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Viz Media No Longer Has Rights to Shaman King Manga
posted on by Karen Ressler
Viz Media confirmed with ANN that it no longer has the rights to Hiroyuki Takei's Shaman King manga.
Japanese publisher Kodansha has been listed as the trademark owner for "Shaman King" in Japan, Europe, and the United States since at least December. Viz Media told ANN last August that its license was still active at the time.
Shaman King's original Japanese publisher was Shueisha, though Takei launched a new arc titled Shaman King The Super Star in Kodansha's Shonen Magazine Edge in May. The magazine also announced a new spinoff manga about the character Tao Jun.
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.
