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Originally Posted by Lambda

I do have to say though, the show isn't nearly as interesting now as it was in its early episodes (minus episode 1). About the most I can say about the show in its current form is that it presents what is fundamentally uninspired material well enough that it seems worth continuing with, on the hope that it will become more like its early episodes again at some point.

In that respect, I'm actually continuing to watch it for much the same reasons as I was watching the early episodes of Shuffle, funnily enough.

I'm kind of in the same boat as you with respect to SnS - that is, I found it a lot more interesting at the start than now in the present. I chalk it up to the dramatic first episode in which a "story-shock" is employed by juxtaposing Yuji's quiet school life with Shana's fuzetsu-dominated perspective in which the destruction-riddled aftermath is the norm. Of course, there's also Yuji's startling revelation about his own.. 'status' among the living.

I can't think of anything that SnS is really doing wrong... But the battles, dialogues, and interactions between Shana and her enemies (guze no tomogara, etc.) were kind of bland. It's not so much that I was expecting big, flashy battles (although the battles are a bit goofy), but they didn't seem to contribute exceptionally to the plot (primarily character-driven) relative to the amount of time spent on them.

On the other hand, having too little focus on such clashes would cheapen Shana's role as a Flame Haze as well as reduce the audience's opinion of the viewpoint from which she is coming from. That said, I guess SnS is a bit more diluted than it should be, rather than having done any particular story element so poorly as to warrant heavy flaming.

With respect to the subject of loli...

Yes, Shana is undoubtedly in the loli category when they portray her in an abject or sexual way (slightly cyclical here, but better to get the point across through redundancy). Disregarding her age, she is clearly shorter than her 'class-mates' - Ep3, ~09:00 when she leaves the classroom; Ep.9 ~12:50 when walking in the water park; and official site lists her as more than 10cm shorter than Kazumi. She's flat/relatively hipless, and her features and expressions are depicted similarly to the rest of the characters that are Yuji's age (so she's unlikely older than them, although facial features aren't a good indication of age in anime, as we all know). Within the context of the show, she clearly possesses a body that is of lesser physical maturity than the rest of the school-going cast, and by logical inference, one that is of lesser age. Purely from observation, we can also speculate that her body is of a real-life equivalent to that of perhaps a 12 year old (maybe as old as 14, puberty and what not, I'm not expert).

On the subject of fanservice...

In the water park episode, Shana in a swimsuit is fanservice to the extent that wearing a swimsuit is out of character for her -- acknowledged in-story when Yuji's mother picks a suit for her -- and thus there is some amusement garnered by the audience in seeing our cold and stoic (thus far) heroine suitably garbed and placed in a situation that is quite opposite to that of her personality. The swimsuit itself seems like a typical "cute" style for a younger girl.

On the other hand, Episode 4 constitutes loli fanservice.

As for Episode 12's tentacles, that could be considered fanservice, too, as far as being a nod to the niche of the hentai world that focuses on that type of appendage (and its commonly depicted use of restrainment and... err.. yeah).