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Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Shadows House Season 2
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Hiroki not Takuya
 Posts: 2658 |
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I guess I can legitimately say "let me be the first to say how much I look forward to your continuing reviews and insight" relative to Shadows House. As the review intro hints, Ep1 feels like no time has elapsed from the previous season closer and is quite comforting after having experienced S2 of Shield Hero. I was quite taken with the after credits scene with Barbie looking and acting a lot like Emiliko when she and Barbara passed their debut. The ED portends unfortunate futures for them and MaryRose-Rosemary it seems. Vive La Revolution....
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11586 |
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The whole vacuum thing bothered me because that's not how vacuums work? It was portrayed as being difficult to handle like a fire hose, but that's a whole different sort of physics at work. The difficulty in controlling it ought to be that everything gets sucked in, and it seemed like almost nothing was getting vacuumed until the end. At worst, the nozzle would get stuck to the floor and the operator wouldn't be able to dislodge it until the vacuum was released. It did have to laugh at the revelation that Oliver was inside powering it though.
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SaneSavantElla
 Posts: 250 Location: Philippines |
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I was overall not sure whether this would be as good as the first season as I often find that second seasons don't live up to the hype but I'm glad to be wrong. Getting to know the other shadows and their humans (to my surprise, we are zeroing in on Barbara and Rosemary in particular) just adds a lot more dynamic and layers of mystery to the story.
By the way, I love Oliver and Ollie already. A mad scientist version of John. And maybe it's just my imagination, but the star bearers seem to have similar personalities to the four main pairs, but with interesting tweaks: Barbara/Barbie = Kate/Emilico: serious/hardworking, but somehow jaded (?) Susanna/Suzie = Louise/Lou: obsessive, but with soot powers Benedict/Ben = Patrick/Ricky: by-the-books, except this pair is physically strong and Oliver/Ollie = outspoken, but with regards to soot inventions? And if Christopher had been the fifth, he's also sort of a match with Rum. From what little we saw of him, he appears to be quite level-headed and intelligent) |
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gsilver
Posts: 649 |
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Episode 3
The adaption of this series of chapters was hilarious. Best "fight" so far 
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yeehaw
 Posts: 543 |
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I found this episode a bit underwhelming, it didn't feel hectic enough for a fight between like a dozen kids and a big soot monster. Did they have to stop for Olly to explain how a vacuum works in the middle? When Lou and Emilico decides to gtfo it looks like they're suddenly the only ones left in the room.
The twins being soot-powered into smashing the coffe by an unknown assailant was really exiting though, loved that |
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tsukumiyomi
Posts: 22 |
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Loved Doggy Emilico, can't wait to see how the dub sounds in that scene.
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Hiroki not Takuya
Posts: 2658 |
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Ep3 end shot "what is happening here in the children's wing?" is quite the understatement. Indeed, why would the twins' shadows make their "faces" ruin the soot coffee in front of star-bearer rep Barbie? Did they? Why is the hooded figure there armed with scorches? I get hints that there is a full-on rebellion forming with the near-term aim to disrupt the "children" which hits at the core future of Shadows House. This will draw the attention of current enemy Edward and the other wing denizens and will draw them into a full conflict that could end the Family if the revolutionaries get enough support.
How do Rum and Tiny Shirley fit? Is it possible for "like-minded" scorches to combine and become sentient? Can soot-sprites acquire scorches and become powerful while still retaining their individual personality? Will Barbie be made to drink the soot-coffee by the "twins"? Do the Hooded Figure and what other forces exist outside the House (since the figure came thence) know of the discontent in the Children's Wing? Are the outside forces rival shadows or humans that have shaken off the tyranny of the soot or both? This season is set for some really interesting drama... |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11586 |
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Saw the Buster Keaton gag coming the moment the door fell and opened that window. Which isn't to say that it wasn't very nicely done. Still, that's a pretty flimsy facade for their lab.
