[Manga Monday] A Song Someday (Shaman King #32) ★☆☆☆½ [Final]

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Title: A Song Someday
Series: Shaman King #32
Author: Hiroyuki Takei
Rating: 1.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Manga
Pages: 224
Format: Digital Copy

Synopsis:

All the various groups are on the beach and Anna projects the mana numbers for everyone. The Gang is fighting the next Patch Officiant and Hao is at the last plant, preparing for the sleep that will put the Great Spirit within his grasp.

The Patch Officiant Number 3 kills Faust to prove how serious he is. He warns everyone to just give up, as they'll run out of mana before even reaching Hao. Faust resurrects himself. And is promptly killed AGAIN by the Patch. Yoh then defeats the Patch through the Power of Love and Faust is a now a ghost.

The two kids who use the golem disappear from Mikihasa's supervision. They want to attack Hao directly on Mu. They die in breaching the mana walls surrounding Mu but the golem is revealed to be powered by the soul of their mother and so they all keep on trying to kill Hao. Goldva, the Patch Chief, destroys them with the oversoul of the First Patch but the golem regenerates.

The next officiant takes down Horohoro but Yoh integrates with the ghost of Faust and fixes him up.

Team Gandala has gained 3 of the 5 ElementalSpirits and the Gandala leader is about to fight the King of Hell for the 4^th.

One of the golem children, now a ghost, delivers the Spirit of Fire to Yoh, as Hao doesn't need it anymore.

Yoh realizes, or reveals, or whatever, that the only true way to defeat Hao is to let him have what he wants and realize how empty that desire is.

The storyline ends with Anna and Manta saying they're going to wrap up loose ends while Yoh and the Gang deal with Hao.

The manga-ka then includes an afterwords apologizing for ending things how he did.

We then jump about 10 or 15 years into the future and follow the son of Yoh and Anna. Anna sends Hana (the son, a 6 year old) to an American Prison with Ryu to find Jocono, now known as the Legendary Warrior. Ryu tries to break him out and ends up in jail himself. Hana then attacks some tourists thinking they're trying to mug him. He ends up with Ryu in jail. Once released they make their way to a mountain seeking an old hermit. We then see the woman Hana knows as his mom, only she reveals herself to be Tamao, not Anna. She reveals that she's been taking care of Hana and will tell him the truth on his birthday.

The book ends with 5 mysterious characters making their way towards Funbari Hot Springs and 2 of them appear to be Anna and Yoh.

My Thoughts:

So the series got cancelled and that is why the manga-ka wrapped things up, or didn't. The fight scenes I didn't care about at all and I gave the rating I felt it and the “ending” deserved. It sucked. The power-up'ing trope was out of control and I was bored. This had become like every other fighting shonen manga I'd ever read or watched and the multiplicity of groups just diluted any connection I had from the beginning.

The ending with Hana and Ryu and the revelations about Tamao was fantastic. It captured the spirit of what Shaman King started out with. The 5 Mysterious Strangers was an awesome thing. That part I gave 4 stars to but it just wasn't enough to overcome the boring slugfest that came before.

Series Thoughts:

Shaman King started out fantastic. The friendships and interactions between Yoh, Manta and Ryu and Yoh and Ryu's ghost allies worked really well. Ren was a good frenemy and could have carried the villain/anti-hero part for the series.

Things started to go downhill when “Avengers, Assemble!” began happening. While characters like Horohoro and Jocono were ok in and of themselves, including them began to dilute what Yoh had with both Manta and Ryu. Both of those characters ended up being sidelined and not taking much part of the story later on. The main characters became those who had power instead of those who were just friends with Yoh.

When Hao was introduced as the Ultimate Bad Guy and he just kept getting bigger and bigger, that is when I felt this series slid off the rails. Instead of telling an intriguing story, like had been going on, the manga-ka devolved to Power Up and Escalation. It was boring and cliched in the bad way. I'm not surprised the manga was cancelled due to lack of interest by this point.

The Epilogue with the son and everything was a complete return to form and if the manga-ka had managed something like this sooner I suspect the series might have lasted longer. Having said that, I looked up on Wikipedia and the sequel to Shaman King, following Hana, only lasted a couple of books then fizzled out. I'm guessing the manga-ka is great with initial ideas and creating fun characters but then runs out of how to keep them going. Maybe if he'd stuck with writing shorter series he'd have done better.

Overall, considering how this ended I'm pretty disappointed in it. The humor was what drew me in initially and that just slowly drained out as characters kept getting more and more powerful.

