Shaman King Check in 1

 Author: Hiroyuki Takei

Translators:  Lillian Olsen, Erin Procter

Genre: Manga

Original publication date:  December 1998. The omnibus collection is from 2021. 

Basic description: " When he takes a shortcut through a cemetery, Manta Oyamada meets a strange kid with headphones — surrounded by ghosts. The kid is the teenage shaman Yoh Asakura. Tapping the supernatural swordfighting powers of samurai ghost Admidamaru, Yoh fights Bokuto no Ryu, a sword-wielding gang member. But an even more dangerous opponent is stalking Yoh and Manta — a Chinese shaman who wants to possess Amidamaru."

So here is the difficult decision. If we include details about every single volume, it will be all spoiler-filled. So this story is not new, it came out over 20 years ago. That's why is described as "this classic from 1998..." When I read that I was a bit surprised. Then I look back and I go, yeah it has been a long time. 

Let's stop focusing on the fact that I feel old with this. 

As I mentioned before, I started watching the anime, but never finished it. Browsing through books I found this edition that is currently being published so here we are.I do really enjoy the series as a whole and the manga shows the characters a bit different than what 
I remember it. Again after so long, it's hard to know this is indeed a difference between adaptations or if my memory is playing tricks on me.  

The plan is to give a brief description of the tome. Each one contains 3 volumes, as in the last few months I have not been updating anything I have catching up to do. So let's start with the beginning.

Volume 1 -3

It starts with a pair of awfully young kids. I was a bit taken back, from the anime I assumed they were teenagers 16-17 years old. I only thought they were high schoolers because they go out to try to save the world in a world-class competition and their families have been encouraging them to take that road. Even in my imagination, being high schoolers, still seemed too young for the fight to save or destroy the world. 

I am getting ahead of myself. Let's go back.

Yoh Asakura is 13 years old, he transfers to Manta's class. The little guy discovers ghosts, Shamans, people who can interact and use spirits in different ways. After befriending Yoh, he gets more involved and that's how we discover the world of Shamans.

Yoh finds his spirit ally, Amidamaru, an ancient Samurai. He is training to participate in the Shaman Fight. This tournament takes place every 500 years and people from all over the world come together to find who is the strongest, the victor becomes the King.  Yoh meets Ren, another aspiring participant. He is arrogant and cold-hearted. We can see two very different mentalities in them. Yoh is super laid back, he believes ghosts have feelings and to treat them with respect, so they help you fight. Ren on the other hand only sees them as tools. 

We see other people come in, Anna. Yoh's fiance. Again another reason why I expected them to be much older than 13. 

In this one we meet Ryu, he also has a shaky start with them. He gets possessed by Tokaguero and Yoh manages to save him. 

Omnibus 2 Volume 4-6 

Silva comes in, he introduces himself as a member of the Patch the tribe- part of the Shaman fight selection committee. He explains to Yoh that in order to pass the selection process, he needs to defeat Silva.

Huge spoiler alert. Silva is defeated and during the fight, Yoh learns a new style to integrate with Amidamaru. 

Sidenote the technique of merging with the spirit ally is called Oversoul.
Mana is the energy Shamans use in order to control their abilities. It is directly linked to the spiritual self and willpower. At least in this series. I generally don't pay attention to this type of detail but if I step away from a series for long I will forget them. 

The preliminaries-
Each Shaman will face 3 opponents- 2 victories to advance, 2 losses, or forfeits mean disqualification.

Queue more people. The first fight we see is Horohoro vs Yoh. Both get chatty during their fight and afterward end up sharing dinner and even training together for a time. Another huge spoiler Yoh ends up befriending a lot of the people he meets as adversaries during the tournament, Quite cute really, he does make friends quickly and is too trusting of others. 

Faust VIII the necromancer and Eliza are the next adversaries. Faust takes a little scientific interest in Manta and ends up hurting him badly. No need to dwell on that, he is fine after a stay in the hospital. 

Everyone goes off to train themselves for the next facet.  A few weeks pass between the fights, unsure how many by now. But still, in 3-4 weeks each of our characters makes huge leaps in their abilities. That aspect is not very realistic. It makes it seem all too easy. 

Omnibus 3 Volumes 7-9  

A bit of meandering, Ren is in disagreement with his father. The Tao has a very peculiar mindset. Yoh ad co to the rescue! 

Predictably, the 3rd preliminary fight is between Ren and Yoh, because of course there are not enough characters introduced yet. I mean it feels predictable that Yoh must face his newfound friends and possibly cut one of them out from their lifelong dream. 

After the preliminaries, the group gets another break period. During which the first appearance and mention of Hao is made. A lot sooner than I expected. I thought in the anime Hao was not a thing yet, at least I thought he shows up in America while they are in the Patch village. Hard to be sure, I would need to rewatch the anime as well sometime soon. 

Another detail I forgot to mention Ryou trains with the Asakura's and manages to sneak into the Shaman fight preliminaries without anyone else noticing. Another example of how incredible abilities this team possesses. 

Anyhow Hao is creepy. He shows up unexpectedly to Yoh when he's hanging out with his friends then makes declarations like "I want you to become as strong as you can. Do your best to survive for me."

The next stage will happen in America, the Patch tribe has a place and will transport all the participants. It feels a bit ridiculous that they have the clearance to simply take off and no government has an issue with it. But again let's not get picky with realistic expectations. I am enjoying the ride. 

The surprise test the Patchplanned for the plane ride felt unexpected and I loved it!