Shakugan no Shana: The Movie is a retelling of the first part of the first season of the TV series, with some things added in, taken out, and redone. If you want to catchup on the first part of the series, or want something to tide you over until the 2nd season airs (which happened today) or if you want to have a quick way to see what all the fuss is about, the movie is a good place to start.

The movie starts with a crimson bubble appearing over Misaki City. A man with a nice big sword thing steps towards a twirling piece of cloth. The man attacks, and Friagne suddenly appears within the twirling cloth. As the man comes ever closer with his sword, Friagne pulls out a pistol, shooting the man, causing him to disintegrate in a giant green fireball within the bubble.

After school one day, Yuji Sakai runs into Yukari Hirai, a girl from his class, at a CD store. The two hang out in the store CD store together, but when Yukari starts to leave, blue magical circles suddenly show up and a crimson bubble shows up over Yuji, Yukari and several other people. However, while Yuji can move, everyone else both inside and outside of the bubble appear to be completely frozen.

Suddenly a giant baby-looking thing and a floating ball of heads show up and start sucking blue power of existences out of everyone, causing everyone inside the bubble to disappear except for Yuji. Then, a girl with flaming hair arrives and defeats the invaders, but not before one of them – in the form of a small doll – escapes. The girl replaces all the people who disappeared and fixes the damage, then lifts the bubble. Everyone except Yuji then continues on, unaware of what has transpired.

Yuji starts to go after Yukari, but then notices a blue flame that appears to be lit inside of her. He then notices the flame in several other people around him, and one person with a flame suddenly disappears, apparently without notice. Yuji runs after the unknown girl – who now has dark black hair – to ask her what’s going on, but she just gets annoyed and tries to blow him off. However, her necklace says that “the mystes” should calm down after being told the truth.

The girl tells Yuji that he isn’t human and that things she defeated are things known as Rinne, who are servants of beings known as Crimson Denizens – and they eat people’s “existences” and she is a Flame Haze who hunts them. She explains that the world treats those who are eaten as if they never existed, but that the world would go out of balance if so many people suddenly just disappeared, so she creates “torches” in their place to help minimize the impact. She then tells Yuji that he’s also been turned into a torch and has already died and will soon disappear.

The next day, Yuji is still pondering about the fact that he’s already dead when he runs into the girl again. She tells him that, rather than hunt for the Crimson Denizin, she’ll just hang out with Yuji since the Denizen will probably come to look for him anyway. Yugi then asks what it means that he’s a mystes, and the girl tells him that mystes are torches which have treasures in them. The Flame Haze then sees a girl riding by on her bike who is also a torch and notes that the city has more torches than normal in it.

Yuji then sees Yukari walking by but sees that her flame is very small. After school, Yuji gets Yukari to hang with Ike, which seems to lift her spirits, but she disappears after a while. Yuji runs out to find Yukari, afraid that she’s already vanished, but finally finds her looking at the sunset on a hill. However, Yukari suddenly disappears in a blast of blue flame. Yuji looks at the copy of the pictures they took and sees that Yukari is no longer in the picture.

The Flame Haze tells Yuji that no one will remember Yukari and that the world will go on like she never existed, but Yuji says that he still remembers her. Yuji asks the girl what her name is, and she tells him that she doesn’t have a name, but if she needs to be distinguished from other Flame Hazes, she’s called the Flame Haze of Nietono no Shana, which is the name of her sword. Yuji then declares that he’ll call her Shana.

Yuji arrives at school the next day to see Shana sitting where Yukari used to sit. On top of this, everyone else in the class appears to see her as Yukari. Yuji demands to know what Shana is doing, and she tells him that she’s keeping an eye on him by taking Yukari’s place. A crimson bubble then appears over the school. The doll from before, Marianne, and Shana fight, and the resulting devastation would result in most everyone else in the room getting killed or injured if the crimson bubble were to be lifted.

Shana is about to dispatch of the doll when Friagne appears. Frigane notes how disappointed he is in Shana, considering that Alastor is her master, but decides to withdraw, deciding not to put “the mystes” in too much danger by fighting Shana in such a setting as the school. Shana is about to use one of the “dead” classmate’s power of existence to fix the damage, but Yuji objects to her killing anyone to fix the mess. Shana then asks Yuji if he wants to volunteer then, something which Yuji agrees to.

That night, Shana is sitting on Yuji’s roof in the rain when Yuji shows up saying that he “felt” her up there, and invites her inside. While Shana changes (and Yuji hides in the closet), she and Alastor explain to him that the reason why Friagne is creating so many torches is because he collects the treasures stored within mystes. But he also likes hunting Flame Hazes, and creating a lot of torches in one place also draws out Flame Hazes for him to kill.

Back at their hideout, Friagne starts to reveal his plan: using all the torches that he’s created in the city in order to give his Rinne Marianne enough power of existence so that she may become a full fledged “existence” who can survive on her own. However, suddenly another Flame Haze named Margery Daw, who has long blond hair and carryies a book that talks called Marco, shows up.

The next day, Shana sees that Yuji’s flame is at full strength, despite using much of it to fix up the classroom the day before. While walking down a street, Yuji mentions how the flames he sees in people are pulsating like a beating heart. Even though they can’t see it for themselves, Shana and Alastor are alarmed by this. Suddenly, circular pulses are sent out from somewhere and start dispersing torches all over the city. Alastor believes it is the other Flame Haze that has arrived that that they sensed the night before. Meanwhile, Friagne sees many of the torches in the city start to disappear and becomes concerned that someone is messing with his plans.

Shana and Yuji run to find the other Flame Haze and finally find her around some buildings being constructed. Yuji gets enraged at Margery Daw for using up torches so casually, but Margery just slaps him away. Alastor continues criticizing her, telling Margery that erasing torches like she was disrupts the balance of the world, but she just blows him off as well.

