Shaman King’s Osorezan Revoir: Love, Loneliness, and Regret in the Snow

Dissecting my favourite arc in all of manga/anime, with a small assist from my beginner’s reading of bell hooks. Yes, really.

I’m sure that person waiting for you

Won’t make you feel lonely

At least at least

I’m sure the person you meet is

I won’t make you feel lonely

At least at least

おまえさんを待つ その人はきっと

寂しい思いなぞ させはしない

少なくとも 少なくとも

おまえさんの会う その人はきっと

寂しい思いなぞ させはしない

少なくとも 少なくとも

When people ask me to name some of my favourite manga/anime, I will always mention Shaman King, a battle shonen set in a world where a chosen few can not only see ghosts but fight with them for the honour of becoming the ruler of the universe.

I still remember watching the show on Jetix (or maybe Fox Kids), I know every word to the theme song (which is a BOP), and I remember the moves, Len’s awful English accent, Ryo’s awesome Spanish accent, INTO THE SWORD, NOW INTO THE ANTIQUITY, and so on and so forth.

However, with all that being said…

Shaman King… isn’t… great.

I often regard Shaman King as a victim of “right idea but awkward circumstances”. The ending of the manga was rushed and jarring due to impending cancellation; the anime was lifeless, dull, and corny due to it being adapted by 4Kids, and even without those millstones, the fights weren’t exactly memorable, the worldbuilding was lacking, and much of the ideas and concepts just weren’t as fleshed out as they could have been.

Yet despite all of that, Shaman King’s protagonist, the calm, empathetic, orange-headphone-wearing, and quietly powerful Yoh Asakura is one of my all-time favourite fictional characters; not only that, but his relationship with his love interest Anna Kyoyama is my favourite in any manga.

Let me explain…

In 2021, it was announced that the Shaman King anime would be rebooted with brighter colours, a more faithful adaptation of the source material, and, most importantly, no weird 4Kids-isms. This all sounded great, but what truly excited me was something else, something much more specific.

Y’see, there exists an arc in Shaman King that I consider my favourite in all of manga/anime. An arc that is absolutely vital to understanding the themes of the story, an arc that crystalizes the characters and motivations of Yoh, Anna, and the series antagonist Hao, an arc that is easily the highlight of Shaman King for me.

And yet, for some reason, the 4Kids adaptation of Shaman King decided to skip this arc completely.

That’s right. My favourite, and arguably the most important arc in the entire manga, and I had no idea that it even existed until my late teens when I read the manga for the first time.

So let’s set the scene.

After his friend, rival, and occasional Brit Ren Tao is murdered by Hao’s minions, our hero Yoh Asakura makes a deal with the devil.

In exchange for the resurrection of his friend by the antagonistic, chaotic goodies, The X-Laws, Yoh happily agrees to drop out of the Shaman tournament, completely sacrificing his ambition of being the Shaman King. To put this into context, this is the equivalent of Naruto casting aside his dream to be Hokage, or Luffy casting aside whatever his true dream is (no, it’s not pirate king, 1050 chapters in, and Oda STILL WON’T TELL US).

“It’s extremely difficult when one has too many things one treasures.
At times when one wants something, it can only be achieved by sacrificing something else.
The most important thing is to have a heart.”

When Yoh drops his Oracle Bell (a mix between a watch and a i Pokedex given to all shamans in the competition), his friends all lavish him with praise. “I found a good friend.” Smiles Yoh’s first human ally, and our POV for the series, Manta Oyamada. The hero makes his great sacrifice and nobly walks off into the sunset with his friends, having left his dream behind.

But it isn’t just *his* dream.

As Yoh walks away with his head held high, his usually surly and abrasive fiancé Anna enters the scene, finding his discarded Oracle Bell, and immediately understanding what the boy she loves has done.

In contrast to Yoh’s friends and followers who laud him for giving up his paltry dream for the sake of friendship, Anna begins to pile small stones on top of the Oracle Bell, as if to mark the final resting place of the dream she shared with Yoh. Because while being Shaman King was Yoh’s dream, it was also hers. Anna had dedicated herself to making Yoh’s wish come true, it was almost a running joke for her to declare her dream of being by Yoh’s side as the Ultimate Shaman Queen and that dream now lay in front of her buried under a pile of stones.

“Looks like I came a bit too late.” Anna laments, her expression not shown to us. “If I remember, you’ve been like this all the while.” And with the prologue done, we head into the beautiful, painful, heartbreaking, yet hopeful story that is Osorezan Revoir.

