SHAKUGAN NO SHANA

Plot

Yuji Sakai, a high school student, expected his very normal life to last forever. However, this expectation is quickly shattered one day while on his way home. The world suddenly freezes in time, leaving Yuji to watch in horror as blue flames engulf the people around him. Soon a monster resembling a large doll appears and begins sucking the flames into its mouth, until it notices Yuji. Surprised with Yuji's insusceptibility to the time-stop (fuzetsu), it jumps with glee. Just as the monster prepares to consume Yuji, a sword-wielding girl in black attire with flaming red eyes and hair appears, swiftly and confidently destroys the monster, before noticing Yuji moving freely. The girl calls herself a "Flame Haze" who hunts the "Denizens of the Crimson Realm" and the "Rinne" they send to do their bidding. When Yuji notices a blue flame in his chest, the Flame Haze tells him that the "real" Yuji died some time ago, and that he is a "Torch", a temporary replacement for erased humans. Torches take on the forms of those erased persons, but after a period of time, they will vanish from existence and the memories of the living. Unfazed by his apparent death, Yuji befriends the strange girl and names her "Shana" after her sword. The reason Yuji was able to move in the fuzetsu is that he is not a normal Torch, but instead a special kind called a "Mystes": he has a treasure inside him, known as a "Hougu", a device possessing special abilities of sorts, and an extremely powerful and valuable one at that. The hougu inside Yuji allows him to remain in existence rather than fading away like other torches. Shana resolves to protect Yuji from the Denizens, who would use the treasure to disrupt the balance of the world, and Yuji decides to join Shana in her fight.

Shana's fight is actually a long-standing struggle between the Lords and Denizens of Guze. The Denizens steal Power of Existence, the energy that forms the basis of the world, from living people and utilize it for their own selfish ambitions. Some Lords inhabit humans creating Flame Hazes in an attempt to retain balance by hunting renegades from Guze. Flame Hazes create Torches in place of the consumed to save the world from the disruption of many existences being lost at once, allowing the Torches to gradually burn out over the course of time.

Main characters

Yuji Sakai

Voiced by: Satoshi Hino (Japanese), Kristian Ayre (English)

Yuji, the main male lead of the series, is just an average high school student. However, his world is turned upside down when he discovers that he is already dead and does not have much time before he disappears. Fortunately, Yuji is a Mystes who contains a treasure known as the Reiji Maigo, "Midnight Lost Child"). Unlike normal torches, the treasure inside him restores his Power of Existence every night at midnight. With the Reiji Maigo, Yuji has the possibility to live on like an average human as long as he makes sure that his Power of Existence does not run out before midnight. Later, he begins to learn to use the yet untapped potential of the treasure kept within him. Once he began using this power, the antagonists recognize him as "Silver the Second". He cares deeply about Shana, but does not make any advances in their relationship due to his feelings of inferiority as a Torch and his view of Shana as someone who is beyond his reach. He also starts to see Shana from her old former perspective of the world, where he is just a Torch and she is just a Flame Haze. With this going on, he distanced himself from the closeness that the two originally shared, leaving Shana hurt with the new feelings of love she has developed but cannot explain. However, Yuji and Shana have since repaired the damage to their relationship. As of volume 16 of the novel series, he has verbally acknowledged that he is in love with her.

Shana

Voiced by: Rie Kugimiya (Japanese), Tabitha St. Germain (English)

The main female lead of the series and a Flame Haze. Initially she is concentrated solely on her duty as a Flame Haze, going as far as to not bearing even a name. She initially sees Yuji only as a Torch, an object, and is marginally interested only because of his status as a Mystes. However, she slowly opens up to Yuji, coming to think of him as a person, despite being a Torch, and eventually comes to love him. Until she met Yuji, she was identified by only her Flame Haze title "Flame-Haired Blazing-Eyed Hunter," or her nodachi, Nietono no Shana, "Vairocana of the Offering Room"). Yuji, in his need to humanize her, chose to name her "Shana" after her sword. Shana has a habit of saying "Urusai! Urusai! Urusai!" which means "Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!" whenever Yuji asks her questions or makes remarks that disturb her original point of view. But in reality they really care for each other. She has a great fondness for melon bread. Shana later comes to the startling conclusion that she loves Yuji, and even confesses it to him in the last episode of the first anime series when she thought she was going to die, but he does not hear what she said. Shana is continually torn between her mission to protect the balance, and her love for Yuji. Due to a decision she made near the end of the first season of the anime version, the closeness they once had begun to erode as Yuji kept a distance from her because of it. Yuji adopts a viewpoint similar to Shana's in the beginning of the series. However, Yuji comes to realize that he was wrong, and their relationship seems to be restored.

Alastor

Voiced by: Masashi Ebara (Japanese), Paul Dobson (English)

He is the Lord of the Crimson Realm to whom Shana is bound. He expresses his will through a divine vessel called the Cocytus, which (in Shana's case) takes the form of a pendant. His name is actually the name of a demon in mythology. Alastor is considered to be one of the strongest of all Lords or Denizens; in fact being one of the true Gods of the Crimson Realm. But even so, he tries to keep the Denizens from consuming Power of Existence.