On Saturday, November 23, 2024, the final chapter of Shaman King The Super Star released on the Japanese manga distribution service Magazine Pocket. This concludes the series with a total of 68 chapters and will have the final volume release in Japan on January 8, 2025. Since August 2024, the series has released a new chapter every week for the last 15 weeks. Previously when it was published in Magazine Edge, it had a monthly release but often took prolonged hiatuses due to Takei’s health and other factors. The Super Star series, a continuation of the Shaman King Flowers manga series, formally started on May 17, 2018 with 2 chapters in Magazine Edge, but also had a prologue released the month prior. This prologue, which was later re-released in the limited edition of Shaman King The Super Star volume 1, provided the roadmap for the series and the major story arcs Hiroyuki Takei intended to cover.
Note: This article is primarily spoiler-free. It does not go into any details on specific story events within the Shaman King The Super Star.
Unlike other manga serialization in Magazine Edge, when the magazine was discontinued the release timeframe and method for Shaman King The Super Star was unclear. While it was supposed to release in early 2024, that date was later pushed back to the summer 2024 timeframe. In order to have a weekly release cycle, Hiroyuki Takei worked to complete all of the chapters for the series before they were published. During this time between October 2023 and June 2024, these 15 chapters of Shaman King The Super Star were completed. From an interview recorded in June 2024, Hiroyuki Takei’s editor, Y-da, had noted that he had read the final chapter which collaborates this timeline. Hiroyuki Takei reworked his production cycle to draft the storyboards for multiple chapters at a time, to about a volume’s length of manga at a time. Then he would go back and complete the artwork based on those storyboards. By not doing it chapter-by-chapter as is traditionally done, it allowed him to ensure continuity between the chapters and make some adjustments when doing the final inking from the initial storyboards. With this new process in how he creates this series, he hopes that he can continue this cycle with his future manga projects.
What’s Next For Shaman King?
The title for the next sequel to the Shaman King franchise has already been decided. The sequel to The Super Star will be called Shaman King Yard. This has the abbreviation of “SKY.” Hiroyuki Takei had this name picked out for many years. Going back to the print edition of Shaman King volume 35 by Kodansha, a new epilogue was added to the volume release. This epilogue was titled “Day After Maize” and the final pages noted to “See You Next In The SKY”.
Beyond just the title for the series, even before finishing The Super Star, Hiroyuki Takei has been at work on deciding exactly what it will be about. He wants the next series to fully pass the story to Hana from the original story of Yoh and Hao. Additionally Takei wanted to wrap-up the more complicated portions of the story that had been introduced from the series long run. Takei’s editor, Y-da, felt that the last chapter of The Super Star was able to do both of that. As Flowers was a cancelled series with the discontinuation of the Jump X (Kai) magazine, the story had become a bit disjointed, but ultimately Takei feels that he was able to tell the story he originally intended.
For Shaman King Yard, Takei wants to have a clean slate to work from and be a new starting point for fans to enjoy. He has been working on new designs for the characters which are more streamlined. In the final chapter of The Super Star, some of those new designs have been previewed.
As for the plot and overarching story has still to be determined. The “Flower of Maize” has not occurred yet, but the location and date has been confirmed within the story. With elements introduced in the most recent chapters, it will also appear to expand this fight beyond just the physical earth to the entire universe and potentially include elements from alternate storylines and series. Some of these elements have already begun to be explored in The Super Star.
Hiroyuki Takei also wants to help bring the series back closer to its “shonen” (young boys) roots like how it started in Weekly Shonen Jump. While still being published in a “shonen” targeted demographic, both Jump X and Magazine Edge crossed multiple demographics and were not primarily aimed at boys. As the series has been running for over 26 years, a growing portion of the fans for the series are beyond the traditional “shonen” demographic. The 2021 remake of the Shaman King anime series aired during daytime slots for TV broadcast, while the Flowers sequel had a late-night timeslot. Both of the recent anime series have also been available for streaming in Japan for easier access to newer fans.
