Image taken from the Season 2 OP Album

(can't find any good season 3 pictures =/)

MORE Kugimiya Rie! Finally taking our loved empatsu shakugan no tsundere loli to the final arc!

        No matter how you look at this, I can't summarize it without spoiling, so I'll give the overview from the start again!

Yuji Sakai, a high school student, expected his very normal life to last forever. However, this expectation is quickly shattered one day while on his way home. The world suddenly freezes in time, leaving Yuji to watch in horror as blue flames engulf the people around him. Soon a monster resembling a large doll appears and begins sucking the flames into its mouth, until it notices Yuji. Surprised with Yuji's insusceptibility to the time-stop (fuzetsu), it jumps with glee. Just as the monster prepares to consume Yuji, a sword-wielding girl in black attire with flaming red eyes and hair appears, swiftly and confidently destroys the monster, before noticing Yuji moving freely. The girl calls herself a "Flame Haze" who hunts the "Denizens of the Crimson Realm" and the "Rinne" they send to do their bidding. When Yuji notices a blue flame in his chest, the Flame Haze tells him that the "real" Yuji died some time ago, and that he is a "Torch", a temporary replacement for erased humans. Torches take on the forms of those erased persons, but after a period of time, they will vanish from existence and the memories of the living. Unfazed by his apparent death.

from wikipedia(lolfail)

and so the story about Yuji Sakai, the Torch and the Flame Haze starts here...into a chaotic mess of battle against the denizons, and of course, ROMANCE!

Zelos' comments: At last, with the final volume of the novel(XXII) being released this month in Japan, the anime team also decided to close the gaping hole in the series with a final seal. If you read the novels you would feel pretty annoyed as JC Staff did an amazingly bad job with season 2, and really season 1 if you want to look at it. The movie version of Shakugan no Shana was done just to repeat the first arc of season 1 because the tv anime version was done WRONG. JC Staff bombed their light novel animes up until Toradora, which also makes the fourth and the final season of Zero no Tsukaima seem impossible to fix with huge bugs and glitches. Anyways, on to the topic, I'm still excited for Final, because this will feature some long awaited scenes that everyone wants to watch in motion, and of course, it will feature the novel ending which means no original ending will be given, which is good. Toradora was a timely ending with the novel series and it was great. Gosick was timed with the end of novel series as well so the ending was on the right track, despite being rushed and missing some points(I'm off topic again aren't I). Anyways, hopefully JC Staff will keep up their work since I actually like them now.

Kenn's Comment: I'm always apprehensive when it comes to J.C. Staff. I've seen a few too many of their series flop (most of them are adaptations). On topic now, I'm not a follower of the novels, but I've been told stuff about them and that really makes me hope that the good people at J.C. Staff follow through and at least leave the series with a bang (a good one). If memory serves me correct, they've got a pretty big hole to fill, so I'm hoping that the pace doesn't get too hectic. Anyways, looking forward to this one.