Loving friendships provide us with a space to experience the joy of community in a relationship where we learn to process all our issues, to cope with differences and conflict while staying connected.

~ bell hooks, All About Love: New Visions

So you might be wondering: what’s bell hooks doing here?

Well, for my entire life, I’ve always had a curiosity about love, what it is, why we pursue it, and how to know if it’s real. This has been fuelled even more by my lifelong love of romantic comedies, so in September 2022, when I began reading books about Black love (fiction and non-fiction, that naturally led me to the seminal work of celebrated scholar bell hooks entitled All About Love: New Visions.

Although written in 1999, this book transformed how I think about love, not by introducing some radical scientific new theory on it, but simply by putting so many abstract concepts into words that I could practically feel.

All About Love describes love, what hooks believes love is, and how it permeates through everything we are and everything we do, and it lays out a path for how we can build a better world by being more loving. And yeah, that’s my sh*t.

So not long ago I was re-reading Osorezan Revoir and decided to write down my thoughts on why I love it so much, but it was only upon writing all of this down that I realized how neatly this arc fits into many of hooks’ musings about love.

All About Love provided me with a unique opportunity to appreciate and understand my favourite manga arc in a completely different way, and to really pinpoint exactly why I enjoy it so much. Because, dear reader (staying singular because I’m assuming there’s like one of you), Osorezan Revoir is an arc that is primarily about the scourge of isolation, and the power of love.

Loneliness In Shaman King

So, the first thing to understand is this: one of the main themes of this arc and Shaman King as a whole is loneliness, isolation, and the void left by lovelessness and lack of community.

The motivations of every main character are dictated either by their response to feeling isolated, their duty to those who they believe have saved them from isolation, or their hatred of people or systems that left them feeling alone.

Yoh is shunned as a child because he can see and talk to ghosts, Ren is trained and isolated in a cocoon of generational hatred and bloodline supremacy, Ryu is a delinquent on the fringes of society who wants to find somewhere he belongs, Lyserg, Hororo, Faust VIII and Chocolove (we don’t talk about Chocolove) are motivated by the loss of the people who were dearest to them.

Osorezan Revoir is so vital because it’s the arc that reveals the backstory of the series antagonist, Yoh’s ancestor and twin brother (reincarnation is wild ain’t it), Hao Asakura, and where his character fits into this central theme of the story.

Simply put: This is the arc where we discover that Hao is lonely and why that is.

Now, most stories would introduce this information through a flashback centering on said antagonist, introducing us to them properly, spending time with them, and allowing the audience to get to know them in order to understand why he’s so evil.

But Shaman King chooses to do this a little differently.

The Cat and the Itako

Instead, Osorezan Revoir tells us everything we need to know about Hao by having a young Yoh Asakura meet two characters who would help him to become the person who ultimately saves the universe: his future wife Anna, and Hao’s first and only true companion, a cat spirit named Matamune.

Anna Kyoyama is an Itako. Unlike a shaman who can only interact with spirits that are tied to Earth, Anna is able to contact and summon spirits who have moved on to the next world.

Another thing that makes Anna different from almost everyone in the series is that she was born with the ability to read people’s minds, an ability shared with only one other *major* character: Hao Asakura. Due to her inability to control this power, Anna is abandoned by her family but is taken in and trained by Yoh’s grandmother.

It’s interesting to note here that despite being Hao’s twin brother and understanding him better than almost anyone, Yoh is not the one who is most similar to Hao, Anna is. This is Shaman King completely subverting the “We’re not so different, you and I” trope.

Anna is completely unable to shut out the negative thoughts and intentions of others, and because she is both incredibly young and powerful, these shared feelings seep into her heart and manifest themselves in the form of hate-filled demons that she unintentionally creates. It’s due to this that Anna completely shuts herself off from everyone, believing mankind to be inherently hateful and malevolent, the exact same worldview that we know motivates Hao to try and destroy all humans.

In other words, Anna feels she has no choice but to be completely alone.

Matamune, on the other hand, is a very well-traveled figure who has had many companions over centuries. A thousand years before Yoh, Matamune was a stray cat who had been abandoned by his family and left to die in a period plagued by war and famine. Matamune is saved and taken in by the first incarnation of Hao, who regards him as his only friend, and when Matamune dies, Hao imbues his own energy into his beloved cat using a bear claw necklace, ensuring that Matamune maintains his physical form so long as he doesn’t use up all of the power Hao has given to him.

