of the reader that "THIS CHARACTER IS DEAD AND WILL STAY DEAD FOR THE REST OF THE SERIES", when they can easily be revived, which loses its impact.

OK that's my review. Good art, very good characters, I fairly enjoyed the first half, but overall it's not good.

My review may be biased. Shaman king was one of the first manga I could read.

What I liked deeply in this manga is that the hero doesn't have the typical personality of the main character of Shonen, big-mouthed, stupid, gets angry for the smallest thing and rushes into the heap despite the superiority of the opponent.

No, Yoh is calm, he knows that he is not the most intelligent but this does not prevent him from being very mature. He has a simple dream but he knows that he has responsibilities, that he must take care of them before he can realize this dream.

What differentiates him the most, and what the other characters realize as time goes by, is that he is apathetic, but that doesn't stop him from completing his growth.

I enjoyed this manga quite a bit. Its essentially the typical shonen manga, with little to differentiate it. What i enjoyed was the bizarre undercurrent of evil it seemed to have at times. From an almost necrophillic doctor whos implied to be addicted to Morphine to a boy quite obviously named for a drug ( Lyseig Diethel named for Lysergic Acid Diethylamide respectively)

I also found many moments to be extremely emotional and touching, wihlst the characters were well characterised and varied, each with their own personalities aims and backstories, some of them just tragic (especially that Doctor). The characters come from various countries and ethinicities, which makes a good change from casts inexplicably scattered across the world yet all japanese. Theres English, Chinese, African-American etc. its nice. Best of all, the villain to this piece is a marked change from most villains and a breath of fresh air against the common evil to everything type you get in some manga.

So if your bored and want to read another shonen manga, i would suggest this over most others.

I watched the anime adaption on TV when I was a little kid. When I read that they plan to create a remake I decided to read the manga. I did not have high expectations. I was fond of it for nostalgic reasons but thought it is just a cliche shounen. I was wrong. I will start with the negative.

The manga starts from the perspective of Manta. An interesting character: Heir of a big powerful company, has dwarfism, smart and can see spirits. And he just becomes totally useless.

Some sentimental backstories are mildly annoying (I liked the ones of Hao, Anna and of Yo's father).

Over the course of the story we learn how powerful Anna is. The whole time I asked myself: Why is she not participating? She seems to be almost as talented as Hao in his first life. Way more than Yo for sure. She should fight!

In school Yo uses the ghosts to help him with homework and tests. It would have been great if ghosts had played a more crucial role later to gather intelligence and strategize and so on.

Normally I hate it when the MC wants to save the bad guys. But here it makes some sense. To see ghosts you have to possess a good heart. And to get along with all those spirits of terrible people you need some open mindedness. Also in the case of Hao they have no other choice. They cannot defeat him so they have to persuade him.

It does not play a huge role but they even handle sexuality in a mature way. The protagonist of the most succesful shounen is asexual (Ruffy). When sexuality occurs it is either for fanservice or for jokes. Anna actually sleeps with Yo before he goes to battle. But it is not used for the arousal of the watcher or giggles.

Now coming to it's big strength: the bad guy is victorious!
The MC has no grand goal, he merely has the duty to fight for family honor and he already knows that he cannot win. So he lacks the delusional determinaton of say a Naruto. The MC actually does not reach his goal. The villain wins and abandons his evil plan. That sounds terrible but it was quite plausible. Before ascending, the future Shaman King falls asleep. It is like a psychodelic trip. Then he gets the Great Spirit with all it's knowledge and power. Of course such an experience would change him. It was said the whole time that Hao was so powerful that trying to beat him would be futile. And it was. Even power of friendship and not giving up could not overpower him. Refreshing to see that.

So when I started Shaman King, I didn't have too many expectations, or any really idea of what was going to happen. I was blown away by how much fun I was having. I wasn't this invested in a story since One Piece, and I was having a ridiculous amount of fun. It came to a climax with the rematch that started off the actual Shaman Fight, but I was still having a lot of fun with the plot after that with Hao. But as soon as we got into the actual Shaman Fight, things just got worse and worse. The magic that had made me love Shaman King was gone. Character moments were skipped or ignored, the characters either acted inconsisently or what they set out to do was rendered irrelevant, and many fell to the wayside. This clusterfuck of just awful stuff came to a head in the last stretch of 25 or so chapters, where the final "fight" takes place, where people are nice to the guy who wants to murder their entire race. And then there's some timeskip bullshit where we learn Yoh and Anna are bum parents who abandoned their kid to kumbayah the fuck else, Horo-Horo is a hobo squatting in a field, Joco is in fucking prison for some reason, Ren is married to someone that he's had one interaction with, and the best character in SK in Tamao's errand boy and babysitter. oh and Manta is there. Do not read this manga if you are looking for a satisfying final few chapters. Go read Hitman Reborn if you want something like that.

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS

This is easily my least favorite shounen of all time. Why? Because it's a clusterfuck. This manga is what happens when you take shounen, try to add deeper, darker themes to it, all the while trolling readers with the ability to revive people. Seriously, everything about it is a mess.

