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Title: Epilogue IV
Series: Shaman King #23
Author: Hiroyuki Takei
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Manga
Pages: 200
Format: Digital Copy

Synopsis:

Yoh and his friends face off against the Golem and Hao's gang but Hao is reminded of the one friend he had, Matamune the cat spirit, who taught Yoh a lot of what he now knows. Hao decides to amble off.

Anna and Manta are slowly making their way to the scene and Anna begins to tell Manta a story about Yoh's past.

The golem revives, fully under the control of the ghost of it's creator. To replenish its mana it must consume the souls of other shamans, so it begins to attack Yoh's group. Horohoro and Ren are first in line. With Lyserg's help they slow the golem down but then everyone is running away on Lyserg's new angel ally. The golem gives chase and the crew has to figure out how to stop it without killing the little girl inside. Suddenly a stronger than ever Joco shows up and fights off the golem.

Hao reveals to his minions that he can read minds and that he left the golem fight so he didn't have to fight Yoh yet.

Super-Joco begins beating the ever living daylights out of the golem with new shaman powers and his ghost teacher shows up and starts lecturing the gang (and the audience by extension). The audience then gets a flashback sequence via Ghost Teacher about Joco's training in the other-world.

Joco and the golem continue their fight but Joco isn't fighting to defeat the golem but to make it realize its dreams so the ghost will pass on. The fight ends with Joco lying in a pool blood.

My Thoughts:

Super New Joco looked super new stupid. I have no idea where the manga-ka gets his ideas for what looks cook, but Joco was a complete fail in this regard.

The manga-ka also can't seem to help himself from preaching at his audience. It is really getting annoying. If it was consistent or more than skin deep pop psychology I could deal with it better. But it isn't and it comes across as Dr. Phil-lite. If you don't know who Dr. Phil is (and good for you if you don't), he's a tv personality who hands out self-help advice like gummy vitamins.

How can the manga-ka go on and on about shamans being keepers of peace and not interested in politics and greed and all the other crap he spews while at the exact same time he has not just Hao in complete opposition to that but every single one of Hao's minions. They are all shamans too. And they're evil shamans. My running theory is that everyone in the last volume will have a kum-bai-ya moment and suddenly be all fething lovey dovey with every one else.

I hope I'm wrong.

This probably would have gone down to a 2 ½ if it weren't for the fights. Takei can draw a most excellent fight scene.

★★★☆☆ ( )

This fight feels like it's overstaying its welcome. What about the Shaman Fight tournament? ( )