Shaman King (Flowers) by Takei Hiroyuki

[kkck]

Loved the chapter lol. I am kinda surprised at how she reacted to hana's bit of sheer common sense. One of the main issues with manga (to me at least) is just how much characters focus on developing their combat capacities instead of their real life skills. Its the sheer lack of common sense in the whole thing that gets to me. YOU GO TO FUCKING JAIL! That was beautiful lol. And the chapter actually addressed how the two siblings barely know anything about anything, their lack of contact with the world. In the end, these guys don't even get what they are working for. And by all practical purposes, the asakura household does not do anything at all these days. The only mildly useful skill they had was predictions however it does seem like grandpa asakura is dead. Yoh has precisely 0 real life skills and anna's ability to summon the dead would be only situationally useful in real life (perhaps she would do fine as an historian but still). In the end luca did not even seem to realize that if she killed someone she would have a swat team behind her in a second. At least as far as we have seen there is nothing for anyone to win by taking over the asakura household as in the real world they don't serve an actual function. In the end neither is even a good shaman considering one has a frail body and the other failed at developing an oversoul which would actually be useful in battle.

Kinda disappointed that ryu did not use his oversoul. I wonder just how much it would have changed over the past 13 years.

Anna finally appearing is good. I wonder just how she will be different from the original anna. And who in the hell is anna the second? Does hanna have a little sister he does not know about? I find it kinda boring that she has the same oversoul as his dad. Granted it is an insanely practical oversoul as it basically does everything (fly, defense, offense...) perfectly but it is still not original. I admit I was waiting to see her use the katana she showed in the original one shot. Perhaps later though...

---------- Post added August 07, 2012 at 05:12 PM ---------- Previous post was August 04, 2012 at 12:34 PM ----------

Damn, wish this thread was a little lifelier.... So... any news on chapter 5

[Rikudou King]

Completely missed that a new chapter came out. Anyway, I have to say I love how Hana was reprimanding them for a lack of common sense. Also like the reference of his past experience in a jail. And Anna III seems like she's a lot more outgoing and lively then the original Anna. Loved her usage of the Silver Arms.

[Newkerzy]

Loved the chapter lol. I am kinda surprised at how she reacted to hana's bit of sheer common sense. One of the main issues with manga (to me at least) is just how much characters focus on developing their combat capacities instead of their real life skills. Its the sheer lack of common sense in the whole thing that gets to me. YOU GO TO FUCKING JAIL! That was beautiful lol. And the chapter actually addressed how the two siblings barely know anything about anything, their lack of contact with the world. In the end, these guys don't even get what they are working for. And by all practical purposes, the asakura household does not do anything at all these days. The only mildly useful skill they had was predictions however it does seem like grandpa asakura is dead. Yoh has precisely 0 real life skills and anna's ability to summon the dead would be only situationally useful in real life (perhaps she would do fine as an historian but still). In the end luca did not even seem to realize that if she killed someone she would have a swat team behind her in a second. At least as far as we have seen there is nothing for anyone to win by taking over the asakura household as in the real world they don't serve an actual function. In the end neither is even a good shaman considering one has a frail body and the other failed at developing an oversoul which would actually be useful in battle.

Kinda disappointed that ryu did not use his oversoul. I wonder just how much it would have changed over the past 13 years.

Anna finally appearing is good. I wonder just how she will be different from the original anna. And who in the hell is anna the second? Does hanna have a little sister he does not know about? I find it kinda boring that she has the same oversoul as his dad. Granted it is an insanely practical oversoul as it basically does everything (fly, defense, offense...) perfectly but it is still not original. I admit I was waiting to see her use the katana she showed in the original one shot. Perhaps later though...

---------- Post added August 07, 2012 at 05:12 PM ---------- Previous post was August 04, 2012 at 12:34 PM ----------

Damn, wish this thread was a little lifelier.... So... any news on chapter 5

Isn't Yoh's wife the Second Anna??

