灼眼のシャナ II Episode 24 (finale)

SPOILER Summary: Wilhelmina and Shana engage Hecate and Sydonay in a pitched battle with both Flame Haze taking serious damage. As Yoshida observes from outside the field, the Flame Haze discover that Hecate and Sydonay won’t attack if it might hit the structure that had been the clock tower. As such, Wilhelmina and Shana have some protection, though Alastor tells them that they need to not engage the Tomogara but get the Reiji Maigo back. Within the structure, Yuuji works his way to where he senses the Reiji Maigo is, knowing he needs to get it back. However, the droids dispatched to take him out are still in pursuit, forcing him to use more of his Power of Existence to fight them off.

As Marchosias attempts to heal Margery Daw, Shana makes her way within the structure to find Yuuji while Wilhelmina faces off against both Hecate and Sydonay. Shana eventually finds Yuuji, who’s starting to fade. The two head further into the twisted maze of steel (Yuuji having recovered the Blutsauger) when Hecate actives the next phase, the coming to life of this new, metal Tomogara. The blue field breaks like an egg and though injured, Margery Daw manages to get a Fuzetsu raises, which irritates Dantalion, who simply causes wings to activate on the giant creation of his so that it can fly out of the Fuzetsu and do the destruction they crave.

Shana and Yuuji race to the center where the silver armor (the Silver) has come to life and faces the pair of them. It has the Reiji Maigo and during the fight, Yuuji has to cover Shana by countering the Silver’s silver fireball with one of his own. Hecate, apparently looking through the Silver’s eyes, causes the giant Tomogara to flex its wings, causing massive destruction everywhere as Margery Daw rescues Yoshida from the falling glass and debris. Wilhelmina prepares a giant spear since Sydonay can’t risk a ranged attack that would hit the newly formed Tomogara.

Yuuji figures out where Shana needs to attack to stop the giant Tomogara, but the Silver stops her from doing so. Through Hecate, the Silver attacks Yuuji, but what should have been an easy kill was a miss as the fireball lands well behind Yuuji to the surprise of Hecate. Shana comes in for another attack, and when the Silver looks at her, her wings make her take the form of a bird, which is seen by Hecate, who then has a vision of a human hand reaching out to a flock of birds. As such, the Silver drops its weapon and holds its hand out as if to allow Shana to land on its hand. Shana instead hits the Silver hard and Yuuji follows with an attack from Blutsauger as Hecate is confused as to what has happened.

Yuuji summons the Reiji Maigo, which returns to him. Alastor urges Shana and Yuuji to flee, which they do as a flock of birds seems to fly up from the Silver, who’s arm is still outstretched. Within Seireiden, Fecor asks Bel Peol what happened, to which she replies they can’t change the laws of the universe. Sydonay asks Hecate what happened, but she doesn’t have an answer. Dantalion is extremely frustrated that things have gone so wrong, but there’s nothing he can do and so Sydonay orders a retreat. Dantalion is not down for that, forcing Domino to make their craft retreat. Sydonay follows suit, but Hecate lingers for a moment and tears fall from her eyes, much to her surprise. She quickly regains composure and evacuates as well.

Wilhelmina and Margery are with Yuuji and Shana when Yoshida comes up and is happy to see them both alive. As such, she welcomes them home. Once things are restored to normal, Yuuji again must make his choice. While we never see the choice, seeing Shana’s eyes brighten and smile while Yoshida has the opposite expression suggests that Yuuji chose Shana.

Thoughts: So, the good guys win, the bad guys evacuate the area, and apparently, Yoshida gets rejected (to be expected, but sad nevertheless). Thus endeth the 2nd Shana TV series and it was a good one. I thought for sure that Yoshida would use the Hougu but she didn’t. However, if I’m right and she was rejected as the ending moments suggest, then maybe she has a better reason to go ahead and use it.

The other item of interest was Hecate. Konoe always was interested in birds and it was intriguing to see that when the Silver was coming to life, it saw Shana as a bird, which somehow Hecate saw (I guess through both of their linkage to Konoe) and Hecate shedding a tear surprised me. I would love it if this got explored further in a potential 3rd series. I dare say that no one expected Hecate to be effected by the emotions from Konoe or her love of birds.