'Shaman King' Announces Spin-Off Manga

Like many other classic shonen action anime and manga stories, Hiroyuki Taki's Shaman King is [...]

By Nick Valdez

Like many other classic shonen action anime and manga stories, Hiroyuki Taki's Shaman King is celebrating a big anniversary this year. With its 20th Anniversary celebration not only bringing a new arc for the series, but a spin-off manga as well.

Kodansha has announced that the series is getting a new spin-off manga written by Jet Kusamura, and will follow Tao Jun.

Announced in Kodansha's Shonen Magazine Edge June issue, which also features the first new chapter of the new Shaman King arc, Super Star, the new spin-off manga will be titled Shaman King Gaiden: Red Crimson. Following Tao Ren's older sister Tao Jun, the preview art for the new manga is slick and bears the tagline, "A crimson shadow draws close to the flower of the Tao family."

For those unfamiliar with Shaman King, the series was originally created by Hiroyuki Takei. The story follows Yoh Asakura, a shaman who is a medium between the worlds of the living and the dead. He enters into the Shaman Fight, a tournament between shamans held every 500 years, in order to become to contact the Great Spirit and become the Shaman King, one who is able to reshape the world in any way they wish

The series was initially published in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump from 1998 to 2004 and has been collected into 32 volumes. The manga was licensed for an English language release by Viz Media, and was adapted into an anime series by Xebec. The series was licensed for an English language broadcast by 4Kids Entertainment and ran for 64 episodes.

The series was recently revived with the new Shaman King The Super Star, but not much is known about the new manga since it has yet to release outside of Japan. Fans are excited just to see the series getting new stories after such a long wait since they still feel the sting of the manga's original abrupt end.

Takei had originally ended the manga due to a mix of fatigue and the feeling that his story fell into common shonen traps. Later releasing a "Perfect Edition" for the story, Takei finally put an end to the series in the way he initially envisioned. But now, the new arc will act as a sort of better fitting button for the series.

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