While TV anime failed to find its footing, the Shaman King manga still remains one of the more popular shonen titles to this day. That's why fans were dismayed to learn that a remake of the 2001 TV anime almost happened but was halted by manga creator Hiroyuki Takei because the original cast and original music from the 2001 anime series couldn't be reused in the new project.
Takie's Tweet translates [
via ANN], "To be honest there were serious discussions on an anime remake, but... since we couldn't use the voice actors and music from the original work, I declined. Still, it would be nice to have another chance."
Fans of the manga series are pretty much universally outraged that such trivial reasons kept the project from moving forward as there's not a lot of love for the 2001 anime adaptation to begin with.
Takei began the Shaman King manga in 1998 in Weekly Shonen Jump before the series was suddenly ended without warning by the magazine in 2004. Takei was able to give a proper ending to the series in 2009 through a special reprinting of his original material. A sequel titled Shaman King Flowers began publication in Weekly Shonen Jump in 2012 and concluded in 2014.
Furious anime fans were quick to point out Yoshihiro Togashi's Hunter x Hunter manga, which received a 62-episode anime series in 1999 from Nippon Animation before a 148-episode remake from Madhouse kicked off in 2011. The remake was able to tell much more of the manga's story and only ended because it had caught up with Togashi, who is currently on an extended hiatus from the manga due to back issues.