God I love tsundere

Not the most exciting episode of Shakugan no Shana I’ve ever seen, but pacing is good and unlike a lot of other series this season, it actually feels like we’re getting somewhere. And there was the usual dosage of tsundere Shana, so overall it was an enjoyable ep.

Episode Rating: 8/10

Annoyed by Yoshida constantly making Yuuji’s lunch, Shana decides to ask Chigusa for help so she can make bento for Yuuji as well. But this means sacrificing time for Yuuji’s morning training, so in her place, Shana asks Wilhelmina to take care of that. Wilhelmina is not pleased with the idea of having to train Yuuji, and she’s annoyed that Shana picked Chigusa over her for cooking lessons. Chigusa wonders why Shana picked her over Wilhelmina as well, she explains that Wilhelmina can’t cook anything past prepackaged food, which isn’t suited for a bento box.

With Wilhelmina preoccupied and annoyed thinking about Shana, she forgets to control her strength while training Yuuji and almost ends up strangling him to death. However, Yuuji is different than he was in the past, after the incident on Serei-den the Reiji Maigo absorbed and stored all the power of existence that overflowed that night, leaving Yuuji with the potential to match a King of Guze in terms of raw power.

Shana knows this too, they discuss it on the way to school the next day. With such a huge amount of power of existence, Yuuji has the potential to become strong, all that’s left is to learn to control it.

At lunch, Yoshida gives Yuuji the lunch she’s prepared for him as usual, and when he’s about to start eating, Shana finally works up the courage to show off the skills she’s learned…or so she would like to say, but the reality is she couldn’t manage a proper bento just yet, stuffing a whole bunch of melon pan into a bento box instead. Yuuji is happy that both Shana and Yoshida are going so far for him, but is still too indecisive to make a choice, so the only option is to finish them both!

Which turns out not to be the smartest of ideas, as shortly into afternoon classes, Yuuji passes out from a stomach ache. Shana and Yoshida rush him to the nurses office where they have an argument over him, Shana arguing that it’s Yoshida’s fault for unnecessarily making him lunches, ordering her to stop from now on because she can’t have Yuuji fight in this condition. But Yoshida doesn’t back down, she says that Shana is being unfair by trying to use fighting as an excuse, that her lunches and their fights are unrelated and that she’ll continue to pour her feelings into Yuuji.

Suddenly, Shana spots a fuzetsu through the window. She wakes Yuuji up and drags him off to fight, despite his condition, leaving Yoshida powerless, only able to wish Yuuji good luck and to be careful. When they enter the fuzetsu, they realize that something isn’t right. Shana can’t feel the presence of an enemy and Yuuji quickly realizes that the scene in front of them is just like the night of the festival where they fought the professor. Recalling their fight with the guze no tomogara the other day, Yuuji figures it must be another dream, and surely enough, upon realizing that, the scene before them fades away.

Oddly enough, the dream doesn’t completely go away, Yuuji quickly figures out why. When Yoshida said goodbye to them at school, she wasn’t acting like her usual self, a side that neither of them had seen before. Since they were already inside the dream world at that point and it’s a world based on their memories, the only way Yoshida could have been acting like she was is if she was also under the spell’s influence.

Yuuji’s fear is confirmed when they get back to school and find Yoshida unconscious and chained up. The guze no tomogara, The Fool and Slumber Maina, Mare, that’s behind the unrestricted spell, called Gemeinde, shows up and tells them that they’re done for, that Yoshida will never wake up and they’ll never escape this dream world. Mare uses Gemeinde to create a clone of Bel Peol to fight Shana with, with her hands full, Shana tells Yuuji to concentrate on waking up Yoshida so they can get out of the spell.

While fighting Mare, Yuuji notices something weird, the occasional attack that Shana fires at it is completely ineffective, even in Gemeinde, that seems a little weird. Remembering that Shana said the core of the tomogara is small, he realizes that its true target is the hougu inside of him, Reiji Maigo. Mare congratulates him on figuring it out, but as she’s already inside Yuuji, closing in on the Reiji Maigo, it’s too late to do anything.

However, when Mare tries to grab the Reiji Maigo, a mysterious force repels her and burns away half her body. Mare calls it Keeper, and is scared out of her wits when she finds out about it. With half its body burned away, Mare nears death, but tells Shana and Yuuji that when she dies, Gemeinde collapses along with everything in it. With no time to spare, Yuuji quickly goes back to trying to wake Yoshida up, and surprisingly enough, just hearing his voice is enough to do it.

