It was announced earlier this week that Shonen Magazine Edge will be ending it’s publication on October 17th with it’s final issue. This magazine is currently running Shaman King: The Super Star manga along with various other spin-offs for the series. As the entire Shaman King series has had a troubled past with cancellations, many fans may be concerned with what will happen to the series now. Luckily, Hiroyuki Takei’s editor has confirmed that the series will continue and that more information will be announced on October 17th.
But there may be some more questions you have about how this will impact the Shaman King franchise. As our team has been reporting on Shaman King news since 2004, effectively since it’s first cancelation in Weekly Shonen Jump, we’ve gained quite a bit of knowledge on what to expect. So below is a list of some common questions you may have and we’ll provide our best answer based on the current state of affairs and historically how these things have occurred in the past.
Will Shaman King: The Super Star end? Will the series have another sequel with a new title?
The series will definitely continue. While if it will stay under the name of “The Super Star” has yet to be determined. The most likely answer will be “yes”, it will continue to use “The Super Star” after Shonen Magazine Edge concludes. The series already has lots of different titles with the spin-offs, so adding more titles would only confuse new fans to start reading.
When creating The Super Star, the Flowers manga was already concluded for a full 4 years. With a change in publishers and such a long time period in between, Takei wanted a new starting point. So with that was the decision to create a new series title.
Will Shaman King: The Super Star volume 8 be released?
As of August 2023, there is roughly only about 42 pages needed to fill volume 8 of Shaman King: The Super Star. There are also 2 issues of Shonen Magazine Edge remaining. Between those 2 issues, we should get enough pages to at least fill the volume. Potentially, we could get even more chapters and have a slightly larger volume.
The timing of the release of Shaman King: The Super Star volume 8 depends on when and where the series will be moving. Typically the volumes of The Super Star come out within 1 month of the volume being filled. So means the volume could release in Japan as soon as November 2023. When a magazine ends publication, they will often still finish off the volumes that were completed under that label if they aren’t being continued. If there was already volumes planned to be released, those continue as expected. The date for the 8th volume was never officially announced, so it’s hard to say when it will come out. It could be held so that it would be timed with whichever publication the series transfers to. This would allow them to help promote the series for it’s new home.
Which magazine will it be transferred to?
Let’s first explore the possible options for a monthly magazine:
| Name | Monthly Circulation | Target Demographic |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly Shonen Magazine | 171,000 copies | Boys |
| Monthly Shonen Sirius | 7,200 copies | Boys |
| Bessatsu Shonen Magazine | 21,000 copies | Boys |
| Monthly Young Magazine | 60,000 copies | Men |
| Monthly Morning Two | 16,867 copies | Men |
| Afternoon | 24,733 copies | Men |
| Good! Afternoon | 27,000 copies | Men |
| Bessatsu Friend | 20,000 copies | Girls |
| Monthly Dessert | 22,000 copies | Girls |
| Nakayosi | 43,000 copies | Girls |
| Kiss | 28,500 copies | Women |
| Be・Love | 37,600 copies | Women |
Just looking a monthly circulation standpoint, with the exception of Monthly Shonen Sirius, all of these magazines be a step-up in the amount of potential readers for the Shaman King series. From that perspective, none of them are really a downgrade, as even Monthly Shonen Sirius is still comparable to the monthly circulation that Shonen Magazine Edge had. With a monthly release cycle, this stays comparable to Takei’s current release method he has been doing for years.
The next point is to look a the target demographics. It’s unlikely that the shonen (boys) series would go towards a shojo (girls) magazine. Shaman King: & a Garden had a run in Nakayosi as a unique test to see if it would expand the audience for the series. While the series was enjoyed by established fans, it didn’t appear to greatly expand out the audience. So The Super Star moving to Bessatsu Friend, Monthly Dessert, and Nakayosi is very unlikely.
