About 17 or so years ago I had a little money to spend on a book, and found this odd little shelf in my local bookstore. I'd never seen anything like it before, so picked up the coolest thing I could find and that's how I ended up reading Shaman King. My taste has changed somewhat since!
I felt Shaman King had a lot of potential. The author was smart to move on from “spirit possession” early on since there’s far more room for creativity with external weapons, and it looks cooler too. Too bad the tournament arc became too “philosophical” and it just went down hill from there. Such a shame
I do think it's a shame that the spirit possession got scrapped entirely. I would have liked it more if it remained a tool in their arsenal, rather than being completely overshadowed by Oversoul. I think there were a couple of chapters where an enemy disabled everyone's Oversoul abilities, and Yoh had to be possessed by Amidamaru again for the first time since volume 3 or so.