Shaman King Nation

The upcoming Februrary issue of Jump SQ will feature it’s last chapter of Ultimo in it’s magazine. Instead of being cancelled however, it is being moved into Jump SQ’s spin-off magazine, Jump SQ 19 (ジャンプSQ.19). This magazine is designed for spin-off and oneshots. It releases on the 19th day every February, May, August, and November. However, it will not be moving to Jump SQ19 until the May issue.

In the last year, the Ultimo series has seen a large drop in sales numbers, as well as the reader’s poll for the magazine. The series never built the same fanbase as did with Shaman King, and the continued excitement of Shaman King Zero and Jumbor would also be a key cause. Hiroyuki Takei is also having trouble releasing 3 different chapters a month, as Jumbor was absent from the most recent Ultra Jump issue.

With this latest move to Jump SQ 19, Ultimo has been in every magazine in the Jump SQ line-up besides the first sample issue.

(Source: Negative Syndicate at MangaHelpers) 

After concluding in Shonen Jump and the release of volume 6 in the US, any information on when the next volume of Ultimo would be released was unknown. However, the release date for Ultimo volume 7 in English by Viz is now set for August 7th, 2012 (8/7/12).  It will remain at it’ current MSRP of $9.99. It’s ISBN-13 number is: 9781421542638 and ISBN: 1421542633. There is currently no cover art released for this volume yet for the English release.

As reported at Patch Cafe, by Dit, the Shaman King manga series will continue after “Shaman King Zero” with “Shaman King Flowers” starting in April 2012.

Shaman King Flowers was originally a oneshot published in the end of the Mentalite fanbook after the publishing of the Shaman King “Kang Zeng Bang” editions. At this time it’s not clear if this new oneshot will continue the story directly from that oneshot or if it will be re-written. Nothing about the plot of this new series has been announced.

“Shaman King Zero” will continue to run monthly in Jump Kai until it’s replaced with “Shaman King Flowers.”

So, this is a youtube repost of the niconico version of osorezan revoir. Sung by Megumi Hayashibara, and written by Capitaro (@capitaro)

There has been alot of news stories over the last few weeks, so here’s the breakdown of them all in a single post:

The cover image of next issue of Jump X (Kai) has been released. Yoh has returned to the cover in a brand new drawing. You can see the image on the left. The oneshot is confirmed again at 44 pages in length. In the background, you’ll also see parts of the special poster that will be included in every issue. It’s a redrawing of one of Takei’s previous drawings. However this one is a complete new drawing and looks to be extremely detailed.

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In celebration of Shaman King’s return in Jump Kai, their official Twitter account is having a special contest. They are giving out 100 special “onsen mixes” to their followers. These contain a special powder to add to your bath to renergize. They are being reffered to as 「五大聖霊の湯の素」or “The 5 elements of the Holy Spirit of water.” Each of the 5 Elemental Warriors from Shaman King (Yoh, Horohoro, Lyserg, Ren, and Chocolove) are on the packaging with their respective Elemental Spirit (Spirit of Fire is with Lyserg for example). These will only be given out via this contest and not sold in stores.

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Takei is lending his talents to the recently published 「錬人」(“Ren Jin” or “Human Values”) manga drawn by  Shige Matsumoto Nobu and published by CoroDragon Comics. A oneshot of this manga series was recently published in the Spring issue of Corocoro G. Hiroyuki Takei is a friend of the author and has some special drawings in this first compiled volume of Ren Jin.

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As mentioned in earlier news posts, Takei lent his hand to the “Break Battle” Trading Figure Game with the creation of his own piece. An image of that piece, called ドゴロチ or Dogorochi is shown on the left. It combines alot of aspects from various manga series he has drawn.

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The voice actress of Yoh Asakura, Yuuko Satou, has given birth to a healthy boy on October 09, 2011.

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Towards the end of October a new official website was openned for Shaman King Zero on Mixi. Mixi is a Japanese-only social website (think like Facebook). The main page is open to the public but clicking on any link will require you to sign up for an account. The website can be found here: http://p.mixi.jp/shamanking0 . We will try to report as much as we can on anything that is posted at this site.

