SHAKUGAN NO SHANA (VOLUME 1).
August 21st 2008 23:38
Category: Videos, Television
“A heart beat that lasts for eternity, lives consumed in soundless balls of fire.
No one can tell when the world is displaced, and the flames of the Crimson World sweeps over all.”
Alastor, the Flame of Heaven.
Original story by: Yashichiro Takashi.
Original art by: Noizi Ito.
Director: Takashi Watanabe.
Screenplay by:
Producer: Kouhei Kawase.
Starring: Tabitha St Germain (Shana), Kristian Ayre (Yuji Sakai), Matthew Erickson (Hayate Ike), Brad Swaile (Sato), Paul Dobson (Alastor), Nicole Bouma (Marianne), Trevor Devall (Firagne/Marcosius) & Janyse Jaud (Margery Daw).
English Version produced by: Geneon Entertainment Inc.
Released by: Madman Entertainment.
Running Time: 100 minutes. Rating: PG.
When I first saw the cover of this particular DVD there was something rather familiar about the style of the artwork and the title character. Precisely what this was didn’t immediately click until I had actually started watching the show and then that’s when I realised that the person who had drawn Shana in the original light novels (a sort of a combination of manga and novel as far as I’ve been able to make out) was the same artist who was responsible for the artwork in The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (TMOHS) light novels that in turn lead to the anime series of the same name. So as I watched the girl with red eyes and crimson hair go about her business she did remind me a little of the hyperactive Haruhi in some of her mannerisms and appearance.
The other comparisons that can be drawn between Shakugan no Shana and TMOHS are that both are told from the view point of someone other than the title character and both are set around the activities of a ‘typical’ Japanese high school and the students that attend classes there. Of course these similarities aside Shakugan no Shana then moves off into a whole different sphere of drama and action from that found in TMOHS, big time. After all with the later show the tile character seeks out the strange, the unusual and fantastic whilst in this show the title character is a fantastic and otherworldly being in her own right despite being no older or taller than your average Japanese high school girl (in the manga/anime world at least). The other interesting feature is that we swiftly find out that the narrator of this unusual drama is not exactly an ordinary person by any extent, although he isn’t aware of this as the first episode in this particular volume opens.
Misaki City, a seemingly average Japanese city located somewhere in the isles of the Rising Sun, provides the backdrop in which events unfold. It is a tale that begins with the Cherry Blossom season which according to Yuji Sakai, a fairly ordinary male student at a local high school, started late this particular year. For Misaki it is all effectively beginning for him, he is starting high school, he is a guy who is at the period of life where he is in the springtime of his youth (to borrow a term from Naruto). Life with all its myriad colours and moods, its joys, its disappointments and its epiphanies is, as far as he knows, just really beginning. Unfortunately as he walks the highways and byways of Misaki City bound for school, cherry blossom leaves blowing in the breeze and falling on the street, he has no idea that his worldview is about to take a severe reality check.
Intersecting with the real world is another known simply as the Crimson World, this is a place where dwell beings known as Crimson Denizens and Lords of the Crimson World and their various attendant minions. Crimson denizens often take the opportunity to cross over into the ‘real’ world and consume existences, the life force of the average everyday person walking around and going about their business. Why do they do this? Because they need to feed on this energy, their own world has no ‘existence’ and these beings require it to continue. Unfortunately denizens are prone to feeding to excess because they can and don’t really care about the effect this may have on the rest of the world. The Lords of the Crimson World aren’t to keen on this kind of behaviour and do what they can to prevent such excess and unnecessary unbalancing of the universe that occurs as a result. This is where the flame hazes come into the picture.
A flame haze is a being bound to one of the Lords of the Crimson World whose task it is to hunt down denizens and eliminate them as well as maintaining the balance of an area that has been disrupted by the feeding excesses of rampant denizens. Shades of Tales of Earthsea, if the balance is disrupted then no doubt bad things will occur. Of course even though flame hazes fight the denizens and their excess they themselves are often solo operators, they are not known for co-operation or even amicability amongst their ranks and as it is revealed later on down the track the meeting of two flame hazes can lead to confrontation on a grand scale. Shana is a flame haze and the Lord of the Crimson World to whom she is bound to is Alastor, the Flame of the Heavens and some one known to all and sundry within the Crimson World.
Under any normal circumstances Yuji would probably never encounter someone like Shana, who initially is only known as the one with crimson hair and eyes ablaze, few flame hazes being gifted with actual names. Still our hapless hero finds himself amidst a sudden feeding session by the denizens of the Crimson World and that’s when he finds out that his world is not as he had believed it to be (you can take either the blue or the red pill Mr Anderson). As the flame haze bluntly tells him he was consumed some time ago, he is nothing but a torch, a thing created in order to maintain the balance, torches exist so that the consumption of the original person won’t have an impact on reality and start to cause things to unravel big time. For some reason though Yuji Sakai isn’t just any ordinary torch, he is also a mystes, a torch who has concealed with in them a treasure and treasures like existences are also sought by the various denizens of the Crimson World. Treasures are items of power that can be used by the denizens, lords, their Rinne minions as well as flame hazes. Naturally the fact that this torch has such a valuable item piques both the curiosity of Alastor and his flame haze. Of course all this is news to Yuji, and it’s rather interesting to see how he begins to handle this situation into which he finds himself inadvertently thrust.