★☆☆☆½

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Patch Song (Shaman King #31) ★★☆☆☆

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Patch Song
Series: Shaman King #31
Author: Hiroyuki Takei
Rating: 2 of 5 Stars
Genre: Manga
Pages: 192
Format: Digital Copy

Synopsis:

The gang must make their way through the 10 Patch officiants to reach Hao. Ryu fights and loses against the first Patch and Ren and Horohoro step up. They defeat the Patch while using the absolute minimum mana.

The scene then shifts to Manta and his dad. And Manta's dad is tied up and on a leash held by Anna. All of the shamans killed on the beach have been resurrected and everybody is everybody elses friend all of the sudden.

The second Path catches most of the group in a net but Lyserg and Ren are not caught and fight back. Lady Jeanne comes out of her coffin thingy and she and Lyserg take down Patch number two. Patch number three is being taken care of by Ren while Yoh talks to little Opacho about his skills.

Back on the beach everyone is having a cookout. Anna and Mikihisa are keeping track of the group fighting the Patch via an Oracle pager and realize that Jeanne is out of the running with her resurrecting Ren and Ryu and Horohoro.

Then we move on with another installment from Yoh's parents past. Part way through it switches to a future installment where a young boy is venerating at a shrine for Mikihisa and calls him “Grandpa”. An older Ryu bursts into the room calling him Young Master and the volume ends with the pictures that the young master was venerating. One was the former owner of the hotsprings Inn that Anna runs. The second was Faust. Apparently he died during the final Shaman Fight and refused resurrection. The final picture was of Mikihasa, who died in a car accident while coming home from a pachinko parlor. He was not resurrected due to his wife being mad at him for something.

My Thoughts:

At the beginning of the book there is an author's note where he says “something” is up with Shaman King but he's going to do the right thing. It sounds like Shaman King got cancelled out from under him and he's going to have to wrap things up in one volume instead of a bajillion more, ala Bleach.

Yeah, this was feth'ing crap. The manga-ka has lost control of his own story line and even the battles with the 3 Patch wasn't very good. It was fighting for fighting sake's and even worse, it was obviously that. I read everything to make sure I wasn't missing anything important but I just wanted this to end.

The ending with the Young Master venerating at the shrine and the little blurb about each deceased really came across as wrapping things up without having the time or ideas on how to actually wrap it up.

I am very disappointed even while not being surprised by this.

★★☆☆☆

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Extraordinary Days (Shaman King #30) ★★☆☆½

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Extraordinary Days
Series: Shaman King #30
Author: Hiroyuki Takei
Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Manga
Pages: 192
Format: Digital Copy

Synopsis:

Team Ren and Team Yoh are sitting in a hotsprings after recovering. Ren and Yoh start recapping everyone's power and level. Hao shows up and Lyserg immediately attacks him. Hao shows them a new form of an oversoul in defense and everyone starts talking buddy buddy. Hao reveals that the final round of Shaman Fights will take place on the Lost Continent of Mu and that is why Mr Oyamada has shown up. Horohoro tells Hao that he's nuts and Hao tells Horohoro to shutup or he'll tell everyone who he likes.

Hao also reveals that the Patch won't do anything about the battle fleet Mr Oyamada brought and it is up to the remaining Shamans to deal with them. It is also revealed that a former X-Law is helping Mr Oyamada and has brought some big shaman guns (figuratively speaking).

Everyone, friend and foe, gather on the beach to fight the battle group brought by Mr Oyamada. Hao begins the attack and pretty much singlehandedly takes all threats down. The renegade X-Law in Oyamada's employ releases Azazel, the most powerful of Angels. Hao breaks Azazel and which destroys the X-Law. A shaman witch tries to stop Hao with voodoo and he returns the favor and kills her.

The Patch create a spirit submarine and all the shamans get on board to go to Mu. All the opposing Shaman Teams renounce their standing, giving Hao the win by default. Now Hao must commune with the great spirit and the Patch will defend him while he's in this helpless state. The opposing teams say they'll take the Patch down but only use it as training to eventually fight Hao.

Hao is taken to the ceremony and the others begin the journey to stop him. Silva, the Patch that initiated Yoh into the shaman fight is the first Patch they must fight to move onward. Yoh takes down Silva but 2 other Patch show up and tell the group that the Patch broke Silva to make him compliant and that the next 8 Patch are successively stronger. Ren realizing that they don't have enough mana to resurrect anyone so this is a do or die situation.

