shakugan no shana second 8, 9
Categories: episodic review, shakugan no shana
Tagged: shakugan no shana
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If you like Margery, you’ll leave these two episodes.
(Who put a shota/mature woman relationship in my non-Gainax anime?!)
Enjoyable self-contained Margery story. I’m all for scenery outside of Misaki City, and New York is a great choice, even if blowing up buildings in NYC in any time period is a sensitive topic. I do wonder how much of this arc is 9/11-inspired. The series really didn’t do much with her backstory (or anyone’s except Shana’s) in the original season, and I guess anything is enjoyable after the past few episodes of non-bunny girl melancholy girls. If an Ike special can be considered a highlight, egads. This arc doesn’t exactly explain why Margery is a complete drunk or further the mystery of Silver (though it was alluded to at the end kinda randomly, just to tie it back to Yuji), it does explain why she doesn’t want Eita and Satou as her shota playmates and explains why she dresses the way she does. I’m not a big fan of the power suits, but the glasses are almost like Simon’s homage to Kittan.
Melonpanriffic
Now that we have seen the alternative, Margery needs to follow Ms. Wang’s lead and show up in an alternate outfit every episode. There’s very few anime that cannot be improved with constant outfit changes. It’s one of those small details (like blinking) that separates makes a studio a top tier operation.
Loved Wilhelmina ‘s “!!!” face. It’s almost as great as Maria’s “o_o;;” face.
(But it is good to see that we’re getting plot progression! Definitely anxious to see how everything will eventually tie together between Pheles, Yuji’s silver fuzetsu, and Konoe. I do get a sinking feeling that they are separate arcs rather than one strung out arc.)
So far we have had Shana and Margery nakkid. When’s Wilhelmina ‘s turn? She’s the last remaining non-nakkid Flame Haze. This is terrible.
(And, yes, Margery stripping off her white dress is the greatest moment of Shakugan no Shana Second. Hey, it’s either this or Ike throwing up for the umpteenth time.)
One way to increase DVD sales!
(I haven’t had time to fully plow through all the great responses to my Mikuru in HD post, but one thing I do wonder is why do they show anime on broadcast TV at all? I thought most anime aired late at night and aired more like infomericals such that they are begging to be recorded. There’s also not a lot of advertising for the late night shows. Putting fanservice a la Code Geass or Ikkitousen in the DVD release is one good method to generate sales, but why even bother with showing more obscure/less popular series on TV anymore? Just show like the first four or so episodes and move the rest to DVD.)
I think I enjoyed the first battle Margery had against Sydonay in this arc as it had a good chase scene with Margery trying to avoid Sydonay. The second battle just deteriorated into tossing huge balls of lights at each other. At least Gundam 00 is trying with its battle sequences; Shakugan no Shana hasn’t really had a good one since Shana’s battle against Bel Peol back in 24. That’s 1/3 of a series and 1 OVA ago.
So Margery turns into her werewolf form so she can toss energy balls at her opponents? I would expected more werewolf-like ripping and clawing and chewing.
Probably also one of the bloodier Shana arcs. Margery gets really beat up.
Margery kinda looks like a zombie when bloodied. I’m kinda curious why Marchosias doesn’t use flame of purification to heal her. Isn’t it unfair that the tomogura can regenerate limbs while the Flame Hazes bleed?
Am I watching Higurashi?!
The series alluded to silver back during the first season, and absolutely nothing came of it. I hope at least with this arc and Yuji developing his silver fuzetsu, it starts down the path of finishing up Margery’s backstory. With Flame Hazes being ageless, I’m thinking there’s a wealth of possibilities for past adventures that can be explored. Would you watch a spin-off featuring Margery’s or Wilhelmina ‘s before they made it to Misaki City? I would.
I kind of miss having the sexually deviant tomogura around. Annaberge isn’t very interesting, and his grand scheme of blowing up the Empire State Building is lame. What ever happened to the old stories about taking away people’s life energy and making them into torches? When did tomogura care more for destruction than feeding? And how does Annaberge pay Sydonay for his services? Cash? Debit card? Pictures of Hecate in her school swimsuit?
Yuri isn’t terribly interesting. From the moment that he is introduced as a newbie, slightly different Flame Haze, you just start picturing him with a red ensign uniform on. The problem is that since it is a flashback, and that we know Margery is telling this story to Eita and Satou as a precaution, of course Yuri wouldn’t make it out of this arc alive. He is wussy and mutters “I will save people!” a bit too much. I get it already! You want to save people.
I think that is also the problem with this arc as we pretty much know what will happen. There’s not a lot of tension. Once Margery started heading for the Empire State Building, yep, we know that it is part of Annaberge’s schemes and that Sydonay would be there with a trap for Margery. And, of course, Yuri’s not going to make it to Ike’s next trip to the amusement park.
After writing the previous paragraph, it got me thinking that nothing in Shana blows me away in terms of plot development. Everything flows logically from A to B to C. It’s solid, albeit un-sexy, un-Sunrise storytelling, but I can’t shake the feeling that something big will occur from leftfield. I hope it involves Konoe switching sides by helping the Flame Hazes and telling poor Sydonay, “Screw off, you loli perv!”
Yuri does have an interesting power in that he’s able to basically turn himself into the suicide bomber of Flame Hazes. I read the Wikipedia entry for Valac: “She speaks rather wearily, yet she is kind and looks after her partner Yuri. She had many partners before Yuri, whom many of them were powerful but suicidal avengers that none had stayed alive too long.” and thought, “Wow, perfect description.” If a talking dagger ever came up to me and asked if I wanted to tomogura, remind me to ignore it.
