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Originally Posted by relentlessflame
I think this is rather harsh. Throwing people into the deep end and gradually revealing the details of what's happening isn't exactly an unheard-of storytelling technique, and I wouldn't say that it's "not proper". They're banking on the fact that people are already invested enough in the franchise, and will be willing to stick out some confusion before the full truth is revealed. This is a way of building tension and keeping viewers guessing (even if some people already know what's going on, whether from having read the novels or spoiling themselves on their contents). Of course, whether you like this approach or not is totally up to you... but I think saying the "anime absolutely does not [have] proper storytelling" is a bit of an over-statement. This is a valid narrative approach, and I'm sure everything will make sense in the composite once all the pieces come into place, even for us anime-only viewers. It's hard to judge the merits until you see the full picture and how it all comes together.
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I suppose I should be more specific about what I mean. The idea of throwing people in the middle of things and slowly dishing out the details of how they got into that situation over time is not new, and no I don't think it's bad.
What bothers me about Shana III is how we were led into this.
At the end of Shana II we had some anime original ending where the cast fought Ball Masque among other things, and then at the beginning of Shana III we are told Yuiji disappeared on that very day of Christmas Eve.
Basically there was no time between the events of S2 and S3, but in S3 we're suddenly thrown into a situation of confusion and chaos. I'd have no problem if there was some sort of time gap where several events occurred that would explain the present events, but everything that was going on in Yuiji's mind leading up to S3 happened during the episodes of S2.
I personally think this is really awkward and this is what I don't think is proper. We are led to believe that there were things going on with Yuiji all alongside those S2 episodes without ever having an inkling of why. I can't say much more about Yuji because these things would be spoilers, but I will say that a lot of the development coming for him is going to seem a bit out of nowhere.
This is not to mention that it's hard to understand just what the purpose of that anime original ending with Ball Masque in season 2 even meant. They're now following Yuiji, but before hand they were basically attacking him. It seems like there's a contradiction in their actions.
I know very well how differently this is handled in the LN (A lot better IMO), and it's just disappointing to me to see how the anime has turned out (Mind you everything that is problematic in season 3 is because of season 2 and honestly they're doing the best they can to amend it at this point).
For the record, I gave this episode a 7/10 which I consider "good," so it's not like I am hating everything about the Shana anime. In fact I expect myself to get more into it later on, but right now a lot of the spill over effects of season 2 are bothering me. It's making the presentation of many of the new developments in S3 seem quite sour due to how the story has been written up to this point.