For the last nine years (2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024) we’ve started the year by making some predictions on what will happen within the upcoming year. Most years we were a bit off the mark, but let’s first take a look back at how close we got for our predictions for the year 2024!
Partially Incorrect – Shaman King Exhibition continues it’s international tour
At the start of 2023, Taiwan had it’s first Shaman King Exhibition event which appeared to lead the way for more of these types of events to then spread across the globe. However, that didn’t really happen, or at least as wide spread as fans would have liked. At the very end of 2024, the Shaman King Exhibition did return back to Taiwan (in a different city), so it did technically “continue” it’s international tour. Hopefully in 2025 it continues further!
Incorrect – Hiroyuki Takei has an in-person event in Japan
With the return of the Shaman King The Super Star manga, Hiroyuki Takei had to put some long hours in to get a lot of chapters completed. So it wasn’t a break for Takei in 2024, and didn’t have any in-person events this last year.
Correct – Shaman King: The Super Star Returns After Flowers Anime
Our first fully correct prediction from last year! The manga series was on a longer than expected hiatus, but when it did return we got the surprise of weekly chapter releases! It was almost 20 years since the Shaman King main-line story had weekly chapter releases, going back to when it was published in Weekly Shonen Jump.
Incorrect – Next Shaman King Anime Announced
In terms of the anime, it has been all quite for 2024. Studio Bridge has announced several projects that are keeping them busy throughout 2025, so it will be a bit longer before we get the next installment. In an article published last year we go into detail with what’s happening next with the Shaman King series after The Super Star has ended.
Correct – Another Shueisha Collaboration
To celebrate the 150th anniversary of Takehiko Kurushima’s birth, Hiroyuki Takei partnered with Kusu Town Tourism Association and Paradisso Eight Co. Ltd. to create some new illustrations for their event. In addition to this, a free manga Eventyr – Kurushima Book (イベンチュア-KURUSHIMA BOOK-) was published by Shueisha in Japan on April 22, 2024. Jet Kusumura, who had previously worked with Takei on Shaman King Red Crimson and Shaman King Marcos also returned with assistance creating this oneshot manga. The copyright still stays with Hiroyuki Takei, but it is great to see something of Takei’s work being published by Shueisha again! Some more details about the event can be found in our previously published article.
Incorrect – Live Action Shaman King Project Announced
Sometimes you got to throw out some wild guesses, since you never know what could happen. No live action Shaman King yet, but we also didn’t expect a Shaman King slot machine to get announced. There are things that can surprise you from time to time!
Having 2.5 out of 6 predictions being correct isn’t a great score, but at least it still stayed an eventful year in 2024! So let’s make some more predictions for 2025 and try to guess what could be in store for fans!
The following are predictions for headlines for 2024. These are guesses and are NOT real news stories.
Road to the SKY – Shaman King Promotional Campaign
With Shaman King The Super Star manga ending in 2024, it was announced the Shaman King Yard, abbreviated to SKY, will be the conclusion to the main storyline for the Shaman King franchise. No dates have been announced on when this new manga series will begin yet.
Our prediction is that it’s going to be a little while before the manga series restarts again. Long time fans have gone years without new stories, and even when being published, had numerous long hiatuses due to various factors. This is potentially lining up to be the same in 2025, which may be light on new chapters for the manga series.
To help bridge that gap, and to expand on the long history of the manga series, a new “Road to the SKY” promotional campaign will be created around the summer 2025. This campaign will highlight the entire Shaman King franchise, along with its connections to Butsu Zone. This has a similar potential to be a multi-location event with different aspects happening throughout the year. They could be smaller events like an “Animate Pop-up shop” or even bigger events like the return of the Shaman King Exhibition to Japan or a new regional collaboration event.
If this “Road to the SKY” event happens, expect some brand new keyart illustrated by Hiroyuki Takei featuring the full collection of characters. Maybe an expanded illustration similar to the original Shaman King volume 32 cover, now featuring Butsu Zone, Flowers, and The Super Star characters?
New merch is almost a guarantee. Merch for Flowers and The Super Star has been extremely limited. Butsu Zone, never really had any merch to begin with. So this is the opportunity to bring all of these characters together in some unique fashion for a limited time.
Hiroyuki Takei Artbook Released
Continuing with the concept of the “Road to the SKY”, and after years of fans begging, a Hiroyuki Takei Illustration Artbook is finally released! Covering everything from Butsu Zone all the way up to The Super Star, a detailed look at Hiroyuki Takei’s amazing illustrations are finally available in a single high-quality book.
The book may also contain some surprises as well! While it likely will mostly focus on Shaman King, some additional illustrations from Jumbor and other Takei series may be included too! Towards the end of the book, it may even contain some additional illustrations that Takei is working on for Shaman King Yard. Maybe even a small oneshot of some sorts! The book has the potential to be full of potentially exciting things for fans.
But this book does also have the potential to be a bit more restrictive to acquire! If there is a full exhibition as part of the “Road to the SKY” event concept, it may be initially limited to in-person ordering. It may have a mail-order and digital release at a later time, but if fans wanted a sneak peek at SKY early, it could be a much more limited edition book at first.
Shaman King (2001) on Blu-Ray
Over the last few years, the original Shaman King anime from 2001 has been slowly coming out around the world on Blu-Ray. First in North America by Discotek in two separate releases (one for sub, one for dub), followed by German release that will be continuing to come out into 2025.
