This Week in Anime
What We Do in the Shadows House
by Monique Thomas & Steve Jones,
What series has style, substance, monsters, and a gothic social hierarchy masking a multitude of mysteries? Might I welcome you to Shadows House, where nothing is at it seems. Come in for a spell, put up your feet, and do mind the soot marks on the glassware.
This series is streaming on Funimation
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the participants in this chatlog are not the views of Anime News Network.
Spoiler Warning for discussion of the series ahead.
@Lossthief
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@mouse_inhouse
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@NickyEnchilada
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@vestenet
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Nicky
Hey Steve, hope you don't got any big plans tonight. I got a rather fancy invitation for the two of us and we better put on our best dress and our best foot forward. There's gonna fancy music, aristocrats, AND just a little bit of creeping conspiracy. Spare me a dance too, would you?
Hey Steve, hope you don't got any big plans tonight. I got a rather fancy invitation for the two of us and we better put on our best dress and our best foot forward. There's gonna fancy music, aristocrats, AND just a little bit of creeping conspiracy. Spare me a dance too, would you?
Steve
Okay but apparently one of us has to roll around in a pile of soot 101 Dalmatians-style, and I'm calling Not It.
Okay but apparently one of us has to roll around in a pile of soot 101 Dalmatians-style, and I'm calling Not It.
Or at least, that's the way I hear they like to do it up at the Shadows House. Can't imagine how it got that name.
SHADOWS HOUSE is a bit of what we call a slow burner, ha ha, it's a Victorian-inspired fantasy and gothic mystery centered on the life and social customs of the mysterious beings known as the Shadow family from the perspective of the loyal "living dolls" who serve them.
First off, everything about this show just deeply rooted in its aesthetics and it is KILLER!
First off, everything about this show just deeply rooted in its aesthetics and it is KILLER!
I was about to say! I picked this series as one of my most anticipated of the spring season based on its aesthetics alone, and I feel fully vindicated. Just look at some of the heat the OP and ED bring.
Absolutely making the most out of half the cast looking like living silhouettes.
Absolutely making the most out of half the cast looking like living silhouettes.
Both the OP and ED songs are just stellar bops in their own way. The OP sinks you into the mystery with the spooky instrumentals and the ED is just a really solid banger by ReoNa topped with some totally existential lyrics. It's just the charcoal-infused icing on the already ornate goth cake.
The solely-instrumental OP is also a flex that very few anime can pull off with grace, so Shadows House should consider itself privileged to be in that echelon, imo.
And the show proper is plenty #aesthetic as well. Rooted of course in the Victorian Gothic in both its architecture and clothing, but what I love the most is its emphasis on dirt, grime, and suffocating shrouds of soot.
It doesn't slouch at making you feel like there's something to be suspicious about either. If I know anything about noblemen in big spooky mansions, it's that there's always gotta be something or someone up to no good. Upon arrival we are introduced to images of fire, fuel, and a train going past the mountain range that leads towards the house as the shadow noblemen look on. Then we get this creepy-ass ritual where several people pledge their loyalty to the greatness of the Shadow family after drinking something.
There's a lot to take in, which is why I think it's pretty smart that the premiere then proceeds to narrow its focus down to its two main characters, the freshly-awoken living doll Emilico and her shadow mistress Kate. We basically spend the rest of the episode confined to their room.
Yeah, despite any posturing about the lavish high-concept setting, Shadows House primarily a character piece.
A character piece, but one framed by a heck of a lot of mystery and intrigue. Like, yes, we get to learn a lot about Emilico's and Kate's personalities from their interactions, but we also quickly start poking at the big questions.
Namely: what the hell's going on here?
Namely: what the hell's going on here?
The usual answer is simply "don't worry about it" but there's definitely a lot that can be gleaned just from the first few moments before Emillico awakens from her coffin bed. Unlike the Shadows' rooms, the living dolls live in cramped and shabby servant quarters. They are given a single dry loaf of bread each day, and their duty is to love and respect their Shadow Masters without question in order to become their "face".
