Written by [Mini Review]
[Plot]
Yuji Sakai, a high school student, expected his very normal life to last forever. However, this expectation is quickly shattered one day while on his way home. The world suddenly freezes in time, leaving Yuji to watch in horror as blue flames engulf the people around him. Soon a monster resembling a large doll appears and begins sucking the flames into its mouth, until it notices Yuji. Surprised with Yuji’s insusceptibility to the time-stop (fuzetsu), it jumps with glee. Just as the monster prepares to consume Yuji, a sword-wielding girl in black attire with flaming red eyes and hair appears, swiftly and confidently destroys the monster, before noticing Yuji moving freely. The girl calls herself a “Flame Haze” who hunts the “Denizens of the Crimson Realm”. When Yuji notices a blue flame in his chest, the Flame Haze tells him that the “real” Yuji died some time ago, and that he is a “Torch”, a temporary replacement for erased humans. Torches take on the forms of those erased persons, but after a period of time, they will vanish from existence and the memories of the living. Unfazed by his apparent death, Yuji befriends the strange girl and names her “Shana” after her sword. The reason Yuji was able to move in the fuzetsu is that he is not a normal Torch, but instead a special kind called a “Mystes”: he has a treasure inside him, known as a “Hougu”, a device possessing special abilities of sorts, and an extremely powerful and valuable one at that. The hougu inside Yuji allows him to remain in existence rather than fading away like other torches. Shana resolves to protect Yuji from the Denizens, who would use the treasure to disrupt the balance of the world, and Yuji decides to join Shana in her fight.
[Characters]
Sorry, I don’t have a millenia to spend on this. Please refer to this to see what I mean. //youtu.be/jy9S597FjmE
[Mini-Review Begins Here]
Well Shakugan no Shana is over. It lasted 72 episodes spanning 3 seasons. The first season can be summarised in one word: schizophrenic. The first season didn’t know whether it wanted to be an action anime, a drama anime, or an ecchi anime. I knew from the beginning it would be best as action/drama anime with drama taking the backseat to the action.
Season 2 was less schizophrenic, but in the wrong way. The first 3 episodes or so were all right, but then we went into a 10 episode drought with absolutely no action at all, just people standing around talking. I quit the anime at this part twice because I was so freaking bored. On my third attempt I finally made it past the drought, and the rest of the series after that was nicely balanced between action and drama.
So I was very trepadacious when I began watching Season 3, but to my surprise the anime had finally been cured of its schizophrenia. This time around it knew exactly what it wanted to be, and thoroughly embraced the action/drama lifestyle. Season 3 is the best out of any of the 3 seasons. It has an awesome plot-line, dynamic characters, amazing and well choreographed action, and made me wait with anticipation for each episode. In my opinion if you’ve never seen season 3, or maybe have never even seen Shakugan no Shana before, now would be a fantastic time to start. Just brace yourself to do a lot of episode skipping in season 2.
