Last time, we looked at Shakugan no Shana Second and I talked a little about what it means to make a sequel. I contended that, with an episodic premise (like Shakugan no Shana kind of had, infinitely extendable through encountering and battling a stream of new Denizens) you could pretty much make an acceptable sequel by continuing to do the same thing you’d been doing so far. I also contended that it could be stronger if you went above and beyond, but at least in some cases it wouldn’t be strictly necessary. Shakugan no Shana Second fell flat (well, flatter) because it didn’t manage to do that much, largely scaling back and taking away from the ante compared to season one of Shakugan no Shana.

Shakugan no Shana Final doesn’t fall for that trap. Nor does Shana Final just content itself extruding more editions of the Shakugan no Shana material we already liked. Shana Final goes above and beyond, transforming the narrative and becoming its own thing that’s grand and new. And it kicks ass.

First of all, we catch up with where we left off at the end of season 2. It turns out, when we never see Yuji in that ending… he disappeared. As in, no one mundane remembers him just like a torch that burned out. That shouldn’t be possible, since he reclaimed the artifact that was keeping him alive, but it’s what appears to have happened. Some evidence remains, so Shana and Yoshida hold out hope, but the other Crimson World sort of people would tell them that it’s a long shot.

And then we, the audience, catch up with Yuji. Yuji’s the leader of the Bal Masque now.

This is a turn that Shana Final does brilliantly, but that I would not recommend attempting to imitate. There are so many ways in which this could have been a disaster. Making a character like Yuji Sakai, who had deep determination and an uncompromisingly good nature, the new leader of the villain faction? On one side, if he changes too much, it seems like the character we knew, in some respects our main character, has died and been replaced by an impostor. If he doesn’t change enough, the villains look like idiots for suddenly following this guy who ruined their plans a million times. Pretty much all the metrics are like that, tight-rope walks where tipping too far in either direction would result in disaster.

Shana Final manages all the tight-rope walks with flying colors. We see Yuji take formal command of the Bal Masque, both paling it up with the Denizens he previously would have been fairly terrified of and displaying a new confidence and power when he effortlessly defends his position against an agitated challenger. So there’s no doubt he’s the proper leader of the Bal Masque now. But we also see him return to his home city and reminisce about the events of his life (mostly the show’s first two seasons) and contend with his human emotions, so we really do understand that the Yuji we know is in there somewhere, and not just hidden or sealed deep down but somewhere in charge of Yuji as we see him now. There’s a palpable sense that he has some long-reaching plan or goal that’s something Yuji always would have supported, and that this new means to that end is the product of Yuji’s determination.

And, despite juggling a few extra side plots, Shana Final gets to understand this very quickly, before Yuji confronts Shana again and gives us something of an explanation. The explanation, though, is pretty good: Yuji has become host to/one with an entity known as The Snake of the Festival, one of the gods of the Crimson World (Alastor is another) who had been sealed away ages ago, nearly believed destroyed. Specifically, The Snake of the Festival is the God of Desire, seemingly existing to grant wishes, particularly those of his beloved fellow denizens. The Snake of the Festival is very good at his job, because he’s going to spend a lot of this season granting the audience’s wish for an amazing final season.

In this first engagement, though, Yuji’s old friends don’t take his being an ancient sealed evil god very well and a fight is made of it. Yuji breaks Margery Daw’s brain rather completely by telling her the truth about the incident that made her a Flame Haze – the Silver denizen that kill-stole everyone Margery wanted to be done with, the hatred of which kept her going for hundreds of years? It was a fragment of the Snake, and simply responding to her own desire for violence. There was never any reason for her hatred in the first place.

If you think that kind of revelation would be cathartic, you’re not Flame Haze material. The loss of her reason for being, dark though it was, sends Margery into a coma and nearly kills her.

Yuji also manages to get the better of Shana in the engagement, and ends up capturing her and carrying her off to the Bal Masque’s invisible flying castle, the Palace of the Stars (which is looking much more impressive and expansive since its appearance in the end of season 1), where she ends up spending a large chunk of episodes with her powers sealed. The dynamic in the scenes between Yuji and Shana while she’s a prisoner are pretty dynamite, showing both the depths of their positive connection and the immense strain that being stood on opposite sides of a world-shaking conflict in the making is putting on that. The Snake also casually drops in no uncertain terms that Yuji loves Shana, taking the will-they-or-won’t-they dynamic that was getting really stale into season 2 and throwing it out the window in favor of focusing on whether the two of them even can get together despite this rift that’s come between them, which by this point is vastly more dynamic and interesting. I’ll just go ahead and add that to the “wishes granted” tally.

