Starting on November 16th through 21st a new series of train ads were posted in some train stations and inside certain train cars on the Seibu Ikebukuro line promoting the Shaman King manga in Japan. The Shaman King manga is currently being printed in the new 35-volume edition with three new volumes being published every month around the 17th.
These new train ads are styled in the way of the typical onsen (hot springs) ads, but are stylized to promote the “Funbari Onsen” as a real location using Shaman King characters.
The previous ad campaign done for Shaman King earlier in the year picked up significant new media and social media attraction. That campaign combined Shaman King characters with motivational slogans to help with the increasing worries surrounding the coronavirus in Japan. In the August 2020 interview for media outlets and booksellers, Moriyoshi Yoshida, the editor for Shaman King: The Super Star said the following about the promotion (roughly translated from Japanese into English):
I thought that if we were going to announce the release of the manga and anime series in the middle of a pandemic, I wanted it to have a deeper meaning with it. So we worked together with our advertising department on that. The phrase “funbarou” (ふんばろう) , or “to persist” was able to resonate with the hearts of our fans. We received many positive comments on social media such as ” I feel energized” and “this has given me courage.”
The ideas for this current ad campaign may also stretch back further back than August as well. In late April, due to the postponement of the Shaman King Exhibition in Aomori, Moriyoshi Yoshida answered some questions on Twitter from fans and made the following comment (also translated roughly from Japanese into English):
Other projects I want to do in the future…? I’d like to do a real Funbari Onsen collaboration somewhere. It may be tricky to do, but it sounds like fun to collaborate with some inns at a hot springs resort and have the original drawings on display or have special Funbari Onsen goods.
While some of these ideas occurred with a collaboration with an onsen in Aomori for the rescheduled Shaman King Exhibition, it may have been an idea that continued from that initial idea. With the Exhibition in Aomori, additional Funbari Onsen-themed products were continued to be produced such as a branded Yukata (shown left).
These ad campaigns for the manga were not without input from Hiroyuki Takei. In the Magmix article series about the Shaman King series, Moriyoshi Yoshida (also known as Y-da) made the following comments about working with Hiroyuki Takei (Sensei) on these current ads (roughly translated from Japanese into English):
While I won’t go into the details, there was a lot of preparation that when into it and it used up some of Sensei’s vacation. As a result Sensei didn’t have time to go looking for another toy for his hobbies, and it was one that is almost impossible to find. ….In the end he was able to find it, but the next time it happens I want to find it as an apology.
While some of the ads use panels from the manga, other portions of the ads use completely new drawings of Shaman King characters. Even within some of the panels from the manga there was also have some modifications added specifically for these ads and not found in previous releases of the manga. You can compare the images included at the end of this article to the original print editions or the new digital Kodansha version that is now out in English on Comixology and Kindle to see the small changes.
A History of Trains with Hiroyuki Takei
Within the Shaman King storyline the use of trains is very limited. Judging by Hiroyuki Takei’s hobby storage room, there is no train kits or related hobby materials. His preferences are related more strongly towards “exotic cars” (the theme of his oneshot manga Exotica) and mecha/robots. These hobbies slowly make their way into the series he works on. For example, the X-Laws angels are presented as both cars and have mecha/robot elements within the Shaman King manga.
In the earlier volumes of the Shaman King manga, often with Manta, there is scenes of waiting at the train station. These earlier scenes may be more reflective of Hiroyuki Takei’s life at the time, as his studio was separate from his home and needed to travel between the two. Currently, his studio is attached to his house so he no longer needs to travel for work. Within the Shaman King manga, there is also a scene with Ren on the train in China on his travels home, so it’s not exclusively limited relation with Manta. It wasn’t until the end of the Shaman King series (included in the 35-volume edition of the manga), where a train plays a larger part to the story. In all of these examples, the train plays the role of showing a transition, moving characters from one place to another (emotionally and physically).
Outside of the Shaman King manga directly, Hiroyuki Takei has also drawn some autobiographical manga stories for the magazine Train Vert. This is a free magazine for the long distance trains in Japan, but can also be purchased for those unable to ride the trains and partial digital version are available online. The magazine sponsored his trip to Aomori for the August 2017 issue and followed him on his journey. In the July 2020 issue, Hiroyuki Takei wrote another autobiographical manga, called Takei Nomad, specifically about his childhood and his relationship with trains.
Within Takei Nomad, he comments about how he was originally afraid of the railway sounds that occurred in the middle of the night, as his house was only 50 meters away from the Tsugaru line in Aomori. He commented that the freight trains would look like a monster in the dark. It was the red lamp of the sleeper car that gave him hope that those riding on the train are living a grander life (than in his youth at his home town) and one day he can go on travels like them.
While Hiroyuki Takei then inserted himself into the final panel of Takei Nomad, located directly behind him is a drawing representation of Jet Kusamura. Jet Kusamura, creator of Shaman King: Red Crimson and Shaman King: Marcos, tends to be drawn with a bucket on this head with two horns sticking out the side. This drawing also mirrors the layout from Shaman King volume 8, page 122 (below). In this panel Hiroyuki Takei has drawn himself onto the train on the left side and has his “support” behind him, noted with the kid wearing the “Story King” hoodie. Drawing the character of “Story King” was one of Hiroyuki Takei’s first solo jobs for the Weekly Shonen Jump magazine in Japan prior to starting his full length Butsu Zone manga series.
Overview of the Ads
The campaign ads are broken up into 2 different styles. The square framed ads are represented in both print ads as well as digital ads shown within the trains. The rectangle-sized ads are unique in that they are all brand new character drawings by Hiroyuki Takei.
Manga-Panel Based Ads
The official corporate YouTube channel for Kodansha has hosted the two videos of the train ads which are shown below. Since these ads are shown on a train, there is no audio on these videos.
The following are the 20 still images from each of these of those videos. Each have new text added to the speech bubbles. Most of the text parodying lines that would be seen on typical onsen ads found in Japan. There are also some additional ads shown on the train featuring the poem for the Funbari Onsen and more direct advertisements for the print edition of the Shaman King manga.
In the first image, Yoh is actually singing the lyrics to the “いい湯だな” (“Nice Hot Water”) which has more recently been used in the Death Stranding videogame. The full song can be found below:
The image where Yoh and Anna are standing in front of the Funbari Onsen is also a brand new drawing by Hiroyuki Takei.
In the original print run in Japan for the Shaman King Kang Zeng Bang edition of the manga, similar designed images were made. Hiroyuki Takei placed his hand drawn characters in various real-world photographs. These images along with a famous quote from the volume functioned as the color title pages for each of the 27 volumes.
New Drawing Ads
Twitter user Monika (たんか – @ta_n_ca) has posted a collection of the newly drawn character ads that were also on display within the trains. We have included those images below followed by an English translation for the words to the right of the character.
Yoh: Whenever you feel possessed (tired), come take a bath.
Anna: If you ignore us, you’ll see hell.
Ryu: Let me wash your back, Master.
Tamao: Ponchi and Conchi might show up… so I apologize in advance…
Ren: If you insist, I’ll join you in the bath. Be grateful.
Jun: Oh, would you like a mixed bath?
Horohoro: It’s time to bare our souls and let it all out!
Pirika: There are some things you can only share when there are no guys around, right?
The colored cloth doorways are often used to represent the gender-specific baths, with blue for men, and red for women. For Jun’s reference of a “mixed bath” this would be where both men and women bathe together in the same hot spring.
Contributor: Dit for English translation.
