HomeAnimeShakugan no Shana Season 1 Collection - Review

Shakugan no Shana Season 1 Collection – Review

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ShanaS1Title: Shakugan no Shana
Covers: Season 1
Format: DVD and Blu-ray
Release Date: 23rd April 2013
Published by:
Universal Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (Australia)
Funimation Entertainment (North America)

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Based on: The light novel series by Yashichiro Takahashi
Audio: Hybrid Dub
Subtitles: English
Runtime: 600 Minutes
Special Thanks: Universal Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Australia for kindly providing me with a review sample of this release

Wielding a blazing sword, Shana is a fiery huntress whose sole purpose is to fight demon-like beings that consume human lives. To reduce the impact on the human realm, Shana turns the slain into shadows of their former selves. Once a flame that represents their remaining life goes out, they fade from existence. This should have been Yuji’s fate, but when he discovers he holds a special power that ignites a new found strength in Shana, they join forces in her ongoing mission to maintain the balance between the ordinary world and the supernatural.

Back in June 2011 I reviewed the Madman Entertainment release of Shakugan no Shana for which it walked away with a solid B+ grade. In Australia however it seems that the rights to the series have switched hands, with University Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Australia recently announcing their acquisition of all three seasons which are to be released later this year – with both Season 1 and Season 2 to be made available on DVD and Blu-ray separately in April 2013.

While a review of the second season should be released later this week (Pending on when I finish this assignment), I have decided to update my original review to focus on differences between releases. As with my past updated reviews, if the content hasn’t been changed then the content of this review (Except minor edits) will not change. To this extent, the grade of the review generally does not change except for certain circumstances. Without further ado, let’s review!

ss1

The series works on the concept that there are infact two worlds, a world that we live in, and one known as the Crimson World. While humans can generally not cross over into this world, some denizens of the Crimson World are crossing over into the human world in order to take what is known as the Power of Existence from humans. The people who have their power of existence taken from them are replaced with torches – crude attempts at keeping their existence temporarily and slowly reducing their presence in the world until they disappear from all living memory. There are some torches who hold “Treasure Tools” which give them certain appeal over other torches, and the story revolves around a young man named Yuji, who is a torch by has the ability of being able to regenerate his existence every midnight. Through his own abilities he comes across a young Flame Haze named Shana who fights against these beings.

The storyline is varied in quality, depending on the genre it is trying to put across. As you can no doubt tell from even the DVD casing, this is a series primarily based around action, and this is where it shines the most. The series is built around the basic premise of (Group A vs Group B to save Innocent Citizens) and has a a good balance of conflict and downtime so as not to make the series feel like 24 episodes worth of exclusively action or exclusively slice-of-life, but instead keeps balance with both of these crossing over to the other. From the third episode onwards, Shana enrolls in the same school as Yuji, but keeping her fighting spirit instead of being a good little schoolgirl who does what she is told…. also known as torturing the teachers. The same goes for the other way, with Shana learning more about morales and teamwork from her new “friends” which in return, aids her in making decisions in the battlefield. If you like fast-paced, little-fuss action content in a storyline, you will be hard-pressed not to enjoy the over the top battles that take place during the season, which only increase in magnitude as the episodes progress.

ss2

The other genre investigated in the story-line is romance. Whilst the romance element does have some minor impact in the battles with Shana, acting to both the detriment and aid of Shana, the storyline focuses too much on love triangle between Shana and another girl named Kazumi which was rather generic, where they go as far as spending more then one episode on the persuit of Shana’s knowledge on kissing, also spiked by the fact that there is a set of young-looking denizens who share power through the magic of a french kiss. Whilst it was almost inevitable that there would be a romance element and it is not necessarily a bad thing, I feel the integration could have been a bit better.

Looking more at the characters of the series, the characters range from interesting to pointless, however as this is only season one, this could change of course. With the exception of three or four characters, all the characters have some role in the battle against the Denizens to some degree, whether it is fighting, logistics or even just the ability to perceive the world around them. As stated above, Yuji and Shana remain the two primary characters in the series, Yuji like most of the human characters in the story get very little in terms of background, and instead his development is based around his present personality, that goes from being more hesitant to becoming more bold and willing to fight himself. Shana on the other hand has significant development during the series, including a multiple-episode backstory to how she obtained possession of her blade and managed to become a skilled denizen-hunter.

ss4

Looking at the human characters in the series, which are primarily Yuji’s classmates, they hold a wide variety of roles to the storyline. Two of them remain completely pointless this series, two remain assistants starting in the earlier episodes to another Flame Haze and then you have the other friend, Kazumi who is hinted as being a character in the early episodes and acts as a foil to Shana’s romantic interests for Yuji. Whilst they necessarily have to be included, with the exception of the two assistants, Keisaku and Eita (Who form a smaller love triangle), the humans are not that important except for setting the scene for the next battle or for acting as minor characters in filler episodes.

On the other hand, the supernatural beings are of more interest and hold a number of…. unique personalities and fetishes. The only other Flame Haze that has any basis in the series from the early episodes is Margery, a boozing, yandere and well endowed character who yields a sarcastic grimoire that adds some much needed comic relief to the series, and is the only character that has some satisfactory character development in the series. The denizens are even more interesting, yielding fetishes for dolls and french kisses, are scheming and it is never really clear where their allegiances lie. Whilst the characters are interesting, as further characters are added in the later episodes, they do not get the attention that the characters earlier shown did, which results in them being less interesting.

