Review for Shana: Series 2 - Part 2

Introduction

What an anticlimax! I don’t mean the show, rather the release of Shakugan no Shana season 2. Season 1 was released 5 years ago in 2008, back when anime was released in single disc format, with each volume containing just four or five episodes. Season 1’s six volumes were released bi-monthly, drawn out across ten months leading into 2009. That’s a long time to wait for a series to develop, but it wasn’t unbearable. What was unbearable was the subsequent wait for season 2, extended by an unanticipated hiatus when Geneon in the US shut operations, with its properties falling to Universal Japan. It’s taken over four years to sort out that contract maze, and it’s only now that we get Shakugan no Shana Season 2. What makes it anticlimactic is that MVM just put out both halves of the 24 episode series in the space of two months. No fuss, no waiting, just instant anime.


Shakugan no Shana tells the story of high school student Yuji Sakai, and what happens when Shana enters his life. Shana is a Flame Haze, whose purpose is to fight the Denizens of the Crimson World and the Rinne they send to do their bidding, and stop them eating the lives of the people in the real world, who remain blissfully unaware. She isn't always successful, which is where the Torches come in. The balance of the world would be destroyed if people suddenly started vanishing, so Shana creates Torches to take the place of the dead, short lived replacements who eventually vanish from the world, along with any memory of their or the original's existence. When Yuji walks into the wrong place at the wrong time and dies, it's the start of a really bad day for him.


In Season 1, Yuji got resurrected as a Torch, but a unique one with amazing powers. Now known as the Midnight Lost Child, replenishing his energy every night, he became a target for every Denizen around, and attracted the attention of the Ball Masque, who planned to use Yuji to create a Fountain of Existence that would give them ultimate power. Naturally this would attract the attention of other Flame Hazes who would work to protect existence, including the oft-inebriated Margery Daw, and Shana’s mentor Wilhelmina. But the Flame Hazes don’t often work well together. Soon Yuji’s school friends also get drawn into this mystical world, making things even more complicated.


As season 2 begins, Ball Masque may have had their plans defeated, but they haven’t finished with Yuji just yet. But worse, things are about to get domestic, as a new girl named Konoe transfers into school and latches onto Yuji, making the awkward triangle between him, Shana, and classmate Yoshida into an even more awkward square. While things may have been a little fraught in the first part of Shana Season 2, they were fraught on a small, domestic scale. But when that collection concluded, the results of Yuji’s training were yielding ominous results, results that attracted the attention of the Denizen named Pheles. Pheles created the Midnight Lost Child Treasure Tool in the first place, and now she wants it back. Her arrival during the school’s Clear Autumn Festival threatened to wreak havoc, but that’s nothing compared to what will happen when Margery Daw learns just what kind of power Yuji possesses.


The concluding twelve episodes of Shakugan no Shana Second are presented across two NTSC discs by MVM Entertainment.

Disc 1
13. Convergence, Followed By an Omen
14. The Eternal Lover
15. Awakening
16. Endless Feelings
17. Separate Paths
18. Complicated Yuji
19. What Couldn’t Be Said

Disc 2
20. The Scarlet Battle to the Death
21. Combined Strength
22. Christmas Eve
23. Stirrings of Peril
24. What Must Be Protected

Picture

Shakugan no Shana’s second season gets a 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer in NTSC format on these discs. It looks to all intents and purposes that MVM have sourced the discs directly from Funimation, stripping out the trailers. NTSC does offer slightly lower resolution than PAL, but Funimation have apparently given these discs a progressive transfer, which makes all the difference. If you have compatible equipment, then you can watch this anime at 24 frames per second, as opposed to 60 half fields per second, which results in smooth, clear and unflawed animation. I have to say that up-scaled progressively onto a flat panel display, Shana Season 2 looked great. I did watch the show on an old CRT set for comparison, and you might then be a little disappointed at the slight ghosting and judder associated with interlaced playback. That should be an issue for just a few at this point though.


Shana Season 2 is an old anime dating from 2007. It lacks the crispness and production values that you’d see in current productions, but the image is clear and sharp throughout, the character designs are consistent, and the action sequences are dynamically animated. It’s also been a while since I last saw the first season, but it is my impression that production values did take a knock between the two seasons. Certainly the character designs are a little rougher and lack the detail of the first season, also there are more static scenes standing in for animation in this series, as you’d often see in a show holding tight to its budget. It’s not enough of a drop in value to mark it out as a different show, but it is enough to make you feel something is amiss, especially during those scenes that flashback to the first series where the differences between the two become obvious.

Sound

You get the option of DD 5.1 English surround, and DD 2.0 Stereo Japanese, with translated subtitles and a signs only track. I went with the original language track as always and was very happy with the experience. There’s the continuity of voice cast, and the music also carries over from the first series. The action is presented well, and the dialogue is clear. I sampled the English audio and found it to be a typical Funimation dub, so if you are used to their way of doing things, you should be fine with this, with the proviso that this time Shana was dubbed in-house, while the first season was dubbed at Ocean studios when Geneon released it. There is no continuity of cast here. But the 5.1 treatment given to the action sequences balances that out. The subtitles are timed accurately, and are free of error.

Extras

There are quite a few extra features with this collection. The episodes are presented with static menus and jacket pictures on these two discs.

The extras are all on disc 2 this time around, beginning with the audio commentary that accompanies episode 21. In it ADR Director Christopher Bevins joins actors Justin Cook (Marcosias), and Kent Williams (Alastor) to talk about the dubbing process for characters with no visible mouths (it’s easier). There’s some interesting chat about the similarities that anime has to Kabuki theatre, but on the whole it’s the usual Funimation chucklefest.


