On roll-back of Shana X Yuji relationship. Actually I felt the roll back was minor. It’s hard for JC Staff since they need to keep Shana’s tsundere charms yet maintain a sense of progress for their relationship. Imagine if Shana suddenly had the maturity to set Yuji straight. There wouldn’t be much haremic tension after that. It’s a tough balancing act and JC Staff is just not ready to let Shana grown up and lose a major attraction of the show.

I see progress actually. Yuji and Shana are continuing to hammer out their communication channels though the trigger is different this time – an insidious attack by Konoe instead of the upfront Kazumi. The Kazumi-Yuji-Shana impasse was getting old so introducing the needy Konoe throws everyone off balance. Now Shana cannot just wage a side war with Kazumi. She need now to deal with Yuji directly over Konoe. As for telling Konoe off, Shana knows that to be useless since Konoe is either very clueless or very good at feigning it. Her ninja tactics whether knowingly or not has effectively gotten Yuji’s attention and Shana is helpless at these unhanded methods since a Shana-Konoe confrontation is unlikely to be fruitful with Konoe getting distracted by flora and fauna.

As for Yuji’s insensitivity to Kazumi, that stems from Yuji not seeing his interaction with Konoe as romantic. He sees it as help for a friend, nothing more (though he’s starting to perceive more Konoe charms) but the girls know better. So I don’t blame Yuji even if he might be embarking on the inital phases of denial. He’s just being knightly and unassuming even though from the girls’ point of view, he’s behaving like a jerk.

And yeah I’m looking forward to the Reiji Maigo parts. Thanks for the tidbits. Can’t wait for the new denzien either. I will periodically report Shana II’s progress and I hope you’d be convinced to rejoin the ride soon.

The reason for this has been given already by others in this thread: The characters seem inconsistent and their development has been rolled back. I can understand how Shana would hesitate to repeat her confession from the previous season once she and Yuji were no longer in immediate danger of being permanently separated. But once Konoe showed up, even if Konoe didn’t declare her love for Yuji straight up like Kazumi, I would’ve thought that was enough threat for Shana to declare that she liked Yuji again, if not to Yuji, then to Konoe. Either declaration would’ve made the reasons for her displeasure very clear, and Konoe wouldn’t be able to use her underhanded tactics without looking like she didn’t care about Shana’s feelings. Shana was willing to go head to head with Kazumi, so why not Konoe? It seems like all the buildup to making Shana realize her love and confess it in the last season was torn down.

I can also understand how Yuji would not be aware that Shana likes him. Tsundere love is mixed with enough abuse for it to be confusing. But he definitely couldn’t have missed Kazumi’s confession. Knowing that Kazumi likes him, can’t he see what showing special attention to Konoe would do to Kazumi? He could’ve been diplomatic and told Konoe to lay off with the sleeve grabbing and the lunch mooching because he was concerned about Kazumi’s feelings. How can Yuji not see what he’s doing to Kazumi? It would be believable if he were an idiot or a jerk, but it’s been shown many times that he is pretty smart and genuinely nice.

If I were in charge, I would have Yuji fully aware that Shana and Kazumi like him. Sure, that would mean less opportunities for Shana to be tsundere, but aren’t tsunderes supposed to eventually grow out of it and come to terms with their feelings? Yuji would make it clear to both that the crisis they’re in, coupled with his own indecision, makes it impossible for him to choose between them. He requests a truce between them until the crisis is resolved. They’d still compete, but subtly and behind his back. And Hecate? She’d start out pretending to like Yuji just to keep an eye on the Midnight Lost Child (Reiji Maigo) and drive a wedge between him and Shana, but then after living as a human for long enough, eventually comes to like him for real. This would be the “corruption” that Sydonay was worried would befall his “daughter”, and lead to Hecate turning to the good side and helping defeat (or at least drive away) the Ball Masque.

Hecate then reveals to Yuji that while she was absorbing his memories at the end of the first season she uncovered memories that didn’t seem to belong to him. Those memories turn out to belong to the original Midnight Lost Child, and come bubbling to the surface when a very special new Denizen appears…

As you know, my soul belongs to J.C.Staff and I have an irrationally large positive bias toward any series that comes out of their studio. For me to drop Shana II means I think they have failed, and badly. If I want to watch a slow-paced love-love drama from J.C.Staff this season, I can get the same fix from Kimikiss, without all the boring fantasy action.