Shaman King Manga

[Myoti]

I heard somewhere that the manga series was cancelled in Japan.

Is this true, why, and how far is it when it stops (I've only seen the dubbed anime so far, though, which I hear is much different)?

[Debitt]

The rumor I heard was that, if it actually has been cancelled, it was cancelled with one volume left to go. =/

[jon_jinn]

i wonder why?...

[Debitt]

waning popularity, from what I understand. The manga business is competitive in Japan, and if the series is lacking in readership things might go awry. There was a petition in Japan to keep the series going until the end, but I never found otu what became of it

[MasterDias]

It was cancelled in Japan around Volume 32 or so without having much of an ending, at least from what I understood.
Supposedly, Takei might have been able to give it a proper ending if they had let him do only a handful of more volumes.

The anime diverges from the manga at the start of the trip to America for the Shaman Tournament.

[jon_jinn]

darn. i didn't think the manga was THAT bad but i didn't take an extreme interest in it either.

[KBMaster]

What?! Aw, man. That stinks. I don't know if I'll continue the manga anymore. A vague ending is better than a non-existent one. At least I only bought one volume.

[uc pseudonym]

This makes me wonder what Viz will do. Likely keep publishing it as long as it continues to be profitable, but I wonder how they will talk about this.

Personally, I can't say that this matters to me terribly. I've never thought Shaman King was a terribly high quality manga. I do find it interesting that even such an established and long-running series would be canceled.

[Lady Macbeth]

This makes me wonder what Viz will do. Likely keep publishing it as long as it continues to be profitable, but I wonder how they will talk about this.

Personally, I can't say that this matters to me terribly. I've never thought Shaman King was a terribly high quality manga. I do find it interesting that even such an established and long-running series would be canceled.

This isn't the first time Viz has ventured on a series that will never be finished - Yami no Matsuei (no discussion, I'm just pointing a fact) is expected to not be finished, and Viz only has one more volume (11) to go before they hit the end of the tankouban in Japan. The only existing YnM manga beyond that is in Hana to Yume.

I'm guessing that they'll do the same with Shaman King - run it to the end of the existing Japanese tankouban and then say, "Sorry, there's no more in Japan either."

[MasterDias]

Well, it is fairly odd that it ended like that but Takei did do a short story called Funbari no Uta which stars Yoh and Anna's young son Hana some years after the shaman fight ended.

Regardless, the manga is still considered better than the anime. It goes into far more depth for the characters and backstories. Why Hao hates humans, how Yoh and Anna first met.etc.

[Myoti]

Hm... I'm wondering if I should get into reading the manga now (since what MasterDias said does interest me), but it'd be much saddening to reach the cut-off point. D:

[Monkey J. Luffy]

I read a few chapters it looks quite interesting.

[jon_jinn]

i think you should. it's definately not the BEST manga in town but it's still pretty good. it's very original and the characters all have different personalities and their own attacks and stuff. there's a lot of negative or objective religious content in this manga though but it doesn't go as far as to make fun of God as the manga hellsing does.

[Aka-chan]

I really enjoyed the manga (my steady avatar is, after all, the one and only Asakura Hao), though I found it to be similar to Naruto. As in, highly interesting and exciting at the beginning, and then the story gets wacked out and less gripping later on. Read it as long as you enjoy it, and then move on when it ceases to captivate, I would say.

[Myoti]

I THOUGHT that was Hao. XD

That reminds me... in Jump Superstars, Hao has two koma you can use with him.
One has him dressed as a girl (I think o.O) throwing oranges everywhere, and the other is him in some wierd mech thing (Spirit of Fire?) that fires at the opponents...