Shaman King Kanzenban

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this is by far one of my most liked mangas. the mangaka focused a lot on the idea of "no one knows what justice really is because everyone has their own justice which might be wrong to someone else, so you have no right to impose your justice on others" and he also lived up to yoh's line of "no bad person can see spirits" and proved that every single character in the show is good in their own way opposing the typical bad guys who just want to see the world parish for the heck of it. I felt like the mangaka had an ... experience with being different than people cause he seemed to include it a lot, like how people always outcast everyone who is different and that humans will always go with the flow instead of thinking for themselves which is why different people (exampled with shamans) are always out casted. the story is really great especially anna's arc. most the characters have sad backgrounds but it takes you to see completely different stories and different points of view from all over the world. it also gave me a feeling that takei liked history a lot since he always included some history knowledge in the characters' backgrounds. the art wasn't as good as I thought it should be.

This is a short one, as it's very few chapters and uh... wow. Let's get right into the ratings and explanations can come afterwards. :)

Story: 1/10
Characters: 2/10
Art: 4/10
Art/Panel Cohesion: 6/10

... what a fall from grace. I am too much short of hyperbolic when I say reading this had me crying for the wrong reasons. After what I can with all due respect best put as a 'gag ending' to the original manga, there were a few extra chapters here meant to wrap things up and wrap things up they did. If the previous ending was disrespectful, check this one out.

Story - 1/10
- ... the story ... is basically non-existent. Left in the middle of a gauntlet from the final chapters of the original, the heroes trudge on through to meet with Hao and do their best to stop him. I guess it's a good time to criticise the broader writing here instead, since the story's as linear as an arrow is straight.

What happened here??? Reading this felt like a fever dream and an absolute bastardization of the original work these chapters were meant to 'fix'. The tone has shifted to be joke-y and if you were not a big fan of the power of friendship, just wait until you see how egregiously unfunny the writing becomes. I am truly dumbfounded from the direction these final chapters took. Cool writing is still there, but phenomenally rushed as expected and it goes back into the expected and truly dogwater quality one would fear before long.

There were heartfelt moments between characters cut short for no reason but to 'progress the plot', making even what few redeeming qualities you could squeeze out of this impossible to extract through the slop. I wasn't laughing with it, I was laughing at it and that's... not good.

Characters - 2/10
- I'd love to treat these chapters' characters with respect, but it doesn't look like the author did. You'd expect with the shrunk cast of the added chapters that they'd get their due diligence, but everyone except for Yoh starts acting like a one dimensional slapstick character. Oh, and on top of that they don't really retain much of their personality at all?

There's parts where out of nowhere, all of a sudden these jacked 15 y/o's appear to be blessed with the knowledge of physics and intense natural phenomena to surgical precision, even though we're talking about again, 15 year olds in 1999 (was it?) with different backgrounds, none of which involve anything close to granting them this sort of knowledge.

Hao is the only one who seems to retain his memory, and I will agree with him on one line. "Humans are like cancer cells". I too would go clinically insane if I had the same encounter he does during the climax of the story, and I'd definitely adapt his plans to destroy humanity as it is.

Art - 4/10
- ... not much to say. The author has come back with a new artstyle, and though it looks clean, it feels a little 'too' clean for what you're likely used to with Shaman King's original release. The lineart is really thin but it tries to keep that stylized flair of the original, and it comes off a little odd. I'm sure it'd have grown on me if there was more room for it, but it was about fine for the few chapters I got to see it in.

Art/Panel Cohesion - 6/10
- There's not a lot of panels, and yet some still manage to be as muddy as the original's. The action is really grandiose and it makes for some muddy panels. As there's hardly any action however, most of the shots turn out to be really neat and they flow together relatively smoothly when scenes aren't skipped entirely.

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I have nothing short of disappointment and mixed feelings for the supplementary ending chapters added in the Kanzenban. The amount of ironic enjoyment I had was about as great as my genuine displeasure at the read. What a waste of a chance to make everything right. If you read this, please keep in mind exactly what you're in for- you got slapped in the face once with the original ending, and then you came back for more. Little has changed, and you hopefully won't stubbornly stick around to find that out for yourself... right?

