Shaman king is essentially one of the best supernatural Manga to ever come out.I have major respect for the creator, Hiroyuki Takei, for the amazing chacharacters he creates and his super stylish art style. The series revolves around shaman warriors who all aim to become the shaman king, pretty much be a capital G God. It follows the typical tournament arc premise found in many shonen Manga but the character interactions is what makes the story so enjoyable. The cast is very diverse : yoh asakura is laid back and kind hearted, tao Ren is short tempered and serious and so on. The main characters all have well written and sad back stories but still manage to be upbeat.Almost all the characters are perfectly fleshed out so im sure you'll find an character that hits home with you.The only characters i really dislikes were Anna and hao but I'll go iinto detail about the latter later on. Anna is pretty much a cold hearted tsundere who's back story is the only liklikaeable part of her.

Even though I don't care much for anna, the back story osorezen revoir arc she shared with yoh was amazingly written. she's still a cold hearted grinch but at least she had an interesting past. The biggest reason to read shaman king is how spiritual it is. there are even shamans who clearly follow buddhism who appear later on !This Manga is very big on themes of forgiveness and redemption. Tao Ren and chocolove have killed in the passed but deeply regret and will accept any form of punishment that comes their way. Main character yoh asakura believes no shaman can be truly evil and tries his best to make friends with previous enemies. He was practically the anime messiah before makoto naegi and madoka came along. Since the whole premise of the Manga revolves around spirits, the spirits of multiple mythological figures are present everywhere. Anyone who loves series with religious undertones or references to mythology will love shaman king.
I've talked about the good now I have to get to the two problems of this work. For the most part, shama king has a very cartoony artstyle and doesn't really get good until more than halfway through. It's great that Hiroyuki takei has vastly improved his art and became one of my favorite artists. The 2nd problem is the ending. I'm referring to the ending in the kang zeng bang not the rushed original one. I won't list any spoilers but the main villain pretty much gets treated as a "sympathetic " character even though he's killed countless people and he uses his back back story for justification, but the main cast all went through worst than he did. Despite that, shaman king is still one of the best Manga to grace shonen jump.