Shakugan no SHANA Special: Koi to Onsen no Kougai Gakushuu!

Information of Anime

The story takes place in-between the TV show where Shana & Kazumi Yoshida starts to declare war for "taking" Yuuji Sakai.  Their class are going on a field trip to see shrines & temples.  Their classmate, Matake Ogata takes this opportunity to express her feelings to Eita Tanaka. 

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.

This is basically a story that uses Matake as the main character as she tries to tell Eita her feelings during this field trip.  Because he sticks with Keisaku Sato too much, she starts thinking of him as a rival for Eita's love.  The OVA is full of laughs & imagery yuri from Matake's head.  Overall, it's basically a fanservice side story that doesn't really do anything to the main storyline since Matake's confession doesn't go through.  Plus, it's got your typical hot springs for that high school field trip.

My Personal Review

Shakugan no SHANA Special: Koi to Onsen no Kougai Gakushuu! OVA is pretty funny & it's really made for fanservice purposes really.  It's best to watch the TV show first since watching the OVA right away would create some confusion & have first time viewers lost due to the relationship of the characters have for each other.

Animation

The same as the TV show.  The drawings are unique.  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 are pretty bright as the OVA doesn't have any fight scenes.  The colours are quite bright & cheerful really.  This is different from the TV show.

The animation movements are smooth.  Unlike the TV show, it contains a lot of silly stuff like Hayato Ike getting his body thrown around the place.

Sound

Unlike the TV show, the sound effect are mainly silly stuff.  Pretty clean & on cue.

The seiyuus here are the same as the TV show.  No need to re-adjust anything.

The music is more on the silly side.  Nothing from the TV show where the music is intense & climatic.  They help fit those comedy moods well,

Story

The story is basically about the side character Matake's love for Eita.  It's funny how her weird jealously for him is rivaled against Sato.  It's over the top.  But I noticed how the creators like to use yuri & ecchi stuff a lot in the side stories from the Tan lineup.  It's more yuri here though.  Nevertheless, this OVA is has a surprisingly nice storyline for something that's not related to the original plot.

Overall Conclusion

Shakugan no SHANA Special: Koi to Onsen no Kougai Gakushuu! is a great OVA for laughs.  Plus, it gives Matake fans something to cheer about as we take a slight breather from Shana & Yuuji's relationship.  You definitely don't want to miss this OVA from your anime list.

Shakugan no SHANA Special: Koi to Onsen no Kougai Gakushuu! gets an 8.5/10 from me.  The OVA is nothing but laughs.  Surprisingly, the story is written well for fanservice.

Last updated on January 16, 2008