It’s no secret that anime is incredibly popular on Netflix. From Beastars to Ouran High School Host Club, the streaming platform has something for every fan of Japanese animation to enjoy. So it comes as a surprise that this remake is hitting the top 10 most popular shows on Netflix when according to critics and fans on sites like MyAnimeList, the previous version is far better.
Shaman King was originally released all the way back in 2001 and featured over 46 episodes. Many fans remember it for its absolute earworm of a theme song or for the strange decisions 4Kids made with censorship when bringing it to the United States. The remake massively condenses down the story compared to the original anime but does have much higher production quality.
The show mainly focuses on You Asakura, one of many shamans with the ability to communicate with ghosts, spirits, and even gods. He and his friends he meets along the way eventually enter The Shaman Fight — a massive tournament pitting shamans in battle against each other that takes place every 500 years. It has a lot of what fans expect out of a battle shounen anime with a few unique twists along the way.
While the show premiered in the Spring 2021 season in Japan, it seems a lot of Western fans were waiting for the dubbed version of the show they could watch in comfort on Netflix. It will be interesting to see if the rating of the show on various anime sites improves with more people watching it.