Hello and welcome to Project Nitsuj. Welcome to the second week of Shaman month. Yeah, we might as well make it official seeing how this review is going to take up the whole month. The first half follows in the footsteps of the original anime. Albeit, rushing through some parts, leaving out filler, and adding in a few new details. But rest assured, this is where the anime starts to diverge from the first anime. Now let’s continue our look into Shaman King 2021.
Episodes 14-16
So the second half starts with the introduction of Lyserg voiced by Youko Soumi reprising her roll from the original. As Yoh and the others are getting set to leave, they get approached by Lyserg who along with his spirit Morphine (not what you’re thinking of. I can see why they changed her name in the dub) who wants to join them on their journey. Lyserg’s goal is to become the world’s greatest detective (a modern-day Sherlock Holmes) with his dowsing abilities which allows him to find almost anything he wants. Trey and Ren refuse to let him join because they don’t trust him and think he’s weak, so Lyserg fights them an in unofficial match. Using his pendulum as an oversoul, Lyserg can control the direction of his attacks so that he always hits his target no matter what. He easily defeats Trey and Ren (a bit of a burial, but it shows how strong Lyserg is and Ren and Trey can get their momentum back easily) and then targets Yoh who easily destroys the pendulum and fires up Lyserg who wants to keep on fighting. We find out that his parents were killed by Hao after refusing to join his cause and now Lyserg seeks revenge. His main goal is to find strong allies to team up with, make it to Patch Village and then kill Hao. Lyserg unleashes his full power on Yoh but even that’s not enough to beat Yoh. Yoh finally punches Lyserg (left hook) telling him he lost because he was weak mentally and only focused on Hao (scene here: https://youtu.be/QDxtocPLw0I). After the group finally hears Lyserg’s backstory they actually accept him and welcome him into the group as they too have a score to settle with him. Meanwhile, Anna returns to Izumo and to the Asakura residence to learn the truth about Hao.
In episode 15 Anna gets taken to the shrine of Hao. In the past, Hao was a famous onmyoji who mastered the 5 elemental pentagrams which allows him to control the forces of nature (meaning he’s pretty much invincible). Hao one day decided to destroy humanity and create a world for shamans. The Asakuras rebelled against him and were able to defeat him but he mastered the art of controlling his soul meaning he could reincarnate whenever he wanted to. For the last 1,000 years the Asakuras have made it their mission to stop Hao whenever he would reincarnate and now that task falls to Yoh (the laziest of the Asakuras). With the way Yoh is now he doesn’t stand a chance, but there is a way to make him stronger and that is reading the book of Hao. The book contains all of Hao’s spells and only a member of the Asakura family can use it. Tamao grabs the book and unknowingly breaks the seal resulting in the release of the book’s guardians, Zenki and Goki, two powerful shikigamis. Anna reads the books and manages to defeat the shikigamis all by herself (this is why we love her) and Hao feels the pain so much that he actually bleeds (scene here: https://youtu.be/e6y8k19KGEY, so you do bleed). Anna is now tasked with taking that book to Yoh and teaching him the spells which will help him defeat Hao. Speaking of Yoh, he and the others are in the snowy mountains looking for clues on Patch Village. For the second half of the episode we focus on Trey who gets separated from the others and takes a nasty fall. Luckily, he’s saved by a park ranger who won’t allow him to leave because of a dangerous bear named Apollo who comes out at night. In the past the park ranger and her dad raised Apollo after his mom was killed and his eye was injured by hunters. Apollo never warmed up to humans, so he was released into the wilderness (because that’s what you do with an animal that won’t hesitate to kill humans, release him in the wild. I’m sure he’ll be kind) where the park ranger watches over the area to keep poachers away from him because if he kills someone she’ll be forced to put him down (you should have put him down in the first place). In a rather ballsy move, Trey goes out to confront Apollo where he reveals to the ranger that she did more harm than good by interacting with him. The scent of humans rubbed off on him and he became rejected by the other bears (okay, bears don’t like the smell of humans. We’re learning something new today). Somehow, Trey is able to communicate with Apollo with his soul and just when it seems like nothing bad will happen, Apollo gets shot and killed by some poachers (it’s coming right for us!). Trey unleashes his fury upon the poachers without killing them and we gain a new level of respect for Trey and his beliefs (this is where Trey goes from being a meh character to a good character).