Moving into the Josei (women) magazines, is an interesting proposal. The Shaman King franchise does have a strong female fan base who have been supporting it over the years. When voting for spin-offs, Tao Jun won the contest, and the fan-favorite, Horohoro played a strong roll in the Red Crimson spin-off. The characters chosen for products have also skewed to including the fan favorites, which lean towards older female fans who can afford pricier items. The Kiss magazine tends to skew towards a slightly younger audience, where as Be・Love is one of Kodansha’s oldest demographics.
So let’s take a look at the demographic breakdown for Shonen Magazine Edge:
Similar to what was noted above, a younger demographic was not very present for the magazine. A majority of the fans were in the age range between 20 through their early 40s. So if it were to move to another magazine, it’s likely looking for an older audience. For the other monthly magazines here is their demographics breakdowns.
Each magazine has a different survey for their readers, so the following two don’t ask about age, but instead ask about their profession/schooling. So some additional extrapolation is needed but is still comparable.
It’s worth noting that Hiroyuki Takei was published in Monthly Shonen Magazine for a single chapter. He created a special Nekogahara chapter called “Bearing Trouble Away By Bearing Tales” which helped promote the series running in Shonen Magazine Edge
Over time, the demographics for the Shaman King manga continue to skew older. However the 2021 anime kept to its Weekly Shonen Jump roots and was still accessible to a wider audience. The Shaman King Flowers manga is still within those shonen (boys) demographic and the upcoming anime appears to continue to stay true to that.
Which leads to the question on how the Shaman King Flowers anime will help pick the magazine The Super Star may move into. The magazine covers can function as advertisements for an anime series when the sit on store shelves. So a good amount of cross-promotion is baked in and can help boost up some sales in early 2024. The question becomes on who they want to target. Do they want to aim for a younger audience to pair with the anime series? Or do they want to pull back in more older fans who may have read the series back when it was in Weekly Shonen Jump and may have fallen off? It’s hard to know which way they will go at this point as both are viable options.
Information for these graphs and charts came from the Kodansha Ad Station and are valid for 2023.
Could Shaman King return back to weekly serialization?
It’s possible, but seems unlikely. Hiroyuki Takei has had weekly serializations for about 4 areas:
- Butsu Zone
- Shaman King
- Jyuki Ningen Jumbor
- Shaman King Zero / Shaman King Flowers / Jumbor / Ultimo
The first 3 are the traditional weekly serializations. However Takei got burnt out by the end of Shaman King, and Jyuki Ningen Jumbor was a flop of a series. During the time when Takei was publishing in 3 monthly magazines with Shaman King Zero/Flowers, Jumbor, and Ultimo, he was effectively back to a weekly serialization rate. For some months his entire page count per month was even higher than if it was a standard weekly serialization. As he had longer deadlines portions were spread out across a month, rather than each week, but it was a lot of work.
The competitive nature in the weekly magazines is also much higher. So a serialization in these magazines would come with a higher risk of another future cancellation.
To compare to the weekly circulation numbers with the monthly ones mentioned earlier, the total readership is significantly higher.
| Name | Weekly Circulation | Target Demographic |
|---|---|---|
| Weekly Shonen Magazine | 404,167 copies | Boys |
| Weekly Young Magazine | 194,689 copies | Men |
| Morning | 95,846 copies | Men |
Similar to the questions related to the monthly magazines, it depends on which audience they want to have Shaman King be more focused towards. Each of the weekly magazines have their very distinct age ranges.
If Shaman King: The Super Star were to move to a weekly serialization, there is likely some significant changes in how that series produced. It would take changing from the current monthly cycle back to a weekly cycle in a very short period. This could mean hiring new assistants, which was very difficult to get for the Shaman King: & a Garden manga series.
Takei has been splitting his monthly releases of chapters often into 2 separate chapters. Often this allows for different stories to be featured in each chapter as the current plot of the series has multiple events occurring simultaneously in different locations.
Information for these graphs and charts came from the Kodansha Ad Station and are valid for 2023.
Could Shaman King move to a digital only release?
