Upcoming Shaman King Events Impacted By New Coronavirus Precaution State of Emergency in Japan

On Friday, April 23^rd, 2021 a new state of emergency was declared in various prefectures in Japan in response to the increased spread of COVID-19. The state of emergency starts on April 25^th and continues until May 11^th unless extended further. Additionally this timeframe falls in line with the “Golden Week” holidays in Japan where may people use their vacation. The new state of emergency that was declared focuses on event venues and locations that serve food or drinks.

Last year the declared state of emergencies caused a major disruption to the planned Shaman King events. Once these restrictions were reduced some events were able to continue as planned with additional precautions for COVID-19 in place.

Shaman King Exhibition – Nagoya Venue

The Shaman King Exhibition in Nagoya started on April 17^th and is currently planned to run May 5^th. With the most recent state of emergency declaration, Nagoya was not included at this time. As such, the event continues to run daily unless the state of emergency is expanded. The venue currently has precautions in place, such as limiting the number of attendees within the space at a time. If there are changes to the event they will be announced via their official Twitter account.

Shaman King Exhibition – Kyoto Venue

With the early rumors that the state of emergency would be announced, on Friday they cancelled their upcoming advance ticket sales which were planned to start on April 24^th. To attend the Exhibition a ticket would either need to be purchased in advance, or purchased at the door for the venue.

The following day, after the state of emergency had been officially announced with Kyoto being included, the Shaman King Exhibition – Kyoto venue was officially cancelled. The event was originally scheduled to run from May 8^th until the 19^th. With the state of emergency running until the 11^th, this venue already having a shorter run, and with the possibility of an extended state of emergency, this made the event impossible to run. The cancellation notice was sent out with a tweet and the website (in Japanese):

【京都会場休止のお知らせ】
5月8日から開催予定の「シャーマンキング展」京都会場は、緊急事態宣言を受け、お客様ならびにスタッフの健康面、安全面を最優先にすべきと判断し、誠に勝手ながら開催を休止させて頂く運びとなりました。
楽しみにお待ち頂いていたお客様には心よりお詫び申し上げます。

— シャーマンキング展【公式】 (@shamanking_ten) April 24, 2021

Within the tweet they apologize to the fans who have been looking forward to the event and that the fans and staff’s safety was a top priority.

The Kyoto venue was planned to have a special section which would have included original drawings from Hiroyuki Takei from his “Mappa Doji” manga. These original drawings have never been publicly shown. The full short story can be found in volume 27 of the current Kodansha digital edition of the Shaman King manga. The manga has been released in English on Comixology from Kodansha USA.

Hiroyuki Takei’s editor, who has worked on coordination for these collaborations has said in the past that finding venues and meeting coronavirus precautions have been challenging.

Karatez Karaoke Collaboration

Last Monday, the karaoke venues Karatez had just announced the finalized details for their upcoming Shaman King collaboration event. The event would include special drinks and new goods featuring the Shaman King characters. However, a majority of their stores are in Tokyo which was impacted by the state of emergency.

Specifically listed in the state of emergency was that karaoke venues would need to close or suspend their operation in the impacted areas. As such the previously planned collaboration will not start on April 27^th. Following the guidelines listed the collaboration will be on hold until the announced emergency end date of May 11^th. The collaboration is still planning on running until June 30^th.

Part of the collaboration also included selling some goods online via a mail-order (pre-order) website run by Animate. Due to the postponement of the in-person collaboration, the online sales have also been postponed. No new start date for the online ordering of the special goods have been given yet.

OIOI Collaboration Limited-time Shop

Starting on April 25^th, several of the OIOI stores that are in the impacted regions of the state of emergency have temporarily closed with no scheduled date for when they will return to operation. This includes the Shinjuku OIOI Annex which was planning on holding their limited-time shop for the new Shaman King goods from April 29^th through May 10^th, which is fully enclosed in the emergency timeframe.

The Namba OIOI store is also listed as temporarily closed with no scheduled re-opening date. This venue was planning on hosting the limited-time shop from May 21^st until May 31^st. If the state of emergency is not extended, the store may re-open and the event has the possibility of proceeding without change.

The Hakata OIOI store, which is planning on holding the limited-time shop starting June 11^th until the 20^th is not currently closed. The online sales via the OIOI Anime Online shop are also still planned to start on April 29^th at 6:00am in Japan. We previously highlighted the details of the event in our article last week.

Yoh & Hao’s Birthday Party Event

The event at the Sega Akihabara Building #5 in Tokyo is still planned to start on May 11^th, the final day of the state of emergency. Currently there are no announced plans to change or postpone the event which would celebrate Yoh & Hao’s birthday (May 12^th) with various new Shaman King goods. If there are changes they will be announced via the official Bushiroad Creative Twitter account. Items that are planned to be sold at the event will also be sold via mail-order (pre-order) at a later date.