So in episode 16 the boys are on the road again and have made it to Mesa Verdede which was the original Patch village. They enter the place hoping to find clues only to see it’s a tourist hotspot (makes sense. It’s the preserved ruins of an ancient culture, of course we’re gonna make money off it). While there they run into Hao’s minions who have come to kill Yoh’s friends (most likely out of jealousy). Yoh’s group gets a sneak attack courtesy of Boris the heir of Dracula and his spirit, Blamuro the vampire hunter (in the original anime he actually did have a few episodes around Yoh and the others fighting him, so I’m curious to see what they’ll do here). Blamuro bites Lyserg and Boris in a funny bit kills one of Hao’s minions because his character design overlaps with his (okay I have to give them a point for that, that was funny). Ryu takes on Boris where we finally get to see him be a badass (Trey got his moment to shine last episode, now we get to see Ryu shine. I love to see it). The fight between Ryu and Boris goes on throughout the episode and ends on a cliffhanger. Some of the big highlights this episode is the sneaky teamwork between Ryu and Tokageroh, Lyserg getting his body taken over by Blamuro and threatening to bite Yoh where Amidermaru captures Blamuro and saves Lyserg. We also see Anna, Morty, and Tamao fly to America to find Yoh and deliver the book.
Episodes 17-20
Episode 17 starts off by showing us how Ryu became a shaman. Grandpa Asakura tested his tenacity by having him reach the summit of a mountain without using roads. This mountain was also where the legend of Yamato no Orochi was born (fitting for characters associated with reptiles). Ryu and Tokageroh reach the summit and were trained by Grandpa Asakura (and then somehow enter the Shaman tournament where they won 3 matches within a week’s time. Yeah, seriously, how does that work?). Returning back to the present, Ryu defeats Boris (scene here: https://youtu.be/kpNrqYq3ZiA) and Yoh goes to question him about Hao, but Boris gets killed off by everyone’s favorite cult, the X-Laws. The X-Laws are an “organization” of law seekers who wish to defeat Hao and save the world (you have a strange way of showing it) with their guardian spirits being the 7 archangels (as if these guys couldn’t get anymore symbolic). Real talk, the X-Laws were my first exposure to a group of people that were good but do things in a bad way. While the X-Laws aren’t necessarily evil, their way of thinking is so narrow-minded that you can’t help but dislike them. They’ve all been hurt by Hao in some way and want revenge, but the way they label everyone associated with him as evil and kill them mercilessly makes them almost as bad as him. Anyway, after killing Boris, Yoh and the others follow the X-Laws into the ruins where Lyserg seems to agree with their philosophy (don’t let revenge consume you, boy). They run into more of Hao’s followers where the X-Laws easily defeat one of them (it was a football player vs a bunch of angels, who do you think is gonna win?). Just when the X-Laws are about to kill him, Yoh stops them and fights them himself saying they’re no better than Hao (and they took offense to that). Yoh manages to hold off their attack, but his sword gets broken and the X-Laws let him go with a warning saying that jis neutral mindset will be his downfall. At the end of the episode Morty, Anna and Tamao arrive just outside of Mesa Verdede and run into Hao.
After a two-week hiatus because of the Olympics, Shaman King returned with episode 18. It opens with Anna, Morty and Tamao getting confronted by Hao. You’d think he’d be here for revenge, but nope, he wants Yoh to have his book and seems to have taken an interest in Anna (he really is a brave man. That or the Asakura men are attracted to dominant women and are masochists). He invites Anna to become his wife (even doing his best kabedon on a rock to impress her) but she says no and hits him with a left slap (scene here: https://youtu.be/YP8mDHcT-0A and Anna is the strongest person in this anime next to Hao. She is literally the only person to physically hit him. I know that’s a spoiler but it’s true). She and the others then proceed to go after Yoh and the others. Speaking of Yoh and the others they finally make it to Patch Village where they have a spiritual experience with the Great Spirit (it was cosmic). After they all wake up we see Lyserg disappeared on them and as they explore the village they run into Anna and the others. Anna explains that she’s here to make Yoh stronger and takes him and the others off to a secluded area to talk in private, but they get stopped by Choco the would-be comedian. Choco voiced by Motoko Kumai reprising her role from the original, explains that the next part of the tournament will be 3-on-3 battle and those who can’t form teams will be disqualified. Since Yoh’s group doesn’t have the numbers, Choco offers to join them and even gives them information on the three big forces favored to win the whole tournament, Hao’s team, the X-Laws, and Gandhara (more on them later). Realizing the situation, Ren forcefully forms a team with Choco and Trey leaving Yoh and Ryu to find their third member. As the episode ends, Morty goes off on his own where he comes across a familiar face, Faust.
