Shakugan No Shana Second 19
Something That Couldn’t Be Said
[What's a Tomogara, you say? Try the Shana info page]
Last week, I said something to the effect that I’d be OK with Shana doing that Bleach/Dragonball thing where a single fight draws out for a whole season, if they’d just get us out of the void of nothingness that the show’s been stuck in almost since day one. Well. I said “almost.” Good thing, too, as that appears to be their goal. Is this going to end up a 200-episode show with drawn-out action scenes and minimal character development? Maybe I just can’t be happy either way, but I was sure glad something happened this week.
Recap, The Summary of Injustice
Turns out Zarovee the Collation Flux is a Jaeger, which sounds like hunter but is really more of a decoy. He’s here to pull Yuji away, thus luring the Flame Haze into a trap set by the Wanderer, a giant slug-shaped cannon. His ability to clone himself keeps Yuji at bay: attack me here and I’ll eat some souls over there. So most of the first half is spent with Yuji’s incessant internal dialog as Zarovee leads him to the designated spot. During this time, Shana takes care of Yuji’s mom while wearing a pink sweater, thus sealing the deal on her transformation from killing machine to useless girl.
Funny, no one takes me seriously when I make that threat
Zarovee is planning to draw her out by taking Yuji to a strategic location. Fortunately, Yuji susses this trap out (easily, Zarovee’s a pretty dumb Tomogara), and when he happens to see Tanaka and Ogata on the street, he starts yelling crazily to signal them. If you remember, Tanaka quit the henchman game, but he can’t let it go — so he visits Margery anyway after about 8 minutes of internal debate, with shame in his heart. Unsurprisingly, the kinder gentler Margery-san forgives him, and her and Satou take off to… do nothing the rest of the episode.
Pan to the sky.
It involves a thousand meangingless terms designed to impart an illusion of depth to an otherwise barely-written show
To be fair, they do contact Shana and Wilhelmina, who do all the slug-fighting after Yuji cleverly casts his own Fuzetsu to take care of his situation and kills the fuck out of Zarovee. I’m sorry, but for a guy who’s never done this before, he sure seems to have no qualms about ramming the Blutsauger through the middle of a human-looking thing begging for its life. He even breaks one copy’s neck with his bare fucking hands.
at the intersection of hopelessly GAR and needlessly cruel, there stands the New Yuji
All seems well, but in the place where the Slug Cannon was destroyed, a huge explosion drowns out Yuji’s attempt to make some apology none of us care about.
What We’ve Learned
Action is back! So is fanservice, apparently. And Yuji understands why Shana and Kazumi are mad at him: he wasn’t ready to leave the city, he was lying to himself, and now it sounds like he wants to stay after all, to protect it.
Oh god I think I just got served
One thing hasn’t changed. When the camera cuts to a new character, that character will have a sweaty distressed expression and will make a small grunting noise. Every time.
Thoughts
As president of the Margery-San fan club, I apologize for that.
Next week, the explosion is revealed to be Sabrac the Destructive Blade, Wilhelmina’s old arch-enemy or whatever, so the time to kill of a major character might come exactly one season after she joined the story. Either way, I say again — the action is back, and hopefully it’s not going anywhere this time.
- otou-san out!
