Recently, the page count for Shaman King Zero volume 2 was announced via BookNavi. The page total comes up to 204. This doesn’t sound un-reasonable, since volume 1 was only 196 pages. But, let’s take a closer look at what we know should be in this volume…
- Mappa Douji II ~ First Part ~ (chapter 6)
- Mappa Douji II ~ Last Part ~ (chapter 7)
- Kado, The Luxurios Maharajah ~ First Part ~ (chapter 8)
- Kado, The Luxurios Maharajah ~ Middle Part ~ (chapter 9)
- Kado, The Luxurios Maharajah ~ Last Part ~ (chapter 10)
So next let’s look at the page count for each:
- Chapter 6 – 46 pages
- Chapter 7 – 40 pages
- Chapter 8 – 17 pages
- Chapter 9 – 19 pages
- Chapter 10 – 21 pages
If we total those pages up… we only get 143 pages! Of course, we could factor in a couple blank pages and the table of contents… but even with that, we are still shy of 205 pages by around 41 pages.
There is 3 logical answers that it could be to fill that gap:
- Mappa Douji will be included as the “first chapter”
- Yahabe oneshot will be included
- Brand new oneshot to be included (or something else)
First looking at Mappa Douji… it makes sense for a couple of reasons. First it starts off with a color page, which all of Takei’s recent manga volumes start with at least 1 color page. Second, it flows right into the Mappa Douji II. Third, with Hao on the cover… it makes more sense to include another chapter surrounding him. It’s only 33 pages, so it would fit in nicely in that 40 pages (plus some buffer pages) slot. However, Mappa Douji was published in the Shaman King Fanbook once before, so it would be strange to publish it again. But the Fanbook is long out of print, so it’s not completely insane.
Next looking at the Yahabe oneshot… Page count wise, it’s a tight squeeze. The original oneshot comes in at 42 pages, when it was published in JumpSQ. It’s never been published elsewhere. So if it were to be included, there would need to be some edits to trim down it’s page count by a little. It effectively is Yosuke’s “Zero story” so with maybe a slight change in some phrasing in it, it can fit right into the Shaman King universe.
Finally, we could always get some sort of new thing. Maybe a re-write of the original Death Zero oneshot? Maybe something tied in with Shaman King Flowers? Who knows. It’s alot of pages, so it’s way too many for just to be filled with extras.
Looking at all of those options, Mappa Douji seems like the best bet. I was hoping for Yahabe, but based on the “flow” of how these chapters played out, Mappa Douji is probably the “chapter 5.5” for the Shaman King Zero series. But we’ll find out the true answer in about 2 weeks!
Shaman King Zero volume 2 will be released in Japan on January 19th, 2015.
