So the Hecate clone turned out to be human after all, or so it would seem. There’s pretty much zero possibility that the animation team put a Hecate clone in the school just for the lulz, so I’m going to go ahead and assume that this is all part of some grand scheme by the Balle Masque that eventually be revealed. But for now, Noto fans get to kick back and enjoy some Hecate screen time, of which was lacking in the first season.

Episode Rating: 8/10

When a transfer student, Konoe Fumina, is introduced that looks identical to The Master Throne, Hecate. Shana immediately jumps out of her seat and casts a fuzetsu, her and Yuuji wondering what exactly is going on, why Hecate is at their school as a student. Thanks to the memento from Khamsin, Yoshida is also able to move within the fuzetsu and wonders what’s going on. Shana explains that Konoe looks exactly like one of the members of Balle Masque that attacked Yuuji and tried to make him into the power of existence fountain, Hecate. However, when Shana approaches Konoe, even drawing her sword, she shows no sign of movement. Since she doesn’t move within the fuzetsu and the probability of such accurate human imitation is low, they are forced to take a “wait and see” approach to the situation.

However, despite not appearing to be a Tomogara, Konoe is far from normal. Despite being told to sit at the back, when she comes to the seat beside Yuuji, she insists on sitting there. She then proceeds to act like a pampered princess, shocked that she has to take her textbooks out herself and covering her desk with a clean cloth. Shana’s suspicions of her remain high.

Meanwhile, at Satou’s house, Margery Daw is still lying around doing nothing but drinking, dragging Satou and Tanaka into her lazy lifestyle. She notices a tomogara on the outskirts of town, but doesn’t go take care of it, saying that it should notice the presence of Flame Haze and will run if it’s smart.

Meanwhile, back at school, Ogata has taken an interest in Konoe and her princess act, laughing it up when she asks her if she can change into her gym clothes herself and Konoe saying that only some assistance will be required.

Yuuji then notices the presence of the Tomogara in town and asks Shana if she’s not going to do anything about it. Shana says that dealing with Hecate is more important at the moment, but praises Yuuji on being able to detect the Tomogara, even Alastor seems surprised he was able to do so.

With some help from Ogata, Konoe gets changed and gym class begins, Yoshida is worried about Konoe possibly being a Tomogara, spacing out during class thinking about the things that have been going on around Yuuji lately. Not paying attention, Yoshida ends up getting owned in the face by an incoming volleyball serve. When their game ends, she talks to Konoe on the sidelines, trying to get some hints by asking why she chose to sit beside Yuuji in class, suggesting that she might know him from before. But her efforts only convince her that Konoe is indeed human, albeit an odd human, as she looses interest in their conversation and ends up falling asleep on Yoshida’s lap.

At lunch time, Ogata drags Konoe out to buy food, as it won’t be served to her as she expects, when Tanaka and Satou finally show up for class. That gives Yuuji an idea, to call in Margery for a second opinion on Konoe’s true identity, especially since she’s an expert on unrestricted spells. When Margery sees Konoe, she’s surprised at the resemblance and understands why everyone is so worried, but when she fires a dummy spell at Konoe and gets no response, she can only conclude that she’s just a human who coincidentally looks exactly like Hecate.

But Shana needs some concrete proof one way or another. On the way back from school she starts leaking out a large amount of power of existence and sends Yuuji home by himself. She then follows Konoe to a secluded shrine where she casts a fuzetsu. Just as she suspected, attracted by her leaking power of existence, the tomogara from earlier shows up for a fight, introducing himself as The Debris of the Dashing Crook, Cache-sama. Neither Shana nor Alastor have heard the name and conclude that he’s a newly born Tomogara trying to act tough. And sure enough, he turns out to be a weakling, resorting to cheap and ineffective attacks. After being cut up pretty badly and hearing Shana’s true identity, the flame haze of Alastor, the Flame of Heaven, he gets desperate and tries to cling on to survival. Seeing Konoe, he goes after her to eat her power of existence.

Probably having noticed the fuzetsu, Yuuji shows up and right away goes to stop Cache, but Shana tells him to wait. She reveals the true purpose of the fight, that she baited Cache here so she could beat him up, forcing him to go after Konoe to survive. If Konoe truly is Hecate, she won’t let herself be eaten, either way they’ll find out whether she’s human or not. And surely enough, Konoe remains motionless in the fuzetsu, with that, Shana kills Cache before he eats her. In the resulting explosion, Konoe gets cut and starts bleeding, yet more evidence that she really is a normal human.

But the troubles may only be beginning. Even though Konoe may not appear to be a Tomogara, she seems to have an attraction to Yuuji, one which he remains oblivious to, but is painfully obvious to the jealous Shana and Yoshida.

Thoughts

A pretty good episode, plot wise, having Hecate show up at their school opens up a lot of possibilities in almost every aspect of the show’s story. It puts all the characters on edge with the looming sense of danger, yet maintains a more or less calm atmosphere, especially considering how weird Konoe is. It also leaves a whole range of ways the plot can use her appearance later on, her appearance will most likely be retconned to fit Balle Masque’s master plan that they keep alluding to. The drama aspect of the show is also kicked up a notch the Yuuji love triangle becomes a love square, which seems to be what they’re tackling first. I’m still rooting for Shana, naturally, but I’ve taken a liking to Konoe as well, her whole princess routine is pretty cute and she’s a user of the shirt tug technique, which ever since it was used in Suzuka, always wins me over.

I wonder what Balle Masque’s master plan is anyways. Bel Peol seems to be calling the shots behind the scenes, and random tomogara are being shown from time to time, so it looks like they’re rebuilding their army quite nicely, along with Serei-den, as we saw last episode. I wish they’d just get on with it and give us a hint as to what they’re doing instead of tiptoeing around it with teasers every week, but I guess that just means they’re doing a good job building some suspense. I just want something to build a theory on D=

One thing I’m noticing about the second season of Shana so far is that it’s quickly becoming a one monster per week deal, which never turns out very good. Monster of the week may work occasionally, but having seen the first season do much better with the distinctly separated arcs where a relatively powerful mini boss was taken down each time, it seems like we’re heading in the wrong direction this time around. It would help if they at least put up a fight instead of being pathetic weaklings, but they don’t, meaning there’s not even any battle eye candy to compensate. It doesn’t help that they have stupid names too.

The preview for the next episode suggests that things are going to get a little more serious between Konoe and Yuuji, which combined with his idiocy when it comes to matters of love and relationships is sure to cause the jealousy levels in Shana and Yoshida to erupt. I enjoy the relationship drama in Shakugan no Shana, despite how frustrating its indecisive nature can be, so I’ll be looking forward to see that move forward. Here’s hoping it leads to more of Shana’s jealous tsun tsun side.

With aspects of a plot coming into focus and two episodes gone by, I’m finding myself enjoying Shana quite a bit. Admittedly, the beginning of the first season was a lot better, throwing us into the fray right away, but I think the second season has done a good job rebuilding the momentum and setting up a continuation of the story. There’s been a serious lack of action so far, but I have no doubt there’ll be an abundance of it when the build up is over and shit hits the fan. I just hope the animation budget will be able to keep up.

Oh, another thing I wished this episode had done was explain the whole Keeper business. They introduced the term last episode, saying that it was protecting the Reiji Maigo, and even mentioned it during the pre-OP summary, but they still haven’t explained exactly what it is.

BOOM! Headshot.

~ Shirukii ~