Starting in July, the final confirmations occurred that Shueisha is no longer the publisher of Shaman King in Japan. At that time it was unclear on the exact impact this may have on the other licenses worldwide involving the Shaman King manga series.
On August 11th, the current Argentina publisher of Shaman King, Ivrea Argentina, commented on Facebook about the matter. Below is the rough English translation:
Regarding Shaman King: There was a fight between the author and Shueisha (the publisher of Shaman King in Japan) that blocked all contracts of foreign editions. A few days ago it was confirmed that Shueisha no longer manages the license of Shaman King, so we are waiting to know who will be the new Japanese publisher so we can agree with them to continue our editions. A disappointing situation but I assure you that we will complete it one way or another.
(The second part of the comment was referencing the differences between the Spanish portion of the company with licensing series.)
Ivrea Argentina was planning on releasing Shaman King manga in 34 volumes. This would be the original 32 volumes plus the extra chapters added with the Kang Zeng Bang for the final 2 volumes. The most recent volume release was volume 19 which was published on December 7th, 2016. Volume 20 was planned for March 1st, but was delayed at that time. On March 2nd, Ivrea Argentina commented on Facebook that there was an issue between the author and Shueisha. This appears to be part of the on-going disagreement Hiroyuki Takei with Shueisha and wasn’t a sudden decision.
Elsewhere around the world Thailand was the other country that was still releasing new volumes of the Shaman King manga. On July 11th, Thai publisher, Siam Inter Comic, released Shaman King UE (Ultimate Edition) volume 20. This is the localized Thai edition of the Shaman King Kang Zeng Bang editions of the manga (which would be 27 volumes in total). Beginning in February with the 15th volume, they had been consistently releasing new volumes each month, however no new volume was released in August. It’s likely that Siam Inter Comic is also waiting on the new licensor holder in Japan to be announced.
It’s also worth noting that Viz Media, the publisher of Shaman King in English, still has all volumes available for purchase. It’s likely that this licensor change issue is only impacting the publishers who are still printing new volumes. It’s highly unlikely there will be any reprints of currently released volumes by any publishers worldwide for Shaman King until this is resolved.
