Shana (Shakugan no Shana)

"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!"

- Shana's notable quote when upset or annoyed.

Shana a heroine from the anime Shakugan No Shana a female swordsperson.

Profile
She is a Flame Haze, usually referred to as her title: "Flame-Haired Burning-Eyed Hunter" or also know as "Neitono no shana" (the name of her sword) among the other flame haze. She has bound a contract with the Crimson Lord Alastor, "Flame of Heaven".

Shana is a young girl with jet black hair which is almost as long as her entire body height. She also has dark brown pupils and a fair complexion. Because of the effects of being a Flame Haze, Shana's body age remains like a girl of 13 to 14 years old. Upon invoking her powers as a Flame Haze, her hair and eyes change color to a fiery crimson, with embers fluttering from her head down.

In her first few years as a Flame Haze, she wears an all-black attire consisting of a shirt, pants and her Treasure Tool Yogasa in the form of a trenchcoat. However, after she decided to stay in Misaki City, she is most usually seen with the Misaki City Municipal High School uniform and when in combat, wears the Yogasa as a cape over her clothes.

She is later seen wearing a red-and-black frilly dress on her stay inside the Seireiden.

Initially, she is concentrated solely on her duty as a Flame Haze, not even bearing a name as she didn't see any importance having it. She sees Yuji only as a Torch, an object, marginally interesting because of his status as a Mystes. However, she slowly opens up to Yuji, coming to think of him as a person, despite being a Torch, and eventually comes to show affection to him. Her duty made her indifferent towards human life at first, but through Yuji's influence, Shana has opened up slightly, although she still remains confused and disgruntled by some human traits which she considers as pointless, although some of it is used to mask her jealousy of her desired monopoly on Yuji.

Shana has a habit of saying "Urusai! Urusai! Urusai!" ("Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!") whenever Yuji asks her questions or makes remarks that disturb her original worldview or embarrass her. But in reality they really care for each other. She has a great fondness for anything sweet, eventually putting melon bread above her preference.

Shana is shown to be highly intelligent as she has gotten a perfect score on every exam and is talented in Physical Education. She is shown, however, to be naive when it comes to social affairs, once even unabashfully asking "how babies are made" to Chigusa.

Background
She was rescued and picked up by Wilhelmina Carmel and Shiro when she was an infant. She was then raised and trained in Tendoukyuu. Alastor stated that she is "The Great One", destined to be a very majestic figure when she grows up (if she didn't get involved with Crimson Realm beforehand). After the destruction of the Tendoukyuu, she and Wilhelmina went their seperate ways in Hong Kong, with the latter's intentions of allowing her to learn on her own as a Flame Haze.

The new "Flame-Haired Burning-Eyed Hunter" proceeds to her solitary journey, eventually becoming a companion of Sophie Sawallisch, a veteran Flame Haze. Sophie notices her crudeness in combat and lack of femininity and decides to train her, while teaching her the ways of being a lady.

The Flame Haze later travels to Japan, where she is involved with affairs relating to a certain Denizen which dwells in Yosegi City before reaching Misaki City. She later meets Yuji by chance in one attack initiated by Friagne, the Crimson Lord who was staying at that city.

Yuji, in his need to humanize her, chose to name her "Shana" after her katana. Until she met Yuji, she was identified by only her Flame Haze title "Flame-Haired Burning-Eyed Hunter," or her nodachi as, "Flame Haze of the Nietono no Shana" (Nietono no Shana no Flame Haze); or even abbreviated to "the Nietono" (Nietono no) by her fellow comrade, Rebecca Reed.

