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Shaman King Manga Gets Spinoff Manga About Tao Jun

The June issue of Kodansha's Shonen Magazine Edge revealed on Thursday that Jet Kusamura will launch Shaman King: Red Crimson, a new spinoff manga of Hiroyuki Takei's Shaman King manga, in the magazine's next issue in June. The magazine previews the art centering on the character Tao Jun, with the text, "A crimson shadow draws close to the flower of the Tao family." (Note: Kodansha hasn't yet made the preview image for the spinoff manga available online.)

Hiroyuki Takei launched a new arc for the Shaman King manga titled Shaman King The Super Star in the same issue on Thursday, and the issue's cover features the manga (pictured below). Kodansha published three prologue chapters on April 17. The prologue's first chapter is titled "Sandaime Itako no Anna" (Anna, the Third Generation Itako). The second chapter is titled "Death Zero From Flowers," while the third chapter is titled "Dai Butsu Zone" (Great Buddha Zone).

Viz Media published the Shaman King manga in English in the past, and it describes how the story began:

When he takes a shortcut through a cemetery, Manta Oyamada meets a strange kid with headphones — surrounded by ghosts. The kid is the teenage shaman Yoh Asakura. Tapping the supernatural swordfighting powers of samurai ghost Admidamaru, Yoh fights Bokuto no Ryu, a sword-wielding gang member. But an even more dangerous opponent is stalking Yoh and Manta — a Chinese shaman who wants to possess Amidamaru.

Shaman King began in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine in 1998. The series abruptly ended in 2004, although a reprinting of the manga revealed a "true ending" in 2009. Takei drew a series of short stories titled Shaman King 0 in Shueisha's Jump X magazine starting in November 2011, and published a sequel series titled Shaman King Flowers in the same magazine from 2012 to 2014.

Takei has also worked on the Ultimo and Jumbor manga. He began Nekogahara, his first manga with Kodansha, in the then-new Shonen Magazine Edge in September 2015. He ended the manga on April 17. Kodansha published the manga's fourth and fifth compiled book volumes on Thursday.

Japanese publisher Kodansha is now listed as the trademark owner for "Shaman King" in Japan, Europe, and the United States, although Viz Media confirmed with ANN last August that its license of Shaman King was still active at the time. Shueisha previously published Hiroyuki Takei's Shaman King manga.