Matamune is a kind and gentle spirit who spends his centuries of life traveling and reading, but his amicable and adorable exterior belies a dark truth, and this truth is that 500 years ago, Matamune murdered his one true friend.

Yoh and Anna

Osorezan Revoir centers around 10-year-old Yoh being sent to the house of his Grandmother, Kino, in a snowy Japanese prefecture called Aomori; where it’s been arranged that he will meet his future wife, Anna.

Situated in the northern part of Aomori is one of the three largest spirit cemeteries, Osorezan, which is described as a cold, lonely mountainous place where humans go to die and lonely spirits gather (theeeme).

Enter Anna.

There’s a very important detail about Anna and Yoh that is vital to understanding their relationship and both of them as characters, something that 4Kids entirely misses due to them skipping this arc.

When Yoh first meets Anna, he has no idea who she is, the two bump into each other outside of a restaurant, and the first words that Anna says to him are: “You’re blocking my way. Go and die.” When he tries to get her attention, she threatens to kill him and bemoans the fact that he’s the one that she will marry, despite not being introduced.

It’s here that Yoh first meets Anna and is unwittingly introduced to her ability to read minds, and when he reflects on the meeting later, we discover that he fell in love with her the second he saw her.

This is a detail that is often sorely overlooked: Yoh loved Anna first.

In the 4Kids anime and for much of the manga, Anna describes herself as Yoh’s future queen, constantly nags and cares for him, and out of the two of them, she is the one more likely to openly express love for him while Yoh remains his usual carefree, laidback self. This leads to the common misconception that their relationship is one-sided and it creates the impression that Anna is almost forced on Yoh against his will (echoing the misogynistic “ball ’n’ chain” trope), but this is not the case.

Osorezan Revoir shows us that Yoh loved Anna first and that he was the one who fought for them to be together.

The Importance of Yoh Asakura

The next set piece introduces the main conflict of the arc. While walking home, Yoh is attacked by an oni, a malevolent demon born from the manifestation of hatred and ill will that can’t be harmed with physical force. As the oni chases Yoh and repeats the harsh words that Anna said to him, Matamune arrives just in time to use some of the spirit energy Hao gave him to cut down the oni as Anna watches on in silence.

By this time, we’re already putting the pieces together, Anna appears to hate Yoh and says harsh words to him, Yoh is then attacked by a demon who is the literal manifestation of hatred and repeats Anna’s words back to him. Therefore we can surmise that Anna is somehow connected to the oni.

Upon learning who Anna is, the first thing lesson he learns is that to her “Words are meaningless.” While Yoh is unaware of what this means due to still not understanding that Anna can read people’s minds and hearts, those who have been following the series and understand the person that Yoh will grow to immediately know that this is exactly what makes him perfect for Anna.

Yoh is a character who is defined by what appears at first to be laziness and a carefree attitude but is actually emotional intelligence, stillness, and an understanding of his own limitations both in fights and interpersonal relationships (also a bit of laziness). Yoh is someone who doesn’t waste energy on things he deems to be unnecessary, he’s someone who doesn’t believe in wasted words, and it’s because of this that he places value on a person’s actions and their heart.

Another quality that makes him perfect for Anna is that, even at a young age, Yoh is incredibly perceptive, so immediately after formally meeting her, he’s able to deduce that the oni came after him because of Anna. Being someone who generally lets go of grudges and ill-will, Yoh struggles to understand why such an amalgamation of hatred is able to exist. |Why don’t people simply let things go? This leads Matamune to say the following:

“I often wish that I could just get over the things I’ve done.
Our reasons may differ, but the more we try to forget and the more we struggle, the more we become entangled.
Soon, the memory becomes a curse. And it breaks your heart.”

The Prison of the Past

People can often be contradictory.

When we are afraid of losing someone, we push them away; people who are the funniest and most carefree, are often the saddest and most alone; when we try not to think of something — a bad memory, a fear, and anxiety — it becomes all our minds can focus on.

Matamune is a prisoner of regret and loneliness, he is partly responsible for the death of the only person he ever truly loved, and it’s his desire to forget this regret that assures that it lingers with him for a thousand years.

Matamune is similar to Anna because they share in their contradictions; although Anna appears like a spiteful and misanthropic loner, she is actually a loving and unselfish child whose mind is constantly flooded with hateful thoughts that she doesn’t want. Despite her strong personality, she is unable to escape being influenced by constant exposure to the worst impulses of humankind, and the more she loves, the more she tries to be with others, the more she opens her heart up, the more it’s filled with the hatred of others.