The volume ends with a short story about how Yoh's parents met.

My Thoughts:

The story is just getting messy. The manga-ka seems to pick up and discard ideas like a lint trap in a dryer. A huge fleet shows up in one volume, Hao takes it out in 3 pages. The 5 Warriors and the High Spirits are put forth and then just take a back seat. The whole feth'ing Shaman Fight, just ends because all the main characters decide so? Now the fights are going to be between the Patch and the good guy Shamans?

It feels like Takei is on drugs. Or he's lost the thread he started on. Whatever the reason, I felt like a pinball while reading this. It was not enjoyable and while some of it may be me reading these one after another, I'm just annoyed. I shouldn't be annoyed; the excitement should be building, the tension getting tighter. I shouldn't want this “just to be over with”.

There was nothing particularly “wrong” with this volume, it was just everything coming together, or not as the case may be.

★★☆☆½

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The Shaman Fight Shakedown (Shaman King #29) ★★★☆½

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: The Shaman Fight Shakedown
Series: Shaman King #29
Author: Hiroyuki Takei
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Manga
Pages: 192
Format: Digital Copy

Synopsis:

Some guy on the beach gets a call from Mr Oyamada and he tells him that all of Hao's minions on the beach, who were going to destroy them, have destroyed themselves. Oyamada makes it clear that he is after the Great Spirit itself, for all the power it contains.

We then flashback to the Oyamada minion taking down all of Hao's minions with modern weaponry. He, and by extension, Mr Oyamada, don't believe in souls and so the Shaman's powers simply don't work against him. A few of Hao's minions survive and warn him of his minion's demise. Hao simply shrugs, says he needs more mana and tells the survivors to sacrifice themselves so he can devour their souls.

Anna begins to fight Hao but Hao reveals his powered up (yet again) Oversoul and begins taunting Anna. If she can't save herself, how is she supposed to save Hao's minions, who might not even want to be saved? Yoh shows up and tells Hao that Anna is simply Anna.

Anna brings the minions back to their place and Yoh and Hao have coffee at a Patch coffee shop. Hao seems to revel in the fact that he's destroying anyone to become stronger while Yoh acts like a stoner.

Mikihisa, Yoh's dad, comes across the massacre on the beach and starts doing some kind of ceremony. Sati revives Lady Jeanne so that together they can resurrect the rest of their allies.

Yoh and Ren have a little talk and Ren shows that he thinks the only way to stop Hao is to kill him. Yoh doesn't believe it is that simple and that Hao still has a heart. The next shaman fight is between Team Ren and Yoh's team and they're fighting for their belief in how to deal with Hao.

Horohoro and Ren immediately take out Faust and Ryu, so as to isolate Yoh. Yoh reveals his mana neutralizing powers and Ren answers with his own power of nature using lightning. Both sides are going all out but only Yoh is completely certain in his mind. Suddeny Lyserg appears and stops the fight and Sati pulls out all of her teams, thus ensuring that both Team Ren and Yoh advance.

The Asakura's and the Tao's get together to figure out how their collective families can taken down Hao and deal with whatever Mr Oyamada is trying to do.

Despite the shenanigans pulled by Sati and her Gandala teams, Team Ren makes it clear they are going to finish their fight against Yoh. Lyserg steps in to cover for Ryu and Faust. The fight WILL continue.

The volume ends with a shot of the ship owned by Mr Oyamada and something going overboard.

My Thoughts:

This was a really twisty, turny volume. The idea that non-shamans are getting involved ratchets this up even more but in a way that I fully support. It is different from the shamans just endlessly powering up and pulling new powers out of their butts.

In the last review I was talking about how I missed Manta and in this volume, he plays a very small part but it is extremely pertinent. He's asking himself why he is even there. I'm really hoping that his friendship with Yoh will be one of the deciding factors in the final battle. Especially given that everyone now knows just how powerful Hao truly is. He is unbeatable and no one has the raw power to defeat him. I doubt even the 5 Warriors with a spirit ally could do it.

The Patch continue to sit on the sidelines and have their own little behind the scenes game and I still hate them. Sati and Gandala manipulating the fight seems a bit amateur to me. If the Shaman Fight has been going on for thousands of years, someone of a tactical mind would have already done something like it and I'm sure the bloody Patch would then institute rules to prevent such manipulation. You know, people were still pretty smart even 500 years ago. Technology doesn't equal intelligence.

