Shaman King

Publisher
TV Tokyo, XEBEC, NAS
Director
Hiroyuki Takei
Production
NAS, TV Tokyo, XEBEC
Country of origin
Japan
Format
Series
Running time
25 min x 64 Episodes
Year
2001

Shaman King

By Bryan Hoang
19th Jun 04

"The boy who dances with ghosts". A quote from Shaman King, the title of the first episode, can this really be a worthwhile anime to watch? You would probably hear a lot of people talking about Shaman King being on Fox Box, and would probably say it's one of those cliche anime (example Pokemon, Digimon, Yugioh), about friendship, value, and respect. Well to the people that have seen the dubbed version on Fox Box, a little note to be considered is that 4Kids butchered Shaman King to the ground. Bad voices actors, changes of story and horrible changes of names. Though I must agree Shaman King is another cliche anime about friendship, respect, and etc, but does it degrade the show? I would strongly disagree since Shaman King does have some depth to it: an excellent storyline, good characters/character development and a satisfying theme song to back it up.

Shaman King first starts off with a boy who goes by the name of Yoh Asakura, who is a laid back kid; he doesn't worry about anything, mainly sleeps and amazingly he's a shaman. Yoh becomes friends with a short (human) kid with a big head named Manta, who can also see spirits. As the story progresses, a young female named Anna, (who is Yoh's fiance and also a dictator), helps Yoh train to become a Shaman King. What better way to decide the King of Shamans? What else than to have a Shaman fight to prove who's the strongest, and the best way to organize these battles is to have a tournament. The person who becomes the Shaman King will be able to the lead the world to the right path, away from destruction.

My opinion is that it initially has an original story, but progresses very slowly. For the first season (episode 1-26), it didn't really have much of an impact on me, though I continually watched it hoping it got better. I was amazed as the second season (episode 27-64) started; it hooked me to my seat. It was as if I had to watch each episode until I finished the series. As each episode went from 27+ I couldn't tell whether the episode was filler or not; each episode seemed important and each delivered action, comedy and some character development. The action scenes were pretty cool, but not as detailed as, for example, Rurouni Kenshin's were. The comedy was hilarious and the characters were very likeable. I could not find a character I could hate, and each has a pretty good back story to them. The storyline is very good, well structured, although it can be predictable at times.

To most people Shaman King's strongest genre or best features is the comedy, which I can see why, but I believe it's the original story. Even though it has the cliche of friendship, respect and blah, blah, blah, it still has a good story. Many future viewers and fans be sure to stay far away from the English dub as possible, unless you're a freak like me and like to watch the dub and compare it with the original. But to most viewers, don't be a cantankerous, prejudice viewer; watch the anime till the end, it could surprise you with how good it can be.

-- Bryan Hoang 19th Jun 04

Shaman King Images