Having a print magazine release is not a guarantee. Kodansha’s multiple digital platforms often have exclusive titles that are not printed in the magazines. Services like Shueisha’s Jump+ has started seeing record numbers in readership and support hit titles like Chainsaw Man and Dandadan without having a print-magazine release. The 4 major digital platforms are the following:
| Name | Related Print Magazines | Target Demographics |
|---|---|---|
| Magazine Pocket (Magapoke) | Weekly Shonen Magazine Bessatsu Shonen Magazine | Male (88%) |
| Comic Days | Weekly Shonen Magazine Young Magazine Morning Nakayosi Kiss | Generalized |
| DAYS NEO | Generalized | |
| Palcy | Be・Love Nakayosi Bessatsu Friend Vivi | Female (95%) |
Magazine Pocket was the platform that had weekly releases of the Shaman King: Faust 8 – The Eternal Eliza manga prior to it being printed in Shonen Magazine Edge. Magazine Pocket is also the basis for the English K-Manga app, but the titles available in English are unique.
Comic Days is the primary app for most of the Kodansha manga series. However there is quite a bit of overlap between the services and some titles can be found on multiple platforms. It hosts manga from 18 different magazines on it’s service.
Days Neo functions similar to Comic Days, but is focused on supporting new artists/creators directly. It hosts various contests, artist-uploaded manga, and has sub sites for Illustrations and Novels. This site also features titles from other non-Kodansha publishers as well. Shaman King is highly unlikely to be on this service as Hiroyuki Takei is already a well-established author.
Palcy is heavily focused on the female demographic. If Shaman King were to move to a female-targeted print magazine, then it would show up on this service. However it would be highly unlikely to show up here as a digital exclusive.
One of the major downsides of being on any digital service as an exclusive, is that the only profit from the series come from the volume sales. When Shaman King: Flowers was running in Jump X, the volume sales on release date were about x1.5 to x2 of the magazine. Meaning that at least half of it’s reader bases wasn’t picking up the magazine to begin with. Sales numbers for Shaman King: The Super Star are basically non-existent, but it’s reasonable to assume that they are still roughly the same as they were for Shaman King Flowers. If there was no print magazine to support the series, it’s possible that those existing sales numbers will continue. However with the new Flowers anime coming out in January 2024, they would be missing out on a lot of potential cross-promotion marketing.
Information for these graphs and charts came from the Kodansha Ad Station and are valid for 2023.
How long will a potential hiatus/break be while The Super Star changes magazines?
Hopefully not very long. As this change won’t happen for at least 2 months, this gives quite a bit of time to help prepare for the shift. It could be likely that there would be a month or two without a new chapter during the change. However with the Shaman King Flowers anime premiering in January 2024, it’s very likely that chapters should come out on a regular basis by early next year. Assuming that Hiroyuki Takei doesn’t go on another extended hiatus.
Will Hiroyuki Takei’s editor change?
The editors for a manga series can have a significant impact on how any manga story progresses. In particular for Hiroyuki Takei, one of the main reasons he moved to Kodansha from Shueisha was the personal connections he made with his editor. Moriyoshi Yoshida has been Hiroyuki Takei’s editor for Nekogahara and all of the Shaman King sequels and spin-offs since The Super Star. He has also been in coordination on the various promotional campaigns, goods, and cross-overs/collaborations for the Shaman King franchise. He also was one of the key coordinators for the Shaman King Exhibition and been in charge of most of the social media postings related to the series.
Often when a magazine closes, the editors are redistributed among the other magazines. Prior to joining the newly formed Shonen Magazine Edge, Moriyoshi Yoshida previously worked for Monthly Shonen Magazine. It’s possible he could return there or potentially continue to another magazine. He is also the editor for the Otaku Elf (江戸前エルフ – Edomae Elf) manga series that recently had an anime adaptation and is still on-going in Shonen Magazine Edge. It’s possible that he could remain the editor for two of Shonen Magazine Edge‘s major series if they all get moved to the same magazine.