[kkck]

I think anna (the original one) was just anna the first. Even if she wasn't we are still missing an anna by my count.

[andysislands]

I'll write up an article once Chapter 5 comes out... but it basically goes:
Butsu Zone -> Anna I
Shaman King -> Anna II
Shaman King Flowers -> Anna III

Takei played around with the timeline of Butsu Zone after the fact... (originally taking place in 1997, but then moved into the 70/80s I believe)

(Waiting until after chapter 5 comes out, just in case Takei puts in any other pieces of information. And yeah, I'll get around to doing really good versions of Butsu Zone, you know with translations not based on the french releases and then put onto the old french official release. With original color pages... It's like effort!)

[kkck]

spoilers for chapter 5

it seems the manga is still moving rather slowly.

---------- Post added September 12, 2012 at 12:49 AM ---------- Previous post was September 02, 2012 at 01:07 PM ----------

chapter five is out.

---------- Post added at 02:38 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:49 AM ----------

Ok, even if no one will I will comment on the chapter. Seriously, no comments on this manga?

Finally we get to see hana meeting anna. Ok, technically that happened last chapter but the whole thing is rather hectic at the time being. Anyways, I honestly expected the whole thing to go a tad different. Remember the original one shot when he met anna?
http://mangafox.me/manga/shaman_king...0/c000/42.html
His face there made a tad more sense than the current developments. Originally yoh supposedly fell in love at first sight, matamune pointed that out. I am not a fan of the concept of love at first sight however I did kinda expect hana to have a stronger reaction here. Anyways, it is interesting to see that anna the third is actually that different to the original anna. Yoh's wife would have outright murdered him had yoh ever said anything of the sort. It does seem anna the third is somewhat more of a handful though. She might be more cheerful however she also seems to be a tad more cruel (2nd was harsh more than cruel if I recall) and enjoy a tad of that cruelty.

It is a tad interesting that hana's words saved his life. He really does have a knack for hitting where it hurts with his words. His surge of common sense at luca really did save his life. I kinda get the impression that anna was more hurt by the small breasted thing than what she let go. Hana really is a douche here. She came along all happy and crap about meeting her new fiance and it turns out the kids is a damn brat who looks at her breast without even knowing her. In the original one shot she was supposed to fight hana and would become his wife if he won. I wonder if we will see a fight between the two soon enough.

It seems the author is really going out of his way with the clones though. Ryuji is basically a clone of ryunosuke, men is a clone of ren..... I guess in time we will see how they are different from the originals though, thats gonna be the hardest thing for the author to sell here. I mean, hana and anna actually are a decent bit different from the originals after all, it would make sense that he does the same with this guys. In particular men is bound to turn different considering he probably has that severe childhood trauma thing as a non issue unlike ren. He did have a self righteous mother and a ren as a dad though so he is bound to have turned out VERY weird. I wonder if ryuji will actually inherit tokagero though. I would rather see him with a new spirit though. Perhaps an actual yamato no orochi spirit? I guess tokagero already embodies that though.

Seeing hana attack ryuji really got me the impression he is a good match for anna. He also seems to have a bit of a cruel strike to him although perhaps that is just him wanting to fight and relieve some tension from not doing so.

Plotwise it seems the story is finally picking up. I had been wondering what this continuation could be about but I could never place my finger on it. The idea of them having to fight the aliens or something related to them is rather interesting. The idea that they could exceed the god of the world is also very interesting. Taking everything in consideration it makes sense. These guys came along and instituted a tournament to determine the god of the world. How is that plausible? These new enemies have to somehow exceed god if they set up a tournament to become one. Perhaps They are simply a much older race which means their god would have more souls and thus be more powerful. Such a thing would be plain impossible to oppose though.

It is good to see the hanagumi girls were actually just waiting for this and not just waiting to die from old age. I guess it makes more sense they would do this, they are incredibly suited and accustomed to fighting after all. I guess it is a bit of a shame that they had to wait 10 years just to be able to fight though. They really have no real life skills or worth, they are just warriors.

