linda75 - 2017-06-04 19:01:04

fda

dstark - 2014-11-16 01:38:24

Summary: Not long after he enters highschool, Sakai Yuji’s normal days come to an end. He sees something bizarre onhis way home: people are frozen in a strange fire, and a monster that lookslike a large doll is attacking them. Just when he's about to be killed, a girlin a dark cloak wielding a large sword appears, and slices the monster in half.Although Yuji survives the strange encounter, the girl informs him of adesolate truth: " 'You' don't exist anymore." She calls herself a Flame Hazewho hunts "Guze no Tomogara"; intruders from another world. Sheexplains to him that he is a "Torch", a substitute of Yuji whose“existence” has already been devoured. She also told him that he is a specialTorch, "Mystes", which contains a precious item in it. When he looksat his chest, he sees within himself a faint flame, just as she said. It is in this way that hiseternal struggle alongside the girl begins. 

Story:  The story of Shana takes place in Misaki City in Japan andbeings with a high school student Yuji Sakai. At the start of the series Yujiencounters a Flame Haze Shana. Who proceeds to tell him that he is just a torch(a human that has died). It is later revealed that Yuji is a special torchwhich contains a Treasure Tool that allows him to continue to exist as a torch.Most torches disappear after a few days. The job of a Flame Haze is to defeatCrimson Denizens who come to the human realm to eat the life force of thehumans.  

Throughout the series Shana andYuji defeat many different Crimson Denizens to maintain peace in the city.Later in the series their main enemies Bal Mosque are revealed.  Their main goal is to revived their masterand have him create a world just for the Denizens. I don’t want to go intofurther details as it could lead to potential spoilers.  Each season of Shana has its own strengths andweaknesses. But overall I consider the third season to be the best. It containsthe bulk of the action in the series and really develops Shana’s and Yuji’scharacters. It also does a good job at developing some of the side charactersthat Shana and Yuji meet along the way such as Margery (another Flame Haze).Season one is rather slow it sets up the basic story and characters. It hassome decent action but overall is ok at best in the story department. Season 2is probably the most lack luster of the three seasons. It feels like mostlyfiller because the characters are mostly training throughout the season withthe exception of a few episodes the story progression is pretty slow. Finally,the third season both has a great finally to the story and moves the plot alongin a good pace.

 

 

Animation: J.C. Staff is the animation studio for all threeseasons of Shana. A few of other notable shows that they animated are Slayersand Golden Times. Across all three seasons Shana’s animation stays consistentwith no major changes.  I would say thatthis is a positive since many shows change animation styles when doingdifferent seasons. The animation for Shana is good but not great. It bestdisplays itself during the fight scenes which all look very stunning but, Ifeel that the environment for the most of the series is overall pretty forgettablewhen it comes to animation.

Sound: The composer for Shana is Kow Otani who is best knownfor his soundtracks on the Gamera films. I think the music worked very well forShana.  My favorite ost was Seriux whichis the main battle music for the majority of the series. It really makes thebattles seem more intense. I dislike that they don’t use it as much later inthe series though.  Seriux is also themost notable track but the other sound tracks used also set the mood for theseries in a decent way and nothing sounded out of place. Finally the openingsfor each season were pretty good my favorite opening was the first opening ofseason three. I felt that the instrumentals did a really good job working withthe animation for that particular opening.  The final thing I would like to mention isabout the VAs. The voice actors change from season 1 to season 2. I personallydon’t think any of the voice changes really affect the show. None of the actorsin season 1 are bad and so I don’t think there is much of an improvement overthe seasons. The voice actors are good for all seasons.

 

Characters: There are a lot of characters spread over the 70+episode series. A lot of them don’t get much screen time or backstory. Somelike Margery and Kazumi do get some good development over the course of theseries but most of them are just background characters. I would even go far asto say as most of the villains with exception of the final villain are ratherbland. I feel most of them were just there for stories sake.  Because of the large cast I will only betalking about the main two characters Shana and Yuji. I can describe Shana inthree words bad-ass Tsundere.  I wouldsay Tsundere fits Shana’s personality to a T especially in season 1. As in typicalTsundere fashion she eventually grows to like our main male lead. I don’t thinkher character is bad either as far as Tsunderes go I would say Shana is apretty good one. I don’t feel that her personality gets in the way of the storyat all. Her character also has a lot of development in the series.  She starts out as in her own words just aFlame Haze but ends up developing a decent personality in the series.  Yuji also goes through some dramatic changesin the series. He starts out as a bland main protagonist but ends up developinginto someone who can stand on his own two feet without Shana’s help.  That is what I really like about hischaracter. He isn’t someone who just hides behind others or complains he takesaction and develops as a character.

