Posted on May 10th, 2010 on ComiXology.com by Jason Thompson. He was also the editor for the Shaman King manga until volume 7 of the English version by Viz. Really detailed article with only a few details that could have been clearer. The list of “additions” are after the excerpt.

If I could live the life of one manga artist, I would be Kazuo Umezu. If I could live a second, I would be Hiroyuki Takei. Takei’s manga, Shaman King and Ultimo, have never been as popular as his Shonen Jump contemporaries Bleach, Naruto and One Piece. But his work is, in many ways, deeper and more interesting, with a humor that few other artists match. Why are you the one manga artist I’d love to get drunk with, Takei? Let me count the ways.

1. He’s a self-referential pop culture satirist.

Takei’s interests are legion. Shaman King could be interpreted as a religion-infused riff off of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, the first manga to popularize the idea of heroes with invisible spirit buddies. He’s a fan of Western artists like Jamie Hewlett, Mike Mignola and Tony Daniel, as well as Japanese artists like Osamu Tezuka and Hiroaki Samura. Shaman King contains visual references to Ren & Stimpy, J-pop bands and Bollywood film star Rajnikanth.

Takei’s sense of pop-culture irony is well-developed—what other manga artist would pose for his official SHONEN JUMP USA photo shoot wearing a kimono and wielding a samurai sword? In a casual conversation during the same visit to the U.S., he confessed to loving Quentin Tarantino’s samurai-violence-packed Kill Bill (Takei: “But it wasn’t so popular in Japan, most people didn’t get it.”) In the same way that Tarantino plays with Asian pop culture, Takei helps himself to Western pop. This spirit infuses Ultimo, his collaboration with Stan Lee, in which Lee himself appears as a character (under the name “Dr. Dunstan”). And it infuses the Shaman King scene in which Takei, fully aware that the oldschool Shonen Jump slogan was “friendship, perseverance, victory” (as explained by Frederik Schodt in his great book Dreamland Japan), pays tribute to this tagline. As the heroes look back on how far they have come, and what they have endured, the words “FRIENDSHIP”, “PERSEVERANCE” and “VICTORY” flash over a montage of flashback scenes, taking up most of a two-page spread.

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Additons/Clarifications:

- Reason 5: Part of this delay in a new series was that he moved to a new office to work on his new series. Also, he hinted at it, but didn’t directly express that Jyuki Ningen Jumbor will be getting it’s own new series “Jumbor” in Ultra Jump starting this summer.

- Reason 8: The original Shaman King manga was cancelled because of poor ratings. These were in both surveys and volume sales. Takei also became very burnt out from drawing the manga every week (with comments about how his hair was falling out).

Also, there is one other really, really big reason why he is so great. And that is SKN’s exclusive Reason 9:

9. Editors in Japan really like him

It often goes overlooked, but he can get what he needs done. He knows what’s a winning and losing battle. Having Shaman King cancelled from Weekly Shonen Jump hurts, but then years later brings it back. More so than brings it back, he brings a TON of new content, a new ending, tons of redraws of the manga, and a unique new slip cover for the volume releases. These were even bigger and fancier than Dragonball re-releases! And for a series that had been dead for years? He pulled in some big favors. Then on top of that he made a completely new fanbook to be released as well. Now he is working for two different montly publications. Granted, Jyuki Ningen Jumbor was his third cancelled series in Weekly Shonen Jump, but for other mangaka, that would be a career-ender. However, now he is just as busy as he was before and other mangaka have nothing but wonderful things to say about him.