Summary 
Related: Yu Yu hakusho
Shamans refer to those who can communicate with the dead and see ghosts, and every 500 years there is a battle between shamans to determine which shaman is worthy of becoming the shaman king: the one who will communicate with the shaman. oversees life and becomes the new saviour of mankind. Yoh Asakura is a young shaman with a carefree attitude who dreams of becoming the shaman king to lead a relaxed life, but does this drifter have what it takes to become a great saviour?
Review
So Shaman King is a series with quite a long history. The manga started running in Shonen Jump in 1998 and later hosted a 64-episode television anime series in 2001 under the direction of Seiji Mizushima, who later directed the 2003 Fullmetal Alchemist anime. That anime was later brought to the airwaves of the US and a few other English-language markets via a dubbing edited by the infamous 4Kids Entertainment, which is how I first came across it. While the 2001 anime had great success, eventually diverging from the manga with its own ending, the manga itself would come to an abrupt end in 2004 when its author, Hiroyuki Takei, became dissatisfied with the direction it had taken. history. entered, and the serialization of the manga ended in great suspense. Years passed, and with the release of a new print edition, Takei would eventually republish his planned ending for the manga in 2009, and many fans, myself included, were hoping to see a new anime adaptation that covered the whole story adequately.
Unfortunately, that took a while, as Takei eventually decided to switch publishers to work with Kodansha, and in the process got the Shaman King rights back to Shonen Jump and Shueisha. Between that legal situation and Takei reportedly turned down a previous offer for a new Shaman King anime a few years ago because they couldn't guarantee the return of the original Japanese voice cast, it looked like a new anime adaptation would remain a castle in the future. make the air. But lo and behold, we got an announcement last summer that a new Shaman King anime was in the works, and that it would not only cover the entire story but would also feature a significant portion of the old voice cast. With all that history, it goes without saying that there was a lot of excitement in this adaptation and a lot of high expectations to deal with, but unfortunately the end result… leaves a lot to be desired.
Okay, there's no point in tinkering with the pot here - the pace here is insanely bad and this adjustment moves at a mile per minute in the worst possible ways. Since the 2001 anime and this more faithful manga adaptation are just as different as the 2003 anime of Fullmetal Alchemist and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, it doesn't make much sense to directly compare them and I'd rather not, but the reason I'm up the topic The episode count for the 2001 version is that compared to the 64 episodes that were supposed to cover about 17 of the 35 manga volumes, the 2021 anime will cover the whole thing with just 52 episodes. The math here doesn't really work in favour of the new anime, and these first 13 episodes cover everything from Yoh's first meeting with his friend Manta and Yoh's spiritual ally Amidamaru, to all of Yoh's matches in the Shaman King preliminaries. tournament. , and then left it in the US Midwestern United States to seek the next stage of the tournament, which is a whopping 10 volumes of manga history alone. This results in a show that is constantly going from one thing to another with little or no time to properly digest the material it covers. While it never moves so fast that it's completely incomprehensible, there's very little time for the show to adequately introduce the characters or add any emotional weight to what's going on, and it's hard to imagine how even new viewers will be. won't they will feel. something is missing, something is missing.
It's a shame too, because, beneath his sometimes wacky looks and weird sense of humour, Shaman King has quite a bit of heart. That heart is largely in the main character Yoh; Compared to many of the hot-blooded heroes with big dreams that grace the pages of Shonen Jump, Yoh is just a laid-back man with a very laid-back approach to life, and his stated reason for wanting to become the titular Shaman King and Messiah of Mankind is so you can live a comfortable life where you can relax and take it easy. While that alleged lack of ambition seems questionable given the stakes in what he's involved in, the fact that he doesn't quite define himself by his goals as many of his opponents do allows him to take the plunge. . open-minded and empathetic to perspectives that don't always suit him. That empathy is largely at the core of what drives Shaman King, as he's combative who is often uninterested in real, straight-up combat, and while he has plenty of cool phantom powers to show off, he often tries to resolve conflict further. the strict use of force, or adherence to strict definitions of right and wrong.
Many of these ideas appear later in the series and aren't immediately apparent in much of Shaman King's opening material, but we see snippets scattered throughout these episodes. The plot of episode 4, for example, is about the ghost of a vengeful bandit named Tokageroh who seeks revenge on Amidamaru for killing him, and though Yoh has the option of simply banishing his soul to Hell and giving him one day call, he tries to rescue him instead. . Tokageroh and discovers that Tokageroh's tenacity stems from being forced to eat his own mother's flesh in order to survive the poverty of the belligerent states in Japan. While that kind of revelation would be seen as an irreparable act in many other sheens, Yoh and Amidamaru sympathize with the determination he must have taken to survive this way, and Yoh's own willingness to put himself in danger to save Tokageroh, awakens humanity. . and the ability to trust others you thought you had lost. The story's ability to play with good and evil is also strongly reflected in Yoh's dynamics with his "rival" Tao Ren, who initially presents himself as a self-centred edgelord who despises his family for the violent doctrine they have imposed on him. defeated several times by Yoh's calm and laid-back demeanour, he gradually begins to see something in him that is missing and eventually tries to distance himself from the hatred he was taught by becoming a shaman king to end the violence and reconciliation for everyone the lives you took in the past.