Powers and Abilities
Shana is a powerful and talented Flame Haze, and is said to be the most powerful, known and feared by most Crimson Denizens with her title alone. This has allowed her to defeat many powerful Denizens, and permits her many different abilities, including her proficiency with the Nietono no Shana, the ability to wield flames, manipulate the Power of Existence, harbor extrasensory traits, and fly with wings of flame. In the third volume of the manga, the first volume of the novel, and the movie, Alastor states that the reason why she did not explode after being shot by Friagne's Trigger Happy was because she held a capacity that existed in dimensional space, who was able to contain the Flame of Heaven's (and more); He has thus stated her as "The Great One".

However, she demonstrates a clear lack of experience in battle, as noted by Sophie Sawallisch, who has witnessed her fighting style first-hand. This is once held responsible for her defeat against a Flame Haze, Margery Daw, who is a specialist in Power of Unrestraint.

Tenpa Jōsai is a secret technique inherited by Flame Haze of the title "Flame-Haired Burning-Eyed Hunter". Shana is capable of using it to summon Alastor.

Unrestricted Spells

 * Wings of Crimson - A pair of fiery wings appear on her back, allowing flight. At first, Shana is not able to use this spell without Yuji in range. Later on, she manages to use Guren no Souyoku when she fought in later battles even against Yuji. These wings were fast enough to evade Hecate's powerful Aster spell.


 * Great Blade of Crimson - It coats Shana's sword with a flame which she can use to hurl at enemies from a distance, whether as a wave of fire or fireballs. She is also capable of creating fiery constructs to do her bidding. Additionally, she has learned to summon the spirit of Tenmoku Ikko, the entity that resides within Nietono no Shana when she was held as a captive in Seireiden.
 * Condemnation
 * True Crimson
 * Judgment
 * Blazing Flame
 * Regeneration

Trivia

 * The name "Shana", which was given by Yuji to the Flame-Haired Burning-Eyed Hunter (from her main weapon, Nietono no Shana) actually refers to the buddha Vairocana. Coincidentally it also means "beautiful" in Hebrew.
 * Her title, "Flamed-Haired Burning-Eyed", is a play on the term "Blonde-Haired, Blue-Eyed", which described foreigners appeared in many anime and manga characters.
 * In American translation, the name 'Shana' means God is gracious.
 * In Episode 5 of Hayate the Combat Butler, Shana is parodied by Nagi Sanzen'in, who shares the same Japanese voice actress as her. Both also have very similar personalities.
 * In the Drama CD's, Shana is voiced by Yui Horie.
 * Shana seems to bear a lot of similarities to Jin Kisaragi from BlazBlue, and only one to John Tanner from the Driver Series. Not only do Shana and Jin wield Katana-type swords and being bounded to ethereal beings - Yukianesa and Alastor, respectively, but they also share the same personalities. Interestingly to note is that both also wields power over elements that are "opposite" to each other - Ice and Fire.
 * Jin and John reference Shana's catchphrase in his Arcade Mode and Story Mode in BlazBlue: Continuum Shift (Jin) and the end of wrecking the car with Fiona Mellor in Driver: San Francisco (John), by saying "Shut up!" three times in a row.
 * In the fourth episode of Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu, Haruka Nogizaka wears the dark-green-and-yellow uniform of Misaki City Municipal High School and references her by saying "Urusai, urusai, urusai!" She also wears a coat much like Yogasa. Hishoku no Sora also plays in the background.
 * Mamiko Noto, the seiyu for Haruka, also voiced Hecate.
 * Hishoku no Sora is again played in the sixth episode, with official art of Shana seen in Comiket.
 * English voice actress Tabitha St. Germain, who voiced Shana also voiced Flay Allster from Gundam Seed. Shana and Kazumi Yoshida's English voice actresses, Tabitha St. Germain and Chantal Strand, play a similar love triangle relationship role with Flay Allster and Lacus Clyne from Gundam Seed.
 * Shana and Flay have similar personalities and character developement. Both Shana and Flay have very cold personalities and treat the main characters Yuji and Kira indifferently but as time passses they eventually fall in love with them and are willing to support one another.
 * The names of Shana's Unrestricted Spells are all in Japanese.