Wilhelmina, along with Khamsin (who we met in Season 1) and some other pretty cool Flame Hazes we run into along the way here put together a daring raid on the Palace of the Stars to get Shana back. Meanwhile, other Flame Hazes, lead by some fairly impressive folks (there are LOADS of new characters this season), muster an entire army to take on the Palace of the Stars and the Bal Masque’s legions to stop the Snake of the Festival’s schemes under the assumption that those schemes are probably bad news. In their defense, the Bal Masque had been getting really aggressive about pushing over the Flame Haze support network in preparation for their master’s grand plan.

What is the grand plan? Well, it takes a while to hear it. Episodes eight through fifteen are basically one big battle, the war over the Palace of the Stars from the commando raid to the battle in the field to the attempt to hunt down Yuji and the head trinity of the Bal Masque as they enter a rift between worlds to recover the Snake’s original body. You’d think this would get old, I mean it’s nearly four hours of material largely dedicated to fighting. But Shana Final manages to sustain the momentum and tension through all of that because none of it is wasted. The battle for the Palace of the Stars is, for me, one of the great battle sequences in anime, operating on a lot of levels with a lot of separate movements woven together into a glorious tapestry of bloodshed and determination, martial arts and magic. Shana breaks out of her confinement, recovering both her strength and her shattered will to kick ass. Wilhelmina and friends wreak havoc throughout the Palace of the Stars, crashing it and breaking its invisible field. Armies clash with massive back and forth, Flame Hazes and Denizens hatching and executing plan and counter-plan, one after another. Shana follows Yuji into the rift between worlds and duels him on top of the back of a giant flying snake (kind of flirting as they fight) while a bemused trio of Bal Masque leaders just have to watch. We meet and lose characters Samuel Demantius (a Flame Haze with the skill of conjuring walls and fortifications out of the ground and an appearance and demeanor that seems the very definition of grizzled soldier) and Decarabia (a giant leviathan-eel denizen and master tactician. Possibly my favorite Denizen despite his brief role just because he’s such an out-there design, though Seeker Dantalion is just too much fun). The entire thing might be close to four hours of fighting, but on the other hand it’s close to four hours of some of the best action you’ll see laced with breathers and critical moments that provide some of the best character you’ll see emerge from combat.

And then Snake Yuji emerges from the rift onto the battlefield, and declares his intention to all: The Snake of the Festival will grant the wish of his Denizens… but the prayers he’s heard are no longer just for full bellies, but for a world like the current one they enjoy save that they can be permanently satiated. The Denizens will leave the current world for this new one, in which they won’t need external sources of Power of Existence. Flame Hazes, rejoice! The long war is over, there’s no reason to fight any more!

You might remember how well having no reason to fight went over for Margery Daw. The Flame Haze army is completely routed, their morale shattered, and most of the rank and file are run down by the emboldened denizens fighting in the presence of their god. As the battle ends, we get a chance to breathe, and set the stakes for the final arc.

What more is worth fighting for? Well, Shana personally needs to take on Yuji face to face, for the sake of their love… and the wise among the Flame Hazes see a potential flaw in the Snake’s plan: if, in this new world, Denizens still consume humans despite not strictly needing to (because, you know, they’re gluttonous jerks who are quite used to such bad behavior), the disruption of Existence will eventually ripple back and possibly destroy all space-time. It’s far from guaranteed, but the Flame Hazes that remain don’t want to take that chance.

It’s actually an interesting juxtaposition. The ultimate conflict in Shana Final isn’t one between good and evil, but rather between Hope and Fear… and the technical heroes are the ones aligned with Fear. The Flame Hazes (led by Shana and the others), are ruled by their concerns about the danger, while the Denizens (led by Snake Yuji) are driven by their hope for a better future. This is why Yuji works as the antagonist for Shana Final – his motivation is, ultimately, to free his beloved Shana from the sad fate that awaits all Flame Hazes, to some day die in a senseless and endless war and be forgotten by the world. To that end, he’s creating a world where she could live without that. It’s not something Shana ever asked for, but it’s rooted deep in Yuji’s empathy and determination. It’s absolutely something Yuji would always have wanted… and also absolutely something teaming up with The Snake of the Festival and Bal Masque can bring about.

And so we come to the final arc, one last insanely complicated running battle back in the city where this all started, over the creation of the new world that the Snake of the Festival means to enact.