At the start of episode 19, Morty gets confronted by Faust (the nightmare returns). We see he’s now bound to a wheelchair because he gave his legs to Eliza. During the fight against Yoh, Ren cut through Eliza’s leg from the knee down. This rendered her bones useless, so Faust gave her his legs to replace the missing portions (it’s both disturbing and sweet at the same time). Rather than harm Morty, Faust instead takes him back to Yoh and asks if he can join their team. Nobody wants to partner up with him (um, is it because you’re a psychotic doctor who performs crazy experiments on people in order to bring your dead wife back?), so he’s desperate to find teammates to proceed to the next round. Ryu says no and shoos him away. Morty on the other hand actually feels a little bad for him. He doesn’t see Faust as a bad person, just a guy too focused on his own little world. Anna approves of Faust joining the team and plans to resurrect Eliza with necromancy to win his loyalty. Some days later everyone returns to Tokyo for the next round which will be taking place on an island (so you flew us to America only to have us fly back for the tournament? What logic are you guys going on?) and they even allow spectators to come and watch. We see Yoh formed a team with Ryu and Faust and seems to have mastered Hao’s book thanks to Anna. The first match is Team Ren going up against members of Hao’s faction. We finally get a chance to see Choco fight with his spirit Mic the jaguar. Unlike everyone else who uses oversoul on their weapons, Choco uses oversoul on his body. He literally fuses with Mic and gives control of his body to him. It’s a very advanced technique and out of all of the oversouls this one is my favorite. Choco easily takes out two members of Hao’s faction by himself leaving only the third member (scene here: https://youtu.be/5iDhBkXtjp0).
In episode 20 Choco fights against the third member of Hao’s faction where he has spirits who are mariachis controlling the other two shamans on his team. As if that wasn’t bad, he’s got other spirits possessing Calavera dolls. Choco gets overwhelmed by the numbers and we get to see his past (which is way darker than the one they showed in the first anime). We see that Choco was a straight-up gangsta who wasn’t afraid to kill. When he was a child his parents were gunned down by a robber on Christmas right in front of him (damn that’s messed up). He moved around from orphanage to orphanage until he ran away and joined the street gang, Shaft (I can dig it). On one winter night he met Olona, a traveling shaman who wanted to bring laughter and joy to the world with his jokes and gags (scene here: https://youtu.be/l3q6j4_qQpc). After Choco revealed that he could see Mic, Olona took him in and began training him to be a shaman and his successor. It was thanks to Olona that Choco was able to smile and laugh again, but tragedy would strike when Shaft would kill Olona as payback for Choco leaving the gang (like I said, when you join a gang you’re in it for life and those that try to leave usually wind up dead). Getting back to the fight, Choco unleashes his ultimate skill, Ayers Rock (aka the Navel Rock). This joke actually does get the spirits laughing (glad to see somebody has a sense of humor) and Ren delivers the final blow to win for his team and then calls out Yoh in front of everyone.
Episodes 21-23
We move on to the second match in episode 21. We see Lyserg has joined the X-Laws (you punk ass traitor. This is why nobody likes you) and he gets to show off how strong he’s gotten in the match taking on the other team known as Niles (why does that sound like a rock band name that tries hard to be Styx). One thing of note I like in this episode is they finally show blood and don’t shy away from it. I also like how Yoh isn’t shocked at Lyserg’s betrayal (I mean it was obvious, we all saw it coming) and is fine with him joining the X-Laws (he’s a baby and they’re a group of babies clinging to power under the name of justice when really they’re just a bunch of psychos who just want revenge). Even Hao gets a like from me as the X-Laws call him evil and he doesn’t deny it (if anything he embraces it), but at the same time he also says that they’re just as evil as him (that is great. Evil recognizes evil. Even Hao knows the X-Laws are full of BS). Lyserg tells them to surrender or he’ll kill them, but Niles refuses and continues fighting. Just when Lyserg is about to kill one of them Morphine stops the attack as she refuses to kill (scene here: https://youtu.be/POdaQF9-fEQ). Lyserg gets reprimanded by his allies and this finally leads to the reveal of the Iron Maiden, Jeanne. She’s a little child as well as the leader of the X-Laws shut herself inside an Iron Maiden all in the hopes of obtaining the power of the Lord by baring the weight of the world’s sins on her body (and the queen of psychos has finally arrived). We see her spirit is Shamash, the God of Justice (in Mesopotamian religion. It was the son of sin as well as the judge of gods and men), and despite being a complete psycho, Jeanne is incredibly strong (and seems to have a fetish for European torture devices. Okay, she’s a little too young to be into that kind of sex play). She kills the members of the Niles in horrific ways to win the round for her team and this gives Yoh the resolve to become the next Shaman King (because everybody else besides him is a lunatic).