Overall however, the storyline was solid with some very enjoyable action sequences, however is let down by a couple of dull characters and a romance aspect that drags on over the entire series and doesn’t get anywhere.

ss5

I have no major qualms with the overall design of the series, with high quality environmental designs and character designs. Back to the environmental designs first, the detail isn’t the best I have seen, it is above average however lacks the attention to detail that would make it an impressive design choice. However, it is more the special effects used, alongside the lighting of the environment that makes it a pleasure to the eye. I have noticed that all battle environments look more epic when they have a different primary colour to the backdrop, just like how in the game Persona 3, the dark hour had the green theme which kept the eeriness of the environments and made the battles look more supernatural. The same stands here, with the red being an appropriate colour choice to make the battle environments more effective then a normal battle in the moonlight.

In terms of character designs, they are solid and every character does look unique and appropriate for their character, however it is more the outfits the Flame Hazes and Denizens use that really add the extra something. An evil looking cape for the evil dollmaster, the gothic lolita outfit for the twins who try to act both cute and devious and even a sexy but serious looking business outfit for a character that has multiple personalities and enjoys the booze. The designs do change for individual episodes, such as the obligatory beach fanservice episode or for school / non-school periods which make nice changes.

The animation of the battles was the series strong-point, with emphasis put on the individual special abilities of the characters such as spell use or specialized physical attacks. The one issue I did have was with the earlier DVD’s but resolved itself the later I got into the series. The collection from what I can tell, consists of six DVD’s, all of which are the exact same as the six volumes initially released to the market (As evidenced by trailers and extras). The issue was with the quality of the video footage and how the quality was initially rather average until later on it improved. As you can tell from the images in this review, the black borders around each of the images changes and improves the later the episodes are in the series. It is a minor issue however as it only has a small impact on the overall design quality.

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Opening Sequences
Hishoku no Sora by Mami Kawada
Being by KOTOKO

As with the ending sequences, there are two in total, with the first one covering episodes 1 through to 16, and the second covering from episodes 17 to the end of the series. The first opening theme is brilliant, a nice fast paced song and a more serious tone to it, making it an overall enjoyable song complemented by some really good animation. The second sequence is average, as whilst there is the same good quality of animation, the song is softer, slower and not the song style I prefer.

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Ending Sequences

Yowake Umare Kuru Shoujo by Yoko Takahashi
Aka no Seijaku by Yoko Ishida

The ending sequences have the same basic animation structure, a pile of still images of Shana (1st) and the other characters in the series (2nd). Whilst it is nothing imaginative, in the event of Yowake Umare Kuru Shoujo, it complements the beat of the song and gives it an extra edge….. in the second song, it does not. The first ending theme will remain a personal favorite ending theme of mine as everything about the song is well suited to the series and my interests. The second one is worth a listen, but does not suit the action-oriented nature of the later episodes.

ss6

The music in this series was brilliant, with a varied composition ranging from tracks that are more orchestrated with a variety of instruments, in particular string instruments used which change often due to the fast paced flow of battle and are epic to say the least. As well, there is a small number of tracks that use vocal backing which add a nice tone to the songs. Whilst there are a number of slower paced tunes, the majority of the time you will be listing to the faster paced tracks which are enjoyable.

While Funimation Entertainment have their own English dub cast for Seasons 2 and 3, as an existing dub already existed they have decided to use the original English dub for their release of season 1. While I was originally quite critical of this dub in my original review, I didn’t mind it so much when watching it a second time. While the quality was still questionable at times and Tabitha St. Germain may not have matched the level of emotion that one might have expected… there were a number of really good voice actors/actresses which I would have loved to have seen carried over to further dubs – including Paul Dobson as Alastor, Janyse Jaud as Margery and Trevor Devall as Marcosias

ss8

Unlike the original 6 Disc release by Madman Entertainment which were originally designed to be six individual volumatic release, this edition only contains 4 DVD’s (and 3x Blu-ray’s) and as they have been designed to be part as one collection all the extras are packed on the last disc. While unfortunately this release seems to have ditched the Production Art Galleries, many of the other additional extra goodies are still present including:

  • Naze Nani Shana Episodes 1-8: Eight half-Q&A half-comedy episodes. Fully English dubbed primarily by Trevor Devall (Friagne) and Nicole Bouma (Marianne). Also available with Japanese dub.
  • Shana-tan Episodes 1-2: A comedic mini-series totalling ten minutes of what Yuji’s life would be like if Shana was chibified and traveled on the top of his head. Enjoyable watch. Also dubbed in English.
  • Textless Opening and Closing Sequences

ss7

While there is room for improvement, overall Shakugan no Shana Season 1 is an excellent start to the series and is one I could recommend checking out if you are after a series with quite a bit of action in it. While there is little reason other than the inclusion of Blu-ray to purchase this collection if you already own it… if not expect to see it on store shelves next month!

Final Score

Storyline / Character Development: B
Design: B+
Music/Voice Acting: B+
Extras: B
Personal Preference: A-
Overall Score: B+

While the original overall score has not been adapted, earlier review criteria including Character Development and Voice Acting have been merged into the current review criteria.

Sam
Sam
Founder of The Otaku's Study. I have been exploring this labyrinth of fandom these last fifteen years, and still nowhere close to the exit yet. Probably searching for a long time to come.

2 COMMENTS

    • Hey Alex,

      While I do have a copy of the Sony release – I do not have a copy of the retail packaging just yet. If I can get my hands on some prior to release I will do up a mini-review highlighting them 🙂

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