Things get amazingly intricate. I could spend thousands of words going into detail on all the subplots, minor arcs, and great interactions between tertiary characters that go on throughout the Final Battle, like Dantalion’s grudge match with the Flame Haze he created through mad science and Wile E. Coyote style sendoff. There are probably dozens of minor arcs and grace notes that are brought up and resolved throughout Shana Final, especially in this last big arc, giving it an amazingly sprawling and epic feel as opposed to the former seasons of Shana that had only been concerned with a small cast and this one city, I just don’t have the time to get into that rather than sticking to the most important, the ones that add up to the climax and resolution of the show as a whole.

Now you might be thinking, back when I reviewed Shana Second, didn’t I complain about doing heavy exposition in the middle of a battle? Well, the dynamic in Shana Final is rather different. In Second, the battle I criticized for that was still contained, a fight scene where the explaining had to happen between blows or not at all. The mega-length battles in Final (both the battle over the Palace of the Stars and the Final Battle) aren’t; they represent a series of engagements sprawling over both locations and time, allowing different groups of characters to have more quiet scenes or take a breath even while combat rages elsewhere. Saying these arcs are each one big battle is kind of like saying the movie Mad Max: Fury Road is one big chase scene – there are ways in which it’s true, but there are enough nuanced little components woven in that the impression you’d get from such a statement kind of misrepresents the material. It doesn’t move at one steady pace throughout, the show still speeds up, slows down, and has notable beats. In the case of Shana Final, it does have a lot of story and exposition to deliver, but it knows when and how to do it, what bits can be tossed out between blows and what needs more time and focus. Second didn’t handle that nearly as well.

Big plot number one: Snake Yuji is forming the new world, Xanadu. Hecate is sacrificed for the cause (a willing offering, as is her role) and the fancy grand spell builds and builds. Shana fights to reach and sabotage the effort, using some knowledge Wilhelmina bartered from Lamies (who was also helping the creation effort). She eventually delivers her interfering spell into the egg of the new world, not causing it to break down (an effort that would be largely impossible), but rather changing some of the paramaters…

Meanwhile, Pheles and a bunch of her denizen friends show. Her arrival sees Johan appear again from the Midnight Lost Child and the two lovers undergo some sort of esoteric ascension, leaving a magic bottle behind in Yoshida’s care and Yoshida in the care of a colorful crew of neutral-aligned Denizens including one that’s also a VW minibuss so they can frantically speed through this war zone of a city…

Speaking of that, the city is a war zone. Basically every living character with a name is here for the final battle, and just about every unnamed Denizen as well. The powerful individuals that represent the remains of the Flame Haze forces may not be able to stop the Denizens outright, but they sure can kill a lot of them on their way out…

A few of the Flame Hazes not in the city, meanwhile, have tracked down a weird bard Denizen who had formerly been hanging around Snake Yuji’s court despite being seen as an outsider by the Bal Masque, all the way to being brought along to the dimensional rift. He hadn’t really done anything up to this point save make a few cryptic remarks, but we learn his nature when he’s cornered here: He’s the herald of the God of Guidance, a third entity on par with Alastor and the Snake of the Festival, who can speak in such a way that every being touched at all by the Crimson World (Denizen, Flame Haze, maybe even informed mortal) will hear, understand, and remember. He can’t be forced to call for the God of Guidance to speak, but Shana’s allies hope to convince him to see if she’ll speak in favor of Shana’s plan. He refuses, but uses clairvoyance to take a look at the Final Battle, and lays eyes on that magic bottle Pheles and Johan left behind. That, apparently, is something worthy of having a God offer Guidance on…

The God of Guidance speaks: something new has been born, an heir to both worlds, the offspring of Human and Denizen. A miracle, and hope for a new future, so long as it survives. Shana speaks as well; though it’s without the authority of the God of Guidance, she reveals her hack: with the changes she made, Denizens won’t be able to consume humans in the new world. Both the active spell and the Snake’s backup copies have been messed up, but that doesn’t matter to the Snake of the Festival. Once midnight rolls around and Midnight Lost Child does its thing, the Snake of the Festival will have unlimited power – fixing everything by brute force would be possible.