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DRosencraft
Posts: 671 |
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I suspect the imagery for Rosemary's soot sickness treatment is less a direct allegory to the suffrage movement, and more a consequence of the technology of the era. The depiction of Shadow House's world seems to align relative to the same era. Given that force-feeding (or in this case force treating) captives goes on in every era (even modern day courts in the US will sometimes order prisoners be given an IV), it's no surprise that the imagery would end up syncing with one of the most prominent examples of the relevant era. At the moment I don't think it's necessarily anything more than that.
I personally thought they were jumping the gun by thinking that missing one week's coffee would mean much. It's such a small amount of "poison" when you think about it, it should take a long time both to start taking effect, and for that effect to start to wear off. If it wore off too quickly, why wouldn't they receive their coffee twice a week instead? It may be me being too practical minded on this, but I would assume that if they get the special coffee once a week, the effects probably wear off if there isn't a coffee dose every 10+ days, not 7. Of course, they hung a lantern on the idea of prolonged buildup in the system, which seems more like a nicotine/tobacco sort of dependence if we want to keep up with the soot theme, so it's more likely they are going for that idea symmetry. |
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Hiroki not Takuya
Posts: 2658 |
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^^Was going to point out that the human body being constructed as it is there aren't too many ways to force something into someone's stomach without actually forcing it into the lungs, which is fatal, and it's all about the position of that valve in the neck. Thus, there is no way to avoid similarity in the positioning if someone does their homework.
For the coffee dosage, like any foreign substance intended to affect the body, there is significant variation from person to person in the rate of removal/dispersal, so I'd think the weekly administration ensures that the effect is maintained at a particular strength in the worst case individual. It's not that said individual would revert within a week but since we see dispelling the effect is a threshold phenomenon, if the effect becomes weak past a point, environmental factors could trigger full spontaneous reversion. |
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gsilver
Posts: 649 |
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Though one thing that I'm curious about with the "Coffee" is that the living dolls didn't have any during the time with their shadows before the debut, past the scene in the opening seconds of the first season.
How long was that? Surely longer than a week. Were there any effects from that? |
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DRosencraft
Posts: 671 |
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I thought about that too. My assumption was that in the beginning the living dolls are too "new" to the world, too ignorant, for them to know anything, care about rebelling, etc. They're essentially too young to know that rebellion is an option since some initially don't even seem to know how to read, write, etc. They were too controlled, restricted in where they could go and be at any time. But once they've started learning all that they need to be better dolls and to match their Shadows, they become capable of thinking about stuff like their reason for being there, if there are other options for their lives, see more things, and therefore imagine about whether they can rebel and escape. That's when the need to control comes in. Again, I'm not sure if I'm reading too much into the world they've created, or if that's just a possible plot hole they didn't plan out. |
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Violet Park
Posts: 115 |
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Probably were given more/stronger coffee. They completely lost their memories, whatever was done to them was made to last. |
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Yuvelir
 Posts: 1624 |
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Mentioning it since the manga showed a visual hint but the anime cut it and didn't put anything in its place, about Patrick's pause spoiler[when John asked if he was after Kate, he thought of Emilyko's face]
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SHD
Posts: 1759 |
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Is it just me, or did the quality of the writing go downhill since season 1? I don't know if this is a case of clunky adaptation or the manga was already like this, but the pacing and tone were already off since episode one, and these past couple episodes were basically 2 x 25 minutes of blatant, not-even-trying infodump and plot advancement as organic as a five year old's story that they made up.
In episode 6 it was just so egregious - spoiler[that rooftop discussion between Emilico and Shaun had my mind boggling, like... how did Shaun come to these conclusions? What, exactly, made him 1. aware of all the puzzle pieces, and 2. put them all together like that? I mean, right down to "guessing" that the shadows develop by imitating humans (what even made him think of something like that?) and that his name was actually John. I assume all that he said is true because that was just the vibe of the scene, but if this is indeed the truth then I'm kind of miffed to have had it revealed to me in such a clunky way. :/ Same with Kate's reasoning that the dolls were given just regular coffee and were given some soot power based mind control to go with it, which just happened to elevate their emotions, like... that's kind of extremely specific, no? From the information she has, the shadows could have been present for a number of reasons, and the coffee may have been simply a different type of soot coffee, like, if soot power differs for each shadow then that would have been a perfectly logical option.] |
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