in october 2014, the novels were reported to have sold over 8.6 million copies. as reported on the obi strip on volume 4 of the "shakugan no shana" manga released in january 2008, 1.2 million copies of the manga had been sold. theron martin from anime news network reviewed the manga and called it "inferior" to the anime, and notes the anime develops characters better than the manga. martin also critiques the art, saying the background art has little detail, and while the action scenes are handled well enough, they are still sub-par compared to the same scenes in the anime. martin concludes the review by warning the readers that "[if] this is your first exposure to the franchise, look to the anime version to see it done right."