[Cinnabar]

I'm gonna catch up on Flowers soon. In the meantime, I have a question for the original manga.

I don't actually remember the details so I'm asking for clarification: did Yoh just use an advanced shamanic technique (Oversoul, I think) in Osorezan Revoir? How was he able to do that and not be aware of techniques more advanced than Hyou Gattai when Silva tested him for the Shaman Fight? Just something that occurred to me.

I guess Takei hasn't planned out everything yet at the time he wrote the first few volumes?

------------------------------------

And I finally caught up. What an interesting way of introducing a sequel. I'm not sure if I can cram all my thoughts about the recent chapters in one go though, so I'll just say whatever comes up on my mind first. Sorry for the mess.

Okay at first, I was iffy about the sequel simply because I couldn't imagine one. What plot would it have now that the Shaman Fight is over? I'm glad Takei introduced a very interesting plot point in the beginning. I was actually excited about the idea of having the two branches fight over who would be the main branch because that seems interesting and unexpected for me. But now Takei introduces us the reason why the other branch chooses to take over the main branch now, when they could have done it years later when the next Shaman Fight is near. So apparently there's going to be a big fight now that has to do with the origins of the Shaman Fight. Interesting.

I like how Takei can say a lot in just five chapters. The characterizations of Hana were interesting. He obviously has a dad complex, and it will be interesting to see what would happen if he meets his father. At first his attitude reminded me a lot of Anna. He definitely likes to fight, probably because of his frustrations of not having a relationship with his father and having so much potential as a shaman, but not seeing how he could use this power for greatness since the Shaman Fight is over and there's nothing great for him to do. I didn't think I would like Hana that much, but it really shouldn't come as a surprise that I did end up enjoying his character.

I'm glad Anna the Third seems different to Anna the Second. Yeah, there does seem to be a lot of clones in this manga. I'm hoping Takei will portray them as their own individual characters just as he did with Hana. He can probably do it since I think characters are one of his strong points. I also like how he's slowly introducing and re-introducing more and more characters, both old and new.

It kind of bothers me that Hana probably has more potential as a shaman than Yoh - but that's only because I'm biased when it comes to Yoh, haha. Though I think it makes sense how Hana is a lot stronger than Yoh was at that age. It seems to me that Hana is really talented at being a shaman, and he loves being a shaman - to the point where he probably feels down because he can't use his shamanic powers for any great reason since the Shaman Fight is over. What else would he use his powers on? On the other hand, Yoh was more reluctant to use his shaman powers at that age - he doesn't like unnecessary fighting and he doesn't really get serious unless the situation really calls for it - and he's pretty lazy when it comes to training. Yoh is like the underachiever; he can do stuff if only he put in more effort. Meanwhile Hana is like the overly talented kid who's being restrained from using said talents. That's what I think. /OPINION

And woah did Tamao turn a 180. I feel like Takei's taste in women are showing through a whole lot in this series. XD

[kkck]

Not sure what part about osorezar revoir you are talking about... Anyways, before the fight with silva yoh was capable of two techniques that I remember, the hyo gatai and the thing with the nature spirits and leaves, the later of which is one of the first techniques he learned and is a basic shamanic technique (although it kinda looks like an oversoul). Not sure if that is what you are talking about.

Not sure if the author has actually said a lot though... the manga has been going on for some 5 months. If this was a weekly shonen there would be 30 chapters out already. And even then it is only in the 5 chapter that the actual plot of the series was revealed. The third and fourth chapter actually had little revealed plotwise. Basically, the plot of the manga is advancing at a extremely short pace. This is a continuation manga where we are mostly familiar with how the character's techniques work. We as readers do not need slow pace for plot introduction or universe related data, we need stuff to happen to keep it interesting.

