Shaman King (2021)

Shamans are extraordinary individuals with the ability to communicate with ghosts, spirits, and gods, which are invisible to ordinary people. The Shaman Fight—a prestigious tournament pitting shamans from all over the world against each other—is held every five hundred years, where the winner is crowned Shaman King. This title allows the current incumbent to call upon the Great Spirit and shape the world as they see fit.

Finding himself late for class one night, Manta Oyamada, an ordinary middle school student, decides to take a shortcut through the local cemetery. Noticing him, a lone boy sitting on a gravestone invites Manta to stargaze with "them." Realizing that "them" refers to the boy and his ghostly friends, Manta flees in terror. Later, the boy introduces himself as You Asakura, a Shaman-in-training, and demonstrates his powers by teaming up with the ghost of six-hundred-year-old samurai Amidamaru to save Manta from a group of thugs. You befriends Manta due to his ability to see spirits, and with the help of Amidamaru, they set out to accomplish You's goal of becoming the next Shaman King.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Asakura, You Main

Hikasa, Youko Japanese

Asakura, Hao Main

Takayama, Minami Japanese

Kyouyama, Anna Main

Hayashibara, Megumi Japanese

Tao, Ren Main

Park, Romi Japanese

Amidamaru Main

Konishi, Katsuyuki Japanese

Oyamada, Manta Main

Inuyama, Inuko Japanese

Faust VIII, Johann Supporting

Koyasu, Takehito Japanese

Usui, Horokeu Supporting

Ueda, Yuuji Japanese

Umemiya, Ryuunosuke Supporting

Tanaka, Masahiko Japanese

Diethel, Lyserg Supporting

Soumi, Youko Japanese

Beniya, Yoshikazu Producer

Nakayama, Koutarou Producer

Iijima, Hiroshi Producer

Furuta, Jouji Director, Script, Storyboard

Reviews

Aug 1, 2025

KitsuneLisek

Recommended

As of now we have three different versions of Shaman King. Manga, original anime and new anime. They all start pretty much the same with minor differences. Then there goes a part when old anime and manga/new anime becomes different, but still have the same events. Then there goes that part when old anime stray towards totally different path. If you watched Shaman King as a kid and wonder how much different this adaptation will be, that intro should more or less answer your question.

Most of things I say about manga will apply to a new anime, unless specified otherwise. And I will try to ... compare it to the "original", old anime. There are some parts, where old anime fleshed out some characters better. One of the examples are Umemiya Ryuunosuke. Although manga did it better overall, not just for the characters, but for the worldbuilding. Some stuff might be perceived as controversial, overdone etc. And I felt that way when reading manga years ago, too. But when I watched the new anime, my point of view changed. Mostly, because I now understood the depth of the story. Old anime is just nice, but pretty shallow. I liked that adaptation, but the ending was quite bad and they really just wanted to villanize Hao. But in the manga, the story has more depth. It's not about fighting. It's about hatred and love. This is theme of the whole series. There is no black and white here. It's all about perspective. There is always reason to characters doing something. Some are delusional, other are deceived. But they do have reason to what they are doing. Plenty of characters have their backstories, even if that's "just" "random" Hao's minion. They are well portrayed and you feel that they didn't happen out of nowhere, but were born to the story naturally.

But there is one more thing in the story. It's not fantasy. Don't get me wrong, it still has the supernatural powers, but the main theme is something normal. Love, hatred. It all goes down to it. And they live in realistic world and while watching, you would notice that. That other than shamans, the regular, normal world exist as well. You can see that both in the world itself, events, as well as some characters. Because these characters, who had backstories, were sometimes normal human beings. That could be shocking to some people and that's what was shocking to me. As I mentioned, when I read manga years ago, I was caught of guard and had mixed feelings about some stuff. But now I changed my mind. The story is well written, characters are fully fledged and it's not just black and white "kill the villain".

Show does have some minor pacing issues, but I totally forgot about them when the episode number was raising. Mostly the beginning has these issues. I am actually surprised how they packed so many characters with their stories in just 52 episodes. But they somehow did it and despite some pacing issues, I didn't feel that anything was rushed or omitted.

Hao once again proven that he is the best fictional antagonist ever written. Because it's ultimately story about him. You can say that Yoh was never truly a main character.

If you want power levels, this anime is not that. Of course, it has stronger and weaker characters. But it's more about willpower than actual strength. The fights are often used for character development. Some were even deliberately short, because fighting was never the point. Characters were main focus. And not just with random stuff either. So I will really recommend this.

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Mar 23, 2025

X2yt

Mixed Feelings

A really weird show.
On the other hand it's a decent remake-sequel of the original Shaman King anime, with the first dozen or so episodes rehashing the original story, but the rest is completely reworked and unique. So if you've seen the original show, the first half of this 2021 run is kind of boring, but it really picks up and becomes very interesting and fun after than, but the end is just weak sauce.
Instead of an epic fight at the climax, we get some almost random ending that does feel rushed and almost like they cheaped out on it.
No clue what happens in the ... manga, but judging anime strictly by itself, it's really weird how all the hype and buildup ends up not paying off at all, not to mention, it's spoiled like halfway through the show how the story will end.
Overall, the story isn't terrible, but the ending really lets it down.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Jul 20, 2023

Danahi82

Not Recommended

The story starts really bad, but gets interesting later on. The really unfortunate part is the pacing. They give no time to build any rapport with the characters, there is no understanding of struggles or time to let their pasts or stories sink in. The participants keep getting stronger and their is no effort shown whatsoever so one does not understand what is going on with them. It is terribly told, and I can't tell if the original story was this bad or it's just the adaptation. The only redeeming quality is that you can understand the tournament a bit and some of the characters ... are at times cool. Okay for a one time watch but would not recommend if their is anything better out there

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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🎧Anime with Thai dubs🇹🇭4｜🎧อนิเมะที่มีพากย์ไทย🇹🇭๔

by Adrena

50 Entries · 2 Restacks

Good brazilian-portuguese dub

by okuyasuwu

42 Entries · 17 Restacks

Absolute Overpower MC

by evilmagics

46 Entries · 17 Restacks

'Shaman King' TV Anime Gets Sequel

The 52nd and final episode of the new Shaman King television anime adaptation announced on Thursday that a sequel is in production. The story will follow You and An...read more

Apr 21, 2022 8:16 AM by DatRandomDude | Discuss (27 comments)

'Shaman King' TV Anime Reveals Additional Cast

The official Twitter account for the new Shaman King television anime revealed additional cast members on Friday. Shaman King is currently airing in Japan and will s...read more

Jun 24, 2021 6:16 PM by ImperfectBlue | Discuss (0 comments)

	Poll: Shaman King (2021) Episode 18 Discussion Stark700 - Aug 12, 2021	29 replies	by animealive-binge »» Aug 26, 10:22 AM
	Poll: Shaman King (2021) Episode 17 Discussion Stark700 - Jul 22, 2021	33 replies	by animealive-binge »» Aug 15, 11:13 AM
	Poll: Shaman King (2021) Episode 15 Discussion Stark700 - Jul 8, 2021	39 replies	by Klad »» Aug 7, 11:30 AM
	Poll: Shaman King (2021) Episode 16 Discussion Stark700 - Jul 15, 2021	45 replies	by animealive-binge »» Aug 2, 11:30 PM
	Poll: Shaman King (2021) Episode 14 Discussion Stark700 - Jul 1, 2021	38 replies	by animealive-binge »» Jul 31, 12:30 PM