Typically not all series from a magazine get moved into another magazine. Often they are split up across multiple magazines, depending on multiple factors.
How sudden was this announcement? Was their earlier signs that were missed?
Typically when a magazine is being suspended, it’s a very quick and sudden announcement. Sometimes it’s not even announced until the final issue is out. But most of the time, it’s announced that there would be one final issue. For Shonen Magazine Edge, there is 2 more issues that will be released. So it’s very likely that this decision was made earlier this month, and potentially only a week or so before it was announced.
Some more evidence that helps point to this sudden announcement is that in the October issue, releasing on September 15th, a new manga series will be starting in Shonen Magazine Edge. If they knew the cancellation was happening further in advance, they would not have added a new serialization to the magazine.
As part of potentially some bad timing, shortly after the magazine was released, Hiroyuki Takei’s editor went on his planned trip to Izumo to see the Shaman King tourism campaign. He commented on Twitter that even though the magazine was ending, his workload wasn’t decreasing but actually increased. So if they knew this was happening, that trip would likely not have occurred.
It’s often hard to know in advance that a magazine will be shut down. For Jump X, we could see the sudden drop in readership, followed by a further reliance on the Shaman King series to keep circulation numbers up. Magazines that have strong sales numbers often include extra pack-ins. These tend to be things like promotional card files and such. Most of the card files that were included as extras for the magazine were featuring Shaman King on them, but the series has been on several long hiatuses. So the lack of card files or extras could have been more attributed to those extended breaks. The circulation numbers for the magazine were only listed as the static 10,000, so it’s hard to judge if that number had any sudden drop.
The magazine over the last 2 years was also taking a sharp shift in the types of stories being told. While this was suppose to be “on the edge” of what’s considered shonen, the magazine was shifting towards an demographic for older women (josei). While not common, it’s not completely unreasonable for the target demographic to shift over time. In those long term cases, the magazine could have undergone a rebranding or have a new spin-off magazine formed.
Kodansha could also have looked at the larger vision for the magazine. With the recent Otaku Elf anime, the magazine may not have seen a larger boost in readership. While the Shaman King anime was airing, the main sequel manga was completely absent from the magazine. So the potential for using the magazine for cross-promotion with any future anime series might have been seen as very minimal.
Looking back in hind-sight, there are some of those signs that could have hinted at the cancellation. However many of those were via conjecture and using estimations, which would be hard to have accurately predicted.
Will the Shaman King Flowers anime still air in January 2024?
Yes! There would be no changes to how and when the Shaman King Flowers anime will air. This is run by a separate production committee, and Shonen Magazine Edge only had a small part to play in that. For the most part, that’s managed by the larger Kodansha corporation and the manga magazine doesn’t play a part in it.
Will there still be Shaman King Flowers goods, collabs, etc.?
Yes! Any collaboration or goods that is based on the Shaman King Flowers anime will continue on as planned. These are through that separate production committee. Those products and collaborations will use the copyright tag of “©武井宏之・講談社／SHAMAN KING FLOWERS Project.” and aren’t directly managed by the Shonen Magazine Edge staff.
Will there be changes to already announced Shaman King goods, pop-up shops, and events?
No! Anything that was previously announced will continue on as planned. While these can be coordinated through some of the Shonen Magazine Edge staff, they are not exclusively created because of them. They may only operate as an intermediary for meeting the deadlines and communications with Hiroyuki Takei. As these goods and events can take months of preparation time for approvals and manufacturing, they would not be impacted by this change with Shonen Magazine Edge.
Will there be a hold or slow down of Shaman King goods?
Realistically, this would have occurred either way. Starting in Fall 2023, new Shaman King Flowers based goods are likely going to be released. As such the number of Shaman King goods, unrelated to Flowers, would likely slow down. There may be some unannounced projects that could take longer for approval during this change. However we won’t be able to know when or what those may be until they are officially announced.
Will this cause English print volumes of Shaman King Flowers to be delayed?