As for hana, I am not surprised about him being superior to his dad in terms of talent. He is the son of 2 extremely powerful shamans to begin with. Another thing is that yoh is basically one half of hao of sorts. Isn't he technically incomplete in some regards? Hana does not have that issue. In the end hana has his mothers headstrong personality and vigor and his dads talent (and more) so it is only natural he would develop as a shaman so fast. Not to mention that ryu and tamao are both much stronger superior shamans to the guys who trained yoh, both of them have mastered more powerful techniques which they can pass on.

I do feel there are certain aspects of hana which make him unsuited for fighting. He does say he wants to fight and use his abilities however there is the issue that he also seems to have all the sheer common sense that his dad never did. From what I recall yoh never actually questioned the importance of relevance of his fights in his current cultural context even at the start. In turn hana has shown he actually understands his shaman techniques do not have real life applications. Remember when he fought luca? He was the first to mention that they live in a democracy and if she kills him she is going to jail. Even if he does want to use his abilities, I get the mild impression that one of the reasons he is frustrated is that he does not see an actual purpose in learning those techniques, they make no sense in his cultural context. Perhaps once he actually gets immersed in the shaman world he is going to realize he does not actually want to fight but rather he wants to live a normal live and that even fighting for the seat of god makes no god damned sense.

[Estranho]

I think he is talking about Yoh and Anna's flashback, where Yoh performs an Over Soul with Matamune.

[Cinnabar]

I think he is talking about Yoh and Anna's flashback, where Yoh performs an Over Soul with Matamune.

Yep, this one. It's the one thing that's bothering me. Although I can understand if Takei just wasn't able to plan this far yet when he started. Or maybe he just forgot or changed plans or something. I don't know.

Not sure if the author has actually said a lot though... the manga has been going on for some 5 months. If this was a weekly shonen there would be 30 chapters out already. And even then it is only in the 5 chapter that the actual plot of the series was revealed. The third and fourth chapter actually had little revealed plotwise. Basically, the plot of the manga is advancing at a extremely short pace. This is a continuation manga where we are mostly familiar with how the character's techniques work. We as readers do not need slow pace for plot introduction or universe related data, we need stuff to happen to keep it interesting.

I actually think he said a lot already in five chapters, but that's just me. When I say 'a lot', I'm not just talking about the plot, but I'm also including characterizations and establishing the setting. I mean, Takei already set up a few things for us such as: the mystery of who took the second earring, the second Asakura branch, the upcoming fight related to the orgins of the Shaman Fight, Hana's dad complex and frustrations about not being able to use his shamanic powers for something more fulfilling, what happened to some of the characters (like Tamao, Ryu, Amidamaru, Silva, Hanagumi) after the fight and how they are doing now, contrast between Hana and Yoh, establishing new characters like Anna the Second and Yohane and his sister while giving them characterizations to differentiate them from being clones of the original.

I actually thought the plot was just about the second Asakura branch trying to take over the main branch, haha. And I was just fine with that, actually, because it adds a sense of mystery as to why they would choose to take over the main branch now when the next Shaman Fight is still in a few hundred years. But then Takei sort of answered that with this upcoming fight about aliens or the origins of the Shaman Fight or something, so I felt that the plot is progressing alright since it already answers questions and adds ten more.

Although it's actually been a while since I read any manga though, so that's probably a factor why I felt the pacing was alright. I mean, the last two mangas I read were Liar Game and Hunter x Hunter, and I don't get to read their chapters every week either. So maybe I'm just used to it.

I do feel there are certain aspects of hana which make him unsuited for fighting. He does say he wants to fight and use his abilities however there is the issue that he also seems to have all the sheer common sense that his dad never did. From what I recall yoh never actually questioned the importance of relevance of his fights in his current cultural context even at the start. In turn hana has shown he actually understands his shaman techniques do not have real life applications. Remember when he fought luca? He was the first to mention that they live in a democracy and if she kills him she is going to jail. Even if he does want to use his abilities, I get the mild impression that one of the reasons he is frustrated is that he does not see an actual purpose in learning those techniques, they make no sense in his cultural context. Perhaps once he actually gets immersed in the shaman world he is going to realize he does not actually want to fight but rather he wants to live a normal live and that even fighting for the seat of god makes no god damned sense.

