Butsu Zone Collector’s Edition Interviews in Quarterly S Magazine

Earlier this year in March 2024, an official Butsu Zone Twitter account announced that Hiroyuki Takei’s first manga serialization, Butsu Zone (仏ゾーン), will be getting a 2 volume Collector’s Edition (愛蔵版) re-release. The series was originally released by Shueisha in the following formats:

• 19 chapter serialization in Weekly Shonen Jump
• 3 volume manga release (original volume printing)
• 3 Drama CDs, which retold the story with an alternate ending and featured additional artwork
• 2 volume “bunko” re-release, with additional new content
• 1 volume “Jump Remix” re-release, with an additional “Butsu Zone Remix” chapter

All of these prior releases were under Shueisha, whom Hiroyuki Takei was working with at the time. Since then, he has moved to Kodansha and started the Shaman King The Super Star manga, which features a story arc inspired by the original Butsu Zone manga and oneshot. The new “Collector’s Edition” of the Butsu Zone manga will be released by yet a different publisher, Shogakukan. Hiroyuki Takei had previously worked with them with various Corocoro published titles which is a part of Shogakukan. Specifically, this release will be under the Shogakukan Creative label, which focuses on deluxe releases of manga titles.

The following is a breakdown on what is included in each of the volumes.

In addition to the content listed above, the following will also be included in the volumes. The specific volumes which the content will be in has not been announced yet.

• Color pages
• Original illustrations from previous releases
• Additional content from previous releases
• Preview illustrations from Weekly Shonen Jump
• Original unreleased illustrations
• Transcription of a new 3-hour interview with Hiroyuki Takei

The color pages listed are not only the full color illustrations used for the original Weekly Shonen Jump magazine releases. But this will also include the bichrome color pages which were used at the time in the magazine. The use of bichrome color pages for the manga serializations stopped shortly after Butsu Zone and were primarily only used for advertisements going forward in Weekly Shonen Jump. These pages were unique in that they featured both black and a orange-red ink color. This allowed for some unique colors and shading that were not replicated in the previous volume releases.

A short video preview of the first volume that will be on sale next week is also available on Twitter:

【コミックス見本公開】

『仏ゾーン　愛蔵版』上巻　10月15日発売

見本が遂に完成しました。
カバーは金の箔押し加工を施した豪華仕様です。

発売まであと一週間！
確実に手に入れたい方はぜひご予約を！！#仏ゾーンhttps://t.co/ZNGbYH8Ic8 pic.twitter.com/14GnGGNFW6

— 仏ゾーン 愛蔵版【公式】 (@butsu_zone) October 8, 2024

As part of the run-up to having these volumes released, a 2-part interview was done in the Quarterly S magazine. This will be a separate interview than the 3-hour interview with Hiroyuki Takei that will be included in the books. The first part of the interview was included in Quarterly S issue 86 and focused more on the editorial-side and released in Japan on June 17, 2024. The second part of the interview was with Hiroyuki Takei directly and was included in Quarterly S issue 87 and was released in Japan on September 18, 2024. Additionally, the second interview expands beyond the topic of Butsu Zone to his current on-going weekly serialization of Shaman King The Super Star. Both of these interviews include various illustrations for the upcoming volume releases as well as a behind-the-scenes look at Takei’s drawing process for Shaman King The Super Star in the later interview.

The first interview was with Arita (有田) and Sekai (セカイ) from the Shogakukan Creative team. Below is some of the highlights of the information provided in this Japanese-only interview:

• While the release falls within the 30^th anniversary for Takei winning the Tezuka Award for Itako No Anna, this was just a coincidence.
• Sekai at Shogakukan Creative pitched the idea of reprinting Butsu Zone to Arita since the original manga was no longer available in print or digital formats. Arita then in turn asked Takei who approved the project.
• Work on creating the books has taken about a year, as of the first interview (an estimated start sometime in 2023).
• Takei was asked if he wanted to make any corrections or any additions to the main manga series, but he decided that he wanted to present it as fans originally read it. Previously Takei has made numerous changes to the Shaman King manga series upon re-releases, including redrawing over the original pages.
• All of the original drawings and color pages were rescanned for this release.

The second interview is with Hiroyuki Takei along with Sekai from Shogakukan Creative and Y-da (Y田), the Kodansha editor for Shaman King The Super Star.