Later, Kino and Matamune discuss the true reason that Yoh and Anna will be married: Anna’s power will aid Yoh in destroying his ancestor and twin brother (again, reincarnation) Hao, it’s important to note here that initially, Yoh and Anna’s union is spoken of solely in the terms of what will aid Yoh, Anna is portrayed by those who know her as either a large gamble or a lost cause.

However, despite how much of Hao’s evil we’ve seen thus far in the story, how we’ve seen characters talk of nothing but destroying him and saving the world; for the first time we see some hesitation, Matamune seems conflicted over the prospect of defeating Hao.

Fear and Lies: The Ultimate Obstacles to Love

In the next scene, Yoh confronts Anna, discovering that she can read minds, and demands to know if it was her who summoned the oni, but when he gets too close to her she tearfully slaps him (Anna’s legendary slaps are a recurring gag in the series). She warns Yoh not to get close to her for his own safety, and — in her first moment of emotional vulnerability — she says goodbye to him, telling him to find another candidate to be his wife if he wants to live happily.

She then says to him “You came here, and I am happy” and begins to leave.

Through these actions, we see that Anna is willing to sacrifice the first person in a long time who has made her happy, in order to save them from her hatred. Despite previously showing nothing but contempt for Yoh, Anna openly pushes for him to leave but refuses to tell him why, she tries to protect him by withholding information about herself from him.

While this can be seen as Anna performing a selfless act of love, she is not being honest.

This act of “love” has consequences as Anna suddenly becomes unable to stop herself from creating another oni right in front of Yoh.

As the oni chases Yoh and Anna laments the inevitability and hopelessness of his impending demise because of her, he begins to realize that the oni is able to physically interact with both him and objects in the living world, just like Matamune. Yoh picks up a sword and to Anna’s shock, he prepares to face the oni head-on in order to protect her. Anna panics, realizing that Yoh is about to face certain death. Only an oni can harm another oni, a human can do nothing. Anna yells at him to get away, genuinely fearing for his life, and suddenly the oni disappears.

So, how can it be that Anna’s love for Yoh both creates and destroys the oni that tries to kill him?

Perhaps it’s because of the contradiction that Matamune mentions the night before. One could argue that Anna’s first act of “love”, trying to convince Yoh to abandon her, is more of an act of fear that stems from her resentment and constant anxiety surrounding her own circumstances, the fear of what will happen if he gets close enough to learn the truth about her, and the danger she poses to him.

When Anna tries to sacrifice her own happiness for Yoh’s sake, while this is a genuine act of care (or as bell hooks labels it cathexis, the process of investment wherein a loved one becomes important to us), it is also shrouded in secrecy and serves as a reminder that she can’t run away from the loneliness that adds to her misery and hatred. Anna’s sacrificial act is a lie that leaves her with nothing to fill the void left in her heart, thus the void is filled with the hatred and bitterness she feels at being forced to separate from Yoh and reject any connection to him for his own good. The contradiction here is that the more she tries to let him go out of love, the more she feels hate and resentment for having to do so.

In All About Love: New Visions, bell hooks (yep, I’m going there again) says the following:

“It is impossible to nurture one’s own or another’s spiritual growth when the core of one’s being and identity is shrouded in secrecy and lies. Trusting that another person always intends your good, having a core foundation of loving practice, cannot exist within a context of deception.”

She also says:

“When we choose to love we choose to move against fear-against alienation and separation. The choice to love is a choice to connect - to find ourselves in the other.”

Using this logic, we can surmise that although Anna trying to push Yoh away while keeping the truth about herself a secret may have been an act of cathexis, it could not truly be an act of love because she was not being honest with him for fear of the rejection she faced even from her own parents and the danger that exposing her true self might bring to him. Although Anna’s martyrdom may appear loving, it is borne out of her inability to trust that Yoh will always intend her good, she shrouds herself in secrecy and lies for fear of opening her heart to Yoh and being hurt, or worse still, hurting him. But it’s this act of dishonesty and care that ends up hurting him regardless.

When Yoh is willing to face the manifestation of the loneliness that Anna has created by trying to shut him out, she realizes she can’t push him away, he will fight and die for her and she can’t protect him by closing her heart off to him. As Matamune said, words mean nothing to Anna, only actions, and Yoh’s actions unambiguously show Anna that he intends her good. And it’s for this reason that, for the first time, Anna can think of nothing but wanting to protect Yoh, and when she yells at him to run away, her cold and demure demeanour vanishes, her ulterior motivations disappear and she expresses the pure and truthful desire that is in both her mind and her heart: for Yoh to simply be safe.