 

Enjoyment: I though Shana was a good series overall. It hadits slow points which consisted of mainly season 2. Season 1 was also a bitslow but as far as action goes it was pretty good. If you can hold out toseason 3 I would say it is overall worth it. As it has a good ending and greatcharacter development. I think as far as story and character development go Shanadoes a very good job.

heather.schulist - 2014-09-29 01:06:48

Story

Shakugan no Shana is one of those shows that exceeds your expectations. I personally thought it was going to be a mediocre anime, but was pleasantly surprised by what I watched.

What I expected of Shakugan no Shana was a plot that goes down the drain to make way for some high school comedy romps with some action and ecchi sprinkled in. I was completely wrong. Shakugan no Shana starts with a promising story and sticks with it.

Shakugan no Shana has a very intriguing concept about existence, which introduces a whole new world and lots of information which it presents in a sort of confusing way at first, but it all makes sense after a few episodes. It’s a show that actually requires a bit of thought and comprehension. Not as much as a good psychological anime or anything, but it does need an audience that can digest what it’s trying to say.

The first few episodes really caught my attention, and soon I had completely finished the first season. The first season has much better pacing than season two or three, and I feel like it also balances both of it’s main aspects, (action and romance), the best in the first season also. The first season had my full attention all of the way through.

The second season focused more on the relationships between the characters with some good action sprinkled through out. It was pretty slow-paced compared to the first season, but nothing too frustrating.

The third season, however, was extremely slow-paced, and extremely frustrating. I had a hard time getting through it, as a lot of the focus was spent on the preparation for battles than the battles themselves, and everything happened much slower than it needed to. Even when the battles eventually came around, most of them were just looking at a field of people fighting against eachother. There were some really good one-on-one battles though, and the ending was well worth the wait, as it tied everything together and put a smile on my face.

Something I noticed in Shakugan no Shana is how for every battle, there are at least one or two episodes of suspense and preparation, sometimes even more. It isn’t very noticeable in season one, but in the other two seasons it is hard not to notice. Something to keep in mind.

The romance in Shakugan no Shana is a plus though. It goes through great development and actually leads somewhere. I’ll talk about it more in the characters section.

Animation

The animation and art style are both pretty average, but produce some pretty solid action scenes that are extremely fun to watch. It’s not incredibly unique or anything, but it does the trick.

The character designs are varied, if not random. It started out sensible, but by season three we have guys with giant green hats carrying lyres and other guys with lion’s heads and all of this other randomness. It sort of bothers me, but I doubt anyone else cares.

Music

Shakugan no Shana has six openings, all of which have wonderful animation but are a mixed bag when it comes to music. Some of them are just generic J-pop songs, which I know most people love, but aren’t really my thing. There’s one song where the vocalist starts out with a very annoying voice, but as it shows a scene where Shana changes from her human self to her Flame Haze form, the vocalists voice melts into a normal voice. I really like this little touch, but it left me feeling divided on the song. Two openings I would like to point out are openings one of the second season (Joint by Mami Kawada) and one of the third season (Light my Fire by Kotoko.) Both are different from the other songs, and I like them both, but the thing they share in similar that kind of annoys me is this; they start out with awesome intros with guitars and drums and all of that good stuff, but when the vocalist starts singing it just sounds like another pop song. This leaves me divided on these songs as well.

The soundtrack for Shakugan no Shana doesn’t particularly stand out in any way, but it’s still fun and fits its moments well. It also really helps to build the tension.

Characters

Like I expected the story to be mediocre, I expected the same of the characters. The characters surprised me too, Yuji Sakai the most. I expected Yuji to be one of two things; the useless guy who gets sucked into a supernatural mess for no exact reason, or even worse, the guy who gets sucked into a supernatural mess and ends up having powers for no explained reason and completely undermines the epic female warrior character. Instead, Yuji did a unique thing. Yes, he is sucked into a supernatural mess and has something special about him, but he starts out weak. Weak, not useless. He helps in every way he can, lets Shana do most of the fighting, and has her train him to get stronger. Eventually, he learns to actually fight, but never undermines the skills of another character.

Shana is a classic tsundere in a way, but her development is well-done. Shana, Yuji, and another character named Kazumi, are the only characters that get any real development, but it’s good development none-the-less. Kazumi’s development was remarkable, as I started out hating her but gradually came to respect her and her decisions.

The supporting characters are a mixed bag. On one hand, you have the awesome and badass Flame Hazes and Yuji’s funny classmates, but on the other hand, you have the completely useless Flame Hazes and the annoying classmates. I guess it can’t be helped.