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【恐山アンナ】恐山ル・ヴォワールを歌ってみた【マンキン復活】, A very popular video was uploaded to Niconico Douga in late October, which can be found here: http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm15947771 (Requires a Japanese account to view). In the video,  Megumi Hayashibara is singing a fanmade song. This is a professionally made video and recording. The art in the background (pictured left) was most likely drawn by Takei himself. The first person to announce the upload of the video was a music producer who worked with Megumi Hayashibara on various Shaman King songs such as Oversoul and Northern Lights. And continueing further, this song was also used as background music in another video released by Jump Kai of a famous caligrapher writing promoting “Shaman King Zero.” That video can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbMoY9-3FEs.

Source: Dit and http://blog.livedoor.jp/takeifan/ 

With the release of the latest Ultra Jump containing Jumbor Chapter 15, the cover of the next volume of Jumbor was also announced. Jumbor Volume 3 (ユンボル-JUMBOR- 第3) will go on sale on November 4th, 2011 for 500yen. The cover is shown on the left (click to see larger size). Below is the official summery in Japanese:

バルを待ち受けていたのは衝撃の再会!!

ゲンバー大王が支配するワールド･ザンドに重機人間ユンボルとして蘇った伝説の工事職人、バル･クロウ。
ゲンバーの手下が操るEM(アースムーバー)たちに苦戦を強いられるバル。
さらに、その背後にはかつての自分の部下だったボリングの姿が！
伝説の工事英雄譚、怒涛の第3巻!!

Continuing with the latest news of the series Shaman King making it’s return, the Jump X (Kai) website has updated with a brand new page of information. The series of oneshots will officially be called “Shaman King 0 -Zero-“ or more commonly referred to as “Shaman King Zero” ( シャーマンキング0-zero- ) You can find the website here (in Japanese). As seen on the left hand side of the page, the poster included with the Jump X issue will be a B3 sized poster from the Osorezan Revoir story arc. Continuing down the page, Takei’s supervisor’s, Inakichi gives a little comment about the new series. He comments about how he went to Izumo with Takei to get information about the city and people. He also says that they found a “mysterious and frightening place” and decided to include it in the oneshot (maybe a graveyard?). At the bottom of the page, there is a space for 4 different characters with descriptions; Yoh, Anna, Matamune, and a space for the child spirit (hidden for now). This of course, brings up more questions than answers abotu the story as the initial plot line did not seem to include either Anna or Matamune.

(Thanks to Dit for the translation!)

On November 4th, 2011, Jumbor volume 3 (ユンボル -JUMBOR- 3) will be published in Japan. It will retail for 500yen and have an ISBN of 978-4088703107. It will contain chapter 10 through 14 of the manga series that is currently being published in Ultra Jump.

Even though reported that the Shaman King series will have a big announcement planned for March 2012, the Shaman King manga series will get a jump start long before that. In the December issue of the newly created monthlyJump Kai magazine which will be released on November 10th, 2011, there will be a brand new Shaman King oneshot! It will contain color pages and be 44 pages in length. This is also the first oneshot in a series of oneshots leading up to the big announcement for spring 2012. The total number of pages for this “series of oneshots” will be 144 pages. This could lead to around 3 or 4 oneshots in total. Because of this strong number of pages, a volume combining all these oneshots with the Remix Tracks (currently being released in the Shaman King re-release under the “Remix” imprint) is highly likely.

This announcement could possibly be a new anime, as mentioned in an earlier news post. In addition to the oneshot, there will also be a brand new color poster included with every issue of Jump Kai (most likely featuring Yoh).

The plot of this new oneshot was also included in this ad. The story will be centered around Yoh Asakura leaving his hometown of Izumo and heading to Tokyo for the first time, as well as helping the spirit of a dead child pass on. Last year, before restarting the Jumbor manga series in Ultra Jump, Takei drew two oneshots for Jumbor which continued the original Jyuki Ningen Jumbor plotline.

The news of this oneshot in Jump Kai has been very well received in Japan on Twitter. Today the tag #マンキン (#mankin) reached a Trending Topic phrase in Japan. “Mankin” is short for “Shaman King.” To see the list, check out here.

Huge thanks to Dit for translating all this news. Be sure to keep checking back on Shaman King Nation for continued coverage of the rebirth of the Shaman King series.

(HQ image source: Manga-News)

For the last two weeks, volume 6 of Ultimo has made it onto the New York Times Best Selling Manga chart list. For two straight weeks it has been in 9th place. This is holding well against other popular titles such as Naruto, One Piece, Bleach, and Sailor Moon. Outside of the first volume of Ultimo, this is the only other volume to reach this list. This volume contains the chapters not included in Viz’s Shonen Jump magazine.

(Source: Anime News Network)