Shakugan no Shana II (Second)

For those of you who haven't finished watching the first season..watch that first and come back and watch the second season. That way the story wll connect together and piece itself quite easily. (just a friendly reminder)! Shakugan no Shana II is a great anime to watch for those who wants action and some romance combined with it. Story revolves around the main characters Yuji, who is the male protagonist and is also the central character for the story's development. He is a Mystes, a dead sentient being who is kept alive with the power of existence (flame of life). He is also the most unusualof the characters (this is due to the special artifact inside him, the reiji maigo that replenishes his power of existence every midnight). With this ability he can rejuvenate his life-force, and still live as an ordinary citizen though he is actually dead in real-life. Shana, the female protagonist is also the main lead of the story and a kick-ass flame haze. (Flame Hazes are powerful individuals who work under a secretive organization known as "Outlaw," and the flame hazes' duty is to keep the world in balance by making sure powers of existence are still existent on the planet.) She is a powerful fighter who wields a flame sword (nietono no shana). FYI: Shana was named after her sword by Yuji. Her job is to fulfill her duties as a flame haze while protecting Yuji, the bearer of the reiji maigo, although it is revealed she is harboring strong conceptual feelings for him later in the story. (Romance kicks in)! Story: 8/10 Not a bad story, but needs more development in the central plot. It seemed very rushed at certain points of the episodes, but decent storyline was put in play. Art: 9/10 Nicely done artwork. Its not too heavily pixelated but the characters had some i guess watercolored features which is actually good because it provides deeper textures in the background of the city and the environment. Characters looked very traditional, and fashioned with good works of art. Sound: 10/10 This is where Shakugan no Shana deserves the praise and admonition as an anime series!! Songs are performed by Japanese band artist Mami Kawada, and her songs are killer-good! EX: Hishoku no Sora (intro song)-this was intro from first season, Triangle, and Joint from second season ending theme song. All songs performed by Mami Kawada. Perfect 10/10 for masterpiece in soundtrack! Characters: 10/10 This falls somewhat in the category of the artwork I described, but the characters overall in general have great features. Characters voice acting was performed well, and many of them had loveable personalities/characteristics. The only character I found irritating was that annoying, obnoxious nutty professor who always seems to get his plans ruined by the flame hazes. Enjoyment: 10/10 I loved it. It was similar to my enjoyment of Fate Stay Night, but nowhere as near as good. Gets a 10 for satisfaction for viewer audience, and the rewatch value I'd have to say is pretty high in my books. Overall: 9/10 Great anime series! Enjoyable, loveable, everything in between!

Pros +Art Style Fantastic +Voice Acting Superb +Latter Half of the Show Fantastic +A Well Developed Story +Fantastic Character's both Lead and Supporting +Really improved of the first season Cons -First Half of the Season Slow Paced-Could have been Seen as boring form the start -Ending was a little anti climatic -Similar to First Season, A bit predicable My Opinion Alright here goes nothing, i literally finish the second season of Shakugan No Shana maybe 5 minutes ago so this is as fresh as it gets. I reviewed the First season of the show not long ago and it didn't do all to great from me but well enough to make me want to move on to the second season. The second seasons starts with the same issues that plagued the first season, it was really slow, the pacing of the show was really poor but what i will say in defense of the show is that as you go on toward the end of the season you begin to understand why they spent so much time in the first half of the season developing the relationship between characters but you could have had the same effect and only took up 3 episodes rather than 12. It was that slow at the beginning i nearly dropped the show but my love for Kugimiya, Rie as a voice actor kept me going strong. Alright i spoke about the slow pacing of the first half but once it hits the half way mark it goes 0 - 60 in two seconds. In fact to quote Marchosias (a supporting charater within the show) 'Damn all these things happening one after another. I cant keep up with it all'. That really does say it all. It goes from 12 episodes of filler and stuff that was really uninteresting to holy shit whats going to happen next, how did this happen, why is this happen. The latter half of the show is the saving grace of the show by a long shot. I feel like the show would have been better if A) it was a 14 episode season or B) they started the action around episode 6 and developed the action scenes a little more because they felt rushed at times and there was some much more they could have done if they gave themselves a little more time on the action. As for the characters my opinion has really stayed the same from my first review, ill give you the short version, Shana is still badass, Yoshida, Kazumi adds that extra twist and tension to the show, though as i said before pretty predicable how that 'love triangle' is going to turn out. Now my opinion of Sakai, Yuuji has changed a little. He is still a very good male lead and he's easy to follow and get behind, but in season two we finally see some weakness from Yuuji which was good to see, the second season did a great job of bringing Yuuji to the realization of the scale of the job that lies before him. Its not like he has a simple walk in the part ahead. Alright the ending don't worry i keep these spoiler free, talk about an anti climax. We see one of the arc's in the show end around episode 18 leaving 6 or so episodes to go, meaning that there is always something going to happen and its going to be big and you wouldn't be wrong. The previous episodes were action packed and filled with thrills, the last 6 episodes don't disappoint for the most part but again it just felt rushed. How it was going to play out was pretty obvious thanks to the 12 episodes of development we were forced to endure and it really just fell flat right at the end, i honestly though that the ending would be play'd out in a film or something because there was so much that could happen in the last 10 minutes of the show but nothing really super exciting happens. In the end it is all wrapped up with a semi neat bow on top, my reason behind 'semi' is there were a few unanswered question that i assume are going to answered in the third season. If the pattern stay's turn then i can already make out the outlines of how the shows going to finish and i haven't even started season 3 yet. So the big question, Should you watch this show? My answer if you made it though season 1 and are questioning watching season two, Do it, just grit your teeth and get though the first half of the season because the latter half is well worth it. I give the first half of the show a lot of flack but the fact is it was sort of necessary to fully understand the edge but as i said it could have done with being shorter. Hope my review was helpful Murphy