Enjoyment

Overall, Shakugan no Shana was very enjoyable. The closer it got to the end, the slower it was and it got a bit boring at times, but it was rewarding when I pushed through to the end.

Overall Rating: 8/10

kuhn.oliver - 2013-10-20 21:48:55

Random Info

Studio: J.C.Staff

Director: Takashi Watanabe

Writer: Yasuko Kobayashi

Music: Kow Otani

Length: 3 Seasons (24 episodes each)

Story

A high school student by the name of Yuji Sakai meets a girl with flaming red hair and eyes who says she is a Flame Haze. she explains to him that he is a Torch ( someone who died, but a little "power of existence" creates a form of them that will slowly fade away from existence and no one will ever remember them.) she also explains that she is a flame haze (a person who must fight to keep the balance of the world) and has to fight denizens ( a person/thing that eats power of existence and disrupts the worlds balance). these 2 soon become friends and have to fight together to keep the balance of the world. overall, the story was fairly good but there were parts where i found it a bit hard to fallow and some that i found frustrating because they dragged on certain things that could have easily be solved a lot sooner, but maybe that is just me. i give story a solid 7.

Animation

Not much for me to really say here. the animation was quite good, with very few flaws. i give it a 8.

Sound

The sound in this show is AMAZING! especially the openings, my favorite being Light My Fire. the soundtrack is one of my personal favorites. i cant say anything about a dub, for i watched it subbed. sound gets a perfect 10 from me.

Characters

The characters in this show were fairly good. i found most to be likable, though sometimes i didn't always agree with their actions. yes, the lead female protagonist is an average tsudere but she still wasn't a bad character. characters gets a 7.

Conclusion

overall, the show was really enjoyable, even though it is very time consuming and i'm not a huge fan of long running series. it scored above average in all categories and i will recommend that you watch it if you haven't already. Final Score: 8.2

csanford - 2013-07-24 23:13:45

Shakugan no Shana is a series that I had long been meaning to watch after being impressed with the battle music and visuals I saw in a video highlighting anime background music some time ago. Now that I'm finally done with the first season, I can say that it is a very fun and enjoyable show. It didn't blow me away by any means, but I think it's a very solid series. If I had to pick my favorite aspect of the series, it would have to be the various supernatural/fantasy elements and characters, especially during the battle scenes. The characters range from amusing and funny to disturbing, and by disturbing I mean that brother/sister Denizen duo. The story isn't very deep, but still good enough to keep the show interesting and enjoyable. Now earlier when I said that I was impressed with the visuals I saw, I was specifically referring to Shana during what I would call her Flame Haze mode, which I thought looked cool. From a technical standpoint, the visuals aren't anything impressive, but they get the job done. Overall, I would rate this an 8/10 for "Very Good", which gets a high recommendation from me. If you're looking for the next epic masterpiece, this might not be it. However, it's a solid fantasy series with some cool characters, great battles, cute romance, and even some nice comedy. If you haven't seen Shakugan no Shana yet, you ought to at least check it out sometime.

hollis07 - 2013-07-18 00:59:31

garrett06 - 2013-03-31 18:29:37

Story - Meet Yuuji, he's your average student. Meet Shana, she's your not so average Flame Haze. Yuuji learns about the real world that surrounds him -- its not all it appears to be. As flame denizens and hazes come to the city, battling for existence.. oh, just watch it and find out for yourself. I'm not going to go through this. It's a solid story and I had no complaints, a few plotholes but nothing very disasterous to knock this down any further.Art/Animation -The animation is very nice and has an very beautiful feel to it. The animation, done by J.C. Staff, appears to be using somesort of gradient animation, which is new and rare. It's a beautiful series. The animation is fluid. The 3DCG that appears every so often, is a nice touch and it works for it. The OP/ED sequences are nice as well.Sound - Mami Kawada sings the first OP song, which I have to say, is probably my favorite, but KOTOKO sings the second OP song, which is, in my opinion, infinitely better than the first OP. The inbetween music is proper and put in the correct places, it also sets a strong tone of tension or a strong tone of lighthearted feel.Character -I'd say my favorite character is well, the title character, Shana. Well, actually, I'd say I liked all the characters, well, except for Kazumi Yoshida(per why the 9 grade). The love relationships, triangles and such are fun to watch. The interaction of all the characters is nice and easy to understand, I guess.Enjoyment -I enjoyed every minute of the series. It was exciting, comedic and full of action. I'm glad they have a second season, because 1 season just won't do it - no sir, it won't. It's nice, because, it's one of the most enjoyable experiences in my anime fandom yet. Overall, I believe a 9/10 is appropriate for a series such as this.