Review of Shakugan no Shana: Season I

Shakugan no shana had a lot of potential, but I found it didn't live up to it. It was entertaining, there were some good battle scenes and some interesting characters, but also too much predictable drama. Outside of the predictable romance drama, and the powerful girl teams with a guy that has some sort of special feature theme, it was fairly original. It starts off well, enough to hook me, but then I found that I ended up disappointed with some of the background. Characters: The characters were ok, but as with similar series (powerful girl, guy who teams up with her), Yuji, the male protagonistwasn't anything special. Shana was by far the best part of the series, watching her adapt to her own emotions and surroundings. And gaining more power as a flame haze.
Kazumi is a character I hated-- she's nothing special and pretty much useless, basically she's there to interfere with the main romance between Yuji and Shana. She's annoying, and overall the worst part of the series for me. Especially since Shana has enough to adapt to and overcome on her own that extra interference is not necessary.
Margery was sometimes comic relief, but overall was an interesting character. She too changes throughout the series, gaining some compassion.

The story is good, like I said before, it had far more potential than it used. It's somewhat inconsistent as well, for example Shana at first had no name, and said that flame haze didn't need names. Yet every other flame haze we meet has a name.
I also found that the story focused too much on the romance drama, when it could have gone more deeply into the background of some of the characters, for example Alastor, the Guze, and so on. I was expecting something more for Shana's backstory, and there are a few things that are never really made clear.

Overall the series was entertaining, enough that I watched the second season, but not so much as to rewatch it. I tried to, but the whole drama part of it made me stop. It's not done well, and ends up quite predictable.
It's a good series for any fantasy fan, as long as you're not expecting something grand and mind-blowing.