Most likely no. The Japanese license holders do have the final say on what is printed and released. This includes any changes, even as minor as how the text is positioned on the volume covers. Luckily the volume covers for all 6 volumes of the English print editions of the Shaman King Flowers manga have been approved. So these volumes are likely well through the approval process so any remaining approvals should hopefully be able to be handled quickly.
Will this cause any delays in reprints for the Shaman King Omnibus or Flowers volumes in English?
No! In most cases, Kodansha USA should be able to continue to reprint the manga, without making any changes, to help meet the demand. Kodansha USA has already been printing lots of copies of Shaman King Flowers to help meet the potential demand surge that will come with the anime airing in 2024.
Will this cause delays in the English digital edition of Shaman King The Super Star?
Hopefully not. Kodansha USA typically releases a volume of The Super Star within 3-6 months of the Japanese release. With their current release calendar, it’s not expected to come out before October. This is still within that window and likely planned before this announcement. They could potentially be waiting on approvals which may delay the release. However if they see this as an issue, they may hold off on announcing a specified release date until they get those approvals in place. Unlike with print releases which need to be announced well in advance, the digital releases typically only need a week or two advance notice of the release date.
Will there be delays in other non-English Shaman King releases?
Hopefully not. Similar to the English releases, all other international releases have to go through the same levels of approvals. So if there are delays, it will likely be more than just one publisher.
Will this delay in licensing of new titles for Shaman King?
Most likely not. Licensing deals can take months to get finalized, and often are connected to the publisher as a whole. So while a change over in the brand for Shaman King: The Super Star may slow down things a little bit, it shouldn’t impact it as a whole.
Could this help new spin-off series get started?
Most likely not. When being published in Shonen Magazine Edge, the Shaman King franchise was one of it’s key series. This gave them a lot of leeway to have multiple series run in the magazine. While they did have some newcomer contests, their focus was not as competitive for which series were added and stayed in the magazine. This additional freedom allowed Red Crimson and Marcos to run in the magazine alongside of The Super Star.
If there are new spin-off series, it would likely take a path similar to Faust 8 – The Eternal Eliza manga. It would likely be a digital-only release with some smaller promotions in a physical magazine.
Could this help a new simulpub release of The Super Star occur?
This change likely wouldn’t have any impact. Currently the manga is only released on the same day as Japan in China. So they already have a system and process in place to make that occur.
The biggest impact on why the series hasn’t been simulpublished in English yet was tied to it’s long, and unclear hiatus. The titles that are being released at the same time as Japan should be coming out at a consistent rate. It requires very time-sensitive coordination for the translating, lettering, and editing to get the chapters out in English (or any other language) at the same time as Japan. If a series isn’t coming out consistently (or having a changing number of pages), it would be difficult to build a system so that it will always come out on time.
So if the series gets back into a more predictable pattern of releases, and fans keep purchasing the digital volumes, then it can increase the chances of a simulpub release in the future.
What will happen to the original series, Red Crimson, Marcos, Flowers, Zero, etc.?
Where ever The Super Star lands, the rest of Hiroyuki Takei’s works will follow. They will move as a package deal to the next brand within Kodansha.
In Japanese bookstores, manga is sorted by publisher, then by brand/imprint, then by title. So once a new home for Shaman King has been found, it will likely shift where in bookstores the series is found. The existing books will remain on the shelves.
However once new reprints are needed, they will likely have a slightly different brand/imprint listed on them. This will likely match the magazine that they are connected with which can update what it looks like on the spine and on the credits page in the book.
So if you wanted to have a consistent spine for the series, be sure to pick up the volumes before new reprints occur.
The actual content of the books will remain the same. Any digital versions of the books will likely stay the same as well.
Hopefully you find that these topics to relieve some of the stress that may be related to the magazine closing. This will not be a similar scenario as what happened with Shaman King: Flowers, but doesn’t mean there couldn’t be some bumps along the way. We will continue to report on any changes that will occur so you can stay up-to-date on how to follow the series.