With only 3 volumes to go, I suspect this is going to end extremely fast. And that the Power of Friendship will solve everything. I mean, you can't have a fighting shonen manga without that trope!

★★★☆½

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[Manga Monday] A Good Woman (Shaman King #28) ★★★☆☆

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: A Good Woman
Series: Shaman King #28
Author: Hiroyuki Takei
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Manga
Pages: 192
Format: Digital Copy

Synopsis:

The volume starts out with Lyserg alone in some deserted city and the title of the chapter is “Separated in Hell”. Then Team Ren, now separated, all get the same “You're in Hell to train to become one of the 5 Warriors Speech”.

Back in the real world some of Hao's minions are taunting Sati and Ryu about Lyserg being blown up and Ryu loses his cool and attacks them. Sati intervenes and tells Ryu he musn't kill anyone, no matter the provocation. She is then stabbed by one of the minions.

Tamao and Manta survived the car explosion but Marco, Lady Jeanne and Lyserg are all dead. Tamao vows to safeguard their bodies until Sati can resurrect them. The minion of Hao who initially attacked them was also called on to destroy the bodies. Now Tamao, with help from Manta, must stand against the minion. Marco makes a comeback, thanks to Lady Jeanne blessing him right before they all died. Now that he's resurrected, he's stronger than ever and easily defeats the minion. Instead of killing him though, he tries to make a deal. Then Hao and Luchist show up and Marco gives his oversoul to Tamao so she can escape with the bodies of Lady Jeanne and Lyserg.

The island that the Shaman Fight is taking place on has now been revealed to the world since the X-Laws used a super-secret space laser on it. The Patch are trying to figure out what to do but reveal that the second part of the Tournament will take place somewhere where no one can interfere.

Anna shows up with the Golem to help Tamao and Marco and Hao reveals that he's planning on making her his bride once he becomes Shaman King. A battle ensues between them. Also, another team of Hao Minions show up at the inn where the bodies of Team Ren are. If the bodies are destroyed, they can't come back from hell.

Yoh faces down all the ogres and makes them take him to the king of hell, Yama. Ryu is fighting, uselessly, against the minions to protect Sati and Yoh's bodies. Dr Faust resurrects Yoh. Yoh instructs him to resurrect Sati while he holds off the minions.

A warship shows up at the island, helmed by Tycoon Oyamada, Manta's father.

Back at the Hotsprings Team Ren is resurrected by Jun Tao and Team Ren tests its new powers by taking on the Hao minions. The minions are recalled by Hao for “cleanup duty”, as are Hao's minions all over the island.

Lyserg continues his training in hell.

The volume ends with Hao's minions being told to “clean up” the warship. Dissension arises as some of them don't want to fight non-shamans and infighting commences.

My Thoughts:

Phracking aye, this was a busy volume. Too much time is spent shifting around to various characters instead of just sticking with a core group. It also made me realize that I miss Manta. He's not a shaman so he's pretty much been sidelined for quite some time. However, his interactions with Yoh in the first few volumes were what were so great. I miss that.

The plot continues to expand, what with the “real world” now getting involved. It is tough enough that Hao has about 50 bazillion shaman minions, but then between the X-Laws and Gandala you had another bazillion people and then the core group of Yoh and his friends. Now adding outsiders? It just feels like the manga-ka is going as “wide” as he can. Focus has been lost and everything feels frenetic. I'm barely hanging by my fingernails to the plot because it's become so twisty and convoluted.

I suspect the continued escalation of Everything would blow a teenagers mind. I'm not a teenager anymore so my mind is just bored.

★★★☆☆

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Exotica (Shaman King #27) ★★★☆☆

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Exotica
Series: Shaman King #27
Author: Hiroyuki Takei
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Manga
Pages: 200
Format: Digital Copy

Synopsis:

Ryu is about to go berserk when he realizes Sati has killed Yoh but she reveals that she did it so Yoh would become one of the 5 Warriors, beings able to control the Five High Spirits, which are needed to defeat Hao.

Yoh is confronted by the giant ogre demon that he slew helping Anna several years ago and he senses the presence of Matamune, who is hiding in the shadows. The ogre tells Yoh he now serves Sati and that Yoh must think of Anna to make through all the levels of hell. The ogre leaves and Yoh's first opponent shows up looking like his dad. Turns out to be his distant ancestor who defeated Hao 500 years ago. Yoken eventually uses his ultimate power, that he used to defeat Hao, against Yoh and Yoh stops it cold. During the fight Yoh realizes Yoken isn't evil but just guilty about killing Hao, which is why he is still bound in hell.