Yeah, there are a ton of interesting and conflicting power dynamics throughout the Shadows' manor. The dolls are subservient to their masters, but the masters also rely on their dolls to act as their faces. Meanwhile, the dolls have ranks among themselves, and even the shadows wield differing levels of power depending on where within the manor they live. And these hierarchies seem to be defined by zero-sum games designed at the whims of elder house members in order to entertain the small cadre of nobles at the very top of the food chain. We still don't have a full picture, but lots of potential social commentary to chew on for sure.
Even beyond the larger machinations of the mansion, we see a variety of power dynamics at play between Shadows and Faces. Each pair is trying strike a delicate balance in order to survive.
But again, this is a character piece, so while we're using some fancy schmancy trappings, Shadows House is also more directly about relationships, empathy, and the conflict that exists between the conscious and unconscious aspects of The Self™. It's really quite simple!
But again, this is a character piece, so while we're using some fancy schmancy trappings, Shadows House is also more directly about relationships, empathy, and the conflict that exists between the conscious and unconscious aspects of The Self™. It's really quite simple!
Easy peasy! To that end, the show pulls a neat trick by introducing Emilico and Kate first, because despite looking the same (if you ignore the whole magic soot thing), their personalities couldn't be more different. However, that just means they end up complementing each other in genuinely sweet, if friction-rich ways. Which also means when we first see a shadow and doll acting like they're "supposed" to, it looks all the more weird and uncanny.
I can't deny the sheer power of the synchronized ojousama laugh, but it's still pretty unsettling.
I can't deny the sheer power of the synchronized ojousama laugh, but it's still pretty unsettling.
Emillico is all sunshine and rainbows, happy to do her duty with a smile. But she's clumsy and Kate is more introverted and broody, unable to always say what she wants and letting soot rise from her head like a chimney when she's anxious as Shadows are wont to do.
Despite their struggles, it really does seem like they care for each other and value each other as individuals. However, this isn't exactly "proper;" faces aren't supposed to have independent value other than serving their masters wishes. If that is the case why give them their own personality to begin with? Why such the emphasis on punishment?
Like, they are called "living dolls" but as far as anyone can tell they're basically humans. That includes any sort of maintenance that would normally being required when it comes to having a human body, including vulnerability to injury, starvation, and sleep deprivation.
That's our first clue that we can't take any of the rules of Shadows House at its word. Clearly there's more going on here. And the issue of punishment is also an important one, because while Sarah up there acts flawlessly as her mistress Mia's face in public, in private their relationship is flat-out abusive. Sarah trashes Mia's room with soot when she is out, and beats her doll for any infractions.
Mia is also one of the dolls who really emphasizes the virtues of being dutiful, even breaking into song about it. Once Emillico is allowed to exit Kate's living quarters to help clean the rest of the house she's able to interact with others and make friends, something she seems to be quite good at. Mia's saccharine attitude is a bit of a facade judging by the abuse she faces behind closed doors, but Emillico's genuine chipper attitude is a bright spot on the gritty surface of the premise.
I think Emilico's sunshiny demeanor works as a good hook for the series, too. She's totally at odds with the dreary gothic mood of the story and setting, and I think it gives the show space to breathe, even as it tackles heavy subjects. Like, for instance, one of their friends being possessed by a sentient soot monster.
It's the dolls' job to clean all the soot that's emitted from the Shadows because if they don't things be dirty and BAD THINGS HAPPEN. Fortunately they're weak to water and a good beating, and handling the Scorches (Phantoms if it's a BIG ONE) lets Emillico show off the bravery that comes with her go-getter attitude.
I also enjoy that this scene drops right after this conspicuous shot of "cleaning" tools that look like torture instruments. Like, yep, that explains that.
But the question of "sentient soot" only brings up further questions of the nature of the Shadows Family. When told, Kate also seems intrigued by this and we soon learn that she's able to control soot on her own to a small degree, too. It becomes clear that the only way they're going to solve any of the deep-seated mysteries is by working together! Or at least that's what would've happened had Emillico not been so distracted by her other duties and friends, leaving a rift between her and Kate before their big social debut.
