Shaman King: Flowers

One of my problematic fave shounen is back with a sequel and honestly? I liked it. Tonally it fit with the previous series. The characters were easy to root for including Hana, who might annoy some viewers. It balanced darkness and comedy well. However, there were still the detriments from the original series to contend with like how it handles other cultures and underage relationships. The speed of the narrative also seemed a bit too fast in places and when the thirteenth episode finished, it felt like it wasn't the right stopping point for a first season and maybe a 24 - 26 episode first ... season might have brought us to a better stopping point. That said, I appreciated that it didn't do a Boruto where you get hundreds of episodes of filler. I also like that the main plot is engaging and has me intrigued and willing to watch more.

If you liked the original series and you like sequels that align more with Dragon Ball Super, which captures the tone and theme of the original while transforming itself into its own thing, then I think you'll also like this anime. If you had qualms with the original story or don't like it when the main character shouts ever so often, then you might want to skip this.

Mild spoiler warning

Tl;dr: it looked like it was going to go down the Boruto road but they're starting to swerve in the last second.

Art style and music are solid.

From the end of the prequel we already got to know our MC Hana a bit, mainly that his character is more like Anna's than You's. He's short-tempered, constantly irritated, a loner and he doesn't like his dad. This is somewhat understandable since his parents are not around at all.

Right out of the gate I have to mention that they messed up the power scaling immediately. I had to remind myself that Hana and his crew are ... at the same age that You was during the Shaman Fight but they are already at the same level as You at the end of the show. This is a shonen so it is to be expected that the focus is on them but some of it is really pushing the limits of it all. I mean one of the characters is 7 years old ... and apparently the strongest of their team.
And for whatever reason all of our beloved old crew are (mostly) still around but they choose to let the kids do the fighting that will determine the fate of the world.

The story itself expands on the events of the prequel and introduces a logical continuation of the Shaman Fight but it does feel a bit forced at times. And apparently everyone was briefed by the author as to what is going on except the MC, because everyone acts like it is common knowledge what happens and no one cares to stop for a second and explain the greater picture to Hana.
Some of the obfuscation is attributed to story reasons but come on, Hana visibly has issues that need solving.

Some of the old cast like Tamao were totally shoehorned into their new role. She didn't stop at an 180, but kept spinning until she ended up where she is now. When the Shaman Fight ended she would have been at high school age but I don't believe for a second that she behaved the way they tell us she did.

Halfway through the season, all of the above drove me to decide to not continue watching this series after this installment. At least that was what I thought but in the last 2-3 episodes they finally started to show some character development for Hana and the story itself. It is only a glimpse and I haven't read the manga so I don't know if that was only a small temporary improvement. I will definitely wait until reviews for the next season are out.


5/10 - has potential but needs work

This new season of Shaman King features a protagonist who literally a Boruto. MC who hates his father because he is known to be one of the most powerful Shaman's in the world and he does not like to be compared to him because he is an absent Father.

The plot of the work literally destroys with everything that happened in Shaman King, they fought to prevent the Hao from becoming a God, but he became a God who can do absolutely nothing because the ancient God does not allow, all the struggles of Shaman King were useless. And for some reason now they want to ... help Hao become the ruling God through a war of Shaman's Chosen by each of the Gods.
All the characters who fought in the old season were left out of the fight for their children and other children to fight each other.

For some stupid reason the You/Yoh, Anna, Jeanne are no longer using their Shaman's powers and are killed in an idiotic way, and others who are still alive do not try to help her in the war of murderers trying to kill their children, remaining for the Hao not to let them die, exactly! their enemy until then who are saving their children, because they are not there to save their children from being killed, no one tries to do anything against any of the Gods at least not within those 13 episodes.

In Shaman King the children had to fight because they had great potential and no one besides them could fight the old Shamans were not so powerful, here we have several powerful characters of the last Shaman King who do absolutely nothing to prevent the chaos that is the stupidest and most frustrating in all this new generation.