Shaman King, Volume 25 Book

[Giving this a 3 to lower my ratings average....]

I totally forgot there was an actual structured tournament with an arena and everything. It's almost uncomfortable to get back into the bracket, what with all the unofficial fights against Hao's men and the X-Laws.

Some decent gags here. Anna getting mad that the party keeps increasing every time they have a meal. Marco's pants sliding down to show his battle gear when he and Luchist get ready to fight at lunch. Faust saying he'll heal his comrades' bones if broken by the Gandhara forces.

I forgot how lewd Jeanne's legs are. Somewhat disappointed the revelation of her mundane nature (she's not a real holy person, just an average girl raised under the illusion) had little bearing on the story, but I guess it can't really be helped. Fits the zaniness of the series, that the main focus is on defeating Hao, so other matters are trivial in comparison.

I also like that Yoh's plan to fight Hao is "let him win the Shaman Fight because he's going to anyway, and kill him when he's resting within the Great Spirit." Neat subversion of "final boss fight" tropes in battle manga. It also sets up the Patch as future midbosses, which is cool, too.

Tao Ren represents an almost-outdated form of battle-manga rival. A real Vegeta. His main method of fighting is to keep hitting harder and harder, but now he's begun to strategize. I think other Vegeta-esque characters are either smarter than the protagonist from the get-go (Sasuke, Uryu), or otherwise are just completely meatheaded the whole time (Bakugo and Inosuke, in the new wave of Weekly Jump battle manga). It's charming to see Ren bombard the Gandhara guy with his Unlimited Blade Works ripoff to catch him off guard for his new Fish Fin O.S. I guess it's also neat that the Buddhas look somewhat monstrous, continuing the not-really-human design themes of Yoh's opponents (Hao's Spirit of Fire, Silva's other Spirits, the X-Laws' angels).

The angels are revealed to be Transformers. Lucifer as Lambo and Michael as Ferrari. Try to inject that level of product-placement in your battle series, other manga-ka!