It’s these straightforward and pure acts of honesty, care, and love from both Yoh and Anna that cause the oni born of Anna’s self-doubt and fear to vanish.

So basically: reading some bell hooks can be a powerful weapon against demons.

Hao Asakura and The Endless Cycle of Lovelessness

As this is going on, Matamune discusses Hao with Yoh’s grandmother and it’s here that we discover that not only did Matamune kill Hao, but that even after 500 years he still deeply regrets it.

This is an incredibly important moment because up until this point, Hao has been deemed to be the ultimate evil who must be destroyed at all costs. Yet here we have a character who understands the history of the Asakura family better than anyone, but instead of seeing Hao as cruel and violent as everyone else does, Matamune still sees him as gentle, a friend who literally nurtured his spiritual growth and development (the parallels to bell hooks are much funnier to make in Shaman King because spiritual growth and nourishment is very quantifiable) and someone he wishes he had saved instead of killed.

From this point on in the story, the idea of defeating Hao by simply killing him is called into question. This is a recurring problem that comes back when Yoh eventually meets his ancestor Yohken, the man who teamed up with Matamune to kill Hao and was unable to rest in death due to also regretting it. This is vital because despite constantly being told that Yoh’s destiny is to destroy Hao; through Matamune and later Yohken, we see the consequences of what happens when Hao is stopped through the means of violence. Through Anna, we see a younger version of Hao, a version that can still be saved and redeemed if only she has someone willing to stay with her, to fight for her, to extend himself for the purpose of nurturing her spiritual growth, something that Matamune could not do for Hao who he deemed beyond the point of saving.

Matamune then tells us exactly what it is that pushed Hao over the edge and led him to become the villain that we now know him to be: the ability to read hearts and minds. Just like Anna. The most powerful being in Shaman King was unable to resist the sheer level of ill-will and hatred that his powers exposed him to, and it was the loneliness that this caused that led him down a path of destruction.

Once this parallel is laid bare for us to see plainly, we can now understand why Osorezan Revoir is such an important arc.

As soon as we realize that a) Anna has the same power as Hao, and b) Matanume questions whether or not it was right for him to kill Hao, we are led to the same conclusion that Yoh comes to on his own. Hao is lonely, and simply killing him won’t end his cycle of vicious lovelessness, the best way to stop him and save the world is to cure his spirit of the loneliness and hatred that has corrupted it, the same way Yoh eventually does for Anna. Yoh can stop Hao and save all of mankind by showing his older brother love.

Yoh and Hao

There are a number of reasons why Yoh is the only person who could possibly stop his big brother:

• Yoh is an incredibly loving person, who constantly understands the importance of spiritual growth and nourishment in both himself and everyone he meets. In the manga, he’s even introduced to us as someone who uses his powers to help spirits forgive themselves, let go of their regret and hatred, and pass on to the next world,
• While everyone believes Hao to be an irredeemable evil, we know that Yoh never once believes this because of Yoh’s central philosophy: No one who is able to see ghosts could possibly be completely evil,
• Yoh is incredibly empathetic and wise, able to understand a person’s needs and read their heart without speaking to them or being able to read their mind,
• Yoh tries to avoid violence when he can, while Yoh is an incredibly strong and capable shaman, by the end of the series he’s actually one of the least powerful (but most skilled) out of all of his friends and he is perfectly okay with this. While he is capable of destruction, he’s also capable of finding multiple ways to win a fight, even non-violent ones, he believes in avoiding unnecessary acts of domination and violence as a means of solving his problems to the point that many characters question why he has entered a tournament that will force him to fight others,
• Yoh has experienced true loneliness and understands other lonely people which is why he struggles to ignore someone who is sad or alone.

Healing Through Love and Connection

“When we reveal ourselves to our partner and find that this brings healing rather than harm, we make an important discovery — that intimate relationship can provide a sanctuary from the world of facades, a sacred space where we can be ourselves, as we are… This kind of unmasking — speaking our truth, sharing our inner struggles, and revealing our raw edges — is sacred activity, which allows two souls to meet and touch more deeply.”

~ John Welwood, not bell hooks

This page that follows the previous discussion is probably my favourite page of the arc due to how much is said at this moment despite there being zero dialogue. Anna who has thus far confined herself to her room or solo outings finds herself willingly spending time with another person, doing something as ordinary as watching TV.