What is the debut, you ask? It's a right of passage that every Shadow and Face must go through in order to test their skill and merit to the Shadows Family, but if you fail you are "discarded."
What is the debut, you ask? It's a right of passage that every Shadow and Face must go through in order to test their skill and merit to the Shadows Family, but if you fail you are "discarded."
Also nobody knows exactly what the debut is, or what criteria it judges, so the candidates just have to wing it. No pressure! But that's good for us, the audience, because it means we get to know some of the other colorful characters living alongside Kate and Emilico. They run the gamut of everything from a pair who have never once spoken with each other, to pairs that exude a natural compatibility.
And some who really, really seem to like each other.
Emillico even befriends a few of the other dolls in the debut beforehand. Living dolls aren't supposed to be friends with each other and there's a high emphasis on the competition between them all. Still, I really enjoyed seeing Emillico interact with both the serious but near-sighted Shaun and the shy Rum.
Also Rum also talks to her own finger ala The Shining and Shaun is a Shaun of the Dead reference, if you thought there weren't more horror homages.
Also Rum also talks to her own finger ala The Shining and Shaun is a Shaun of the Dead reference, if you thought there weren't more horror homages.
Lol yeah I thought Rum was a pretty weird name until it clicked with this scene. And thankfully, Rum isn't haunted by quite as much Redrum as there is in The Shining. At least not yet, anyway.
Should also shout out the reason this hapless trio had to put up with the nightwatch for a week: the loud and nasty Barbie, a "Star Bearer" who wields some kind of yet-unspecified rank over the other dolls. More importantly, though, she's a shark teeth gremlin and thus automatically my favorite character.
Look at her standing on a footstool, trying to look intimidating. Incredible content.
Should also shout out the reason this hapless trio had to put up with the nightwatch for a week: the loud and nasty Barbie, a "Star Bearer" who wields some kind of yet-unspecified rank over the other dolls. More importantly, though, she's a shark teeth gremlin and thus automatically my favorite character.
Look at her standing on a footstool, trying to look intimidating. Incredible content.
It's also fun because the whole nightwatch sleuths out that the previous phantom turned out to not be any of the regular doll's fault but actually some sort of maintenance issue, which is the star-bearer's job!! Though this means three of our debut candidates lost three days of sleep, leaving them all woefully unprepared for what is to come next.
That "what" being one very loud smoking jacket.
Edward is another doll, but one who belongs to a higher-ranking nobleman, and it's his job, apparently, to oversee the debut process. And we're still in the middle of that, because it is very long and involves a very large hedge maze.
Edward is another doll, but one who belongs to a higher-ranking nobleman, and it's his job, apparently, to oversee the debut process. And we're still in the middle of that, because it is very long and involves a very large hedge maze.
I'm pretty sure the debut is actually just the equivalent of the Shadows Family own live reality TV programs, tbh.
They definitely don't try to hide that! The one episode progresses from voyeuristic scene composition to straight-up showing the nobles looking down at them from up on high, laughing gaily all the while.
We also get to see EVEN MORE CHARACTERS! As we have five Shadow contestants competing and also all of their Faces. They've been highlighted a lot in the opening and you may have seen their Face in some scenes or in the background but let's dive into them as well!
So far they're ranked by Edward based on how well they performed in the warmup round of pastry-eating and ballroom dancing. At the top are Lou and Louise, which makes sense, since they are all about that self-love.
Perhaps a bit too much so.
Perhaps a bit too much so.
You can also just call it narcissism. Lou is pretty stoic, but she's also pretty serious about being her face and totally devoted to her master. She can also wield a mean pair of sheers.
The boys—Shaun and John, and Ricky and Patrick—are tied for second. Their mutually defining feature is that they're each dumb in different ways. Shaun has a good head on his shoulders, but he's so stubborn he refuses to wear his glasses in order to match his master. John, meanwhile, leaps before he looks, to lucky and disastrous ends. And Ricky and Patrick are an interesting pair, because Ricky, the doll, has the dominant personality. But they're both about as smart as a sack of bricks.