The three of them snap out of the spell and find themselves back in the nurses office at school. Yuuji is amazed that Yoshida was able to wake up and realize the situation so quickly, he thanks her for saving them, relieved but tired from the fight, he passes out. Knowing that she owes her one, Shana calls a subtle truce between them, allowing her to keep making bentos for Yuuji as long as she decreases the amount.

Elsewhere, Satou and Tanaka have their hands full with Margery Daw, who has been drinking even more than usual lately. When even Marcocious notes that she’s drinking way too much, all she can say is that she has a bad feeling…

And sure enough, things start to get weird, the next day at school, a new transfer student is introduced who looks an awful lot like Hecate.

Thoughts

Hmm…after summarizing it, I have to admit, this episode was pretty boring. If you think about it, the whole deal with Shana trying to learn how to cook and the bento scene against Yoshida was a rehash from last season. She went through the exact same routine, egg burning and all, and ended up giving Yuuji melon pan back then too.

But that being said, there was enough new stuff to make the episode worth watching. First off is the return of Balle Masque, even if it was just a brief reintroduction. From the looks of things, they’ll be the main enemies again, seeing as the tomogara from this episode was a mini boss who was just trying to get their attention by capturing the Reiji Maigo. Aside from rebuilding Serei-den, no indication as to what they’re up to is given, just that everything is working towards some big ‘ultimate goal’.

Which brings me to Hecate’s appearance at their school. Uh…wth? I’m curious how they’re going to explain this and not have it sound like a sorry excuse just to have some school comedy-esque scenes with Hecate. I don’t know what this ultimate goal may be, but putting your trump card within the reach of your enemy can’t serve any purpose. I bet this is just a huge ploy so the animators get to draw Hecate in bloomers, a school swimsuit or something alone those lines. orz

On a more random note, I wonder if we’ll ever see that loli guze no tomogara with the horns again. Supposedly she was just a pawn used by Mare, but her ominous smile when she disappeared made it seem like she would be coming back. I hope she does, I like her character design (auauauauau~)

As for things on the good guys side, Yuuji just got the most haxed powerup since Clare in the final episode of Claymore. Hopefully he learns how to use it without episode upon episode dedicated to “LOL training”. Yes, I’m still THAT bitter over StrikerS and Sky Girls -_-

And not only does his potential STR skyrocket, he gains a +255 DEF Plot Armor bonus with this “Keeper” business, which must be something seriously overpowered seeing as the tomogara and even Wilhelmina started shaking in their boots when they found out about it. Coupled with the 100% Fire Resist that Yuuji gets from the Azure ring, Yuji is a freaking fortress. GG

Speaking of Yuuji hax, the guy is WAY too insightful. The inferences that he makes and the speed at which he does it is ridiculous. Within seconds of realizing they’re in a dream world, he recalls Yoshida’s odd behaviour, links it with their previous knowledge that the dream world is based off their memories and comes to the corollary that Yoshida must also be in the dream. Given enough time, anybody could come up with the theory, but he does it in seconds! It’s not the first time either, there were plenty of times in the first season when the speed and scope of his logic surpasses anything that a normal high school student should ever posses. +255 INT. Yuuji must be sharking his stats.

Also, Wilhelmina is a crappy cook, de arimasu. But that’s ok, poor cooking skill is moe.

I’m actually beginning to like Wilhelmina a lot, I don’t know what happened because I hated her during the first season. Maybe it’s because she stopped with the whole friendly fire thing, or maybe it’s because she was pretty funny in the Shana-tan OVAs, but I find her much more likable nowadays. Or it might just be my newfound love for pink/purple hair causing it, who knows.

Even though we’ve gotten a real episode of Shakugan no Shana II instead of a bs recap episode, I still can’t really say much about it. The episode itself was kind of lame, and the fight was really anticlimactic, but at the same time they’re working well to nudge along the plot and characters. I think we’ll have to wait and see if they deliver on their build up later in the series. I’d much rather have a boring lead up if things become awesome when it all hits the fan down the road, but the danger with that is that sometimes we get there too late and the whole thing ends up rushed. But as long as they keep the whole deja vu theme in check, I see the workings of an awesome season of Shana. But I suppose only time will tell, leaving us with nothing to do but wait until next week to see what happens.

Oh God. Shana. Hot. Etc.

You knew it was coming :3

~ Shirukii ~