Our protagonist, Yoh, is a dreamy-eyed, high moral values airhead, like a Luffy that is constantly high on some meth, if you will. Typical to shounen, bad guys change their outlook on life immediately after they are beaten by our protagonist, inspired to suddenly be of use to the people, and become a comrade to the protagonist. But in Shaman King's case, the change is INSANITY. Our protagonist's third enemy and later best friend Tao Len, was a sick fuck that wouldn't think twice about murdering innocents. But after he gets beat? He's suddenly one of the "good guys". Same with his sister that used to go around murdering film actors. The only other series that I can think of that pulled such a fast 180 on characters is SAO with Kayaba. Shaman King does this constantly, though. But that's not all. While some of the bad guys that get beat turn into allies, a handful of them got depressed and committed fucking mass suicide. This manga is weird that way.

After the revival concept is introduced, it's honestly hard to know what the fuck is going on. People die at the speed of Shingeki No Kyojin, but they come back at nearly the same speed. There's no telling who's REALLY dead and who's just kinda dead until they're revived. So when you see a bunch of the protagonist's friends brutally murdered, tbh you're kinda left wondering how to feel. "Wait, but they're just gonna come back to life anyways, right?". But sometimes, apparently not. You really can't tell until a couple chapters later.

The ending; I want the phrase "Shaman King ending" to be coined as a way to describe an ending that leaves long-time readers feeling trolled, cheated of their money, and feeling like they got bitch slapped by salmon. After struggling through the clusterfuck, after numerous insane power-ups, after Yoh gains the power of the Gods, after beating all of Hao's followers, after hearing Yoh say "I'll be the next Shaman King" for the millionth time, you would think Yoh would finally beat the evil Hao and become the next Shaman King. Well, sorry to tell ya, he was 10 minutes too late, and Hao becomes the next Shaman King. Yoh? He gets vaporized.

BUT THAT'S NOT EVEN THE WORST PART
After Yoh gets vaporized, for some reason his "spirit" gets to chat with Hao. Yoh talks about how friendship is great, and humanity isn't hopeless, because look at how high as fuck Yoh is. And Hao, after hating humanity for 3000+ years, IS CONVINCED. He's literally like, "Yeah, you're right, I guess I was wrong, I'll be a good Shaman King instead of using this power to destroy humanity, like I was planning to". ASDASDKLADJALK




So at the end, Yoh, failing to be the next Shaman King loses all meaning in life, Hao makes the fastest 180 ever known to mankind, all enemies and allies that died during the whole fight is resurrected, and you feel like you just wasted about 20 hours of your life. You almost expect the author to include a last page: "and then Yoh woke up from his dream".

If you want to see what One Piece would be like crossed with Shingeki no Kyojin with a 4chan troll controlling the plot, this manga is for you.

Warning contains spoiler read at your own risk

it started out really great, the characters are interesting and lively, they have their own personal ambitions and dreams. sometimes there is a flashback on character like lyserg but the author tells it in an interesting way and it doesn't conflict with the main story. Yoh's laid back persona is also kinda cool and keep the sometimes fast paced tempo in balance.
But it gets uninteresting with the start of the shaman king tounament arc, first theere are island inhabitants who attacked the contestants and proved to be much stronger than the contestants, it is confusing, they are so powerful so why they don't just choose the shaman king from their own people?
Then what's the point of fighting in a tournament, if the cotestants keep killing each other outside the ring, worst what's the point of having them killed if they can be easily revived..
The characters who used to be interesting becomes dull because they are busy telling each other how fearful and strong Hao is. They also give up their dreams

This is my opinion on Shaman King, with the new ending, not the "it was a dream" ending from when the Manga was cut.

Shaman King is one of my favourites. The premise is unique, the characters are very well developed, and I really dig the mangaka's art. The story sets an atmosphere very well, and easily pulls you in.

Additionally, I appreciate the balanced development of the characters strengths. It is often suspenseful, and the outcome was never predictable. Overall, I enjoyed this 10/10.

Story 9/10: Like previously mentioned, it has a unique premise that lends itself to a good story. Each moment flows together well. It is smart, where I rarely found any "manufactured" conflicts or "plot armor" devices. Fights are written well also.

Art 9/10: The beginning may be a bit dated, but its still great looking. Definitely cleans up near the middle. I've heard some people being critical of Takei's art, but you can decide for yourself.

Character 8/10: While there may be some shonen character tropes, I found that the characters were strong. the motivations and back-stories were enticing, and some of the histories provided are amazing.

Overall 9/10

Shaman King
4.5/10
Summary
Shaman King is about a young shaman named Yoh who is participating in the upcoming Shaman Fight. The winner of the Shaman fight will obtain the all-powerful Great Spirit as their ally and will subsequently become omnipotent.
Yoh and many of the other participating shamans are working hard not only to increase the chances of themselves winning but also so they can defeat Hao, the very powerful shaman who has vowed to use the Great Spirit to rid the world of all humans if he wins.
Upsides
Character design is probably the biggest upside to this manga. Seeing the shamans train and battle is also an interesting dynamic.
Downsides
The writing in Shaman King is disinteresting at times the fact that the story drags on for way too long does in no way help put a bandage on the mediocre writing. After such a long manga one would expect to have a very entertaining ending but that is definitely not the case. The ending is as anticlimactic an ending as you will ever see.
The art is very unorthodox at times can be irritating, but for the most part it doesn’t interfere with the story.
The story also lacks seriousness in the way that pretty much every enemy Yoh faces ends up becoming good and joining Yoh’s team.