Back in the real world, the Patch Officant for Gandala overhears Sati talking and confronts her. He states that the 5 High Spirits belong to the Patch and them alone.

Yoh and Yoken are talking and Yoken reveals that there are only 2 options for defeating Hao. One is total dissolution, which means no reincarnation and Yoh states he'll try the other way. Then a giant hammer kills Yoken and another giant ogre climbs up onto the battlefield. Yoh kills that ogre but the a whole clan shows up.

Team Ren is confronted by the Wisdom Kings, who tell them they know all about the 5 Warriors. However, the Wisdom Kings tell Team Ren that'll they will never leave the bathhouse alive.

Then 3 of Hao's minions show up to confront Sati and Ryu while the Patch Officiant makes snide remarks about how neutral he is. Sati knows that the X-Laws have been wiped out.

The story then moves into a shot story from which this volume gets its name. A story about 2 young street racers using “exotic” cars, ie, a lamborgini and a ferrari.

Then the manga-ka spends 15 pages illustrating his time doing the aforementioned one shot.

My Thoughts:

Ok, this was going along strong, definitely into the 3.5star territory. We finally get to see Yoh be really serious when the Ogre kills his ancestor. The fights with Yoken were pretty cool but since I am an experienced connoisseur of fighting shonen manga, having watched every single Yu Yu Hakusho episode, it didn't blow me away. I was impressed though.

The whole 5 Warriors/Spirits thing seems to be the manga-ka's way of shaking the story out of any potential ruts. I guess I can deal with that.

Then the whole stupid one shot story happened. I've read the Initial D manga so the whole japanese street racing thing is old hat. Considering this took place at least 3+ years after Initial D was released, it felt like he was trying to ride the coat tails of its success. And to be honest, I haven't given 2 figs about cars since I was 16. I drive them and I earn money to pay somebody else to fix them. That is it. And the icing on the cake was the manga-ka then illustrating how he came to do the one shot. He basically ran out of ideas for the one shot and so padded it out with the “how to” of it. Completely took me out of the Shaman King world. I feel like I'm being very generous with only dropping this to a 3. If there is another instance like this in any of the future volumes I'll drop it to at least a 2, if not lower.

Only five more volumes to go. I feel like I'm in some kind of weird book marathon or something. And I have no one to blame but myself! Well, except maybe you. Yep, I'm definitely going to blame you this time. Bad you, go sit in the corner! Sit!

★★★☆☆

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The Brother's Nose (Shaman King #26) ★★★☆☆

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: The Brother's Nose
Series: Shaman King #26
Author: Hiroyuki Takei
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Manga
Pages: 200
Format: Digital Copy

Synopsis:

Yoh realizes Team Ren has powered up so he and his cohorts race out of the stadium for more special training. The new member of the Wisdom Kings takes Ren out with a mental attack and Joco steps up to do battle with him. Joco's new oversoul tells him to keep cool when suddenly the 3^rd member of the Wisdom Kings does a sneak attack and apparently kills him. Now it's up to Horohoro to face down the strongest members of the Wisdom Kings.

Horohoro pretty much goes super-sayan on them and just completely overwhelms them. The scene cuts away to the lady in charge of Gandala and she's thanking Bonze the musician monks and Jun Tao for bringing Team Ren to her attention. Turns out Horohoro is some wolf-god incarnate and so powerful that Hao realizes the futility of turning him. Team Ren wins and the next match between a Hao affiliate and a Gandala affiliate begins.

Hao's team almost literally slices and dices their way to victory. While this match is going on, some X-Laws are attempting to assassinate Hao. Hao unleashes his fire elemental on them and devours their souls. They knew that Hao could read their minds, hence their plan, so they initiated a secret plan, an unrevealed Angel of Fire, a laser satellite and use it to destroy the entire area where Hao is.

Sati, the head of Gandala, confronts Yoh and tells him he must die for the sake of the 5 Warriors. Yoh prepares to test out his new oversoul.

At the time of the rogue X-Laws attack, a brother of one of the contestants beaten by Lady Jeanne confronts the car carrying Marco, Lyserg, Jeanne, Manta and Tamao. Marco appears to be killed outright.

The volume ends with the X-laws attack failing, Yoh being killed and sent to hell by Sati and Lady Jeanne and Co defenseless.

