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Title: The Lizard Man
Series: Shaman King #3
Author: Hiroyuki Takei
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Manga
Pages: 192
Format: Digital Copy

Synopsis:

Wooden Sword Ryu and gang continue to look for their happy place. They find an abandoned bowling alley where Ryu sees Anna and falls in love. When he finds out she is Yoh's fiance, everything comes crashing down for him as Yoh was the one who cut off Ryu's pompador AND broke his sword. This leaves Ryu open to be posssessed by a bandit ghost that Amidamur killed 600 years ago.

After lots of blathering, Yoh lets the ghost, one Tokagero, possess him to see what trust is all about. Tokagero has a change of heart and lets Ryu go. Ryu and gang clean up the inn where Yoh is staying as payment and Ryu's latent shaman powers are released. Unfortunately, without a spirit OR a trainer, he's left on his own. He asks the stars for a sign and a comet suddenly appears blazing across the sky.

The comet is one of a pair that herald the start of the fight for the title of Shaman King. We get a shot across the world of various shamans gazing at the comet and the book ends with Ren Tao claiming that he will be the Shaman King no matter what.

My Thoughts:

This volume relied almost completely on the Friendship trope in manga. Yoh and Amidamaru are as strong as they are because of their friends and even Ryu has friends to help him out. Once the nasty bad Tokagero realizes just how lonely he was, suddenly he's alright once someone shows him some friendship. In one sense it was eye-rollingly corny but at the same time you can see the truth behind the trope. Friendships have allowed people throughout history to go beyond themselves and to do things they didn't think they could. The flipside to that is that no one can hurt you more than a friend can.

Ryu moves up from a bit character to someone with shaman capabilities which means he is now part of the Team. It is fun to watch as people move into Yoh's orbit without him even trying.

I also have to say that after reading this volume and still enjoying it so much that I'm going to be reading a volume every week and putting out a Manga Monday post each week for at least this month. Just so you know so you can avoid them or pay particular attention, depending on which way your interests lay.

Finally, that cover. That is just plain ridiculous and yet it captures the essence of the story told. Ridiculous AND funny at the same time.

★★★★☆ ( )

Shaman King #1-6
I really like the story line-a young boy is training to be a shaman and it is the time of the choosing of the new Shaman King[happens every 500 years]. I saw the anime, thought it was definitely Foxboxed[or f*boxed to be honest], but interesting. I like the story so far, but I will never buy it, the layout was pretty crappy. Cheap, scenes cut off at the bottom or sides was what I noticed the most. I'll keep reading it though."

The third volume seems to be where the series is finally finding its focus and ramping up for the inevitable staple of most shonen stories, the battle royale. At the same time, it has already achieved another standard shonen cliche, the enemies become friends theme.
While so far, none of the plots of this series has really been original (in fact, it's been very cliche), it's still manages to be entertaining in its own right. ( )