shortly before writing "shakugan no shana", takahashi made his debut as an author with "a/b extreme", which was awarded an honorable mention in the eighth dengeki novel prize by mediaworks (now ascii media works) in 2001. by his own admission, "a/b extreme" was too difficult for readers to understand, so for his next work, he set out to write something easier to grasp. as such, the initial premise of "shakugan no shana" was to write a boy meets girl story in a school setting, though initially love was not one of the themes included. he was given the freedom to write as he pleased based on this premise after showing it to his editor.