Shakugan No Shana Second 20
Rose Madder Colored War
Wha? That’s pretty specific. I suppose at least it’s not sea foam green, I hate sea foam green. I do like a little action in my action shows, and Shana finally delivered this week.
[Incidentally, link to the Shana Info Page resides here de arimasu]
Recap-ish
Not much to speak of, story-wise, it’s all one big fight. The explosion that rocked the fuzetsu-enshrined Misaki City last week was none other than Sabrac the Destructive Blade, notorious assassin and arch-enemy of Wilhelmina Carmel, currently contracted by Bal Masque to kill the shit out of Yuji.
Yep, that’s pretty much what assassins do.
And she’s here to prove she hasn’t quite passed the torch (huuurrrr) to the next generation of Flame Haze yet.
Sadly, I must. Assassin. You know. Kills targets.
Shana and Margery are taken out of commission by Sabrac’s initial attack, and that’s further exacerbated by his “Stigma” attack, which causes all their wounds to continue bleeding and fail to heal. So Wilhelmina is forced to take him on by herself, despite her own Stigma-ing injuries, all the while towing Yuji around in a trail of ribbons. Turns out he’s not so bad-ass against a real villain, but he doesn’t have that many episodes to prove his mettle.
Poor Wilhelmina, dragging this kid all around town.
Seems the guy can’t really be stopped, so the battle maid’s final move in the episode is to let him capture a decoy Yuji while the real one escapes through a sewer tunnel.
Nice trick. I’d be using that pretty much all the time. Can it use Photoshop? I could send it to work for me.
Kazumi shows up, why I don’t know, and she has a nice little chat with Shana while the world ends.
I’m not so sure. I think after you kill your first guy by breaking his neck with your hands, you’re not really the same.
Thoughts
I suppose I asked for it, nothing but action this week. There was some really cool animation with Wilhelmina’s ribbons, a new trick where she could create realistic dummy with those ribbons, and some incredibly huge explosions and attacks — all of which Sabrac managed to come out of unscathed.
wooooosh Battle Maid to the rescue
I dunno, something about the first season’s climactic explosion of action really sold me more than this has so far, but there are a couple episodes left to really whip out the big guns. The first season’s mix of (admittedly weak) drama into the action was a lot more effective too; this time the two sides are way too separate and neither seems to stand on its own all that well.
Horrible…. so awful. Makes you want to just KILL YOURSELF KAZUMI
Still, I do think they can pull a big explosive climax out of this. I just hope this super-unbeatable Sabrac isn’t taken down by something really stupid.
- otou-san out!