My Thoughts:

A good bit of fighting but once again, it is overwhelming on a visual aspect. I see this huge explosion of power and just pass it over as it's to much effort to parse it out. It would appear that Joco has been co-opted by Gandala and the whole 5 Warrior thing, whatever that is. Honestly, it seems a bit late in the series to be introducing yet another wrinkle into the plot. It certainly does create tension though.

One of the X-Laws sees Hao crying right before Hao kills him. Which means that Hao's ability to feel sympathy/empathy isn't gone like he claims. Not sure what that is going to portend, but I'm sure the manga-ka will make hay with it at some point.

Right at the end, when Sati kills Yoh, Matamune is shown greeting Yoh in the afterlife. So hopefully Matamune will power up Yoh and reveal some weakness about Hao. Or he'll just blather the manga-ka's useless palaver about not hurting anybody, ever, blah, blah, blah.

★★★☆☆

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Cornerstone (Shaman King #25) ★★★☆½

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Title: Cornerstone
Series: Shaman King #25
Author: Hiroyuki Takei
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Manga
Pages: 192
Format: Digital Copy

Synopsis:

Yoh steps in between Marco and Luchist. Yoh sets himself in opposition and yet another battle begins. Just as the fallen angel Lucifer is about to destroy's Amidamaru, “Lady Jeanne” appears and captures Yoh. It's all a deception though, as this “Jeanne” is a creation by Lyserg and a part of a plan by Yoh. Only it is a double trap because they know Luchist will see through it. The real Lady Jeanne appears and destroys Lucifer, causing Luchist to faint.

Turns out Jeanne was being used by the X-Laws while Marco was the real leader. And the angels were just sports cars imbued with spirit energy. Marco starts blabbing it all out and then prepares to blow his brains out in despair. Lady Jeanne tells him to keep on fighting and stay alive and she tells Yoh they'll face each other in an official shaman fight to determine who will get to take Hao down.

Then everyone, Luchist, the X-Laws and Yoh's gang all have breakfast together and hijinks ensue. The X-Laws are “x”ing all over the place and the little minion of Hao's that's hanging out with Yoh starts copying them.

Yoh reveals that Hao's winning the tournament is inevitable but that at some point the winner must undergo a purification ritual where he is helpless. Then he can be attacked a new Shaman King declared. But the ritual is protected by the 10 most powerful Patch Warriors.

The next day Team Ren faces off against the Wisdom Kings, a sub-group of the Gandala gang that helped Joco. They can negate mana and oversouls, so Ren has to figure out how to take them down. He exposes their weakness and then we get a flashback to Super Joco training Ren and Horohoro to make them stronger.

The volume ends with Ren defeating his opponent and the next Wisdom King stepping up to fight.

My Thoughts:

There is a small character named Opacho, one of Hao's minions, who's been sent to spy on Yoh and his friends. He's only 5 years old and he is funny as all get out. Thankfully, the manga-ka makes full use of him in this volume to provide a lot of comic relief, if you're looking for it. Opacho is in a lot of the panels but off to the side or something and usually doing something funny. Made me laugh several times and definitely brought the “humor” back into the series.

The revelation by Yoh about their ultimate plan makes a lot of sense AND neatly solves most of the issues the manga-ka created by backing everyone into their corners. How it works out though, well, I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

It is also a lot of fun to see how Yoh makes friends of everyone he comes into contact with, even those opposed to him and allied with Hao. After the battle with Luchist and Lucifer, you see everyone sitting down at a breakfast table the next morning and Anna complaining about yet even more people hanging out. Very light hearted and brought the focus back on Yoh and his ethos for becoming Shaman King.

As a side note, I also started using the Adobe Reader program instead of the CdisplayEx program and every page rendered correctly. Made for a much more enjoyable read. Really weird why CD wouldn't properly display the last couple of pages though. Eh, whatever, I've got it working now with Reader.

★★★☆½

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[Manga Monday] Shaman Fight (Shaman King #24) ★★★☆½

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Shaman Fight
Series: Shaman King #24
Author: Hiroyuki Takei
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Manga
Pages: 200
Format: Digital Copy

Synopsis:

Anna shows up and calls out the ghost. He's already seen the error of his ways thanks to Super Joco though and un-possesses his daughter and asks the gang to destroy the golem. Anna refuses and tells him to stop being stupid. They need the golem in the fight against Hao. So Munzer the ghost becomes part of Team Yoh.

