Kind of a 'meh' filler volume, clearing the path to the final showdown between Yoh and Hao. It was cool to see a certain characters' father show up but I felt this plot twist was rather underutilized and quickly shoved aside for the fight scenes. At least they've finally left the hot springs! One of my friends at Anime Radius reviewed this volume a short time ago: http://animeradius.com/?p=3915 (I think he liked it better than I did!) Luckily the wait for volume 31 isn't terribly long - hurry up, November! ( )

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Title: Extraordinary Days
Series: Shaman King #30
Author: Hiroyuki Takei
Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Manga
Pages: 192
Format: Digital Copy

Synopsis:

Team Ren and Team Yoh are sitting in a hotsprings after recovering. Ren and Yoh start recapping everyone's power and level. Hao shows up and Lyserg immediately attacks him. Hao shows them a new form of an oversoul in defense and everyone starts talking buddy buddy. Hao reveals that the final round of Shaman Fights will take place on the Lost Continent of Mu and that is why Mr Oyamada has shown up. Horohoro tells Hao that he's nuts and Hao tells Horohoro to shutup or he'll tell everyone who he likes.

Hao also reveals that the Patch won't do anything about the battle fleet Mr Oyamada brought and it is up to the remaining Shamans to deal with them. It is also revealed that a former X-Law is helping Mr Oyamada and has brought some big shaman guns (figuratively speaking).

Everyone, friend and foe, gather on the beach to fight the battle group brought by Mr Oyamada. Hao begins the attack and pretty much singlehandedly takes all threats down. The renegade X-Law in Oyamada's employ releases Azazel, the most powerful of Angels. Hao breaks Azazel and which destroys the X-Law. A shaman witch tries to stop Hao with voodoo and he returns the favor and kills her.

The Patch create a spirit submarine and all the shamans get on board to go to Mu. All the opposing Shaman Teams renounce their standing, giving Hao the win by default. Now Hao must commune with the great spirit and the Patch will defend him while he's in this helpless state. The opposing teams say they'll take the Patch down but only use it as training to eventually fight Hao.

Hao is taken to the ceremony and the others begin the journey to stop him. Silva, the Patch that initiated Yoh into the shaman fight is the first Patch they must fight to move onward. Yoh takes down Silva but 2 other Patch show up and tell the group that the Patch broke Silva to make him compliant and that the next 8 Patch are successively stronger. Ren realizing that they don't have enough mana to resurrect anyone so this is a do or die situation.

The volume ends with a short story about how Yoh's parents met.

My Thoughts:

The story is just getting messy. The manga-ka seems to pick up and discard ideas like a lint trap in a dryer. A huge fleet shows up in one volume, Hao takes it out in 3 pages. The 5 Warriors and the High Spirits are put forth and then just take a back seat. The whole feth'ing Shaman Fight, just ends because all the main characters decide so? Now the fights are going to be between the Patch and the good guy Shamans?

It feels like Takei is on drugs. Or he's lost the thread he started on. Whatever the reason, I felt like a pinball while reading this. It was not enjoyable and while some of it may be me reading these one after another, I'm just annoyed. I shouldn't be annoyed; the excitement should be building, the tension getting tighter. I shouldn't want this “just to be over with”.

There was nothing particularly “wrong” with this volume, it was just everything coming together, or not as the case may be.

★★☆☆½ ( )