Once more we get four of the Naze Nani Shana II shorts, where an animated Friagne and Marianne provide a glossary to some of the arcane mystical terms used in the show. They last 21 minutes, and you can choose to play them separately or all in one go.

There’s more tiny Shana action in the Shakugan no Shana-tan Revenge parody, which lasts 7 minutes. This time there is a charming cameo from a miniaturised guest star sitting atop Yuji’s head while eating melon bread.

Finally there are the textless credits. We get two opening sequences, and three closing sequences.

Conclusion

I’m beginning to see where all the Shana love comes from. It certainly didn’t register with the first season, which while competent enough in terms of entertainment and narrative, snowed me under with its jargon and complex back-story. For season 1, I enjoyed the first half more, with its domestic storylines and character building, as opposed to the second half, where the overall plot hit, and things really got technical. Now that we come to the end of season 2, I find that while I still may get the Mystes confused with the Treasure Tool, I do have a much better grasp of the jargon and the back story in Shakugan no Shana. I’m no longer tempted to go looking for a user manual whenever someone throws up a seal, or unleashes an Unrestricted Method. For Season 2, while the first half once again delved into domestic shenanigans, it was lighter on the character development, and not quite as satisfying. But one and a half seasons of Shakugan no Shana is certainly sufficient lead-in to this collection of episodes, and as things once more got serious, over-arching, and convoluted, I found myself glued to Shakugan no Shana as never before. Shakugan no Shana: Series 2 Part 2 is really good, the best Shana yet, and it bodes well for more Shana coming to the UK.


There are three distinct arcs in this collection of episodes, beginning by resolving the cliff-hanger left over from the previous collection. The Clear Autumn Festival in progress, the Crimson Denizen Pheles arrives to reclaim the Midnight Lost Child, in which her Mystes lover Johann survives. What’s interesting here is that despite the mayhem that is wreaked, the destruction that is unleashed, Pheles is more victim that villain. In fact she isn’t even responsible for the damage. The intriguing development here is that it is Margery who goes off the rails at this point, seeing the silver flames that are related to the foe that she has been hunting all these years, but coming from Yuji’s Power of Existence. Tanaka and Sato have been devoted allies of Margery up to this point, but when Tanaka sees Margery snap, and the effect it has on people that he cares about, it drives an irreversible wedge between them, and from this point forward their paths diverge.


The other interesting development at this point is that Konoe’s true nature is revealed, and Ball Masque take advantage of Pheles’ appearance to move forward with their plans. It’s clear now that it’s a question of when they will come for the Midnight Lost Child, and not if, and despite resolving the situation with Pheles, it has lasting implications for what happens next. Also it’s less a matter for the Flame Hazes than it is their human friends. The dynamic between Tanaka, Sato and Margery has already been irrevocably altered, but it turns out that Yoshida too has to redefine her place in terms of what has just happened. She wants to be with Yuji, and claims that she will do whatever it takes. When she’s offered the chance to do just that, it becomes a question of just what the price is that she will have to pay.


Yuji on the other hand is aware that he is living on borrowed time, that his status as the Midnight Lost Child makes not just him a target, but all those around him as well, and given the power that the Ball Masque bring to bear on him, the entire city too. He resigns himself to leaving the city with Shana, and starts isolating himself from his friends. He also intensifies his training, and given the powers that his treasure have given him, his abilities grow from strength to strength. It soon becomes clear that far from just another Torch, he is a viable partner for Shana, equal to her in combat, and possessing a strategic mind that exceeds the Flame Hazes. The problem is that in his commitment to leaving the city, he starts lying to himself about his feelings, and that is noticed not only by Yoshida, but Shana as well, making their relationships more fraught.


Before they can resolve this, Ball Masque make their next move, and the Denizen Assassin Sabrac appears. This would be a great climax to the show, three episodes of well written action, and character development. Sabrac is a tough challenge indeed, and it needs all the Flame Hazes working together to stand against him. It also needs Yuji to resolve his issues about leaving the city, his distancing himself from Shana and Yoshida, and it also needs everyone to pull together to figure out the villains’ plans. It’s a really well-written and emotionally weighted confrontation, which is totally engrossing. The ending when it comes is brilliant enough to make me pump my fist in appreciation.


I say it would be a great climax, but it isn’t. Three episodes remain after this point, and Ball Masque’s true intentions are yet to be revealed. This time Hecate appears, and puts Yuji in the worst kind of danger, isolating him from the others, and coming perilously close to succeeding in Ball Masque’s plans. Whereas the battle against Sabrac had everyone working together, and in terms of strategy and plotting was extremely well written. The battle against Ball Masque in these three episodes has the characters pulling in different directions once more, and there is more than a hint of deus ex machina in the way that the story resolves. There is a lot that happens here that has very little logical explanation, and it is very clear that the story is sowing seeds for more anime down the line. It took a good while for the third season of Shakugan no Shana to be made, so that must have been quite a wait to learn just why season 2 ends in the way that it does.


I may have been lukewarm about season 1, but season 2 has sold me on Shakugan no Shana. That the conclusion of this season leaves more questions hanging than answers provided in the hope of a third season may have nudged me to mark it down a tad, except that they went and made season 3 while we were waiting for this series to finally make it to the UK. But forget the final three episodes. Everything up to that point in this collection of Shakugan no Shana: Season 2 is absolutely riveting stuff. I hope that MVM can get the OVAs and Season 3 out in short order as well, as at this point I think I’m hooked on Shakugan no Shana.