Alright let me just say that of the majority of anime I watched this was probably my tenth biggest disappointment ever in anime history not because the idea sucked but because the implication of the idea was half-assed (no other way to describe it). The first season while good left a lot of holes and unanswered questions I was fine with that at first because I knew there was going to be a second season where I expected to at least have some of my questions answered but no instead I got a bunch of filler (dang it if I wanted filler I'd just watchbleach or naruto). The story did very little advancing and worst of all failed to answer any of the important questions. Luckily for us there's going to most likely be a third season (hopefully this time they don't just half-ass it and actually get to the point). If I don't read the manga to this and get an organized story I'll beat my head in with 2x4. Now that that's out of the way let's get to some quality looks at it. Story- As far the story that this anime is supposed to follow it's really good some people have underestimated it and called it just a beat em as they come storyline but in fact that's not entirely true villains are reoccurring and do not always die after the first encounter with them and the plots are pretty deep. The only problem with the story is that it's not organized at all (at least in the anime) things are choppy and thrown in and there are tremendous amounts of filler that take away from the story. *sigh* When will people learn to just stick to a dang storyline and not smear it with fecal matter until it becomes repulsive. Art- As far as art goes I was impressed this series is very well drawn the only critique I have is that sometimes the animation didn't flow right. Sound- Sounds are interesting to say the least not all of them are good but for the most part the sounds will match a situation. My favorite part is that the same person who voices Shana is the same person who voices Louise in Zero no Tsukaima (it made me smile every time she talked). Character- This anime did a decent job with character development I mean it's not like I needed to know about more than the main characters to begin with but hey who cares if you want to spend an entire episode focused on a character nobody cares about far be it from me to kick you down for it. Enjoyment- I was disappointed to say the least I expected great things from this anime when I first started watching it but as it progressively went on it became like that new shirt you thought planned on wearing until it was stained with ketchup (i.e-filler). I enjoyed battles in this as most were pretty interesting and I even enjoyed the romance aspect of it which is strange because at first I found the romance to be kind of annoying. So my advice is if you watched the first season just go ahead and watch the second season chances are if you like one you like the other.

I'm writing this after watching season 1 and season 2 recently (I've watched 3, but not spoiling), and season 1 was slow, slow to the pace that a snail would sneer. The story is great, and there is So much potential in this anime that I get miffed that they stretch it out so long. Story: Much better in season 2, but only in episodes 12-24, episodes 1-12 are mostly about Shana and Kazumi being jealous. You'll get it when you watch it. After episode 12 is when it gets good, some of the sub-charaters and the mains realize their feelings.Episode 12+ it's a good watch, watch the first 12, but feel free to skip some. Art: Much better in season 2. The action scenes are faster and more vibrant. I think the characters looked better and the action scenes were much better than season 1. Sound: The opening was good, sound during the series was average. Why do we have this category? Series sound is standard for most... all anyone judges is the opening and ending (and most are average) Character: MUCH better than season 1. There were the useless flashbacks like in season 1, but there was some progression in the characters. Special. The background characters. Some very emotion scenes in episodes 12+, you'll get no tear/fuzzy in 1-12. Episodes 1-12 are a median for emotion, watch them, but feel free to skip 2-3 minutes at a time (you won't miss much). Episodes 12-24 were much better, but there were those slow moments. All in all: 3 times better then Season 1. Better action that was faster and more entertaining. Better art and plot in some episodes. I still think that this wouls have been a series that could have been a classic. If they would have put more into the Art, less time into the back story of characters we could care less about. Guy is an idiot, girl is an idiot... they are all idiots. Only ones that aren't idiots now are Ogata and Tanaka. Epic scenes there with those two, and I loved it.

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