Shakugan no Shana III

Warning: Spoilers

I thought that season 2 was uneven. The number of episodes they spent with Shana & Yoshida both loosing out to Hecate. Then in a moment, season 3 had the main character Sakai Yuji disappear and become the ultimate villain. Huh?

Part of the reason why I liked Shana was Yuji's transformation from helpless bystander and man-damsel in distress to a participant in the war between Flame Hazes & Denizens. Hopefully, the original light novels don't try to jump that massive gap.

Despite the jump that annihilated the cohesion of the anime's storyline, the third season is character driven. Instead of the usual planet destroying or conquering cliches, the story is driven by creation. Between the scope of the ending and the notes that they hit right, Shakugan no Shana Final is probably the worst series that I will like for a long time.

I won't be able to recommend it to other anime fans, but I have a feeling that I'm going to get Season 2 and watch it again soon.

= = =

I tried to listen to the Funimation dub. I think that it's good and manages to hit the right notes to convey the seriousness of the character's emotions, which is tough during a finale that had so many facets. However, the Geneon English version was nearly perfect and rivaled the original in quality.

This may be heresy, I couldn't tell you which I liked better between the Geneon US and the original Japanese.