The Patch are looking at their records and only 39 shamans are left in the fight. The Patch chief goes on about the Shaman fight not being a moral fight but one only of strength. He then sends 2 other Patch officiants to teach Silva (the officiant who qualified Yoh) a lesson, as Silva tried to steal some Patch artifacts to do something on his own.

One of Hao's minions confronts Yoh and tells him if he doesn't get back in the Shaman Fight that he, Hao, will destroy the golem AND the children. Yoh has a personal crisis with this threat. He doesn't WANT to fight but he also wants to be Shaman King for a variety of good reasons. Anna tells Yoh to stop sulking and to get back in the fight. She'll be a laughingstock otherwise.

Yoh heads over to the X-Laws and tells them he's back in the Shaman Fight. This obviously doesn't go over well with Marco, the Captain. 4 or 5 of the X-Law's and their angels attack Yoh. Yoh avoids everything easily and tells Lyserg to stand clear so he doesn't get hurt. Yoh fights off the minor Angels and then directly attacks Marco and his Archangel. Marco goes ballistic and then some stranger walks up to the boat claiming to be the creator of the X-Laws.

He, Luchist, also says he's working with Hao and he has the 000 Angel, the Lucifer. He effortlessly destroys the minor shamans and their angels and Marco and his angel the Michael spring into attack mode. They beat the snot out of each other and Luchist is about to kill Marco when Yoh intervenes.

Both Luchist and Marco suddenly transform into skimpy leather clothing and Luchist begins lecturing Yoh about “Battle Clothes”. Then he and Marco really start fighting. Yoh and Lyserg wonder if they even should intervene and Lyserg wants to get Lady Jeanne to intervene but Yoh realizes Luchist's real goal is to destroy Jeanne.

My Thoughts:

Much better. Michael and Lucifer fighting each other? That is the level of power I want to see!

Sadly, while I really did like the increased fighting, the battle scenes were wicked busy and it made it hard to parse out just what exactly was going on. It also didn't help that the last 10 pages in this ebook version had the pages sideways. Not the fault of the manga-ka but still something I had to take into consideration.

I really want to kill the whole Patch tribe at the moment. They are NOT my favorites with their recent reveal about how they're treating Silva for trying to help Yoh.

★★★☆½

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Epilogue IV (Shaman King #23) ★★★☆☆

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Epilogue IV
Series: Shaman King #23
Author: Hiroyuki Takei
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Manga
Pages: 200
Format: Digital Copy

Synopsis:

Yoh and his friends face off against the Golem and Hao's gang but Hao is reminded of the one friend he had, Matamune the cat spirit, who taught Yoh a lot of what he now knows. Hao decides to amble off.

Anna and Manta are slowly making their way to the scene and Anna begins to tell Manta a story about Yoh's past.

The golem revives, fully under the control of the ghost of it's creator. To replenish its mana it must consume the souls of other shamans, so it begins to attack Yoh's group. Horohoro and Ren are first in line. With Lyserg's help they slow the golem down but then everyone is running away on Lyserg's new angel ally. The golem gives chase and the crew has to figure out how to stop it without killing the little girl inside. Suddenly a stronger than ever Joco shows up and fights off the golem.

Hao reveals to his minions that he can read minds and that he left the golem fight so he didn't have to fight Yoh yet.

Super-Joco begins beating the ever living daylights out of the golem with new shaman powers and his ghost teacher shows up and starts lecturing the gang (and the audience by extension). The audience then gets a flashback sequence via Ghost Teacher about Joco's training in the other-world.

Joco and the golem continue their fight but Joco isn't fighting to defeat the golem but to make it realize its dreams so the ghost will pass on. The fight ends with Joco lying in a pool blood.

My Thoughts:

Super New Joco looked super new stupid. I have no idea where the manga-ka gets his ideas for what looks cook, but Joco was a complete fail in this regard.

The manga-ka also can't seem to help himself from preaching at his audience. It is really getting annoying. If it was consistent or more than skin deep pop psychology I could deal with it better. But it isn't and it comes across as Dr. Phil-lite. If you don't know who Dr. Phil is (and good for you if you don't), he's a tv personality who hands out self-help advice like gummy vitamins.

How can the manga-ka go on and on about shamans being keepers of peace and not interested in politics and greed and all the other crap he spews while at the exact same time he has not just Hao in complete opposition to that but every single one of Hao's minions. They are all shamans too. And they're evil shamans. My running theory is that everyone in the last volume will have a kum-bai-ya moment and suddenly be all fething lovey dovey with every one else.