(Check out my profile for a link to my site containing more up-to-date reviews and bonus media!)

At the end of my review for the original printing of Shaman King, I wrote that it was perhaps a blessing that Takei wasn’t able to give the series a proper ending under the assumption that it would only lead to further disappointment from the manga’s declining quality. Four years after Shaman King ended, Takei resurrected the series with Complete Collection (Kanzenban) and proved me right.

Shaman King’s downward spiral picks up right where it left off—if anything, it accelerates. This makes the rushed, progressive train wreck of the manga's ... second half look like a Machiavellian masterpiece. There’s so much to go over here in the broad strokes, but to avoid laying down the same bricks, just apply absolutely everything I said negatively about the original series to this one, and then add the following.

The most immediate assault from this manga on your senses is, of course, directed at your eyes. Takei’s initial graffiti-inspired art style of the original manga deteriorated over the course of its run into something blander, but it remained distinctive and pleasant to look at. In these additional chapters, it’s as if Takei’s hands have gotten amnesia.

It’s one thing to lose your tempo a bit after not drawing these characters for a few years, but this art looks like it was drawn by an entirely different person. It’s practically sketchbook quality; something you’d find on storyboards rather than a final publication. The shading, if it can be called such, is truly horrendous. Nearly every page is illustrated in only pitch black and the blinding whites of the background. The old images of Shaman King look like “bootleg” variations now, and seeing the fights we missed is actually a curse considering their incomprehensible "ink blot" choreography.

If one thing hasn’t changed, it’s that describing these action sequences as “fights” is still very generous. Takei gets the great opportunity to not have to rush the finale of his popular manga, and he takes full advantage of that opportunity by rushing it harder than ever before. It’s downright comical at this point how rote this series has become for its author, with foreshadowed conflicts being settled in a single chapter or skipped in their entirety.

The payoff in this revised climax is every bit as unsatisfying as it was originally, only far longer in its delivery. Numerous supporting cast characters never get their motivations or previous actions properly explained, if at all, and bearing special mention is the central villain. Hao’s entire motivation being explained in a side chapter is an absolute joke, and his actions in the final chapters of this series contradict a hundred things he said or did prior. Hao's subtle guidance or support of Yoh and any possible nuance to his morality is thrown out the window in order to indulge in a stock, maniacally evil antagonist.

The final battle between Hao and Yoh’s group after he has literally become God, and the justification for how everything is resolved doesn’t even deserve to be called “nonsense.” We have plenty of time to realize how undeserved and forced it all is as we see Takei draw every single character in the entire series, looking uglier than ever, spouting platitudes about the power of love defeating actual omnipotence. It’s a true family reunion.

This is truly awful. If I can’t persuade someone to not read the entirety of the Shaman King manga, hopefully I can at least persuade them to not read the Complete Collection. It’s not worth it. This fails to live up to any standards of the original series. It’s ugly, stupid, meandering, redundant, and a complete waste of an opportunity to set things right. It’s impossible for me to believe Takei put the passion behind this that he claims in the afterword, as it fails and cuts corners in every way conceivable. Any goodwill I had towards the original manga for its likable cast and better moments is utterly sapped by this addendum. Don’t spend your valuable time on this one. After all, the author seemingly didn’t.

Despite my borderline hatred for this entry, props to Mankin-Trad for picking up Viz’s slack and translating the remainder of the franchise. It’s a fine translation, though far from ideal. It was frustrating going from Viz’s high-quality localization to this. After 32 officially translated volumes, it was somehow found fit to throw readers a curveball by using completely different terminology, name spellings, and untranslated bits such as honorifics. Sound effects are left untranslated, which makes following the hideous action scenes even more difficult. But above all else, the most egregious thing was the embarrassing addition of harsh swearing to all of the characters. And with all that goddamn shit, I’m fucking out.