in an early draft of what would later become "shakugan no shana", yashichiro takahashi set the story in a different dimension and described the main character as having the initial personality of shana, but the appearance of an older woman similar to margery daw. however, after talking with an editor, takahashi rewrote the character to have the appearance of a young girl. in doing so, he used shana's small build to symbolize a story of growth and to emphasize the physical conflict between her and her opponents. noizi ito was contacted in early august 2002 to be the illustrator for the series, and she was very excited to work on the project after she read the manuscript for the first novel; this was the first time ito drew illustrations for a book.