Suddenly Friagne shows up to see what’s up and Margery Daw puts up a crimson bubble so that she can fight Friagne. Margery Daw then transforms into her special form – a giant blue beast with huge claws and fangs while Shana transforms back into the girl with flaming red hair. Margery throws a giant blue fire ball at Friagne, but it dissipates, leaving him unharmed. Friagne then reveals that he is wearing Azure, the anti-flame ring.

Friagne then unleashes another one of his collectibles – a coin that turns into an unbreakable chain, and he twists Shana’s sword with it. Margery tries attacking from behind, but Friagne starts to unleash his legions of dolls-turned-Rinne against her. Shana tries to charge Friagne, but he sicks even more dolls against Shana. Friagne then materializes a glass bell and starts chiming it. Yuji realizes something is wrong and tells Shana to get back just before the dolls heading towards her explode.

Friagne approaches Yuji and picks him up, curious about what treasure Yuji may have inside of him. Shana charges Friagne again, but he uses Yuji as a shield and Shana is forced to halt her attack. Friagne hits Shana away with his chain and then takes Yuji away with him. Just before he leaves, he tells Shana and Margery to come to the highest point in the city that night for a final showdown.

That night, Friagne arrives to the battle spot with Yuji. While he’s waiting, he shows off his gun, Trigger Happy, to Yuji and tells him that it’s a weapon that can kill Flame Hazes. He tells him that Flame Hazes use their bodies as a vessel to hold a Lord of the Crimson Realm. He explains that these Lords are extremely powerful, and thus have to largely go into hibernation when contained within a Flame Haze. However, Trigger Happy reactivates the Lord’s power, resulting in the destruction of the Flame Haze holding it. On top of this, afraid of putting the world into imbalance, the Lord usually withdraws back into the Crimson Realm, leaving Friagne the winner.

Meanwhile, Shana and Margery decide that it’s time to go settle things. Shana shows up and Yuji yells to warn her about the gun, but one of the rinne dolls knocks him unconscious. Shana tries charging while flying erratically so Friagne can’t get a shot on her, but he sends more of his dolls at her, blowing them up with his bell. They continue to fight until Yuji notices that the torch’s pulsing has gotten much stronger. Suddenly, all the torches in city shoot up blue light into the air. Alastor suddenly realizes Friagne’s plan: City Devouring – changing an entire city into power of existence – something that will cause the world to fall apart.

Shana and Margery continue fighting Friagne’s exploding doll rinne while Friagne continues ringing his bell, this time to start activating the plan for City Devouring. Yuji then notices that sometimes the bell ringing causes explosions and sometimes it doesn’t. He then realizes that the dolls exploding isn’t being caused by the bell at all: it’s only use is to cause the City Devouring to start.

Shana and Margery finally cut through all of Friagne’s dolls and corner him on top of a roller coaster. Finally, Marianne volunteers to be used against the Flame Hazes. Friagne objects, but she tells him that if he dies, she’ll die too anyway. Marianne uses the golden chain to entangle Shana then closes in on her, and tells Friagne to detonate her, which he finally does after much hesitation and remorse. This causes the structure to collapse, sending everyone to the ground. Disillusioned, Friagne believes that finishing the City Devouring will bring Marianne back, but decides to kill Shana first.

Yuji suddenly sets up a crimson bubble up himself for an instant, interrupting Friagne’s City Devouring spell. Friagne turns to shoot Yuji, and Shana uses this opportunity to throw a shard of glass at him, cutting off most of his fingers on his left hand, causing him to lose both the fire-disrupting ring and the bell, shattering it. Friagne then turns and shoots Shana with Trigger Happy, sending her off the side of the building.

While falling off the building, Shana catches fire and explodes in flame upon hitting the ground. Suddenly fire springs up from where Shana fell and a new crimson bubble forms over the area. Fire spreads around the city within the bubble and consolidates into the Flame of Heaven’s true form: A large fiery monster. Margery and Marco escape before the Flame of Heaven can unleash his wrath. Meanwhile, Yuji finds Friagne’s fire deflecting ring.

The Flame of Heaven approaches Friagne and tells him that Shana has enough room in her vessel to allow him to manifest and still have room left over, so shotting her with Trigger Happy did nothing but allow him to manifest himself. The Flame of Heaven then sends the flame of retribution against Friagne, destroying him and most of the city around him.

Afterwards, Shana uses Yuji’s flame to fix the city, leaving Yuji’s flame barely lit and leaving him largely transparent. He soon starts breaking apart and glowing pieces of him start to float away. The clock then strikes midnight and suddenly…Yuji fully reappears and Shana starts cracking up. Yuji wonders how he’s still existing and Alastor tells him that the treasure inside of him is the Midnight Lost Child – a treasure that regenerates his power of existence daily at midnight, no matter how much he uses up that day, and that they’ll have to stick around to keep an eye on him for a while longer…

As I said at the start, this was a pretty good movie if you’re looking to see what Shana is about or fresh up on the story, but I’m not sure how well this does as a stand-alone movie. That’s not to say it doesn’t do a pretty decent job, but there are a lot of “shout outs,” if you will, to fans of the series that people who haven’t seen the series may not get, or may get confused about.

It’s probably not a coincidence that this was released on DVD just before the second season started airing, and it gave a little earlier-than-expected jump back into the world of Shana. The animation is excellent, as can be expected of a movie adaptation of a series which already had good animation quality.

I’m not sure there is much to say here other than it was nice seeing Shana back in action – even if it was in a story line I’ve already seen – and I’m excited for the second season to air.