Throughout the arc, we’re shown seemingly random cutaways of children playing with spinning tops (I think the author really liked Beyblade or something, the kids are an homage to some other manga), while these might seem random, the purpose of these cutaways are clear: Anna, Yoh, and this incarnation of Hao are children. They should be watching television or playing Beyblade, but instead, their destiny and the circumstances of their birth force them into a generational conflict, one that has created centuries of torment even in the minds and souls of the victors.

As Anna and Yoh are left to watch TV together, we get some revealing moments for both characters. They watch music videos from both of their favourite artists, Yoh’s is an artist known as SoulBob, although Bob’s lyrics are seemingly meaningless, we know from Matamune’s musings at the beginning of this arc that SoulBob is the favourite artist of Yoh’s father. Yoh got his love of Bob and his iconic orange headphones from his desire and desperation to have something that would enable him to connect with his father, who spent all of his time instead training in the mountains to defeat Hao.

Bob is a clear symbol of Yoh’s loneliness, and through being able to read his mind, Anna most likely knows this.

We then see Anna’s favourite singer, a kind of emo chick who sings about hatred and dresses in dark colours while sporting a scowl. Anna explains that the song is beautiful to her and that although the artist dresses in a threatening way, she only does so to mask her vulnerability, a parallel that Yoh immediately draws to Anna, showing that not only are the two beginning to understand each other, but that they also have different but equally effective ways of doing so. Anna is able to read Yoh’s mind, and Yoh is able to read Anna.

Despite this understanding, Anna, having been so deprived of love and consumed by hatred, loneliness, secrecy, and abandonment her entire life is still completely baffled by Yoh’s loyalty to her; a child who has not been taught self-love struggles to understand why anyone would love them and therefore lashes out due to an inability to recognize loving behaviour.

When she again tries to drive him away, Yoh nonchalantly responds saying that he wants to live a carefree life, and is unable to ignore the fact that Anna is unhappy. This attitude and Yoh’s lack of any kind of angle or ulterior motive serve only to confuse and infuriate her more, but Yoh isn’t able to verbalize exactly why he feels this way. It’s only when she reads his mind that she discovers exactly why: Yoh is in love with Anna, and despite knowing her true self and the danger she poses to him, still wants to be with her forever. This revelation causes her to act like an embarrassed child, and it’s important to note here that the more time Anna spends with Yoh, the more childlike her behaviour becomes, an honest reflection of who she is.

As Anna retreats to her room, Yoh asks her to go to the temple with him once the new year begins so that they can pray together. Anna’s obvious reaction is one of apprehension: a person who can read people’s minds and hearts walking into a crowded room where everyone is praying and wishing is sure to be overwhelmed. But Yoh manages to change her mind by assuring her that he won’t abandon her, and also by correctly judging that she would like to wish for her powers to be resolved. Because of Yoh’s understanding and his presence in her life, Anna is able to fathom the idea of honestly and openly admitting that she wants something; and Yoh reveals that his dream is now to become Shaman King so that he can create a world in which Anna doesn’t have to worry.

The True Meaning of Yoh’s Dream

Earlier in whatever this is, I pointed out that Yoh’s dream to become Shaman King isn’t just his own, it’s also Anna’s. This isn’t because Anna needs Yoh to win in order to be cured of her curse, we already know that in the present day, Anna is perfectly fine and no longer struggles as she once did. The reason that the dream is both of theirs is that before meeting Anna, Yoh had no real conviction. Yoh simply wanted to become Shaman King because he was raised to believe that it was his destiny and he wanted an easy life, but even then, it wasn’t something he took seriously. Upon meeting Anna, Yoh finally gains his sense of purpose and conviction, he finally understands what it truly means to extend himself for someone else’s spiritual nourishment and face their demons instead of simply shrugging them off. The dream of being Shaman King becomes something that Yoh actively wants because he loves Anna, and in response to this conviction, Anna dedicates herself to helping Yoh achieve this goal because it’s what he wants to fight for and she loves him back.

This new, stronger version of the dream is not just his, it’s both of theirs and it acts as a symbol of their commitment and dedication to each other’s spiritual nourishment and growth.

The Final Redemption of Matamune

As Yoh and Anna head out, Yoh’s grandmother expresses her desire to stop them, she believes that if Hao couldn’t block out the hearts of others, Anna definitely won’t be able to and the results could be catastrophic. If other people’s hearts corrupted Anna and caused her to kill Yoh, this would surely lead her down the exact same path as Hao, who gained the power to read minds by absorbing a spirit in order to satisfy his hatred over the murder of his mother.

