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Shaman King 2021 is the second anime adaptation of the Shaman King manga, this time promising to adapt the events of the manga all the way to the end. It is in some ways worse than 2001's adaptation, and in some ways better. In my opinion, a person's enjoyment of the show will largely depend on whether he/she has watched the 2001 series, and on how much he/she wants to see the manga's version of events.

To explain some basic situations around the production of this anime: this show, likely due to budget reasons, has been decided to span a total of 52 episodes. The complete ... edition of the manga, which this show adapts from, has a total of 300 chapters. This means the pacing is quite rushed and content has to be cut. Now that is out of the way, let's go over the pros and cons of the show:

pros:
- clean art and colours. The art is consistent with the author's updated art style
- the music is decent. While it lacks some iconic themes that 2001 has, Yuki Hayashi does a good job of composing fitting music for the various scenes and characters.
- it follows the manga, so character backstories and plot points not shown in the 2001 show is shown for the first time in anime form.

cons:
- rushed pacing. As explained above, the show only has 52 episodes, so some less important story points or scenes has to be cut. The pacing can be really bad in some episodes, and it does ruin the atmosphere sometimes, especially for people who liked some of the running gags and jokes used in the 2001 adaptation as well as the manga.
- lazy animations. A majority of the fight scenes are lazily animated with use of still frames or moving still images, which can take away from the enjoyment. Perhaps as a consequence of the rushed pacing, the animators animate just the content in the manga, thus not taking advantage of animation as a medium by fleshing out fights with extra animated scenes.

That's pretty much it. My biggest gripe as a manga reader of this show (I've read up to chapter 246) is that the pacing is rushed and that the animation isn't better. I'm not asking for Demon Slayer level of animation, just some more effort put into animating.

However I do still enjoy this adaptation. The art, voice acting, and soundtrack is done well, and Takei's story still has its charms. At its core Shaman King has some positive messages that I think both young and older demographic can appreciate.