Shakugan no Shana – Anime First Impressions

Note: This preview of Shakugan no Shana is based only on the first episode. The first episode sets up the anime, so I don’t really consider anything in this preview to be spoiler material. That said, if you haven’t seen the first episode and you don’t want any “spoilers” whatsoever, maybe you should wait before reading on:

Sakai Yuji is just an average high school student with one exception. He’s dead. Apparently, a while back, a demon ate his soul, and now only a small part of his essence remains. While walking home from school, he’s caught in some kind of demon space-time trap, and is attacked by a giant baby that sort of looks like Astro Boy. He’s saved by our titular heroine, who then explains to him that he’s not really a living human anymore. Talk about having a bad day.

Now, I wouldn’t necessarily say this is a Bleach clone just yet, but there do seem to be a number of similarities. The difference seems that Sakai isn’t going to become some uber-powerful badass. Shana will probably have to work double duty on being cute and badass at the same time. She doesn’t look particularly cute in this episode itself, but look to the eye catch and ED for proof of my theory. Maybe Shana is really a DearS?

The animation for this episode is good, especially during the fight scene. Of course, most first episodes of anime have the best animation quality, so we’ll have to wait and see if the studio can keep up. The OP is catchy, but the ED seems kind of boring to me. The kawaii pictures of Shana during the ED make up for it, though.

My first impressions are that this series might end up being a Bleach clone(though that’s not necessarily a bad thing!), but it looks interesting, the animation and character designs are top notch, and I want to see some more cuteness from Shana, so I’ll stay with this anime and see where it goes.