Takei Hiroyuki 武井宏之

He started out in a fanzine in which he drew a series called "SD Hyakkaten". Afterwards he became assistant to Watsuki Nobuhiro and Sakura Tamakichi. After that, he published some personal works in the weekly video game magazine Famicon Tsuushin. He made his debut with Butsu Zone in Shounen Jump.

Shaman King
シャーマンキング
serialized on Shounen Jump,
26 volumes @ Y390
[ 01:9812| 02:9903| 03:9905| 04:9908| 05:9910| 06:9912| 07:0002| 08:0004| 09:0006]
[ 10:0009| 11:0011| 12:0012| 13:0103| 14:0106| 15:0107| 16:____| 17:____| 18:____]
[ 19:0205| 20:0208| 21:0210| 22:0212| 23:0302| 24:0304| 25:0307| 26:0310]

Similar to Hunter x Hunter but the characters are more involved with animality, one classic moment is when one character's animal is a tanuki and, well, if you're a Miyazaki fan you know what they attack with. Asakura You is the transfer student who is actually a shaman with the firm intention to become the King of the Shamans. {PVH}

While not quite a berserkly random as his first series, mainly due to the lame fighting manga tournament structure, Shaman King is, at heart, the story of this amazing slacker hippy dude (with dreadlocks, hemp t-shirts, giant headphones playing Bob Marley) who talks to the dead and lets the spirit of this chambara type samurai possess him. For my tastes, the fights concentrate too much on descriptions of the strategy rather than on kicking ass with lots of stunts; but each time I start to get bored he does something I'm completely not expecting; changes a villain into a good guy, does a massive homage to Bruce Lee, gives us unexpected character development or unexpectedly graphic violence, or teases us with characters he has no intention of introducing for six or seven volumes. In one of my favorite bits, a character I'd assumed was a mook to show us his powers eventually gives up on fighting him and decides to become a shaman himself successfully. Clearly, Takei is too fond of all his characters to actually abandon any of them. {EIR}

Butsu Zone [Buddha Zone]
仏ゾーン
serialized on Shounen Jump,
3 volumes @ Y390
[ 01:9707| 02:9710| 03:9712]

Independent "Buddha" Boys With an Adventurous Tendency.
His first series, based off the third short story he wrote for Jump. The story of the thousand armed Kannon, who one day leaps down off his podium to beat the crap out of some yakuza who are threatening a little girl; the little girl, it seems, is the reincarnation miroku-sama, whoever that is. Thus, the evil goth Ashura has harnessed his minions, corrupted a few good guys (like the seven lucky gods) and gone on the warpath. Senju and Jizou, that little Shinto stone thing, fight together. Some training is provided by the local mecha pilot, Batou, who looks exactly like Antonio Banderas from Desperado. Near the end of vol 2 he throws in Itako no Anna, the star of the first short story he did; he seems to like her, since he put her in Shaman King as well, after Butsu Zone aborted three volumes in. And I do mean aborted; while it does have an ending, the final page shows multiple characters he never actually introduced, but seems to have decided to slip in there to annoy us. While the first volume is a little monster of the week, the overall berserk insanity of it all combines with likeable artwork and characters to make for a damn entertaining series, and it's a shame it was so short. {EIR}

TRA:(F)Tonkam