Rating: 4/5 stars

“Shadows House” is a Japanese manga series created by the duo So-ma-to in the seinen (18-40 year old demographic) manga in Shonen Young Jump magazine. The magazine is well-known for publishing series like the upcoming anime – “Oshi no Ko” and “Gantz.”  

“Shadows House” has an anime adaptation created by studio Cloverworks with 25 episodes. The ending to Season one left a foul impression, but overall it was a good standard adaptation. In the U.S., the manga has 36 chapters, but there are more than 150 that are not yet translated to English. 

The audience is placed in the middle of the story in a mansion with no explanation. In this mysterious mansion lies a shadow house where Emilico is a cheerful living doll, a creature that resembles human children and must work for Kate, a shadow noble who creates soot. They mysteriously match each other’s silhouette perfectly. Living dolls act as “faces’’ for shadows as they cannot emote to others. 

All occupants of the Shadow house emit soot and living dolls must endlessly clean the soot from their superiors. Living dolls are told endlessly that “thoughts are not necessary.” As the girls grow closer they must navigate mansion society and find out the dark secrets of the mansion in this supernatural mystery manga.

The greatest strength and weakness with the series is the large cast of characters. You will probably find a duo or character dynamic you like. The author knows that there are many characters and will try to connect names together giving the Shadows the more elaborate name and the faces more plain names. A strange phenomena that gets commented on is that Emilico and Kate have no connection whatsoever, as employers usually choose names that are derived from their own.

Emilico is the sunshine to a lot of characters and the heart of the series, who is creative and cheerful, but naive and clumsy. Kate is the exact opposite of Emilico: smart, pragmatic and elegant. They grow closer together over the series. Both are able to slowly win over the hearts of the other children and make allies as they face the system of aristocracy. Even now not much is known about grandfather, the creator of this mansion.

Volume 3 is the conclusion of the “debut” event where the faces must save their superiors in order to pass their debut. The director is the only adult the audience and characters have ever seen, which lends an air of wariness to the situation. The test involves the main groups’ various conflicting personalities to rescue their superior. 

The ending of the arc ends in a surprisingly well and sad way. A part of the story can be very slice-of-life-like but there is always looming danger and progression of the story.

Image from Yen Press via Twitter