[darktruth]

As far as the storyline went...it started off interesting but ended up being quite lackluster to me. There was all this big interest in Yuji containing the "Reiji Maigo" and the villains attempting to take it from him but it got rather boring pretty quickly by the 3rd arc that I even wanted one of them to get it in the end.

As for Friagne in the first arc of the TV series, his obssession with a doll and attempts to gather up all the torches for her existence was very random and very "wtf?". There was no explanation or pasts that revealed why he is so close with this doll, this arc was more funny to watch as a comedy than to take it seriously. The 2nd arc of the brother and sister villains contained the usual incest cliche that wasn't needed to emphasise their relationship.

The 3rd arc improved a bit by having a misunderstood villain, that's rarely used, with some explanations to her motives for wanting the reiji maigo inside Yuji. The ending seemed kinda rushed though and was different from other big action type animes. None of the major villains from this arc were killed which is something not commonly done. Of course it also leaves a big follow-up for a second season but there's been no announcements of one so far.

I just hope the Shana movie does a better job of retelling Friagne's arc since it ran only for 6 episodes of the series but didn't pull it off that well. Like I said in my earlier post, I did enjoy watching this series but it wasn't the storyline that really made me like it. It was the action scenes, music and characters that I enjoyed watching.

Shana's character development was interesting to see as she came out as a rather narrow minded and emotionless flame haze to one that understood human emotions (although the episodes that revealed her past showed her with some emotions). Yoshida was pretty much what a typical shy schoolgirl is like but she was sort of presented as a wedge between Shana and Yuji (which can be seen as either a good or bad thing depending on how you view Shana as lol).

Yuji's character isn't very original either as he's the type that's willing to sacrifice himself for others, but to me, this somewhat had a part in teaching and making Shana broaden her views on human torches and creating a connection between them. He was willing to help her even when he knew the danger he was in by doing that. The only other character I felt that could've been developed more was Keisaku, he somehow ended up being more as Margery Daw's sidekick that added nothing to the main storyline or character relationships, although that's not majorly the case for the special OVA of anime where it focused on Ogata's crush on Tanaka XD.

Flynt, you should go and watch the shana-tan and hecate-tan omakes now that you've finished watching the series. It's hilariously outrageous. Yoshida's split personality is probably the best thing out of those as well as all the sexual joke references to the tv series.