Shaman King Nation

On April 18th “Ultimo” the joint created manga by Stan Lee and Hiroyuki Takei will be released in Japan. However, in a press release sent out by Viz today, some new information has been annouced.

On April 18th, the same day as the release in Japan, Stan Lee will be at New York Comic Con along with Takanori Asada (Editor, Jump SQ.), and USA’s Shonen Jump Editor-in-Chief Marc Weidenbaum to give some new information about the series. The annoucement at the time, will be that Viz has plans to release this manga series in the USA via their monthly Shonen Jump manga magazine. As an exact time of release has not been set, but it may only be a few short months after it’s release.

In the press release, Stan Lee states, “I am deeply honored for this great opportunity to collaborate with an award-winning artist/writer of the stature of Hiroyuki Takei.  I enthusiastically expect that the combination of an American story-telling style merged with Takei-san’s acclaimed Japanese style will result in our joint creation ‘ULTIMO’ presenting an original, exciting type of manga that will appeal to comicbook fans around the world”.

Along with this press release, several new facts and a summery of the story has been revealed:

• This is a prologue chapter (meaning there will be more chapters)
• 32 pages in the starting chapter
• 3 color pages (a single color page, followed by a double color page spread)

Summery of the story:

High above Farmless City, citizens are stunned by the sudden appearance of two floating figures. Are they human boys, monolithic robots, or something much more strange? As the battle ensues between them, destruction and devastation falls on the hapless city. One figure is Vice, and seems to be as evil as his name implies. The other is Ultimo, intent on trying to stop Vice from wreaking more havoc. But who are Vice and Ultimo really? Where did they come from? A new mystery begins with the fate of the world possibly hanging in the balance!

It is interesting to note, that “Vice” is the name of one of Takei’s characters in “Jyuki Ningen Jumbor” and “Ultimo” was original created by Stan Lee. However, neither of these characters appear to be connected to the Ultimo storyline. It’s fairly ironic that “Takei’s character” (Vice) will be playing the part of the antagonist, since Takei dislikes making characters that are “pure evil.” While Stan Lee has a tradition of creating characters with a more “dark side” and his “Utimo” is playing the line of the “good character.”

Along with this press release, the Japanese JumpSQ website also updated with some new Ultimo information. These come in the form of new images featuring the 2 main character. Please click the “Read rest of this entry” to view all the High Quality resolution image from the Ultimo section on the JumpSQ website.

With it’s not-yet-annouced US release, Ultimo will released in Jump SQII on April 18th in JumpSQ. You can have a chance to win a hand signed copy (by both Stan Lee and Hiroyuki Takei) of this issue by going to the following website, provided by Viz’s Shonen Jump website: www.shonenjump.com/ultimosweeps. Future chapters will most likely be in future JumpSQ issues. A set date has not been annouced yet or confirmed.

Shaman King Nation will continue to monitor this news story for both Japanese and English releases.

Updated on 4-06 and 4-07 for fixing dates.

Click on the following thumbnails to see the images in full quality.

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