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The love between Yoh Asakura and Anna Kyoyama, a thread:
In Shaman King, an extremely prominent theme in the series is the concept of love. This concept is executed through the relationship of the protagonist of the series, Yoh Asakura, and his fiancée and deuteragonist Anna Kyoyama.
Yoh and Anna’s relationship is quite an interesting one, at the start of the series when Anna debuts, we learn that she is to be in an arranged marriage with Yoh. She was selected to be Yoh’s bride from the time they were little kids.
Now while their relationship might feel forced because they are in an arranged marriage, it is not forced at all. As the series progresses, their feelings grow stronger for each other. This is shown through their actions which prove that they truly love each other.
Anna loves Yoh. She’s quite vocal about this, and claims that she will help him reach his goal of becoming the Shaman King. She specifically loves Yoh for his laid-back and easy-going nature, and believes Yoh could never be corrupted even if he gains the power of Shaman King.
Though Anna is bossy and even physically hurts Yoh on numerous occasions, she does it for a single reason. She wants Yoh to be the best he wants to be, she is his drive. Anna knows Yoh wants to be Shaman King, and she knows how important it is to him (1/3)
so she forces him to train and work as hard as he can so he can achieve his dreams. To Anna, Yoh’s goal is her goal. Anna also believes in Yoh so strongly, she would willingly send him into mortal danger so long as he can grow in strength. (2/3)
She wants him to fight, to take on these crazy tasks, she wants him to be stronger and more powerful. (3/3)
Despite being hard on Yoh, Anna also has a much softer side. There have been moments where she will show distress and even shed tears when Yoh is in near death and in pain.
As for Yoh, he also displays several actions of affection throughout the series. Anna puts him through all this crazy training and regimens, but despite that, he is grateful to her. He expresses his gratitude because thanks to her, he is getting stronger (1/2)
and complains less as the series goes on, appreciating her effort. Yoh often tries to please Anna, most likely in gratitude of what she’s done for him. (2/2)
There have been several moments in the series where Yoh has been shown that he really cares about Anna, an example of this was when Yoh was in a fight and Anna was near the danger, Yoh had his opponent stop and move elsewhere because he couldn’t bear to see her hurt.
Yoh’s dream to become Shaman King is because he wants to live an easy life, not just for himself, but everyone. Yoh says that he wants to become Shaman King for Anna, as she is living for him, he will live for her. He will fight for her because she wants him to achieve his goal.
Personally I think Yoh and Anna are my favorite couple to come out of a Shonen series. Shaman King has a lot of great aspects and romance was one of its best. If you haven’t read the series I recommend reading it, it is very worthwhile.