While the final chapters were published on Magazine Pocket, a digital-only service, this does not mean that Shaman King Yard will also premiere there as well. It is possible that once development of the manga has started it could potentially be pitched to other magazines for potential print-releases as well.
The Super Star Anime?
When the 2021 Shaman King anime series ended, an announcement for an untitled sequel was immediately posted. The development of the 2021 anime series remained fairly smooth and was completed well in advance of its actual broadcast. Studio Bridge, the production studio for both anime series, then moved into early development for this untitled sequel. It was not initially titled Shaman King Flowers, since the original plan was to combine both the Flowers and The Super Star manga stories into this new anime adaptation. However due to Hiroyuki Takei’s breaks from the manga the exact story had not been completed. Along with the “Day After Maize”, Hiroyuki Takei had a rough structure for what the remaining volumes of The Super Star will accomplish, but was not far enough along to guide the anime production in the early stages. The animation studio also did not want to have an original story ending to The Super Star similar to the original 2001 anime. As such, development early on for the Shaman King Flowers anime was decided to not include The Super Star fully into this new anime. Some remnants of this earlier combination can still be seen in the Flowers anime as portions of Sakurai’s story from The Super Star.
A majority of the production staff that worked on the 2021 Shaman King anime returned to work on the Shaman King Flowers sequel at Studio Bridge. Flowers also kept a similar production cycle where all of the episodes were completed prior to the broadcast starting.
Studio Bridge typically has a couple of anime production in development at single time. Their Yu-Gi-Oh! anime series, is currently still in on-going production with Yu-Gi-Oh! Go Rush!!. Looking ahead to next year, there are two new anime series currently in development, Bad Girl and Hotel Inhumans. The Bad Girl anime does not have release date yet, but features both the same Director and Series Composition staff that worked on both the 2021 Shaman King and Flowers anime series. The Series Composition for Hotel Inhumans, Shoji Yonemura, is also marked for working on the Hotel Inhumans anime as well. Hotel Inhumans anime TV series is schedule for a 2025 release. Additionally, Studio Bridge is also creating the anime adaptation of the Farmagia anime that will premiere in Japan on January 10, 2025. This anime doesn’t have as much of the headline staff overlap with the Shaman King franchise, it does likely put a strain on the available resources in the studio to work on additional projects.
Hiroyuki Takei also wants to maintain consistency across his anime adaptations where possible. So it is unlikely for a sequel to Flowers would move to a different studio or have a greatly different staff and cast. One of his biggest conditions of getting the 2021 anime created would be maintaining the vocal cast and members of the core staff that he had grown friends with. While changes in staff and cast could change between productions, its likely that those previous members would be asked to return first. It is likely that Takei and the production committee is willing to wait until there is availability in the production pipeline before creation of this sequel rather than a rush and adding compromises to Takei’s wishes.
It is possible that some early development for the Shaman King The Super Star anime may have already restarted. With Takei’s completion of the manga in June 2024, over the last several months, if resources were available at Studio Bridge, some early work for the series could be underway. However based on the currently announced line-up of anime series from the studio, it seems extremely unlikely that the anime will air anytime in the next year. If The Super Star were to take the same pacing as the Flowers anime, it would be looking at roughly a 24 episode series (2 seasons). It could be possible that it will receive an early production announcement like Flowers did, but it appears more likely that a broadcast won’t begin until at least Shaman King Yard is well underway.
Looping Back On Other Series
In addition to Shaman King, there are various other series that Hiroyuki Takei has worked on. Like with Flowers and The Super Star, these other series have both got hit with a long hiatus which have prevented them from reaching their conclusion. Before Hiroyuki Takei begins drawing Shaman King Yard, he wants to finish up these loose ends. The two series he’s wants to finish are Hyper Dash! Yonkuro and Jumbor.
