天下制覇

Poor girl.

Impressions:

This actually ended up being a surprisingly good episode. It was still as low budget and overly dramatic as the rest of the S OVA series, but it actually worked pretty well this time. The whole thing is the first part of a flashback to Shana’s early days. She takes over the life of Oogami Junko, a Torch, to hunt the Denizen that killed her. Shana’s bitchiness towards Junko’s family at the start was a little offputting, but she softened as she learned more about Junko, particularly her mother and their relationship. It does spark some questions about Shana usurping Junko’s life and changing the memories that her family and friends have of her towards the end, but I guess they’re all about to forget her when Shana snuffs that last portion of the Torch anyway, so we’ll just ignore it. Actually, I think I may have just made myself sad.

That said, it really didn’t feel a ton like an episode of Shana. Most of it was exploring Junko’s life, not hunting the Denizen or even anything vaguely Flame Haze-ish. It does make me think a lot about Angel Beats and how badly they muffed up all their drama, especially compared to Junko being obliterated from existence, but I’m probably just taking cheap pot shots. JC Staff did do a very good job with the music and the atmosphere unlike the last couple iterations of this OVA series though. I still would have been happy if they had spent more time on the Flame Haze and… you know… setting things on fire aspect of the show instead of the melodrama, but they did pull it off this time, so I’ll just choke that down for now. Hopefully the final episode of the OVA series and second part of this will finally have some of that action I crave.