On December 4th, Shaman King Volumes 19 & 20 of the Kang Zeng Bang reprints were released in Japan.

シャーマンキング　完全版 19 & 20

Price: 1000yen
Number of Pages: 236
ISBN: 
Volume 19: 978-4-08-874221-2
Volume 20: 978-4-08-874222-9
View Sample Pages:
Volume 19
Volume 20

Within the first week of sales, volume 19 had 25,862 sales and volume 20 had 25,495 sales. In terms of ranking for just number of sales, this places both volumes in the 27th and 28th positions respectively. However, if you count in terms of sales value, Shaman King was a little bit under the top 10 in terms of profit for the week (placing in and around 12-15th places). In the previous month,  in the week of November 4-11th, the reprint volumes 17 & 18 had higher sales numbers with 29,942 & 29,501. Which is all interesting numbers since, the odd number volume averages about 400 more sales within the first week, 2 releases directly after each other. This is showing that Shaman King is having a very solid fanbase who are repurchasing these volumes for their collections (just like our staff!).

On December 25th of this year, the final Shaman King DVD box set, BOX 3, will be released in Japan for 26,250 yen.

This final set will have 7 DVDs which will span episodes 45 to 64 of the original anime and some additional extras, specials, and an OVA. All of this DVD content has been released prior as extras on various CDs and DVDs (And PS2 DVD if you really want to be specific). DVDs 1-5 will contain episodes, while DVD 6 will contain the OVA 哀しみのかたち～葉王伝説～ (“The Form That Sadness Takes”), which is a recap of many of the scenes involving Hao. This OVA had already been released on VHS and DVD on 7/24/2003. DVD 7 contains the “PVs” from the S.F.O.V. CD singles (Shaman Fight of Vocal, a series of 6 CD albums), which were released on 3/24/2004. This final DVD also contains some additional extras and OVA segments, which were also released prior at various dates.

The only two pieces of new content for this box set release is the cover art for the front and back of the DVD set, and the 16 page booklet which is included. In this booklet, a summery of the content of the DVDs is included in addition with a interview with some of the voice actors of the Shaman King anime series. Hiroyuki Takei was invited to come to the round table interview session, however, he declined because he was “too busy working on the kanzenban [reprint volumes].” The members of the interview roundtable are, Yuuko Satou (Yoh), Minami Takayama (Hao), Megumi Hayashibara (Anna), Inuko Inuyama  (Manta), and Seiji Mizushima (Director of Anime, including Shaman King, Fullmetal Alchemist, and Gundam00). Seiji Mizshima was part of the first interview which was included with the DVD-Box 1. However, no interview was included with DVD-box2.

According the Amazon.co.jp’s internal rankings, at the time of publishing, this DVD box set is ranked #2,551 in terms of bestselling DVDs. This number is higher already than both of the box sets prior. However, these numbers can change over time, and Amazon is only one retailer (however popular, and keeps accurate statistics).

Sources:
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2008-12-12/japanese-comic-ranking-december-3-9  
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2008-11-12/japanese-comic-ranking-november-4-10
http://yukorugan.blog.shinobi.jp/Entry/140/