Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		2.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.0

Shakugan no Shana: Season 1 Blu-ray Movie Review

Where have I seen this before?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 18, 2012

Is there a doctor in the house, meaning is there someone with an advanced degree in psychiatry or psychology who might be able to explain the weird, almost seemingly genetic, proclivity of Japanese anime producers to craft shows where geekish young men are suddenly paired with otherwordly females for the sole purpose of capturing and/or decimating all sorts of ghosts and ghoulies from some nebulous realm of evil? Of course many of these at least somewhat similar shows (The World God Only Knows, Soul Eater and the Bleach franchise, whose only Blu-ray release so far is Bleach Movie 3: Fade to Black) were, like Shakugan no Shana itself, based on preexisting media like light novels or mangas, but the general thesis still remains intact: what is it about the Japanese consciousness that loves to exploit this particular (and kind of peculiar) story line? (And for sticklers, yes, Soul Eater’s main pair reverses the sexes in terms of its pairing, but the basic idea is still more or less the same. Also, to be fair, some of these series which are reminiscent of each other actually came after Shakugan no Shana.) The kind of funny thing with regard to all of these similar properties is how they each create their own, sometimes very complex, mythology, replete with a rather convoluted vocabulary including lots of show-specific terminology, even though the basic premise of the show is, frankly, nothing new. So, in Shakugan no Shana’s case, we have our human hero, Yuji Sakai, who in the series’ opening episodes, discovers that he’s actually dead—or something like that—kind of like the lead character in Yu Yu Hakusho. This little nugget of information is relayed to him by a strange otherwordly girl (you were expecting something less?) who initially goes by the somewhat cumbersome appellation Flame Haired Blazing Eyed Hunter, but who is soon named Shana by Yuji. Shana is, as might be presumed if you’ve seen any of the shows listed above, a superpowered being who is out to restore the balance between good and evil in the world. In the Shakugan no Shana universe, she is an entity called a Flame Haze, and she sees Yuji as a Torch, perhaps equivalent to a flickering soul-ember. It turns out, however, that Yuji is, to quote a certain Monty Python film, “not quite dead yet”, as his Torch-ness (for want of a better term) includes a special mystical power which allows him to regenerate as a living human on a daily basis. It may sound overly complicated, but if you’ve seen any show that follows these same basic premises, you won’t have any problem following the general outlines of Shakugan no Shana.

Shakugan no Shana is an oddly metaphysical little anime, one that spends a surprising amount of time on questions of identity and being as it attempts (not always successfully) to easily convey the rather convoluted states of existence of both Yuji and Shana. About two-thirds of the way through the first episode, an episode which kind of lurches between really static elements and then over the top action sequences, everything grinds to a momentary halt as Shana attempts to explicate the idea of a Torch. The closest analog that I can come up with is that classic late 1950’s science fiction thriller, Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It turns that scores of humans, including Yuji, have been replaced with “torch doubles”, kind of like the pod people in the Don Siegel film, so that the vast masses of humanity don’t become too shocked that there is a major supernatural battle going on. It also turns out that most torches have a limited “shelf life”, so to speak, and are slated to burn out sooner rather than later. That’s where Yuji’s status as a Mystes (there’s that problematic terminology again) kicks in, for it provides him the regenerative power that makes sure Shakugan no Shana wasn’t a one episode series.

Shakugan no Shana simply traverses such a well worn path that most anime fans are probably going to be able to predict events long before they happen. The series, at least in this first season, also falls into an all to comfortable rut where the shōnen aspect trundles along for the first segment of any given episode, at which point a supernatural battle ensues, lasting for most of the second segment, after which things settle down and we’re back to life (or whatever a “torch” experiences) as usual. There are a couple of saving graces here. First, the relationship between Yuji and Shana is a slowly developing arc that actually does create at least a bit of interest. And perhaps most importantly, the show seems to have a decided sense of humor about itself, which helps to offset some of the cliché ridden aspects, almost as if the creative staff knew what a “trite and true” offering they were crafting. This humor certainly never rises to the manic level of, say, Soul Eater, but it at least gives the show a little extra zing.