It’s finally time for Yoh, Ryu and Faust’s fight in episodes 22-23 as they’re taking on Team Icemen (can you guess what their theme is?). These shamans come from all over the world (mostly places that are known for cold temperature) and their spirits are ones that have ties to water or ice. After Yoh proclaims that he and his team will most likely win with one strike, Team Icemen is pissed and plan to destroy Yoh. We go to the fight where it’s honestly just a showcase for Yoh’s team to show just as how strong they’ve become and in keeping with his promise, Yoh defeats them in one shot (scene here: https://youtu.be/PNV3vQaRP-s). During the fight, Ren left as he knew Yoh was going to win and he gets confronted by Hao who offers to teach Ren stronger techniques if he joins up with him (Ren: Blow me). Ren of course says no and Hao destroys his weapon leaving him in a state of fear for the first time in his life (how does one defeat the ineffable?). At the end of episode 23 we end with Yoh going to talk to Lyserg alone.
Episodes 24-26
So in episode 24 we start with Yoh and Lyserg talking. We see Lyserg apologize for abandoning Yoh and the others the way he did without telling them (yeah that was pretty low of you) and Yoh being Yoh says not to worry about it and to take it easy going forward (with the crowd he’s with that seems impossible). As Yoh takes his leave he gets surrounded by the X-Laws and Lyserg gets smacked for breaking curfew (and the cult vibes just keep coming). Before a fight breaks out Jeanne appears to stop the X-Laws saying that Yoh is not evil (yes, he’s too lazy for that). She then invites Yoh to join the X-Laws and of course says no (Anna would kill him) because they take themselves way too seriously (I’ll say. Tranquillo, guys). Yoh takes his leave and the next day comes as the tournament continues. We get to see Hao fight against members of the X-Laws where he pretty much kills them all. However, they do discover (or Hao tells them) that his intermediary is air (that’s right. Screw weapons, Hao just controls oxygen to summon and control his spirit). With this knowledge, the final X-Law fires off a grenade to destroy the air and take Hao down with him, but it doesn’t work and Hao still stands (scene here: https://youtu.be/eAnOFuxQpnU).
Not much happens in episode 25 but it serves as a good backstory to Hao and Yoh’s family. The group finds out that Hao and Yoh are siblings (Hao got the brains, Yoh got the looks). We get to see Yoh’s mom and see how everyone in the family faltered during the birthing process as they just couldn’t bring themselves to possibly kill Yoh. You feel bad for the whole family as they’re being put in this dilemma where they’re giving birth to the man who wants to destroy the world.
Episode 26 starts with Yoh’s parents meeting with Ren’s family (I’m glad we could all meet today. Your two sons have been quite disruptive with each other). Yoh’s dad, Mikihisa wants their permission to teach Ren the secrets of Ultra Senji Ryakketsu. Grandpa Tao is okay with this but En refuses to let his son learn from a weak guy. En challenges Mikihisa to a fight where Mikihisa completely owns En (wow, this takes my dad can beat your dad to a literal level). Mikihisa then goes to confront Ren where just like his dad he refuses to accept help (stubbornness runs in the Tao family). This leads to a fight between Mikihisa and Ren where if you think it’s going to be like the first season with the grain of rice in the desert, think again. Mikihisa is merciless in this fight as he slams Ren’s head hard into the concrete not once but twice and we see the blood splatter all over the pavement (how Ren is still conscious is beyond me. Though one thing is for certain, he has to have a concussion). Trey finally sees enough and gets ready to jump in and fight, but Ren says he won’t get the chance as he still hasn’t given up on taking Mikihisa down.
And that does it for the second half. An improvement over the first part and the excitement continues in the next part which we’ll get to next week. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time on Project Nitsuj.