Midnight comes. The Denizens turn their eyes to the sky, and make their wishes known to their god. Xanadu is formed… and Shana’s new rule is left in place. Not because the Snake of the Festival couldn’t undo it, but because between that being presented as an option and the miracle Pheles and Johan achieved, the assembled Denizens wished it. The numberless horde of monsters and mayhem, a whole convention of villains from countless untold stories, in their moment of truth decided deep in their hearts that if a world could exist where they’d live in harmony with humans, not needing to eat them… it wouldn’t be so bad if they couldn’t. That was the paradise they desired in the end. The ultimate struggle of Shana Final wasn’t won by overwhelming force of arms, but by winning hearts and minds. The Snake of the Festival, as it leaves Yuji and ascends to the new world, addresses the Flame Hazes once more, this time with real good news: all their struggles and all their sacrifice meant something in the end.

Honestly, I think this ending is downright beautiful. But it’s not quite the end of the end for Shakugan no Shana, since we have to tie off some loose ends. The miracle child, Justus, (a baby now, and not a bottle) is taken in by Wilhelmina as the Flame Hazes decide whether to go to the new world themselves or stay behind to keep up the fight against the hostile denizens that don’t leave. Lamies reveals his (her, actually) true form and gives Yuji a couple gifts as thanks: some use of an Unrestricted Method that can restore just about anything, and another little thing with an unknown trigger. Margery and Sydonay duke it out one last time in a kaiju-scale fight where Sydonay finally bites the dust, joining his beloved Hecate in death… and Yuji and Shana have unfinished business as well, and work out their differences blade to blade. Yuji intends to atone for all his misdeeds while working towards the win for as long as it takes, until he can finally move on to Xanadu and stand by Shana’s side with a clear conscience. Shana doesn’t care for his intent to punish himself, because how can she be happy if the man she loves isn’t with her? Eventually she gets through to Yuji and they kiss… activating Lamies’s gift, which turns Yuji into… um… I’m going to go with “a real boy” – something that’s fully existent and alive without the threat of burning out like the torch he was. The two of them head to Xanadu and while the mortal world will largely forget them, all’s well that ends well with the possible exception of whatever adventures they get themselves into in the new world of Denizens and Humans living together.

Whew. If you thought this summary was a marathon, I implore you, try the show on for size. It’s grand and sweeping, full on depth and weight without losing energy and fun. Shakugan no Shana Final is, in my opinion, one of the big ones, being just about everything you could ever hope for out of an action Anime, primed to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the likes of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. There is so much story, so much going on, and it manages it all beautifully.

I give Shana Final an A+. You might think that would be without reservation, seeing how I’ve heaped praises on it, but back when I was just casually reviewing the occasional show on MAL, I struggled with whether to give Shana Final a 10/10 or “just” a 9. In the end, I actually went with 9, on the grounds that while Final was, itself, probably worthy of a 10, it wasn’t possible to actually get the 10/10 full experience since you need the weaker experience of Second (and to a lesser extent season 1) in order to watch and appreciate Final at all. In a sense, I knocked it down a peg by looking at it more like an awesome 10/10 final arc to a show that wasn’t a 10 the whole way through. It was just too reliant on outside material. For my rating now, I’m erring the other way because on its own, Final deserves it. This is your reward for making it through Second. Enjoy it.

Shortly after I posted that review, I received a message telling me in the nicest and most well-worded way possible (no sarcasm, it was actually a very nice message) that actually, no, I had it backwards. The problem with Shana Final, according to the user who saw fit to reach out to me, was not that it had too much setup, but that it didn’t have enough. The message went on to cite how this material was handled in the light novels that the show was based on, lamenting how much was lost to accommodate the three-season running time, including numerous points where something in Final should have been better set-up, or given extra weight and gravitas that the audience could understand because we’d been through something prior that granted a different and more complete perspective on the material.

I was… excited. Incredibly excited. Shakugan no Shana wouldn’t be the first time that something good was outstripped by its absolutely majestic perfected form (For me, the most pointed version of that experience is Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind; the movie was good, but next to the manga? It’s like comparing a lantern to the sun. But that’s a topic for another day.). I went straight away to seek out the Shakugan no Shana light novels and I found…

They haven’t been localized to English. Well, actually, they kind of have, but the company doing the English releases saw fit to drop Shana after two volumes when the whole series is twenty-two (plus four short story collections) and then let the rights lapse, so Shana is out of print and up for grabs in English, and given its age and first go is sadly unlikely to get a second chance. With such a tantalizing offer as an even better version of Final, I even searched the Dark Side, but didn’t come up with anything. It seems like if I’m going to actually experience the Shakugan no Shana light novels, I’m going to have to learn Japanese. And I am sorely tempted.

Until then, though, I still have the Shakugan no Shana anime and its amazing Final chapter.