However, it’s this comparison that finally makes Matamune’s mind up. Yoh’s catchphrase over the course of the series is “Everything will work out in the end.” After centuries of torturing himself over failing to save his dearest friend, Matamune decides to gamble on Yoh and believe in the phrase that he has learned from the young shaman. Matamune supports the decision for Yoh and Anna to go to the temple, even though he knows that if Anna creates onis from taking on so many thoughts, stopping them will certainly “kill” him. Observing Yoh has now convinced Matamune that Anna will not see the same fate as Hao because she now has someone who is able to show her love.

This is the gamble that Matamune is willing to make in order to save Anna from her loneliness, the same way Hao needed someone to save him from his.

Unfortunately, Anna and Kino’s fear is well-founded, she’s overwhelmed by the weight of everyone’s desires, and because of this, creates the most powerful demon yet, one that’s even too strong for Matamune to handle. The demon takes Anna and feeds her lies and hatred in order to grow stronger until she completely succumbs to it, cursing Yoh, Matamune and everyone who’s caused her pain. Anna begins to spout lie after lie about how she hates Yoh and wants him to leave her alone and die, her relentless dishonesty is just the fuel that the oni needs.

As the demon becomes too powerful to defeat on his own, Matamune forces Yoh to use their last resort.

“ It’s extremely difficult when one has too many things one treasures.
At times when one wants something, it can only be achieved by sacrificing something else.
The most important thing is to have a heart. “

These are the very first words we see in the prologue of this arc. And while convincing Yoh to use their last resort, Matamune says the following:

“The heart is that which believes throughout everything, without being captured by reality.”

The connection is simple, in order to save Anna, the one he treasures, Yoh must sacrifice the spirit of Matamune, whom he also treasures, but what gives Matamune closure is his belief that despite this sacrifice, everything will work out. This sacrifice will help Yoh to once and for all ease the hatred that threatens Anna’s spirit.

This is the same logic that we see in the lead-up to this arc, where Yoh sacrifices his dream to save Ren.

After 1000 years of grief, regret, self-torture, and loneliness, Matamune finally sees how this chapter of his story can now end, with forgiveness and self-love.

The wounded heart learns self-love by first overcoming low self-esteem.
~ bell hooks, All About Love: New Visions

For years, Matamune has been haunted by this nagging, lonely feeling. Even though everyone around him wants to see Hao destroyed, Matamune, one of the few people in history who was actually able to do it, feels sympathy and regret for the downfall of the ultimate evil he once called his only friend. Matamune still believes that there must have been another way, and this is a burden that he must carry alone, as no one could possibly understand the nuance and complexity of the situation that he was put in.

Meeting Yoh and Anna finally gives him the opportunity to see that not only is he not alone in this burden, but the boy who has inherited it is able to do what he could not, save the person he loved from all-consuming loneliness and hate. The feeling that tormented Matamune for centuries is finally validated, there is humanity in Hao, and killing him was not the only way. The man who showed Matamune love when he had nothing could have been redeemed if only someone, anyone had saved him from the loneliness he felt when his mother was taken from him; if only someone had shown him love, but instead he remained plagued by the hateful hearts of others during one of the darkest periods in history until mankind came together to murder him (side note: it’s worth mentioning that everyone coming together to cure Hao’s loneliness and show him love is exactly how he is defeated at the end of Shaman King).

As bell hooks puts it:

“For me, forgiveness and compassion are always linked: how do we hold people accountable for wrongdoing and yet at the same time remain in touch with their humanity enough to believe in their capacity to be transformed?”

Finally, by knowing that Hao can indeed be defeated with compassion, Matamune is able to forgive himself and move on.

The Salvation of Anna

Anna watches Yoh fight and sacrifice for her again, and as she continues to question why he is going to these lengths, the demon begins to disappear, despite the lies Anna has told herself about how she’s better off alone, Yoh continues to fight for her. Again, words mean nothing to Anna, despite the lies that the oni tells her and that she tells herself, Yoh is there fighting tooth and nail for her with nothing on his mind but her saving her from harm and hatred. Yoh’s loving actions drown out Anna and the oni’s hateful words and because of this, the oni, the manifestation of Anna’s hatred, loneliness, and fear of connection, is losing its strength.

