Gekijouban Shakugan no Shana

Title:Gekijouban Shakugan no Shana
Shakugan no Shana the Movie
Shana of the Burning Eyes: The Movie
劇場版 灼眼のシャナ
Overall:Rent
Keywords: , , , , , , ,
Notables: Animation - JC Staff
Sakai Yūji is a normal high school student until one afternoon, time stops and a giant baby doll begins to consume the life force of the people around, Yuji being the only one not effected by the time freeze. Seeing him as special, the doll goes to consume him but is stopped by a young girl with fire-red hair and a katana. Yuji learns the horrifying truth about his own existence as a Torch, to say nothing of the horrors in this world as he is enlisted by this young girl, a Flame Haze, to bring out the entity responsible for having so many humans consumed. He names this girl "Shana" after her katana's name and she takes over the life of one of his female classmates who'd been consumed by the doll in order to stick close to him. Together, they must learn why there are so many Torches in the city as well as who's been killing the other Flame Haze's before its to late.
[Movie ~1:26:20 based on the "light" novel by Yashichirou Takahashi-sensei. Produced by J.C.Staff.]
[edit] The ↗Shakugan no Shana franchise:

Original story: Parody spin-offs:
OverallArtAnimationCharacter Design MusicSeries StoryEpisode StoryReviewer
Rent 8 8 8 7 9 AstroNerdBoy [series:1343#436]

Initially, I thought this was going to be a sequel to the original TV series, so I was a tad disappointed to learn that this was just a remake of the first six (or so) episodes of Shakugan no Shana and that my sequel would come in the form of a 2nd TV series. Yay for that.

Since it had been a long while since I last saw Shakugan no Shana, I didn't remember all the details of the story. That was fine because the movie compressed down the first story arc of that series, and in doing so removed a few things for time's sake. As such, the battles between the Flame Haze's Margery Daw and Shana (which I always thought were pointless and stupid) are gone in favor of them working together right away, even if forced to do so. The other Flame Haze that Margery was tracking is also removed and this results in a tighter focus on the story with the Tomogara Friagne. Since this is a movie, the extracted stuff isn't really missed. Don't get me wrong, the extracted stuff worked great in the TV series where there was plenty of time to deal with it and I wouldn't want it removed from there. However, the writers for the movie took everything required to get us were we need to go and used it effectively.

There's not really a lot more to say. From an art and animation perspective, things were fine I thought. There was once scene where Shana and Yuji are talking and Shana's face, seen from a short distance away, looked bad. Otherwise, no complaints.

Bottom line: if you've seen the first TV series, you don't need to see this because it is just a retelling. However, if you are a fan of Shakugan no Shana, you may as well watch it just to see the differences if nothing else. If I already owned the TV series, I doubt I'd ever re-watch the movie, not because it was bad, but I'd have seen the story there. As such, I'll give this movie a Rent solely on rewatchability.

Last updated Wednesday, October 10 2007. Created Wednesday, October 10 2007.

Unevaluated chibi [series:1343#2380]
Not a sequel, but instead re-covers the first few episodes up to, and including, the battle with Friagne the Hunter. However, the movie's story line diverges significantly from the TV series about halfway through, though it ends up more-or-less in the same place. Same great Shana action with no loss in production quality that I could see, but much of the character interaction that I loved from the series had to be cut out.

Last updated Saturday, October 06 2007. Created Saturday, October 06 2007.

Other Sites
NameURL
Japanese Movie Web Site http://www.shakugan.com/movie/index.html

Community Anime Reviews

anime mikomi org