Now’s the time for the 2001 anime to also get a Blu-Ray release in Japan as well! The series has only been available on VHS and DVD for home media releases in Japan up to this point. The limited edition re-release of the DVDs, featuring Hiroyuki Takei’s artwork, is still extremely expensive on the used markets and has been long out of print. So now its time to move the series onto Blu-Ray for the older fans to have an edition to have on their shelf.
The release will likely be pretty bare-bones. Hopefully it will use the wonderfully restored Discotek version of the series. But it could be possible for them to just toss on the same version for streaming onto the discs and call it a day. The one thing that could make this set extra special is if Hiroyuki Takei is able to create a new illustration for the design. The DVD releases featuring his designs were one of the unique selling points, since it was the only time he had drawn some of the anime-only characters in Takei’s own artstyle.
This Blu-Ray release can also be important to help get some funding for an upcoming Shaman King The Super Star anime. Previously the funds for adding the series to streaming in Japan was helping the early production costs of the 2021 anime series.
Shaman King GBA Games Re-released
A recent trend is releasing some older videogames from retro consoles onto new modern hardware. This includes bundling them into compilations featuring games that were only available on handheld into newer platforms like Steam, mobile, or home consoles.
The Shaman King franchise had a series of games both in Japan and in North America that were critically acclaimed and sold fairly well. However the English games were never published in Japan.
Our prediction is a new game bundle that will combine all of the Gameboy Advance games from Japan and North America for a new release. This release will likely only be available in Japan, but potentially contain a new Japanese translation for the previously released North American games. These won’t be otherwise enhanced or remade, and effectively just be running on a emulator under the scenes. The game list would be the following:
- Shaman King Chou Senjiryakketsu: Meramera Version
- Shaman King Chou Senjiryakketsu: Funbari Version
- Shaman King Chou Senjiryakketsu 2
- Shaman King Chou Senjiryakketsu 3
- Shaman King: Master of Spirits
- Shaman King: Legacy of the Spirits, Soaring Hawk
- Shaman King: Legacy of the Spirits, Sprinting Wolf
- Shaman King: Master of Spirits 2
There may be some limited online functionality to allow for trading and battling in the card games. These games being re-released helps tie into a Blu-Ray release since they are all based around the 2001 anime.
No The Super Star Anime for 2025
This year is going to be about laying the groundwork for 2026. While there will be some new events, it will be more of a focus looking backwards rather than forwards. Getting The Super Star anime in 2026 is looking more likely, but it will still be a ways off. Depending on the scale of the concept of a “Road to the SKY” it could potentially announce The Super Star anime is in production. But exact dates or much more than a short trailer is unlikely for 2025.
The best sign to see when The Super Star is being animated will be when more publishers worldwide start announcing new Shaman King manga volumes for print editions. This closely ties to when an anime series will be available to allow for international cross-promotion. Currently there has been no new announcements for these books to release in 2025, so The Super Star having an anime in late 2026 is looking more likely.
Jumbor Returns on Jump+
With The Super Star ending, Hiroyuki Takei has hinted that he wants to finish the loose ends of two of his other series, Hyper Dash! Yonkuro and Jumbor. For Jumbor, this series was left off in the middle of a volume, and had a full volume of chapters not released.
From late 2023, and again in 2024, Hiroyuki Takei has been slowly working again with Shueisha, and Takei has said that he is open to working with them again in the future. Since his move away from Shueisha with Shaman King, there has been no releases of Jumbor. No art has been self-published or published under Kodansha. The expectation is that he still has all of the rights to the Jumbor series, similar to how he gained sole ownership of Shaman King, Butsu Zone, and Ultimo when he left Shueisha.
Bringing fans back to the Jumbor series will be a bit difficult. The series had 8 volumes published, plus 1 and a half volume that were not published, plus however many new chapters need to be created to reach a conclusion. With this length for the series, it is unlikely to return serialization back into Ultra Jump or any print magazine.
However, Jump+, Sheuisha’s online manga platform could be a good home for the series. Jump+ features a more flexible release schedule and a wider range of demographics and themes. While originally published in Ultra Jump for an older audience, there isn’t any objectional content compared to other shonen series and could fit right at home in Jump+.
The series could easily be added to the service using back-catalog of chapters in a weekly or bi-weekly release to get fans familiar with the series again or pick up new fans who hadn’t read the series in the last 10 years. Once it has caught up with the previous volume-released chapters, it could continue with the chapters that were only published in the Ultra Jump magazine, and then continue into the new chapters to finish the series.
Publishing via Jump+ also doesn’t limit the option for physical volume releases as well. They may be dependent on how well the series does on the Jump+ service, but it is a possibility to get the volumes back in print. It also opens up the avenue for a potential English release via Manga Plus.
Depending on how long the series will last, it may be possible for Hiroyuki Takei to pull in some additional help to draw and write the series. The Ultra Jump reboot of the series was written by Hiromasa Mikami and featured many of the staff who worked on Takei’s other series. So the series has been a collaborative effort. It potentially could also be drawn by Jet Kusumura, who’s art style could fit well in the world of Jumbor.
As always, I would like to thank everyone who has come to this website in the last year, or has been following us on social media. While there may not be as much news coming out in the 2025, it still will be an exciting year to see what happens. We also have a large archive of longer form articles we hope to carve out some time to further fill in the history of Shaman King and Hiroyuki Takei’s works!
