Butsu Zone is Hiroyuki Takei´s (of Shaman King fame) first work, so if you read this manga, you're probably already a fan of his, or you wanted to see the connection between Butsu Zone's and Shaman King shared Universe.
It's hard to do a review of Butsu Zone without comparing it with Takei's big hit, "Shaman King".
Story: Due to the work being cancelled abruptly, the plot doesn't even have the chance of showing it's potential, the author had to speed up the conflicts and resolutions due to the small amount of chapters. Butsu Zone's biggest appeal in term of story is seeing the connection it has with Shaman King, and seeing the similarities in concepts between the 2 works. Spirituality and a little drop of shamanism are all over the world building and characters,with Buddhism as the pillar of the plot. The ending is open and inconclusive, obviously due to the cancellation of the manga. The usual comedy that Takei presents on his works, is of course, present in Butsu Zone.
Art: Takei's art in this work (taking into account that in the present, his artstyle is completely different), while looking simple or cartoony at first glance, has a beautiful amount of detail and care put to it, it never feels like the author got lazy with his art. The action scenes are fairly well choreographed and the still shots have proper impact and timing when it comes to battles. The comedic moments are good, with the character's artstyle becoming simpler or more "cartoony-er" when a joke is thrown around.
Characters: overall, a nice cast of lovable characters with well defined personalities and character traits, albeit, well defined within the limits of a 20 chapter series. The cancellation cut the characters short of development, so don't expect much from it.
Enjoyment: while the most subjective section of the review, I feel that no one will become a die hard fan of this work after finishing reading it. The dialogue and narration is FULL to the brim of Buddhist terms and mythos, so if you don't know much about Buddhism, most of the terms and info given will fly over your head, making the manga a lot less enyojable. I'll admit, though, that this manga made me more interested in Buddhism as a whole.
Overall, this manga would have been great if it had the amount of chapters that Shaman King did, as it has the potential to be better. Truly a shame, the only reason you should read this is to see the connection between this original work and the last chapters of Shaman King Zero, which stablishes a shared universe between both works. For me, as a SK fan, was the most enjoyable aspect of Butsu Zone, seeing how they're related.