It can be quite heavy stuff, but the fact that this edit has to go as fast as possible means that a lot also happens before the audience has a chance to absorb it, making many of these ideas much less important. interesting or thoughtful of what was originally intended, which is an issue that may question the significance of this new adaptation in the first place.
In fact, while the tempo is pretty much the biggest problem with this show, the actual production of director Joji Furuta and Studio Bridge seems pretty boring. The fact that this occurs throughout the year means that there was probably not much of a chance it would look good at first, and it probably would have been even more so if this really had the number of episodes that it needed. . But even with that in mind, there are a lot of corner kicks here early on, and the fights themselves aren't very lively. It doesn't look downright awful and it never melts anywhere, but it's a long way from capturing the highlights of Takei's art. The actual direction of the show itself is also very unsuccessful, mostly simply choosing to be a 1: 1 straight out of Takei's manga panels with any changes just to speed up the story. The only real upside here is that they got Megumi Hayashibara to redo the opening and closing tracks respectively, and while Soul Salvation isn't as good of an opening track as 2001's Oversoul, it's still pretty catchy. Yuki Hayashi's new soundtrack for the series is pretty solid too, even if she doesn't quite measure up to her work on My Hero Academia or Pokémon Journeys.
Even VSI Los Angeles' English dubbing is not without its problems. As with the Japanese song, an effort was clearly made to retain as much of the cast from the 2001 series 4Kids dubbing as possible. As someone who loves that dubbing and thinks many of the New York area actors who worked At 4Kids they have too much of a bad rap for decisions they had no control over, I was very excited about that. Prospectus and it was great to see how actors like Jay Snyder (Dan Green) and Lisa Ortiz were able to play characters like Silva and Tao Jun without having to do any questionable accent work. But because Shaman King is a story with many characters of different nationalities and cultures, as well as attempts to portray them authentically (with varying results), I would also be lying if I said no. "I wish that was reflected more in the elections. the casting of the dubbing. Especially considering the number of possibilities that ranged shooting has opened up over the last year. While some of that can be fairly easily attributed to prioritizing role retaliation, even some of the New additions to the cast aren't immune to this, and it's at least a little weird to see Laura Stahl play Ren, for example, despite that. There are several Chinese-American voice actors from the Los Angeles area who are also regulars. from the anime, even though his actual performance is probably one of the highlights of the dubbing.
To be clear, this is not up to the actors themselves and ultimately depends on who is casting. But it doesn't help the unfortunate fact that the dubbing, even apart from that, is pretty misdirected and sounds oddly stiff for modern dubbing. Even veteran actress Tara Sands, who is probably the most active actress on the reboot, and one of the highlights of the 4Kids dub was Yoh's determined fiancée Anna, sounds unusually awkward here compared to many of her recent appearances. in other programs. Some of the performances are successful despite the strange direction they were given: Micheal Sinternklass returns as Horohoro or Erica Mendez does a weird villain like Hao, and Oliver Wyman does particularly well for his role as Manta, re-taut energy. to capture your original. performance, despite not having done many voice-overs in recent years compared to some of the other cast members. Unfortunately, the good performances here are a bit drowned out by the stiffness with which the rest of the cast focuses on the sound, and overall the dubbing is pretty rough around the edges. Oddly enough, I'd honestly say that the 4Kids dubbing for the 2001 series was actually better directed, and that thought made my experience going through these episodes even more difficult.
It really sucks having to work so hard on this reboot. Shaman King was one of my first great introductions to the world of anime and manga itself, and while the manga hasn't aged perfectly, I think the story was strong enough to deserve a second shake-up. Unfortunately, this new anime is moving too fast to do that story justice, and while I was hoping it would at least serve as a way to introduce new fans to the series, I prefer to take them in the direction of the series. manga, or the 2001 version of the anime (which will comfortably be re-released later this year by Discotek, including 4Kids dub). Ultimately, the rush to cover as much as possible as quickly as possible leaves this new version of Shaman King crippled and indistinguishable from other fights, and as a longtime fan that's probably the biggest disappointment of all.
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