Volume 1
The boy who dances with ghosts
Manta is hurrying home because his afterschooling ran late, when he decided to cut through the graveyard to get to the train station in time for the last train, but he sees a boy, sitting alone on top of a tomb, who asks him if he why if he’s in a hurry and that, since it was such a great night to watch the sky, they should all watch them together. By all, he meant Manta, himself, and the spirits living in the graveyard. Manta’s scream can be heard all over town.
The next day, Manta tells his classmates about it, but they tell him that there’s no such things as ghosts. And, just as Manta keeps thinking in his mind that he was sure that those ghosts weren’t just hallucinations, the teacher introduces a new student, Yoh Asakura, whom Manta recognized as the boy from the night before. Obviously Manta starts screaming that “It’s him!”, but Yoh gives him a look and says there’s no such thing as ghosts.
But Manta’s not convinced, so he tries and follow Yoh, but gets discovered. You explains that he’s a shaman, but that he couldn’t defend him in front of all the others because if others discovered his secrets he would be in trouble. The same night Manta decides to cut through the cemetery again to get to the bottom of the story, because the whole shaman thing confuses him. The only problem is that, instead of Yoh and the spirits, he runs into Ryo, the Dragon with the Wooden Sword, and his gang, who had declared the graveyard their “best place”. Ball Boy, a member of the gang, is telling Ryu the story of the great samurai Amidamaru, but Ryu steps on Amidamaru’s grave and destroyes it with his sword. Manta gets discovered and beaten.
The next day at school he tries to explain what happened, and again they don’t believe him, yet Yoh comes to his rescue, says that ghosts exist, and drags Manta out of the school and to the cemetery, where he says he’ll fight against Ryu. To do that he turns the spirit into a ball of spiritual fire, and melts it into his body, becoming one with Amidamaru, who wanted to get back at Ryu for destroying his resting spot. Using a sutopa Yoh defeats Ryu, and manages to cut off the ends of his ridiculous hair cut. Ryu and his gang run away.

The waiting Samurai
Manta asks Yoh why he came to Tokyo to practice the shamanic arts, and he replied that it’s because he’s trying to find “friends”, spirits that he can assimilate with for different purposes, because a shaman’s level is measured by his spirits, and so he asks Amidamaru to be his friend, but Amidamaru refuses. Manta tells Yoh that Amidamaru is a demon, but Yoh says that he felt warmth when they assimilated, and that Amidamaru can’t be bad. Amidamaru won’t become Yoh’s friend because he’s waiting for someone. Manta shows Yoh the ancient sword that used to belong to Amidamaru, which is exposed in a museum. Sitting on top of it there is the spirit of Mosuke, Amidamaru’s best friend, who made the sword for him. It turns out that, when Amidamaru and Mosuke was alive, they had both been hired to work for a lord because of the Harusame, but the lord asked Amidamaru to kill Mosuke as a sign of his loyalty, because the lord wanted the Harusame to himself. Amidamaru warned Mosuke, but the lord had set him up, and so Amidamaru died in the place where he had promised to meet Mosuke becuase he didn’t have the Harusame with him. Mosuke says that he wasn’t able to reach Nirvana because he hadn’t been able to give Amidamaru the Harusame. Yoh says that they can bring him the Harusame now, because Amidamaru had been waiting for Mosuke in that place for six hundred years. Yoh assimilates with Mosuke to fix the Harusame, and then brings it to Amidamaru, and Mosuke reaches the Nirvana. Amidamaru becomes Yoh’s “friend”.

An incomplete sign
Manta is dragging Yoh to school because Yoh woke up late, but as they run, a store sign falls down on top of Yoh, who saved himself becasue he fell into a hole in the ground. Manta says that the sign was very unstable and that it kept on falling. Yoh says he has a bad feeling. Manta and Yoh have a fight because Manta thinks its dishonest to use spirits to make through school easily the way Yoh does. Amidamaru says Manta doesn’t understand how hard it is to be a shaman. On the way home Manta nearly gets killed by the same sign that had flattened Yoh, but Amidamaru saves him because Yoh asked him to watch over the little boy, and then they see an evil spirit behind the sign, and Amidamaru starts fighting it. The spirit keeps on saying “White.” Yoh comes out a bucket of white paint. The evil spirit had been a man painting the sign, when, reaching for the bucket of white paint, he fell into the street and died under a truck, becoming an evil spirit over the fact that the sign had been left incomplete. The spirit hits Yoh, and Yoh, bleeds. Manta remembers that he saw many scars on Yoh’s body. Yoh tells Kanta, the spirit, that he can use his body to finish the sign. Kanta stops being an evil spirit, assimilates with Yoh, and finishes the sign.

