4Kids Entertainment has announced that it will make the Shaman King anime series part of its Fox Block of Saturday morning kids' programming in the fall of 2003.  4Kids plans to produce 26 episodes of the series, which has reached 64 episodes in Japan.  If Shaman King's first season on the Fox Box is a success, then it is highly likely that 4Kids will adapt more episodes of the anime series for the American market.  The Shaman King anime series is based on the manga created by Hiroyuki Takei in 1998.  The manga series, which has reached 19 volumes in Japan where it has sold over 16 million books, is currently running in the American Shonen Jump magazine published by Viz.

The protagonist of both the manga and anime series is a 13-year-old boy, a modern shaman who can see the spirit world.  Infused with the spirit of an ancient samurai warrior, this modern-day shaman criss-crosses the globe fighting evil spirits and preparing for the once every 500 years 'Grand Tournament,' which will determine who will be the next 'Shaman King.'

In its most recently released financial statement 4Kids Entertainment admitted that it has had trouble with the Fox Box, which managed only very weak ratings in spite of a lineup that contains some excellent series including Ultimate Muscle (Kinnikuman), the Fighting Foodons, The Cramp Twins, and the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  Shaman King is obviously a first step in 4Kids' plan to pump up the ratings of the four-hour block that the company 'rents' from the Fox network. (see '4Kids Gets Fox Kids Block').