Smiling Shana… haven’t seen that for a while. We haven’t seen URASAI! Shana for a while either; I hope that’s coming next.
14 Responses to “shakugan no shana second 8, 9”
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“And how does Annaberge pay Sydonay for his services? Cash? Debit card? Pictures of Hecate in her school swimsuit?”
I thought about that question myself. And Since Tomogura’s don’t have uses for money the only thing i can think of is Mana.
How Annesberg and Sydonay do the mana transfer i don’t want to know.
RIP Yuri, you were destined to die in her hands anyway…
So, this was the arc with the Empire State; when I saw the PV many months ago, I thought for a moment they will go to NY eventually, especially with another Margery Dow picture in summer dress. Well, we already knew since Yuri’s first appearances he wouldn’t make it alive after all; and more sadly is too see him die the way he did…
The important question for SnS II is: will the give the series an original ending or will keep ups ready for a 3rd season? Good question indeed.
Well… overall these episodes were lacking. Extremely linear plot as already said, and we could guess what would happen next the moment Yuri starts relating his backstory to Margery. I’ve always wondered why she feels necessary to transform into a fat, blue… wolf thing. A fat blue wolf-thing that flies, if all she does is some beam spam. Completely redundant.
I’m starting to feel this season’s beyond salvation. The “Ike special” already plunged this beneath first season. Maybe I’ll just wait for a batch and watch the remaining episodes in one go. The pain’ll be over quicker that way.
Margery does look different with her hair down, doesn’t she? Much, much better. Now we need to put her into the Wilhemina maid outfit while she’s got her hair down and eyeglasses off (and while she’s not frowning or drunk) and nosebleeds will decimate a portion of the remaining viewing population.
We’ll see how things go – she may decide to go kill Yuji for all we know, which will mean that the plot’ll progress beyond ‘Shana and Yoshida angst over Hecate’ and ‘Yuji spends much quality time with Wilhemina, while his father shows up (and is probably one of the villains), explaining why he’s got the Silver Futezsu thing going on’.
My god, not more adventures of school and angst in the next episode! At least it looks like there will be some Chigusa in there.
By looking at the episode 10’s preview, it seems to be clear that the animation team isn’t really trying hard to improve(look at Ogata’s face). They might need to change the director, since this highly anticipated season is really deceiving with the sub par animation quality AND story.
I actually finished episode 7 while skipping a lot of parts, something that I did in…maybe Strawberry Panic, embarrassing to watch.
that’s 9 out of 9 ep with nothing to do with original novel (which i just started to read 16 today), that puts ZnT to shame
but well, it’s watchable at least
Random note on fight scenes, I found that the Shakagun no Shana Movie had some pretty good ones actually. The first “Yuji is a Torch, oh noes!” part is pretty much lifted from the anime with better animation and color quality, but the actual tamagura plotline is a lot cooler, hints more to Yuji’s ability to get power later, and shows everyone having actual battle damage, which has its perk there.
Ah well. I think I’d be sadder this show ’round if there weren’t other shows that were cool about to at least keep me entertained (interestingly, the slice of life ones really are just pretty good this year abouts.)
And stuff. I guess.
hi jason, really like this blog etc etc, i’ve been lurking in this blog for a long time now and this is a first post!
having read all 16 volumes, its safe to say that the novel is superior to the anime by far. Everything is more detailed and the characters are within the scope of reason, even tomoguras, they have far more character and depth. The reason i think that the entire storyline of SNS seems so linear is because most of the events and actions are explained through different pov’s and although every character has different personalities, they are all quite static and stable, which is uncommon in most anime i would think, (lol higurashi) So the audience can usually guess whats gonna happen next. but in your words yea definitely something big occurs later on in the novel that so dont give up yet!
But im sure a show with sufficient dfc, melonpans, and meidos is good enough for you!
To be sure i think SnS the series is definitely a style and character driven story, however since the lastest volume things are getting interesting
the Margery story is from volume S iirc, so its not entirely a filler, i think the production is taking a turn for the better, its a good idea to toss in a few episodes with action (and fresh plot) into boring school life story, keep things interesting until they get to the main storyline.
Ahh, Margery-sama… Now that’s some melonpan I’d really like to dig into… Sigh… I think having the hair down with the megane would be better, though. Gotta love the buxom meganekkos…
I agree with how much the occasional outfit change can help. Most of the characters have actually had outfit changes from time to time, although Marjorie and Shana stand out the most in my mind.
I have to say I never thought of anything related to 9/11 while watching these episodes, until I read this blog.
Oh, and where can I get these mentioned pictures of Hecate in her swimsuit?
anyone else find it weird that they opted to have Yuji having trouble casting a Fuzetsu while in the SnS movie he was able to cast one without a hitch on his first try?
The loli-lover Alastor with a nakkid SHana…
The pervert Marcosius with a nakkid Margery..
Somehow, i do think the lesbian Illusionist Crown will be having a show with a nakkid Wilhelmina soon… especially with the way things are going… I believe that Shana is nearing its armaggedon.. The only good thing happening in the last few episodes is SHana wearing a casual outfit in the park…
The silver fuzetsu sure is a sign of the scriptwriters trying to tie things forcefully