Yeah, this was actually on my mind except you can explain it better than I could, haha. I think him being aware of the cultural context of things says something about how Tamao and Ryu looked after him. It also helps that Yoh is a slacker who grew up in a family full of shamans with great expectations of him for the Shaman Fight. He wouldn't care about the relevance of fighting in a cultural context since he can apply his powers in the Shaman Fight. Whereas Hana doesn't have anything to apply his powers to as far as he knows.

[kkck]

chapter 6 spoilers

---------- Post added October 07, 2012 at 01:54 AM ---------- Previous post was October 02, 2012 at 12:27 AM ----------

Chapter out

---------- Post added October 08, 2012 at 02:48 PM ---------- Previous post was October 07, 2012 at 01:54 AM ----------

Ok, in spite of few people commenting or even visiting the thread I will continue to comment on released chapters.

Wow, tamao really went plain apeshit here. No common sense was ever used and precisely no f****s were given at any time. She just went and straight up destroyed a house. Who would have thought tamao would be the first good guy to completely disregard common sense and do whatever she pleases? And then she would have the nerve to point out the social services thing.

What does shugen even mean? I have been curious of what the ultimate shugen is ever since the initial one shot was released although I didn't actually expect it to be a standard oversoul just punching things. Its pretty damn badass for little old she tamao. It is quite impressive she can use a divine class spirit that easily though. Who would have thought she had it in her? Even that guy from the fallen angels could only control his divine class angel for a fews seconds and yet we see tamao doing it rather confortably. I guess the angel spirit was just about 30% stronger than the tengu guy though. How did tamao end up with harusame? I wondered just why hana didn't have it considering it should mean quite a bit for amidamaru however I did not expect tamao to use it. It has nothing to do with her spirit to boot. To be honest I was expecting yoh to still have it. I can't help but wonder what yoh is doing with his oversoul these days. Could he have inherited his dad's spirits? Or perhaps he kept SOE?

Anyways, as far as the fight went I am surprised that tamao had such an easy time. Does that make sense? Why would yohkyo have such a weak OS? I mean, he was using a divine class spirit and is supposed to have an insane amount of power. Even if his body is weak the issue should not be that he has an outright pointless OS. Interestingly, it does seem as if yohkyo is an onmyo as hao was. I wonder what other sort of abilities he will posses. Interestingly, it seems as if there also is someone behind the branch asakura guys. I wonder who could possibly do that?

On the matter of hana, it does seem as he is plainly a douchebag. I guess he does have a lot of baggage but overall he does not even try to be friends with others. It also seems as if like his dad did fall in love with anna at first sight.

Yohane seems to have somewhat more common sense in an ordinary setting however he is still weird. A pointless death threat like that would never have an effect, specially after having already being defeated.

I guess we can't help but wonder just what else tamao and yohkyo talked about.

[Raijatsu]

When did Tamao get so rutheless?
I cant remember her going all out like this in the classic Shaman King,
here she seems even more cold blodded than Ana 2nd

[Rikudou King]

Finally had time to get caught up. Still really enjoying Hana's personality, and love the fact that he's a boob man. I can pretty much understand where Hana's coming from, marrying someone with his mother's name is pretty weird. Speaking if which, Anna III has an enjoyable personality too. Love Tamao going wild against Yohkyo and Hana's interaction with Yohane at school. Can't wait to see what this "Flower of Maze" event ends up being.

When did Tamao get so rutheless?
I cant remember her going all out like this in the classic Shaman King,
here she seems even more cold blodded than Ana 2nd

Well she was gonna kill Ryu way back when, and she got pretty serious against the Hanagumi during the tournament.

[harukafebruary]

i'm so glad hiroyuki takei-san continue this.
so far i'm enjoying this manga,
i like hana's personality and how the story begun
but i agree the some of the character designs are clones from previous characters
well, it's too early to decide thou..

[kkck]

chapter seven spoilers