Shakugan no Shana Review

Shakugan no Shana is an anime based on a novel authored by Yashichiro Takahashi. It consist of 24 episodes and aired in Japan from October 6,2005 until March 23,2006.

Story
Shakugan no Shana story begin when a normal high school boy named Yuji Sakai suddenly trapped in a time stop. Every people movement except him was stopped and they transformed into something which look like blue flames. Suddenly a monster, later known as “Rinne”, appeared and start eating the blue flames. As Yuji who still shocked with the events being grabbed by the monster and almost being eaten, out of nowhere a girl with burning red hair and eyes appeared to his rescue. This girl carries a long katana and effieciently destroyed the rampaging monster. From her he know about the secret battle between the Flame Haze like herself with Guze no Tomogara and their Rinne. Every flame haze have made a pact with a King of Guze to obtain power. In Shana's case, she made a pact with Alastor, the Flame of Heaven. She also explained how she and other Flame Haze replace the person who has been eaten by a Rinne with a “torch”. A torch basically a copy of people which has their outer appearance and personality. With this, other people who know them, never know that they were already dead. A torch’s life will slowly diminished and dissappear and with that the existence of the impersonated person will fade away and dissappear too. She also told Yuji that he was a torch too, the real Yuji Sakai is already dead. Why he still able to move within the time stop is still a mystery. The story from there told us about how Yuji and the Flame Haze which he called Shana (she doesn’t have a name before that) live their everyday life while battling the Guze no Tomogara, the bond that starting to grow between them, and the special power that Yuji has. Later they will meet another Flame Haze named Margery Daw that at first show hostility towards Shana but in the later episodes will come to Shana's aid.

Personal opinion
For me the story of this anime is pretty good and deep. There will be a lot of emotional drama scene that show the feelings between characters, even the non-main characters.

Similarities : Shakugan no Shana Second, Kaze no Stigma