Shaman King

Shaman King
Publisher: Shueisha Inc
Type of Anime: TV
Genre: Adventure, Martial Arts, Fantasy
Watched Subbed/Dubbed: Subbed

Overall Rating:

Shaman King is the story of Asakura Yoh, a shaman, and his quest to become the Shaman King. Along the way, Yoh meets a boy, Manta, who has the ability to see spirits, an unusual feat for a human, attempts to find a powerful spirit that will be his main spirit and must withstand intense training from his fiancée, Anna, who dreams of living an easy life as the wife of the Shaman King. He also meets numerous friends along the way.

Shamans have the ability to possess spirits and then utilize the power and skills of the spirit to fight. One of the interesting things, though, is that a Shaman's power does not all come from the spirit he possesses, but is a combination of the Shaman's ability and the spirit's ability, hence Anna's insistence on training. With more training, the Shaman and his spirit become more comfortable with each other and can utilize greater attacks in battle.

As humanity has developed, they have forgotten the spirits and have acted out of desire. The Shaman King is the Shaman who can unite with the Seirei no Ou, or King of Spirits to lead the world back to the right path. The Shaman King will become the world's Savior and reinstate the harmony that once existed. Apparently, there are a good number of Shaman out for the title of Shaman King, to the point where there are even competitions to see who is the strongest. Being of Asakura heritage, Yoh may be a great rival, but he certainly isn't strong enough... at least initially.

Yoh is a great character. He is very laid back and rarely lets his emotions get the better of him. He fights for what he believes in and to protect his friends. The best way I can describe him is that he's mastered Zen philosophy. He can sit for hours thinking of absolutely nothing and believes that there is no point to worrying. Things will happen they way they do regardless of whether he sleeps or doesn't. Anna's pretty much the same way, except that she does worry about Yoh - not that she'd let him see that. The two have an odd relationship. Yoh's scared of Anna and will do what she tells him and Anna constantly pushes Yoh to get better and better. She doesn't seem as though she's capable of showing him how much she cares or maybe she's just scared he will let her down if he cannot become the Shaman King. Still, she believes strongly in him and shows she cares in odd ways like making him new clothes.

The Shaman Fight is a tournament that takes place once every 500 years. An Oversoul is a technique whereby a shaman can shape his spirit into form. They do this by consuming materialization energy known as Furiyoku. During the Fight, Shamans battle one another until their Oversouls fade and all their Furyoku is used up. The shaman who uses all of his Furyoku first is the loser.

The Shaman Fight preliminaries and getting to Patch Village, where the Shaman Fight will be held make up about half of this series. The other half is the actual Shaman Fight itself. Of course, it's not quite that easy, and the Shaman Fight has other implications that Yoh and his friends discover along the way.

My overall impression of is pretty good. I like the mix of philosophy, animation, humor, and fighting, and the characters introduced are interesting (even Lyserg or Chocolove grew on me by the end - although I never did figure our what was up with Millie and Lyserg being Ryu's "Best Place"??). Yes, sometimes it does drag out when each episode becomes a new Shaman Fight battle in that Flame of Recca style, but overall, there were very few episodes I was disappointed with, and the last several were quite good. Now that 26 episodes have been licensed by 4Kids here in the US, I'm absolutely terrified that the series will become a watered down shadow of its former self... guess we'll see in the upcoming months...

I like the animation style a lot, actually. It's simple with just the right amount of detail. It has a nice style to it that goes really well with the overall mood of the series.

The opening and closing theme songs are by Megumi Hagashibara. They're ok for theme songs. The rest of the music isn't bad, though not necessarily .hack//sign or escaflowne caliber. The music did grow on me, and the second season music is far better...

I like the way the character development panned out. Everyone is interesting and they each have their own personalities with good traits and flaws. Yoh is really likable, and Anna just cracks me up with her stern yet powerful nature. Sure, this may be a kid's show, but it's definitely one of the better anime out there!

Taken from Click here