These positive elements are offset, however, by some less than well handled elements, including a needlessly silly and melodramatic love triangle that never offers much other than two girls screaming at each other while Yuji looks on, slightly bemused that he’s the unlikely center of attention. The series also suffers internally when the rather boisterous battle elements, many of which feature really bizarre creatures, are stacked up against the “normal life” sequences, which are decidedly drab and routine. This is a series that may in fact appeal to some anime fans who haven’t seen anything like it before, or may offer passing entertainment value for those who have seen something like it before. But this first season at least is an exercise in some major déjà vu.

Shakugan no Shana: Season 1 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

FUNimation's packaging on this first season of Shakugan no Shana states that this features an HD native source, but this AVC encoded 1080p transfer looks much more like an upconversion to me (I have a message into my contacts at FUNimation, and will update this review as more information is received, but for the time being I'm trusting my gut and have set the specs to indicate this is an upconversion). Line detail is okay, but not excessively sharp, but the entire enterprise just has that slightly soft and blurry look that indicates an SD native upconversion. There are also numerous problems throughout this presentation, including some of the most pervasive banding I personally can remember having seen. The best elements here are the CGI sequences which kick in when the supernatural elements (and battle scenes) are under way. As with so many anime, we get big swirling magical rings with occult glyphs all over them (see screencap 3 for a good example), and those tend to look a good deal sharper than the more traditional cel animation elements. Character designs are pretty standard here, and in fact the better character designs tend to be the bad guys, including huge "Stay-Puft babies" (you'll know what I mean if you watch the series, but see screencap 2 for a little preview) and menacing doll like creatures.

Shakugan no Shana: Season 1 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Shakugan no Shana features Dolby TrueHD 2.0 mixes in both the original Japanese language as well as an English dub. Unlike a lot of recent anime releases (frankly not always on FUNimation), however, the mixes here are virtually identical, with no amplitude difference between the two, and only the voice work (and of course the language) differentiating them. The Japanese voice track is a tad more "delicate", for want of a better term, with a somehow less urgent feeling in the delivery. The English voice cast, perhaps a little surprisingly actually the Universal Geneon dub and not the FUNimation one, is very good to excellent, though Kristian Ayre's Yuji seems a little low key at times, especially with regard to the frequent voice over narration. Fidelity is excellent on both of these tracks, and dynamic range is also quite wide.

Shakugan no Shana: Season 1 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Naze Nani Shana (SD; 31:10) consists of eight shorts that have quasi-chibi looking characters of Friagne and Marianne performing in "ask anything question" boxes, where they explain terminology and various aspects of the series. These are played strictly for laughs.


• Shakugan no Shana-tan (SD; 3:22) is a series of shorts featuring Yuji and a mini-chibi version of Shana.


• Shakugan no Shana-tan Returns (SD; 6:08) is more of the same.


• Textless Opening Song "Scarlet Color Sky" (HD; 1:32)


• Textless Opening Song "Being" (HD; 1:32)


• Textless Closing Song "A Girll Will Be Born at Dawn" (HD; 1:32)


• Textless Closing Song "Crimson Calmness" (HD; 1:32)


• Textless Closing Song "Scarlet Color Sky" (HD; 1:32)

Shakugan no Shana: Season 1 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Don't get me (or this review) wrong: there's nothing really horrible about Shakugan no Shana, and many anime fans may in fact get at least a modicum of entertainment value out of it. But it's just so completely like so many other offerings that it almost becomes hard to differentiate it from its competitors at times. There's simply not a lot of distinctive content here to latch on to, other than an overly convoluted set of terms (some of which are explained in some funny shorts included as a supplement). For those just getting into the anime world, this will probably be a better bet than for those who have a long history with the idiom and have no doubt seen many other series with this same basic set up.