Shaman King: Flowers

I highly recommend it, but I can't understand why the rating is so low.

The only problem is having to watch 52 episodes of the series before seeing this sequel. Even though it's not little, 52 for many people is a lot.

The art is very beautiful and the animation is pleasant.

It's not more of the same compared to the classic anime, mainly because the protagonist's personality is different. The part where he criticized the bizarreness of Over Souls is very good.

It's certainly one of the best animes of the season, but it won't gain as much fame even with a smaller season in terms of the ... number of animes.

It's an anime that explains the main points of the original story, so it's possible to watch it without having seen the previous anime, but I don't recommend doing that.

Mild spoiler warning

Tl;dr: it looked like it was going to go down the Boruto road but they're starting to swerve in the last second.

Art style and music are solid.

From the end of the prequel we already got to know our MC Hana a bit, mainly that his character is more like Anna's than You's. He's short-tempered, constantly irritated, a loner and he doesn't like his dad. This is somewhat understandable since his parents are not around at all.

Right out of the gate I have to mention that they messed up the power scaling immediately. I had to remind myself that Hana and his crew are ... at the same age that You was during the Shaman Fight but they are already at the same level as You at the end of the show. This is a shonen so it is to be expected that the focus is on them but some of it is really pushing the limits of it all. I mean one of the characters is 7 years old ... and apparently the strongest of their team.
And for whatever reason all of our beloved old crew are (mostly) still around but they choose to let the kids do the fighting that will determine the fate of the world.

The story itself expands on the events of the prequel and introduces a logical continuation of the Shaman Fight but it does feel a bit forced at times. And apparently everyone was briefed by the author as to what is going on except the MC, because everyone acts like it is common knowledge what happens and no one cares to stop for a second and explain the greater picture to Hana.
Some of the obfuscation is attributed to story reasons but come on, Hana visibly has issues that need solving.

Some of the old cast like Tamao were totally shoehorned into their new role. She didn't stop at an 180, but kept spinning until she ended up where she is now. When the Shaman Fight ended she would have been at high school age but I don't believe for a second that she behaved the way they tell us she did.

Halfway through the season, all of the above drove me to decide to not continue watching this series after this installment. At least that was what I thought but in the last 2-3 episodes they finally started to show some character development for Hana and the story itself. It is only a glimpse and I haven't read the manga so I don't know if that was only a small temporary improvement. I will definitely wait until reviews for the next season are out.


5/10 - has potential but needs work