First Impressions / Shakugan no Shana

Summary:

Waking up after a nightmare of an armored knight killing everyone and haunting her, Margery wakes up to find herself still in Keisaku’s home. Across town, Yuuji is being trained by Wilhelmina and Shana, the former of whom summons a Rinne for him to fight. Though scared, Yuuji meets the Rinne’s punch with his own fists and dispels it. Alastor observes Yuuji’s progress and suggests afterwards that it’s time to advance to the next step: the creation of unrestricted methods. As for the Reiji Maigo and its kaikin, Wilhelmina reports that it’s still being investigated, but Alastor thinks that Yuuji should just concentrate on the task at hand. That night, Wilhelmina is poring through several stacks of books when she comes across a name – Pheles – and decides that she has to go somewhere for a while. Keisaku meanwhile returns home after having watched Yuuji’s training and asks Margery to train him too. He doesn’t care what it is, as long as he’ll be able to do something so that he can go along with her and help her. Margery, however, thinks that he’ll die. Since she also thinks that he and Tanaka don’t understand, she decides to tell them about her past.

In New York, many years after Black Thursday, Margery had fought a Tomogara named Annaberg whose goal was to repaint the world through what he called the acceleration of civilization. She had thought she killed him, but Annaberg had Sydonay’s help in striking back at her and knocking her out. Margery had gotten up after Annaberg disappeared, and as she was being bathed in Marchosias’ Flame of Purification, she had been discovered by a boy. It turned out that this boy was a relatively new Flame Haze named Yuri Chvojka who was with a Crimson Lord called Valac, and he had looked up to Margery because of all the Tomogara she had defeated. Yuri was working with the East Edge guy that Margery was going to go see, but Margery got an odd feeling from him and thought that he was strange. In any case, she visited East Edge to give him a letter that’s related to how the Flame Hazes of the world were heading to Europe to fight a large group of Tomogara. When East Edge asked what Margery thought of Yuri, she explained Yuri wasn’t suited for this since he didn’t bear hatred or anger towards the Tomogara. Plus, she felt something about him was weird.

East Edge actually sensed that Yuri has a madness inside of him that he shouldn’t have. It made him too dangerous, and East Edge’s Crimson Lord Quetzalcoatl even thought that Yuri shouldn’t go into battle. They wanted Margery to train Yuri, and so Yuri began to follow Margery around. It soon became clear to Margery that Yuri didn’t like the Tomogara, but, as Valac pointed out, Yuri was more concerned about protecting humans than keeping the balance of the world. Yuri himself knew that he was weird for a Flame Haze, and he told Margery of how he became one. He had been on a boat to America when it came under attack by an octopus-shaped Tomogara that had proceeded to eat his family and friends. Valac had found him as he was sinking into the water, and he became a Flame Haze. Although Yuri is thankful for this, he regrets not being able to save anyone, and so he wanted to be able to do that next time. Having heard this, Margery had ordered Yuri to just go home because he wasn’t fit to be a Flame Haze. She felt that a novice like him would be troublesome for her. When Yuuri tried to chase after her, she had thrown him back without even turning around and ordered him not to come.

On that night, Annaberg had entered the Empire State Building and called for it to sacrifice itself for his acceleration of civilization. At roughly the same time, as she was flying over the building, Margery activated a Fuuzetsu.

Preview:

That was a very, very impressive start to the episode. However, it looked like they compensated for it a little by having the first third or so of the episode (after that scene) be a bit worse in animation quality than usual – the character designs looked off. It’s probably unrealistic, but I wish the entire show could look as good as that opening part. Of course, that wasn’t the only good part of this episode since it also explored Margery’s past. It was definitely a step up from the previous few episodes. As much as I like plenty of character development, I like it even more when there’s a dose of action to go with it.
As for the actual story, I get the feeling that Yuri won’t survive, though that’s mainly because there had been no mention of him before this in the current storyline. Maybe he’ll end up dying die, but he’ll succeed at saving Margery first since he’s so concerned about saving people. Whatever the case, it feels like Shana II is finally picking up the pace since, even after the story of Margery’s past concludes, they’ve laid out more stuff that can be developed after that with Yuuji getting stronger and the mention of Pheles.

40 Comments

  13. So this should keep all the people who bitched and moaned the past 3 eps happy. BTW, is that Youji or the other guy? damn they look alike at times. Anyways, I can’t wait to see Youji go you know what later on. keekekeke

    GP
    Reply

  14. I think that’s other guy. Yuuji is too soft to look so menacing, atleast right now he, but if I remember correctly that’ll change.

    I hope this episode is incentive enough for them to sub ep07

    bearzerger
    Reply

  16. very happy with this episode, i wasn’t expecting two episodes dedicated to margery but i am a happy camper. I would also want to follow her and become of use for her. margery ius just two awesome.

    golthin
    Reply

  24. I decided to comment on this since there’s not much “ridiculous exaggerations about this series’ apparent lack of action and quality”.

    First off, great episode. A lot happened here, we got a mention of Pheles, met 2 new Flame Hazes (Yuri and East Edge) and we’re getting some Margery back story. Things are progressing nicely. The preview seems to indicate that Yuri will die next episode, which would cement the point of Margery telling the story to Satou. Now that Pheles has been mentioned, I’m 100% sure we won’t be going to back to the Konoe stuff for a while.

    Tokkan
    Reply

  27. No, they’re not bitching and moaning now. Right now it’s been “zomg great ep, margury is teh win, the show is great now!” But for the past 3-4 eps it’s been nothing but, booo, this show sucks, I can’t watch anymore, i’m dropping this POS it’s so boring. It seems that the majority are so simple minded and easy to please it’s funny. Give them some action and some fanservice and they’re happy. Story or character development be damned.

    Even though this episode and the next are full of Margury character development.

    GP
    Reply

  29. Yea, like the past 3 episodes had great character development.

    Shana the character in the first series? Angst and YUUJI!

    Shana the character in the second series? Angst and YUUJI!

    Face it, it was practically filler.

    Makall
    Reply

  32. Character development is fine, but the way they’ve approached it in the past few episodes didn’t exactly make you want to watch the show. I had several people tell me they were just reading these summaries and waiting until the action picked up again because that’s what they wanted to see.

    Omni
    Reply

  33. I never really had much trouble with the slow pace of the past few episodes, probably because I actually like anime where nothing much happens (see ARIA, Sketchbook, Ichigo Marshmallow). I’m intrigued by this bit of backstory from Margery though… Tsk, too bad we only get a glimpse of Serpent of the Festival…

    Myssa Rei
    Reply

  37. Maybe I’m missing something here, but what “character development” happened in the past few episodes?

    I’m thinking back and I can’t remember knowing anything more about the major characters. Heck, I don’t even know about anything more about Konoe.

    Enough griping, because this episode really is good because things are finally picking up. Let’s see, we have the first Margery flashback, the Pheles mention, and Shana telling Yuuji to start using unrestricted spells. Signs of good stuff to come. 🙂

    meh
    Reply

  38. Character development in Shagukan no Shana!? What are you thinking about? It’s not Planetes, or something like that! All the characters are moroons, and will continue like that. Exceptions, of course: the adults, especially Marjorie. Suspense is the issue: suspense backs the serie. Not exactly action, however some would be good, like this episode. What will happen next? That’s what keep the people going through the serie. Intelectuals are dismissed…

    Joe Sargent
    Reply

  40. Y’know, I think that the little boy is the armored knight. He looks harmless, but I’m getting a real ‘psycho’ vibe off him…And remember, Daw said that ‘she should be the one to kill them’, before the knight went berserk.

    Chan
    Reply

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