Finally, despite one last attempt to convince her that she is alone, Anna is able to admit to both Yoh and the demon that she has fallen in love with Yoh, this act of honesty and conviction proves enough for Anna to rob the oni of the last of its power, enabling Yoh to destroy it completely with the last vestiges of Matamune’s power and the symbol of his sacrifice. Anna has fully opened herself up to the possibility of love and her desire to connect and share her true self with Yoh without fear of judgment, abandonment, or bringing harm to him, Anna, Yoh, and Matamune have all helped each other to grow mentally and spiritually.

Whether we learn how to love ourselves and others will depend on the presence of a loving environment. Self-love cannot flourish in isolation.
~ bell hooks, All About Love: News Visions

However, it’s not just Yoh and Anna’s love for each other that finally defeats the manifestation of Anna’s hatred, it’s her newfound capacity for self-love that comes from finally being convinced that she is both worthy and capable of love. For the first time in her life, Anna is not isolated, she becomes the first of many characters who are given access to love, communion, and community by Yoh, and it’s because of the loving environment that she suddenly finds herself that she’s able to exhibit self-love, and this is what defeats her demons.

In the end, Yoh keeps the claws that gave Matamune power around his neck, hoping one day to become powerful enough to bring the spirit back (something that’s kinda forgotten about). Yoh and Anna go their separate ways temporarily, with Anna reminding Yoh that she now expects him to fulfill his dream. Yoh rides back home but receives a letter left to him from Matamune containing three poems, and with these, the curtains close on my favourite arc in all of manga.

The person that is waiting for you
Will definitely not want you to feel any lonesome feelings
At the very least, not even the very the least The person that you are going to meet
Will definitely not want you to feel any lonesome feelings
At the very least, not even the very least The feelings of discouragement you’ve abandoned on your journey
The feelings of dejection you’ve abandoned on your journey Love is an encounter
A departure
A transparent piece of veil (1)
Let us meet a Mount Osore

A thousand folded paper cranes in black (2)
That person has always been carrying heavy secrets throughout the nights
Even if unfoldable, even if unfoldable A thousand folded paper cranes in black
That person has always been carrying heavy secrets thoughout the days
Even if unbreakable, even if unbreakable

Despite the arrogance and the headstrong personality being displayed
She secretly longs for a bromide (3)

Love is an encounter
A departure
A transparent piece of veil
Let us meet a Mount Osore

Throughout these thousand years
I have finally learned how to let go of this sadness
Even if it is ever so fleeting, even if it is ever so fleeting This weak heart of mine
I can finally let go of this heavy burden of mine
Even without a grave, even without a grave I have distanced myself from the crowds for such a long time and gone through much solitude
Hence I was very delighted to meet you during the New Year Love is an encounter
A departure
A transparent piece of veil
Let us meet a Mount Osore Although I have turned my back against you
But I have felt nothing but utmost happiness throughout this journey with you
It’s alright if you think that I have acted heartlessly
But can you greet me with a smile the next time we meet? This song is barely capable of delivering my feelings of admire
Yet, it must end here, once and for all I wonder, what that shining country above me is
I wonder, what that shining land above me is
I suppose it’s where Jizou-sama (4) sits Love is an encounter
A departure
A transparent piece of veil
Let us meet a Mount Osore Let us depart at Mount Osore (5)

Love

I’m someone who generally is not very open with his emotions or intimate thoughts for numerous reasons, but one thing that I will always share is my belief that love and the pursuit of love holds the key to solving so much of what ails us.

I’ve always believed that love is an energy, something that fuels us, powers us, and sustains us, and when dealing with issues of death, abandonment, loss, betrayal, heartbreak, loneliness, or many of the other things I’ve faced, I’ve always comforted myself with the idea that like energy, love cannot be created or destroyed. Love is transformed and transferred. When I’ve struggled to know how I could possibly love again, I’ve reminded myself that the love I felt hasn’t disappeared, it will reveal itself in another manifestation, whether that’s through God’s love, the love I choose to show myself or the love I show others, because no matter what I go through my capacity for love remains.

Maybe this is why I find the work of bell hooks and Osorezan Revoir so comforting, because both go through extreme lengths to show what love truly is, and why it holds so much power, even in a cynical world or an environment that treats love as a weakness. Osorezan Revoir shows me people whose search for love and self-love has spanned a thousand years while All About Love: New Visions helped me to identify why this was so poignant years after reading the arc. It is through the journeys of love, self-love, forgiveness and redemption that we see these characters go through that hopefully we can truly understand the power of love.

Originally published at http://jjwi13.wordpress.com on March 15, 2023.