I couldn’t make it work.
Story/Narrative - Final starts us off right where the second season left us, or rather the aftermath of the second season’s cliffhanger. Yuji seems to have disappeared right before he was able to choose between Yoshida and Shana, and now the rest of the cast is trying to confirm his status and where he is. However, this is only for the first few episodes, afterwards, we get the sudden plot development that the reason Yuji was gone was because he formed a contract with a being known as the Snake of the Festival or the God of Creation. This wouldn’t be as bad if this God of Creation wasn’t the leader of our main cast’s antagonistic team whose plans they been thwarting for the past two seasons, Bal Masqué. With this sudden realization, Shana and the gang must now oppose the person they once knew, Yuji Sakai.
Shakugan no Shana Final’s plot can be described in one word: rushed. Right from the beginning of the season, we get the abrupt development that Yuji is no longer the Yuji that was slowly and carefully developed throughout in the past two seasons, he is now a completely new character with new mindsets and goals. How Yuji met the Snake of the Festival and agreed to his contract affirmatively is never thoroughly explained, or explained at all. This isn’t the only time the series doesn’t explain things, though, throughout the entire duration of the season important plot points that would be convenient with understanding the story and what's going on are either just casually brought up once, or never even shined upon. Now, this wouldn’t be as bad if there was at least enough context to make it ambiguous to the viewers, but there isn’t. Sudden changes in plot development are inevitable because of this, making them only work as a form of shock value and nothing else. Furthermore, towards the end of the series, Shakugan no Shana realizes it has to have a theme and it cops this out by having an extremely trite, and dare I say cringey one. The ending completely leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth as it feels like it’s disregarding some of the themes presented in the previous seasons and aiming for a more out of character ending. The only redeemable thing about Shakugan no Shana Final’s plot is that it keeps you mildly entertained as to what’s gonna happen for a while, until it becomes incredibly stretched out and mundane shortly afterward. 2/10
Characters- For better or worse, Final has to rush through its characters’ development just like its plot. As stated before, all of Yuji’s character development from the previous seasons is completely disregarded in place for a pretentious antagonist. One would hope that at least some parts of Yuji’s original character would still be intact in his now hollow shell, but nope, he’s no longer Yuji. Shana, completely confused by the sudden development, tries to self-identify herself as always. And, to be perfectly honest, her development is handled rather decently, almost appreciable in fact. If it wasn’t for her having to quickly move along with the plot, she would be one of my favorite characters. Wilhelmina as well is the final character to at least get some decent conclusion to her character, which was nice see considering she was my favorite. Other characters, such as Yoshida and Margery, are put on the bus until the plot absolutely demands them to come back, and completely rushes their development to the point where it’s unnoticeable. It’s also important to note that a significant amount of characters are introduced in this season, such as multiple important Tomogara/Denizens and Flame Hazes. These characters are never fully established upon, they’re just there. Some have implied motivations and goals, but like Final’s plot points, they’re never clearly explained. The pacing skipping most of these characters’ development and characterization completely kills any emotional depth these characters are supposed to have, ruining several sentimental scenes, which this season contains several of. Besides a few handful, most of the characters in Final aren’t ever developed with enough context to ever get to the point past bland. 3/10
Art/Animation - Shakugan no Shana isn’t known for having spectacular animation, and this stays true in Final. For an anime made in 2011, it doesn’t very look “modern”, looking more like one made in 2007. Although if J.C. Staff did this for the sake of keeping the integrity of it’s previous seasons, I applaud them. The fight scenes, which this season contains a ton of, could have used a bit more budget, but I digress. Shana still has that beautiful Flame Haze hair, and off models aren’t an uncommon occurrence. Final’s animation stayed relatively the same compared to its predecessors. 5/10
Sound- The soundtrack of Shakugan no Shana is reminiscent of it’s previous seasons, meaning there’s not any particular BGM that completely stands out as something one would listen to on it;s own, but do they do fit the mood really well most of the time. As for the OPs and EDs, “Light My Fire” by KOTOKO is my particular favorite, as I feel it completely fits the situations and whatever moods that Final is trying to achieve. The EDs, “One” and “I’ll Believe” by ALTIMA are also pretty good, as they fade into the last few seconds of every episode they’re in as an attempt to try to hype up the next episode. As for the seiyuu, they do a good job voicing their characters as always, but I really gotta hand it down to Rie Kugimiya as Shana for nailing the impact of some of her lines, really great job there. 7/10
Enjoyment - Entering with high expectations, I tried to enjoy Final as much as I could, despite how bad it started. Once I realized that it had a bit of a big downfall, I was disappointed, which definitely clouded my enjoyment of the show. I never really wanted an episode to end, but I never really felt a need to watch the next one, albeit in the beginning I had some aspirations for the show to get better, but that never came, making the rest of Final a rather mundane experience that was just there to waste 24 minutes. 5/10
Overall- Shakugan no Shana Final is a disappointment. It’s clearly trying to achieve something with it’s significant cast of characters and big 180 plot, but it completely fails in doing so by trying to fit so much into just 24 episodes. In return for the development of a handful of characters, Final has to discard the complete development of a couple characters and not explain several character actions and plot points. Shana fans should beware of Final’s flaws when watching it. People who have previously hated the past two seasons might find comedic value in the complete trainwreck that Final brings. And, as for people who just want to finish the Shana trilogy… well, the ending results are decent. Someone please tell me if the light novels at least did a better job... 4/10