Specifically, Shaun doesn't take care of himself because he thinks doing so would contrast with John too much, who presumably has perfect "vision," or whatever a Shadow has, considering they don't have EYES. They're both really earnest though and I was surprised to see that John is actually a pretty caring master despite his gung-ho attitude. Also, John has a thing for Kate, lol.
Fellas, take it from me, wait until after your crush escapes her giant birdcage prison before you propose.
He comes off as arrogant but later he says it's because he was extremely nervous. Also, he used his extremely stronk soot to beat the crap out of his imprisonment before anyone else, but at the cost of dirtying this clothes, which is a big no-no.
Appearances are a Big Deal for the Shadow family, but these soot-bending powers do appear to have a lot to do with who does or doesn't get to "move up."
And of course, history is peppered with examples of an outwardly-opulent ruling class that rolls around in the muck behind the scenes.
And of course, history is peppered with examples of an outwardly-opulent ruling class that rolls around in the muck behind the scenes.
Likewise, any of the Faces getting damaged during the hour they have to save their masters is also means for disqualification.
Next down the ranking (because of course our heroines are dead last) are Rum and her mistress Shirley, who is so quiet that some of the other competitors don't even know her name.
And we find out that Rum's anxiety stems from this perceived distance between her and her mistress, but in turn this labyrinth exercise becomes an opportunity for her to grow closer to her other peers, especially Emilico.
And we find out that Rum's anxiety stems from this perceived distance between her and her mistress, but in turn this labyrinth exercise becomes an opportunity for her to grow closer to her other peers, especially Emilico.
We also get some puzzle solving fun and find out Rum has like super memory. She only needs a few minutes to memorize a whole map! Though thanks to Kate, Emilico turns out to be the best one at reading the Shadows' language.
A language that can be communicated both through squiggly lines and shrieking soot pigeons.
This arc's been long—it's basically posed to take up about half the season at this point—but I think it's been worth it to see these characters interact and grow together. There's a real warmth, for example, in the way Emilico helps Rum work past her insecurities.
Warmth, and funny faces.
This arc's been long—it's basically posed to take up about half the season at this point—but I think it's been worth it to see these characters interact and grow together. There's a real warmth, for example, in the way Emilico helps Rum work past her insecurities.
Warmth, and funny faces.
Yeah, in the maze we see the various dolls come together in ways that really highlight their skills and personalities. It even made me like Ricky after he came in acting all stuck-up!!
His and Patrick's insecurities are endearing in their own way. Which is also good cuz you really don't want to see any of them fail or die by this point.
His and Patrick's insecurities are endearing in their own way. Which is also good cuz you really don't want to see any of them fail or die by this point.
Ricky is potentially On Notice, depending on how this scene plays out, but yes, the writing's been very good about making each of the kids sympathetic in some way.
It's also been good about keeping that WTF factor feeling fresh. Eddie, why do you have to be so extra, and what is even going on with you?
Ed is pretty much the closest we have to a main antagonist at this point with Lord Grandfather not quite in the picture yet.
This week's stinger is also our first clue that the relationship between a shadow and their doll might be even more entangled than we've thought. Who is Edward? Is he the shadow, or is he the doll, or does that distinction not even matter for him anymore?
We also don't know if Edward is some sort of special case or if that's truly just the future of all living dolls and what that could imply for their current personhood. We also know that Edward has big ambitions for the top but no idea why. There's a lot to answer for even with so few episodes left! I don't know if it'll even be able to shed light on all of them but I've greatly enjoyed watching each mystery unfold.
Oh yeah there's definitely more than can be covered in a single cours, but maybe there'll be enough manga and support for a second season. And even if there isn't, I've loved my time with Shadows House so far. It's a good gothic slowburn, and I hope it only keeps getting stranger as it goes.
I would also definitely love to see the manga licensed in English in North America, if anything. (Fill out your surveys, folk.) Every episode has a good mix of intrigue and characters, and a whoooole lot of style, making this something I don't want to fade into the shadows of obscurity!
You all heard her. Fill out those surveys. Or else.
If you don't I (and also Emillico) will be very sad! And we wouldn't want that would you?
Be strong, Emilico!
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