On the Japanese website Magmix, Hiroyuki Takei’s long-time friend, Hayato Tashiro, has been writing a series of articles about the Shaman King series to prepare for the 30th anniversary. Some of these articles are from his personal experience and other include some first-hand reporting. We have previously covered some of the content included in these articles (#17, #18). In article #24 a couple new topics were covered which we’ll break down below. The original article can be found here in Japanese.
Additional Content for Volume 35 Print Edition
Within the article, it first jumps into that some additional new content will be created for the final print volume release (volume 35) of the original Shaman King manga. This new 35-volume edition is currently being printed in Japan with 3 new volumes each month. Volumes 33, 34, and 35 are expected to release in April 2021.
The new content being added will aim to help connect the end of the original series to the sequels and spin-offs. It’s not planned to be a “newly drawn manga” but instead will be something different. The article author, Hayato Tashiro, will be contributing to the new content along with Hiroyuki Takei and his editor/staff.
Comments From Hiroyuki Takei
While working with Takei for this Magmix article and the additional content for the print edition of the manga, the article author mentioned some of their discussions. He noted that Takei believes that the original Shaman King manga is now complete with the ending tale of Princess Hao. Takei’s enthusiasm increases every day as he works his way towards this new storyline of building up to the “Flower of Maize.” This would be connecting the most recent series of Shaman King: The Super Star, Shaman King: Red Crimson, and Shaman King: Marcos together towards a unified story. The new series Shaman King: & a garden is also ongoing, but doesn’t directly connect with the upcoming “Flower of Maize” plotline like the other 3 series do. Started within Shaman King: Flowers, the “Flower of Maize” is a sort of planned rebellion against the newly crowned Shaman King where the current and previous Shaman Kings fight a proxy war with their designated representatives. With all of these different topics that could be discussed, the challenge of what content to include in the final print volume is still being worked on by the article’s author.
Preparations for the Upcoming Anime
While meeting with Hiroyuki Takei, the article’s author also chats with Hiroyuki Takei’s editor, “Y-da.” His editor, in addition to the manga editor duties for The Super Star and Marcos, also works in collaboration with other Shaman King related promotions. This includes interviews, ad and marketing campaigns, and the Shaman King Exhibitions just to name a few. Y-da mentioned that a lot of products and other works are in development and he is always checking to see what is finalized and ready to be published. This includes sometimes dropping hints on Twitter on when new Shaman King news will drop, which we have been covering on our Twitter account @ShamanKingNews.
Within the article it also mentioned that the international appeal of the Shaman King anime has not gone un-noticed in Japan. In particular they have noticed the large number of comments from Russian fans related to the new anime adaptation. The original 2001 anime appeared to have resonated with those fans to build a loyal following to this day. While the anime was more targeted towards a more generalized audience, it still stood out among the other anime series at the time. Similar to as in Russia, Southeast Asia and South American countries also had a similar response.
While not commented directly in the Magmix article, there is some additional context that can be provided for the topics mentioned above.
For the print editions currently being released in Japan they include two full color covers. The top cover contains the new redrawn cover designs which are featured on the digital volume releases. The second cover contains the original cover design, with an updated Shaman King logo. With this new print edition being 35 volumes, it’s unclear what the second cover design will be for volumes 33, 34, and 35. This may be some new additional content to be included in final volume.
The 35th volume of Shaman King has a lower page count than the other volumes. The digital version only has 159 pages where as the other volumes have a little over 200 pages. We have an older guide listed here that covers which chapters are in each edition of the manga in Japan. A release date and pre-orders have not been set for this volume yet so we don’t know if it will have a reduced price or not. Previously promotional ads for the upcoming Shaman King manga volumes have been included in Shonen Magazine Edge and may contain some additional alluded to in this Magmix article in future issues.
Hiroyuki Takei has a long history of adding additional content to his final volumes of his manga series. The original volume 32 was likely delayed one month from being published so he could add in an additional “chapter 285.” While working on the “Kang Zeng Bang” edition of the manga he was originally planning on only a small number of art changes and a lower number of character designs. However once he started drawing the character designs he kept drawing more than he expected, all of which were in higher detail than required for the printed extras. As part of the first run of cheap reprints of the Shaman King manga under Shueisha’s “Remix” label, he added in a series of “Remix Tracks” which were new extras. Then when the Remix brand reprinted the Shaman King series for a second run Hiroyuki Takei then created brand new cover designs which were unique to this one limited-time printing.
Some international editions of the Shaman King manga have already been printed, however the French “Star Edition” by Kana was the only one which printed the final chapters first in their combined “volume 17.” Some of the international editions include Takei’s new author comments for these print editions which are not found in the digital editions. It’s unclear if the digital editions will be updated in the future to add these additional pieces of content.