Initially when I decided to get this DVD I was like Yuji Sakai, there was no real idea of what it was all about and how it would all eventually pan out once it was on my screen and unfolding its tale. Fortunately it has kind of grown on me like TMOHS did and it was an entertaining afternoons viewing, there is loads of potential for the rest of the series and a good solid story that no doubt will unfold with each volume. Along with all the supernatural action and fighting there is humour, budding romance, intrigue and mystery to flesh things out and give it substance and a broader appeal. Apparently the current set of DVDs that are available are the first season of this particular show with a second season either being aired on television in Japan or has just finished being aired.
Shakugan No Shana is definitely a series worth watching, before the flames of the Crimson World sweep over all...
No one can tell when the world is displaced, and the flames of the Crimson World sweeps over all.”
Alastor, the Flame of Heaven.
Original story by: Yashichiro Takashi.
Original art by: Noizi Ito.
Director: Takashi Watanabe.
Screenplay by:
Producer: Kouhei Kawase.
Starring: Tabitha St Germain (Shana), Kristian Ayre (Yuji Sakai), Matthew Erickson (Hayate Ike), Brad Swaile (Sato), Paul Dobson (Alastor), Nicole Bouma (Marianne), Trevor Devall (Firagne/Marcosius) & Janyse Jaud (Margery Daw).
Released by: Madman Entertainment.
Running Time: 100 minutes. Rating: PG.
When I first saw the cover of this particular DVD there was something rather familiar about the style of the artwork and the title character. Precisely what this was didn’t immediately click until I had actually started watching the show and then that’s when I realised that the person who had drawn Shana in the original light novels (a sort of a combination of manga and novel as far as I’ve been able to make out) was the same artist who was responsible for the artwork in The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (TMOHS) light novels that in turn lead to the anime series of the same name. So as I watched the girl with red eyes and crimson hair go about her business she did remind me a little of the hyperactive Haruhi in some of her mannerisms and appearance.
The other comparisons that can be drawn between Shakugan no Shana and TMOHS are that both are told from the view point of someone other than the title character and both are set around the activities of a ‘typical’ Japanese high school and the students that attend classes there. Of course these similarities aside Shakugan no Shana then moves off into a whole different sphere of drama and action from that found in TMOHS, big time. After all with the later show the tile character seeks out the strange, the unusual and fantastic whilst in this show the title character is a fantastic and otherworldly being in her own right despite being no older or taller than your average Japanese high school girl (in the manga/anime world at least). The other interesting feature is that we swiftly find out that the narrator of this unusual drama is not exactly an ordinary person by any extent, although he isn’t aware of this as the first episode in this particular volume opens.
Intersecting with the real world is another known simply as the Crimson World, this is a place where dwell beings known as Crimson Denizens and Lords of the Crimson World and their various attendant minions. Crimson denizens often take the opportunity to cross over into the ‘real’ world and consume existences, the life force of the average everyday person walking around and going about their business. Why do they do this? Because they need to feed on this energy, their own world has no ‘existence’ and these beings require it to continue. Unfortunately denizens are prone to feeding to excess because they can and don’t really care about the effect this may have on the rest of the world. The Lords of the Crimson World aren’t to keen on this kind of behaviour and do what they can to prevent such excess and unnecessary unbalancing of the universe that occurs as a result. This is where the flame hazes come into the picture.
A flame haze is a being bound to one of the Lords of the Crimson World whose task it is to hunt down denizens and eliminate them as well as maintaining the balance of an area that has been disrupted by the feeding excesses of rampant denizens. Shades of Tales of Earthsea, if the balance is disrupted then no doubt bad things will occur. Of course even though flame hazes fight the denizens and their excess they themselves are often solo operators, they are not known for co-operation or even amicability amongst their ranks and as it is revealed later on down the track the meeting of two flame hazes can lead to confrontation on a grand scale. Shana is a flame haze and the Lord of the Crimson World to whom she is bound to is Alastor, the Flame of the Heavens and some one known to all and sundry within the Crimson World.
Under any normal circumstances Yuji would probably never encounter someone like Shana, who initially is only known as the one with crimson hair and eyes ablaze, few flame hazes being gifted with actual names. Still our hapless hero finds himself amidst a sudden feeding session by the denizens of the Crimson World and that’s when he finds out that his world is not as he had believed it to be (you can take either the blue or the red pill Mr Anderson). As the flame haze bluntly tells him he was consumed some time ago, he is nothing but a torch, a thing created in order to maintain the balance, torches exist so that the consumption of the original person won’t have an impact on reality and start to cause things to unravel big time. For some reason though Yuji Sakai isn’t just any ordinary torch, he is also a mystes, a torch who has concealed with in them a treasure and treasures like existences are also sought by the various denizens of the Crimson World. Treasures are items of power that can be used by the denizens, lords, their Rinne minions as well as flame hazes. Naturally the fact that this torch has such a valuable item piques both the curiosity of Alastor and his flame haze. Of course all this is news to Yuji, and it’s rather interesting to see how he begins to handle this situation into which he finds himself inadvertently thrust.
Initially when I decided to get this DVD I was like Yuji Sakai, there was no real idea of what it was all about and how it would all eventually pan out once it was on my screen and unfolding its tale. Fortunately it has kind of grown on me like TMOHS did and it was an entertaining afternoons viewing, there is loads of potential for the rest of the series and a good solid story that no doubt will unfold with each volume. Along with all the supernatural action and fighting there is humour, budding romance, intrigue and mystery to flesh things out and give it substance and a broader appeal. Apparently the current set of DVDs that are available are the first season of this particular show with a second season either being aired on television in Japan or has just finished being aired.
Shakugan No Shana is definitely a series worth watching, before the flames of the Crimson World sweep over all...
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