A heartfelt struggle between Shana and Yuji finally come to a close as our long journey of Shakugan no Shana ends here after 7 years

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Yoshida gives Wilhelmina a message from Johann to take care of his child, his name is Justus. A whirl of light descends into the bottle Yoshida was holding and it magically turns into a baby. This baby is what the announcing God spoke of. It seems that this baby is how both Pheles and Johann can ‘continue’ living, by creating a new existence with their power of existence. Wilhelmina holds him dearly.

Lamies appears from the foundations of the new world with more than enough power of existence and restores something that was lost to this world. He then hands Yuji a ring and restores a bit of his power. The ring will only activate when conditions are met, Lamies explains no more and names Yuji’s own spell, Grammatica. He then reverts to her true form as Leanan-Sidhe and disappears in a flurry of white doves after seeing the restored portrait of herself.

Shana wants Wilhelmina to raise the new baby in the new world as the denizens will remember what the announcing God said about this new being, but she’s reluctant to go.

Rebecca appears with 1225 other flame haze ready and willing to go to the new world after the denizens to remind them that there are still flame haze present. And to back them up, Eastedge, Westshore and Southvalley join them. With that settled Rebecca sets Tendou-kyu for the new world and bids farewell.

Following suit is Saare and Chiara. And finally, with a teary-eyed goodbye, Wilhelmina leaves too.

Yuji is back to normal and he wishes to restore Misaki city to what it once was with the help of a spell Lamies left him and the vast amount of power of existence. He can’t restore deaths, but power of existence can be restored. Therefore he wants Shana to relinquish Hirai Yukari’s torch that Shana’s holding onto. However if she does, then anyone who isn’t involved in this won’t remember her as she was Yukari’s stand-in. After that he can leave for Xanadu with no regrets.

However, there is no Misaki City in the new world. Margery and Shana ask why he’s leaving but Yuji grabs Yoshida and sends Sydonay in his fully transformed form to attack.

Yuji asks Yoshida to restore the city as the Fuzetsu disappears. Margery transforms into a huge multi-headed bear and the two giants do battle in the river.

Yuji says he wants to go to Xanadu so he can tell the denizens not to eat humans but to live alongside and to coexistent with humans, not because of some law. He continues and says after that, he will be able to be together with Shana. This is his punishment to himself for killing anyone who got in the way of his ambitions.

Shana bursts out saying that she can be together with him now and gives him Hirai’s torch through a punch. She also questions the amount of burden he’s placed on himself.

Yuji’s still insistent on his self punishment and Shana, having had enough of Yuji’s rejection, blasts a powerful blizzard of flames at Yuji and Sydonay which gives Margery the chance to overwhelm and kill Sydonay. She then lays on the grass, exhausted.

Sydonay greets Hecate and the two walk together in the after world.

After a few words from Johann and acceptance from Shana, Yuji finally agrees to be together with Shana and they share a kiss. With that the ring that Lamies gave him starts to glow and just like that, he’s no longer a torch, but an existence of his own. After soaring around the skies a little, the two head together into the new world.

Our journey ends as we see Yuji and Shana walking together finally, as a happy couple.

Thoughts:

And we finally end our long journey here after going full circle with Hirai back in existence again. I believe this ending received a lot of approval from Shana fans, and I have to agree. Things were wrapped up and went the way the majority of us wanted. I finally saw Leanan-Sidhe and she completed her portrait, I happy with that. Things like that can mean the world to someone and I’m glad she left this world happy. Yuji’s unselfishness was finally beaten out of him by Shana and they leave this world as a happy couple with only a few people remembering they were ever there in the first place, like starting life anew. Johann and Pheles gave birth to a child to end their story and start a new one with Wilhelmina. Yeah, there weren’t any important questions left unanswered.

I do wonder about this new world though, it’s a paradise because denizens won’t have to eat humans to survive and can live in peace with them right? And Shana’s implemented the rule in so they physically can’t anyway, hence why I wonder so many flame haze are heading after them. If the rule wasn’t implemented then sure go in to keep an eye on them, but it is, so they can’t do anything, though I suppose if flame haze travel in they can also live in peace.

Then I guess Yuji did what he set out to do and relived flame haze of their duties. Well, I suppose it’s better safe than sorry, a lot of powerful flame haze are there to keep an eye on the denizens and of course Bal Masque themselves are there too, so just more guarantee then that they won’t start doing something different like killing humans straight off for fun. Which isn’t impossible, they can easily see themselves as superior and see humans as what we see animals, hunting isn’t uncommon even in these modern days.

It’s a shame that no one in this world will remember Shana or Yuji, you live for the memories these days and it’s just a little depressing that there are only a few people who’ll remember the hardships and the long journey you’ve taken to get to where you are. Well, it’s for the best, they won’t be here anymore, they’re going to oversee Yuji’s ambitions hopefully come to fruition.

I don’t think there’s much else for me to say now, just two small things on my mind, so Yuji’s human again? Well, he ‘exists’ again, I’m assuming he’s not fully human, otherwise he can’t keep up his powers and he won’t be able to live alongside Shana, so what is he exactly? I’m assuming a flame haze, i.e. contracted to Snake? Hmmm, I don’t think they cleared that up very well, though, all I need to know is that he can live as long as Shana and he still has all this powers that he’s developed quite well throughout the series.

And the second small thing is, why is Shana and Yuji wearing their school uniform at the last scene? For one thing, Misaki City doesn’t exist in where they live now so neither does the school, and for another wouldn’t it make more sense for Yuji to be in his current/fighting clothes and Shana to be in her fighting clothes too, if you get what I mean. It would give a sense of how far they’ve come, rather than going back to old times. It also reminds me of a rant I did long ago on how anime always portrays all school age people to always be in their school uniforms and how impractical that is, but I’m not going there today.

Oh yeah, there was a small thing I didn’t understand which was what Pheles was doing during that short scene where she appeared at the end of an episode for only a few seconds in the middle of nowhere. I can’t remember which episode it was at all and after checking all my blogs I have not once said anything about her at the end of an episode which is extremely odd. But I think you know which I mean if you can remember it.

So, everything is wrapped up nicely and we come to the end of a 7 year long anime journey. I really hope they’ll recontinue to release the light novels and manga in the UK, they’ve stopped after the second volume of the light novel and I’ve seen no more manga either. I would love to find out what happened in detail as I’m sure you all agree, one of the main criticisms, at least I have, of this season is that a lot of the plots described well in the novels weren’t played out long enough to get the point across. That’s what happens when you try and squeeze a lot into not enough episodes, exactly what happened with Zero no Tsukaima, albeit that also ended nicely, but still not enough to offset the whole rushed feeling. But nonetheless Shana’s finished, and I’m quite happy they finished it instead of leaving it hanging. It wasn’t a brilliant season, but it was alright and I did enjoy it enough.