I totally fell for Hecate/Konoe Fumina
I should have posted when I finished season 1, but oh well, left it all for one huge post.
Yes! I have finished Shakugan no Shana, both seasons, and all the specials! Still missing the movie, but I’m wary of movies that are just retellings. Anyway, I really liked it, specially the second season’s final episodes. I can’t say I enjoyed the ending of the first one, it felt kinda rushed. But the second concluded pretty much everything gracefully, if only through hints.
:D
I don’t really remember much of the first season, blame me watching one episode a day instead of marathoning it like a man (lol), blame me mixing the DVD subs with eclipse subs, blame me even throwing a couple dub eps in the middle. But with the magic of the list of episodes in wikipedia, I’ll try making a summary.
- 1 through 8, Shana arrives, is the tsundere we all know and love, Yuji teaches her that’s not all there is to life when he is told he’s was going to disappear but not really because he has a power thingy (the Reiji Maigo). She slowly starts falling for him.
- 9, pool episode! With plenty of jealousy going around in all the plots and subplots.
- 10 through 13, Shana starts getting real jealous of the real life getting in the way of the battles, Yoshida notices, gets even more jealous, and declares war with Shana. (And our hero is clueless about all of this, naturally)
- 14, 15, 16, Shana flashback episodes.
- 17 through 21, Second to last epic battle, Yoshida comes to terms with what Yuji is (but does not give up!), Shana protects Yuji, yet nothing he can see.
- 22 through 24, Final battle woo! Decisions are made, promises to protect people, etc. And while making the ultimate sacrifice, Shana confesses! :o (of course, the sacrifice wasn’t that ultimate, and he didn’t hear the confession, har har)
So, season 1 went like that, cool? Yes, yes, including the Hecate scenes in the last battle, even though it all felt a little weird. Notice me ignoring the Keisaku & Eita subplot, I’m not a big fan of them.
- OVA! (Technically episode 13.5, but I watched it after the end), more Ogata & Keisaku & Eita shenanigans, not relevant to the plot, but cool, if only for the imaginary gay end. (?!)
Now for the second season, where it all came along more naturally, action was more fast paced, slice of life episodes were more… sliced?
Maybe I'm just a sucker for Mamiko Noto
- 1 and 2, School life has returned to normal, almost. Fight against a small fry Tomogara who controls dreams or something.
- 3, A girl that looks just like Hecate transfers to the school, bitches be going :o over it, but she doesn’t appear to be anything evil.
- 4 through 7, delicious slice of life-ness, girls getting jealous of Konoe getting special treatment from Yuji (including taking stuck bird feathers from her hair!), fun times all around.
- 8 and 9, Margery flashback episode, pretty boring. It’s revealed in the end that Yuji’s flame is silver, just like Margery’s arch nemesis.
- 10, Yuji’s dad gets back to town, advice/story time episode, now everybody knows they both like our hero, except for himself.
- 11 through 13, shit gets real, both girls confess/try to confess in their own way, but lol interruptions. Also the Scientist dude appears and supposedly gets defeated.
- 14, 15, 16, the festival ends, Margery gets nuts because of the silver flames, Konoe is revealed to be a false vessel for Hecate, Pheles (who?) appears and leaves, a silver arm pops out of Yuji (wut) but it’s sealed back by Hecate. Even the characters commented on how way too many stuff happened at the same time in those episodes.
- 17, lol Keisaku & Eita drama, caused by she going crazy last episodes.
- 18 through 21, Yuji seems to have gotten meaner, both girls are not happy with the way he is, he gets extra powahs due to training. Then he almost falls for a trap, but is able to defeat the dudes by himself. But aha! It really was a trap, when Shana & friends get to the crime scene, Sabrac, the second to last boss is doing his thing. But Yuji figures the whole thing out, goes back in his supposed resolution, thinks of a plan, and helps defeat him. The most badass scenes of this season.
- 22, Shana and Yoshida come with a plan to make our hero chose between them (lucky bastard), back in the evil lair, everything is going just as planned. (even though all the supposed defeats, they’ve been achieving their goals, without anyone noticing) In the final minutes holy shit Hecate appears, steals Yuji’s power source to power a mean robot.
- 23 and 24, The evil thing started to move oh noes! Everybody assembles for the final battle against the evil plan. Yuji struggles inside the robot to figure out a way to get the power back while on the verge of disappearing. Shana appears and helps him inside. Margery almost sacrifices herself to help the kids enter the final destination. Epic battles all around. One of the memories harvested by the false vessel earlier in the series betrays him, causing the robot to lower the defense just enough for a good attack from Shana & Yuji, inside it. Yay they defeated the silver flamed robot, everything is explained, happy end, the bosses escape in the chaos, naturally. (Hecate even sheds a couple confused tears, because of the effect of those memories, awesome ;_;) And in the credits, you see suggestions that our hero chose Shana, in their game. Awesome sauce.
Classic Pet the Dog moment, I believe in you Hecate! ;_;
As you can see (lol wall of text), the second season had just more stuff happening, and that’s cause I cut some of the side plots/drama off. I’ll definitely have to rewatch the first season all in one go to get the same effect I think. But even so, it was awesome, yes it was.
Now, there’s rumours about a third season being animated right now, I wonder how they’ll handle the chose the girl results. I’d link those rumors, but it’s animenewsnetwork with the source as 2ch, lol. I kinda hope they take a little longer to announce/start airing it, as I want to rewatch the first season before it starts, and you gotta give it a little time.
Now, to delete the converted episodes from my phone, to store all of it in the external HD, to update myanimelist.net, to prepare to watch the next series. What do you say my fellow reader, Zero no Tsukaima or Hidamari Sketch?! Both already downloaded and ready to go!