• The 2 new illustrations were designed so they can be connected. Originally he also drew Sachi, but the composition didn’t work between them and was left out of the final illustrations for the cover designs.
• Takei drew the characters with their battle armor on separate digital layers. So the new artwork can be used for posters or acrylic stands if goods were made in the future.
• A new logo for Butsu Zone was created including imagery similar to Sanskrit and could be positioned both vertically and horizontally.
• Takei is hopeful that with a new logo, the Butsu Zone series may one day get an anime adaptation as well.
• Looking back, Takei could have had the bichrome pages done in full color and had the printing company make adjustments for the final print.
• Hiroyuki Takei has always used color Copic markers and his custom brushes on his serializations, but used other tools when working as an assistant.
• Takei would also apply his own physical screentone, but has now moved to digital screentones only.
• The designs of characters changed from pre-production and through serialization. The changes during the series were based on Takei’s fatigue and being unhappy with the designs.
• The concept for the Butsu Zone oneshot wasn’t an idea he had been working on for a long time and only presented it to his editor at the time as soon as it was made. Takei had a strong desire to use concepts that hadn’t been explored yet in manga, so he referenced the photo books for Buddhist statues in his office. He started picking up the photo books from a feature he saw in Bessatsu Taiyo (別冊太陽).
• Some inspiration for Butsu Zone came from Saint Seiya‘s use of the zodiac signs. However it was limiting since each of the signs were equal in strength and difficult to create unique identities that connected with younger readers.
• The editorial department were not against the idea of using Buddhism in a manga and were willing to give it a try.
• Looking back, Takei would have liked more time to do a deeper research into Buddhism and dig into deeper elements, but he was rushed to create the designs and start the story for serialization.
• Takei has turned down offers to partner with authors to create new series.
• Talking with Riku Sanjo, the author for Dragon Quest – The Adventure of Dai manga, he realized one of his flaws as an author. He was relying on resolving the plot with elements that came from external elements, rather than resolving them within the existing story elements. For his future stories, he hopes to not to rely on a surprise at the end to solve conflicts.

The following portion of the interview shifts towards the discussion of Shaman King The Super Star and contains some spoilers from the latest volumes of the manga (volumes 8, 9, 10).

• The concept of having Senju being a part of Lucifer came from Takei’s additional research into how gods are represented differently across cultures. The character of Senju has also evolved to being a more complex character with Takei’s new understanding of his origins.
• Takei has an overall vision on the story he wants to tell in each of his series. He will introduce characters that may have more purpose in a future series, but he may not know exactly how they will exactly connect in that later series. He is also willing to shift which characters are getting focus based on the fan feedback.
• If he could, Takei would give stories to every character, but he doesn’t want the main story to get overcomplicated.
• Takei thinks of “New Trance” as how to reach one’s true potential, and not as a measure of comparative strength. Rather than getting strength from external sources (weapons, connections, ranking), the younger generation will form their strength from within. It is the concept of replacing those outside sources with ones from within yourself and nurture the god in your soul.
• Takei is also working on new designs that are more streamlined. As he gets older, he finds that easy-to-understand shapes is better, but still has the passion for design that he has had since he was a child.
• Since Shaman King Flowers was put on hold when the Jump Kai magazine was discontinued and he changed publishers, Takei feels that The Super Star is able to mostly wrap up the things he started with Flowers. His next Shaman King series will be able to start with a clean slate.
• Takei wants the younger generation to be able to read the series, so he hopes that The Super Star wraps up the more complicated portions of the story.
• Takei’s editor, Y-da, has read the final chapter of The Super Star and commented that it has some impressive panels. He feels that the story of Hao and Yoh has finally been passed, and Hana’s story will take the lead in the next series.
• Takei would like to keep it as a weekly serialization as much as possible. He’s happy that readers want weekly chapters, but it is difficult to do.
• Takei’s current process is to draft up the storyboards for multiple chapters and then do the actual artwork after. He hopes he can do this again for future series. He only wants to do about a volume’s worth of storyboards at a time, since he may lose interest in doing the actual artwork. Having a gap between doing the storyboards and drawing the artwork also allows him to get a fresh look at it and make adjustments.
• Takei wants to go back and finish his Hyper Dash! Yonkuro (ハイパーダッシュ!四駆郎) and Jumbor (ユンボル) manga series before starting the sequel to The Super Star. The next series will be called Shaman King Yard, and it will be abbreviated to SKY.

Included in the second interview is the entire storyboard for Shaman King The Super Star chapter 54. It also included the sketching and partial drawing for 2 of the pages from Shaman King The Super Star chapter 52.

The two Quarterly S magazine issues that contained this interview and additional images of the production are only available in print editions. Both magazines can be imported from various Japanese retailers such as Amazon.co.jp (#86 & #87). The magazines will also be officially sold in North America, still in the original Japanese, by Barnes & Noble next year. Issue #86 will release on May 6, 2025 and #87 does not have a release date yet.

The first volume of Butsu Zone Collector’s Edition will be available from multiple online retailers, but can also be purchased digitally from Bookwalker. The digital release will be available immediately at midnight on October 15, 2025 in Japan.