Original Shaman King Anime Finally Coming to Blu-ray

The original Shaman King anime will finally be coming to Blu-ray! Hiroyuki Takei's Shaman King has [...]

By Nick Valdez

The original Shaman King anime will finally be coming to Blu-ray! Hiroyuki Takei's Shaman King has come back in a huge way these past couple of years with not only the original manga series finally making its way outside of Japan with an official English language release, but there has been a brand new rebooted take on the anime first released 20 years ago. Fans outside of Japan will have to wait a bit before they can check out this new series for themselves, but at least there's going to be a new way to check out the original anime.

Discotek Media has announced that they will be releasing the original 64 episode series from 2003 on standard definition Blu-ray. This will be the English dubbed version of the series (once released by 4Kids Entertainment), and feature the episodes that had been edited for broadcast. For fans hoping for a full uncut release of the Japanese version of the original anime, Discotek Media confirmed that one would be on the way at a later date.

No release date has been set for Shaman King's Blu-ray debut, unfortunately, but it'll be the first time fans have been able to check out the series in the highest quality possible. This version of the anime famously had to work up an original ending due to the manga's run coming to a truncated end. But years later Takei returned to the series to complete it, and the complete version of the manga is what the rebooted anime is now adapting in Japan.

It might be airing new episodes as part of the Spring 2021 schedule, but it will be making its international debut with Netflix later this year. A concrete release date has yet to be set, unfortunately, but current listings for the series revealed that it will be running for 52 episodes in total. It'll likely be broken up into multiple episode releases for international territories, but we'll just see. Until then, at least we know the original anime is coming back.

What do you think? How did you like the original Shaman King anime from 20 years ago? Will you be waiting on the uncut, Japanese original instead? Let us know your thoughts in the comments or you can even reach out to me directly about all things animated and other cool stuff @Valdezology on Twitter!

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