Soul Boxing
Yoh and Manta see a guy beating up some poor fat chap. Manta tells Yoh about him. Tatsushi Tobinai was a promising boxer discovered and trained by the great champion Getsy Kenji, who died in a car crash. When the gym closed down Tatsushi, who had been a thug before meeting Getsy, went back to being a thug. Yoh interested in the Getsy’s spirit, tries to ask Tatsushi about him, but all he gets out of it is a black eye. Yoh and Amidamaru don’t think he’s a bad person so they decide to help him. Ryu and his band, who had thought they’d found “the perfect place” in Getsy’s old gym, get the pulp beaten out of them by Tatsushi, who starts taking it out against a poster of his teacher. The lights go on in the ring to show Yoh in one of the corners saying that he wanted to fight against the one that Getsy had trained, because he was called the living portrait of Getsy Kenji. Tatsushi gets really mad and starts trying to hit Yoh, but he had already assimilated with Getsy, and was talking to him as the dead boxing champion. Getsy gets really mad and gives a mean punch, and, instead of Yoh, Tatsushi sees Getsy smiling at him. Tatsushi tells Yoh that he made him want to fight honestly again. Yoh let go of Getsy’s spirit because he finds boxing far too painful for his tastes.

A samurai as a body guard
While Yoh and Manta are eating ice cream and, talking about Amidamaru, Yoh says that he’s the best bodyguard. Amidamaru is very pleased because being a bodyguard is the highest honor for a samurai. Suddenly the owner of the shop says that they have to all leave right away because the chinese restaurant on the floor above was burning and the sprinkler system didn’t work. Yoh asks Amidamaru to see if there is anybody left inside the building. There are children blocked on the roof. Yoh asks if the fire fighters are coming, but Amidamaru says they’re stuck in traffic. Yoh picks up a bucket of water and dumps it on his head with the intentions of going to save those kids, but Amidamaru stops him because he says he doesn’t want him to die. Yoh runs ini saying that if he wants him to live, he’d better do a good job of protecting him. As Yoh’s running up the stairs a piece of ceiling starts to fall on him, but he assimilates with Amidamaru and, using a stair-rail stick as a sword, avoids being splattered. On the roof he destroys the water tank which was supposed to feed the sprinkler system, and the water pours down, eliminating the flames. On another rooftop, a boy tells a spirit that Yoh owns a very interesting spirit.

Another shaman
Manta is late again in coming back from afterschooling, and he cuts through the graveyard, and he sees a boy watching the stars, but he’s not Yoh. The boy tells Manta that he has to give a message to Yoh. His name is Ren and that he’s going to take posession of Amidamaru’s spirit. Ren has the spirit of a chinese warrior. Yoh says that he doesn’t know Ren, and he’s not worried about him taking Amidamaru, because nobody who can see spirits can be an evil person. Outside of the bar where they were talking Ren gets surrounded by a bunch of thugs because he gave their car a strong kick. They try to beat him up, but he beats them all to a pulp with a bunch of kung-fu looking moves without having to assimilating with a spirit. One of the thugs tries to run him over, but Ren pulls out this huge knife on a stick and cuts the car in half after assimilating with the chinese spirit. Ren’s about to kill one of them, but Yoh stops him and lectures him, but Ren doesn’t care, he says that he’s going to be the one to become the king of shamans, and that, for that, he has to get all the strong spirits he can get.

ShamanxShaman
Ren orders Yoh to give him the spirit of Amidamaru. Yoh refuses because Amidamaru’s his friend. Ren laughs and says that spirits are only instruments, and that feeling friendship for an instrument is pointless, and that Yoh isn’t even capable of using his spirit to his full 100% potential. If Yoh won’t give over Amidamaru, Ren would take it forcefully. Ren fuses with Bason, his chinese warrior, while Yoh fuses with Amidamaru. Ren almost kills Yoh, but Amidamaru dodges the hit. Ren wants Amidamaru even more and says that the trial’s over. Now things would get serious. Ren says that Amidamaru is a better spirit than Bason, but that if he stays with Yoh, he will never be able to use his strength to its fullest. Ren hits Yoh, and says that to be a shaman one has to have a strong spiritual force, that he is far above Yoh, and that Amidamaru’s his.

100% posession
Ren says that a boy who thinks he can be friends with spirits will never be able to dominate them because, during the posession, two spirits occupy the same body, and if the spirit isn’t entirely submissive there will be resistances. Yoh tells Ren that Amidamaru is not a machine. Amidamaru says he has no intention of posessing Ren’s body. Yoh says that he would never be able to defeat Ren and he asks Amidamaru to leave. Ren says that once Yoh’s gone, Amidamaru would have nothing to hold onto, and Yoh says that it was exactly the reason why he would reach the Nirvana, and that he would rather die than to give Ren his Amidamaru. Amidamaru refuses to go to the Nirvana, Ren’s attacking, Yoh and Amidamaru fuse, and block Ren’s hit after having assimilated to the 100%. Yoh says that now their hearts are in complete harmony in the intention of defeating him. The battle’s over, and Yoh won but there are still many questions unanswered in Manta’s mind. What was the meaning of it? Who’s the king of shamans? And who is really Yoh?