Shakugan no SHANA Movie

Information of Anime

Shakugan no SHANA movie retells the first arc of the first season of the TV show which was about Friagne the Hunter.

Storyline (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Below is a summary of the storyline I've seen.  This section does contain some spoilers.  If you haven't seen the series yet & don't want to be spoiled, skip this section.  If you want to know the story & want to see how I viewed it, read on.

If you have seen the first season of the TV show, there's hardly anything new.  The movie retells the first arc of the TV show where Shana & Yuuji first met.  The only difference is the last parts of the movie & the ending.  Alastor is temporary released from the pendent & defeats Friagne who thought that his Hougu Trigger Happy who cause Shana to explore from the sudden release of energy from Alastor being free.  The movie ends with Yuuji surprisingly learning that his Mistes is the Reiji Maigo & he agrees to help Shana in her missions.

My Personal Review

Shakugan no SHANA movie is a bit disappointing.  I was expecting something else, not a retelling of the first arc from the TV show with a new ending.  I'm more disappointed to hear that this was in theatres too.

Animation

The same as the TV show as most of the stuff there is recycled into the movie.  The drawings are unique.  It's something I haven't seen for a while.  Shana's eyes looks like the eyes of a female loli character.  Big, wide & sharp points on the eyelash ends.  The designs look similar to Gad Guard's, but more in a cute way.  So cute, it's hard to believe that the show contains some pretty violent stuff.  Even the Guze no Tagaras look pretty unique.  But the drawings are clean.  It's not my style, but it's pretty attractive.

The backgrounds have that eerie feeling as well when the world is put under a spell.  But most of the time, it's not drawn too clean.  It's pretty blurry at times & the lines aren't too sharp.  The tones are good though.  It gives off some effect of the buildings & structures.  Also, they don't mess up together with the characters.

The animation movements are smooth.  Although the fight scenes are pretty interesting to watch some times, it's pretty much eye candy.  The movements look pretty natural to me & there isn't any distortion or breaks that I noticed.

Sound

The sound effect are ok.  Nothing too silly, mainly natural.  The volume level is about right since I didn't hear any fuzzes.

The seiyuus here aren't too bad.  I'm thinking most of it is recycled voices from the TV show; not a re-acting.

The music is symphony based & isn't too exciting to listen too.  It didn't help establish a mood while I was watching it.  All of it is the same as the TV show with the exception of the ending theme is seems to be the only new song here.

Story

If you seen the TV show, there's nothing new here except for the final battle & ending.  Although it's pretty good, I didn't like the idea of this being a theatrical movie release.  Why waste money on a movie ticket that you pretty much seen on TV already?  If you are willing to re-watch it & wait for the new ending to appear, I guess it would be different.

Overall Conclusion

Shakugan no SHANA movie is something that should have gone to DVD instead.  Making a theatrical movie for this is a waste & I don't know what the writers were thinking.  You are better off renting it instead.

Shakugan no SHANA movie gets an 8.5/10 from me.  Despite my bashing on the movie idea, the story is still good.  If you are new to the series or forgot about the first arc which I somewhat did, this isn't a problem.  But, this is still really a waste on the movie's budget.  I wanted something different. 

Last updated on January 16, 2008