Then comes Shakugan no Shana Final. In my mind, Final is the perfect capstone to the Shakugan no Shana series, possessing all of the strengths of what came before and then some, along with few if any of the weaknesses. It changes the status quo, escalates the action and stakes, and delivers not a choppy, episodic sort of story, but a true epic that uses every minute of its 24-episode running time and manages to do so without ever dragging
Let's start with the characters. Now, while Final does assume you know how the characters developed through Shakugan no Shana and Second, it still gives plenty of time for exploring their inner turmoil, their desires and wishes. In fact, I dare say that our leads, at the very least, get more good focus here than they had before, and are explored as even deeper characters. A good part of this is from one of the first major changes to the status quo. Some might consider this a spoiler, but it's in the first two episodes, so for Final and not the series as a whole? I think it's fair game to talk about, and it really is something that has to be addressed to talk about the season: Yuji Sakai is the villain now.
I am dead serious. The character that started out as a meek and fairly helpless normal boy dragged into supernatural circumstances starts this season emerging from the state of having vanished from the world now holding the reins of the group of baddies that had formerly threatened him. This is a pretty dangerous move for a story. At least in theory we liked Yuji Sakai as he was, and having him turn into the leader of the Bal Masque means he could be seen as somewhat divorced from the character we previously understood. In a less well-written show, the character we see in Final would be the same person in name only, or flagrantly possessed or some other excuse to have him be unrelated to what he was before.
Luckily, Shakugan no Shana Final is well-written, and manages this plot arc with flying colors. Much of the season is dedicated to exploring Yuji Sakai as he is now, and why he's made the choices he has, including his goals and his motivations. No switch has flipped from decent person to cackling villain, Yuji Sakai still has the core we've come to know, and though it takes a good deal of time to fully understand what he's playing, the getting there is interesting on its own, and helps you feel for Shana and Yuji's other friends as they try to piece together what's happened to him and who he is now.
As for the story, the previous seasons of Shakugan no Shana had very definite arcs. One story would end, and the next one would begin, and while the major heroic characters would learn and grow through each arc, there wasn't exactly a meta-plot that would hold the entire season together. And that, sort of a variant of “monster of the week”, is fine for what it is. However, Final has one, consistent story. It has a lot of movements that you could consider to be separate arcs, but the saga that begins with the disappearance (and, especially, reappearance) of Yuji Sakai carries the show from episode 1 of Final to episode 24 and the bitter end. As with Yuji himself, this is something that would have been very easy to do badly. Second was padded out and dragged in places, wouldn't final end up the same way?
It really doesn't. Final's pacing is some of the best I've seen, as is its action. Big things do take a lot of time, but the tempo remains high throughout. Every episode has enough character drama and/or action to more than justify its running time. The story in final is expansive and sprawling; in addition to the main characters Shana, Yuji, and Wilhelmina, we get a ton of characters, both old and new, adding to the story. I concede that a lot of them are somewhat one-note, but they have the development they need in order to fill their roles, usually and then some. While the tertiary characters of Shakugan no Shana final may not be great characters on their own, they are all better than they had to be. Characters with fairly small parts like Rebecca Reed, Chiara, or Ribesal didn't need the level of interest they got, but while they aren't the heroes of this story, the story knows they have their own lives and own tales that might even deserve to be told, and they're treated as people who have their own lives as well as their involvement in the big events of Shana Final.
It's shocking, but I really don't have any complaints about Shana Final. It was flawlessly paced, the plot is epic and provides a great capstone to the Shakugan no Shana series. The characters are fleshed out, and their conflict is engaging, both in terms of the stakes of their battle for the world and the investment in the people doing the fighting. You want to see these characters get through their struggles, and by the end you're sort of rooting for everyone involved. Every arc has the notes it needs, and even when something tragic happenings or the story takes an unfortunate turn, it's done in such a way that it feels right, because it's what the story needed.
Really, part of the reason why I can't quite bring myself to rate this a 10, is because it doesn't stand on its own. To watch Shakugan no Shana Final you really need Shakugan no Shana and Shakugan no Shana Second, and that's probably 20 hours of show to chew through to get to this part. The payoff is well worth it, especially when the first two seasons were decent to good in their own right, but this isn't something to watch on its own.
It is, however, something I would wholeheartedly recommend.