Hyper Dash! Yonkuro (ハイパーダッシュ! 四駆郎) is a sequel series to Dash! Yonkuro (ダッシュ!四駆郎), originally created by Zaurus Tokuda back in 1987 for the Corocoro Comic magazine. The series ran in the magazine monthly until it concluded in 1992. With the mangaka’s passing, a spiritual sequel to the series was created by Hiroyuki Takei at the request of the Corocoro editors and Tokuda’s family approval, to run in the Corocoro Aniki magazine. This story continues from the original with the same core cast, however later in the series Takei introduced some alternate timelines which expands the cast with aged-up versions. The Corocoro Aniki magazine was discontinued in March 2021 and resulted in the series being put on hiatus before the final chapter was published. The original plan was to release the final chapter on the Corocoro website, but no news of that has occurred. A total of 4 manga volumes have been released while it was being published in Corocoro Aniki. Some of these chapters in the manga volumes contained significant redraws for the volume release, including entire pages receiving a complete layout change. It was expected that the final chapter would be included in the 5th volume of the series. Unless Takei plans on further extending the story, this one new chapter could be the minimum to finish this story. While the Hyper Dash! Yonkuro series is on hiatus Hiroyuki Takei worked with Yuki Imada to create the MINI4KING for the monthly Corocoro Comic magazine. This series, which is also based on the Mini4WD cars, has since completed with a total of 4 volumes released. The Hyper Dash! Yonkuro series is still being published by Shogakukan and some chapters are available to reading on the recently redesigned Corocoro website.
The Jumbor (ユンボル) manga series is a remake of his original Jyuki Ningen Jumbor manga series. This remake ran in Shueisha’s Ultra Jump magazine. A total of 8 volumes of the series were released, but there was an additional 10 chapters published in the magazine. Chapters 44 through 49 would be enough to have a 9th volume released. Chapters 50 through 53 of the series total up to about a half of a volume (about 100 pages). If these were to be published in traditional volume sizes, there would need to be about an additional 70 pages needed to complete a 10th volume. However this becomes a bit more difficult as the series was originally written by Hiromasa Mikami and illustrated by Hiroyuki Takei. Takei likely had considerable input on the series and his name was listed as the primary author. The series went on hiatus around the same time the Karakuri Doji Ultimo and Shaman King Flowers manga series ended. As Ultra Jump is published by Shueisha, the rights for this series are a bit more complicated. With Takei’s move to Kodansha, the Jumbor series has never been reprinted or had any artwork published from it under any other copyright. Its likely that Hiroyuki Takei still has all of the publishing rights for the series, but as it has been out of print since 2014 a new edition is likely needed. Additionally, the story was not near a conclusion when it went on hiatus. So while an additional 70 pages may complete a standard volume size, the story may require some additional length in order to reach as stratifying end. Depending on how the series is being republished, it could potentially be a considerable amount of time to get the 9 volumes released before being able to continue the story with new chapters.
What’s next?
As Takei has mostly finished with The Super Star back in June, he is still doing a little work on the series. For the volume release of The Super Star he is making some additional minor corrections. Besides that, he could already be hard at work on both of these conclusions for Hyper Dash! Yonkuro and Jumbor. Depending on the ending he is aiming for, its hard to say when and how these will be released. It is likely that both will see a release sometime in 2025. However this could then delay the start of Shaman King Yard, even if Takei has some basic direction he wants to take the story already. It is possible that he could change up his production cycle yet again to allow Yard to potentially start sooner. Until there is an announcement about either of the series, it is hard to make that prediction of when that potential release date may be.
The final volume of The Super Star releases in Japan on January 8, 2025. It is possible there could be some announcements tied with that, but we won’t know until that date. Regardless if any announcements are made, it appears that Hiroyuki Takei is in high spirits and looking forward to finishing his previous series and moving forward to Shaman King Yard. The final 2 volumes of The Super Star manga will release worldwide in English digitally sometime in 2025 by Kodansha USA. No announcements from Kodansha USA have been made for a print release of the Shaman King The Super Star manga in English.