I hope I'm wrong.

This probably would have gone down to a 2 ½ if it weren't for the fights. Takei can draw a most excellent fight scene.

★★★☆☆

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Epilogue III (Shaman King #22) ★★★☆☆

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Epilogue III
Series: Shaman King #22
Author: Hiroyuki Takei
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Manga
Pages: 192
Format: Digital Copy

Synopsis:

Ryu's fight with the Minions isn't going so well so Yoh heads back his way to see if he needs to intervene. Another Shaman team intervenes on Ryu's behalf and Ryu falls in love with their leader (like he does every girl he meets).

Joco goes for a walk and is looking for his old gang and finds them. All dead. He is confronted by the kids of the man he killed 3 years ago. The kids are shamans and control a nigh unstoppable golem. The kids were with Yoh's father but they attacked him to go after Joco. They're little psychopaths. Joco cuts the golem up but it simply regenerates and slices him up. Yoh and Ryu show up on the scene and Ryu takes Joco away leaving Yoh to face the brats and the golem. Yoh confronts the children and tricks the golem into cutting it's own head off. Then when he's convincing the kids to be good again the golem regenerates and stabs him.

Meanwhile Joco is on the edge of death and having his own little experience.

Yoh and the brother are on the run from the sister and golem, only to run directly into Hao and his entire team. Hao reveals that the children's father has possessed the daughter and he's the one killing everyone who killed him.

Yoh tries to defend the golem and the little girl inside but Hao has his minions casually brush him aside.

My Thoughts:

The manga-ka gets a bit preachy in this volume with a lot of talk about “hurting others only makes them hurt you” and such silly talk. The thing is, Yoh then turns around fights when needed. The manga-ka has him not kill anyone, but that is a hypocritical line with all the words the manga-ka has poured through Yoh's mouth. It's as evil as someone who will defend a mass murderer and then turns around and kills infants with a dull spoon as soon as they exit the mother's womb. You know, I bet Takei is a Democrat in a former life before getting hit by Truck-kun and reincarnating to atone for his horrific life from before. Of course, I'm not sure Truck-kun operates in America, so maybe it's distantly related cousin Mack Truck-kun?

Really, not much else to say. We still haven't gotten Yoh's Super Secret Get Everyone Together to Explain Plan. I figure I'm going to be lucky if that plan gets revealed within the next 3 volumes. Onward!

★★★☆☆

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[Manga Monday] Epilogue II (Shaman King #21) ★★★☆½

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Epilogue II
Series: Shaman King #21
Author: Hiroyuki Takei
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Manga
Pages: 192
Format: Digital Copy

Synopsis:

Manta, Ryu and Tokagero arrive at the abandoned mansion where the X-Laws are reviving Ren. Ren is a spirit and doesn't want to be revived since he knows it will mean Yoh has to drop out of the Shaman Fight but he can't communicate with anyone, not even his spirit ally Bason. Lady Jeane revives him. He has a huge increase in mana ability so when Marco and his Angel spirit attack hims, he simply dodges out of the way.

Horohoro and Joco are walking along the beach trying to figure out what they're going to do, as they don't know Ren is back. They come across minions of Hao harassing some defeated shamans. Horohoro steps in even though there is no way he can materially affect the fight. At the same time his father and little sister appear and are watching to see what Horohoro does. Horohoro's dad leaves and Hao's minions try to stop him. Even though his mana is much lower than theirs, he flattens them with one punch and leaves. This gives Horohoro hope and he starts a fight with a Lego Man (no joke). He wins using his brains and ingenuity instead of straight up brawn. Lyserg shows up and defeats the final minion and brings Horohoro back to Yoh.

Another minion of Hao tracks them down and attacks them. Yoh has important news to tell the group so he designates Ryu to fight the minions while the rest of them simply leave. One of the minions falls to his death and his partner is all “eh, whatever”. That pisses Ryu off so he decides to stay and finish the fight instead of just delaying them.

My Thoughts:

Interesting tidbit that death and resurrection increase mana ability exponentially. Not the way I'd choose to get more powerful though!

The fighting is back and I'm glad for it. However, with all of these fights taking place outside of sanctioned Shaman Fights it just further cements the fact that the Patch are a corrupt bunch of scumbags. Or they're playing a long game that we the audience aren't aware of.

It is also obvious that Yoh has a plan even with him being out of the official Shaman Fight. I guess I'll find out what it is next volume.

★★★☆½

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