This Week in Anime

Shadows House Season 2 is Full of Sinister Mysteries

Nicky
Hey, let's show some respect. Being a full-time housecleaner is a tough gig. You gotta run a high constitution and strength build and everything!

Apparently it also involves playing detective and sleuthing out underlying conspiracies.

The first season of Shadows House really impressed me. Easily ended up being one of my favorite anime just on the sheer amount of vibes. Its gothic aesthetic and spooky atmosphere all combined with main character Emilico's brute cheerfulness and willingness to make allies under what most people would consider a pretty dire situation. Being captured, brainwashed, and enslaved for the purpose of serving a bunch of parasitic shadow entities isn't just something you can easily smile your way out of, but it's a seemingly insurmountable challenge is part of what made this continuation worth checking out.

In my previous TWIA on S1 I also delved into Shadows House as a heady psychological metaphor for the self, with Emilico being the kind of extrovert conscious personality with the brawn and Kate being the introverted brooding unconscious mind, and how both halves work together to form a relationship. The metaphor is less heavy in S2 but between many Shadows and their living dolls we get to see different dynamics play out. Part of what makes S2 very different from S1 is the focus on Kate as a character and less as a metaphorical tool. After making her social debut at the end of S1 and discovering the truth about the house, Kate is now a lot more active in the story with Emilico falling back into a supporting role. However, it's still clear that these two are in this together and it's their bond that forms the backbone to stand up against the Shadow society.

A lot of characters introduced during the previous social debut and throughout Emilico's cleaning adventures are all back. None of them are stuck to just hanging out in their rooms anymore, so every group gets a bit more to do. Season 2 features many new areas, new rules, and a lot more about what exactly Shadows are capable of. Kate has the ability to control and manipulate soot to a high degree, but she'll need a lot more help if she wants to achieve her goals.

Which is good, cuz they're all dorks, they're cute, and I love them. Even newer characters like the Star Bearers in charge of helping control the Children's Wing have their own interesting quirks, personalities, and ideas. You CAN'T go wrong putting a character that's just a mad inventor into the mix.

I mean, Emilico did do a pretty awesome job rockin' the vacuum cleaner against the gigantic phantom threatening everyone. Anyone worth their salt should've been impressed by her heroism.

Though, it was neat of them to be chill after they Looney Tunes-style wrecked their secret base.

Even the hauntingly beautiful ED focuses on her.

On a side note, the OP and ED are both very different from last season, but fit the show and look damn good. I was worried they wouldn't be as catchy, but sometimes it's good to be wrong.

Oh god, I never thought about it that way. Yeesh. I did say this season was different, but it's certainly not any less dark. It's not as ambiently creepy with more focus on the active mystery, but there's some stuff that's still super unsettling, like watching all the living dolls that got sick after the big phantom attacked everyone. Also witnessing several brainwash parties where living dolls are spoon-fed "coffee" meant to control them. The brainwashing in particular made trusting others with information extremely difficult and created a lot of tension of who was reliable early on.

During the chaos the special coffee carafes also get broken, so it becomes less of a problem but it definitely hints that Kate isn't the only one unhappy with the situation. The antagonist of the 2nd season is a third party nicknamed Master Robe, a mysteriously cloaked figure masterminding an attack calculated to shake things up. Kate already went through extreme hoops to avoid getting caught in her investigating and collaborating, but the whole incident causes the authorities to get even more suspicious of her. She has no choice to get to the bottom of this in order to clear her own name.

They do have to do a lot of sweeping under the rug here and there, mostly in the first episode, but once that's cleaned up it transitions pretty well. Edward, the adult in charge of the children's wing, is still a threat but he's less immediate than just getting caught in the first place.

This is especially good because the last time Cloverworks did a second season of something I loved was The Promised Neverland and I am still unhappy about how that whole thing went down.

Visually, the direction is still solid, too. There's more focus on characters this time and we spend a lot of time in dark environments that can be a little dull, but it's consistently a nice-looking show with occasional flourishes, like Lou's spectacular face game montage.

Even the Shadows that don't have faces to emote carry a lot with their body language, like Rick's awkward apprehensiveness.

Or John who is just super kinetic, appropriate for a man whose best skill is solving things with punches. I love John so much. Though maybe not as much as he loves Kate, which is a lot.

She knew exactly how he'd react because John is a predictably pure lad. It's a point of evidence that they'd actually make a good couple.

His extreme sincerity means it's impossible for him to hide anything and his devotion to Kate and desire to make her his fiancé insures that he'd never intentionally stab her in the back. He sticks to her like glue this entire season. The banter between the two and John's stupidity becomes a lighthearted staple. The illusion of dating also creates a very convenient alibi for Kate, even if it's an embarrassing one.

The emphasis on equal partnership isn't gone either. There's the importance of communication between Lou and Louise when the Face ends up pushing herself a little too hard and doesn't say anything.

We also learn that Shadows and Faces can want different things like Ricky and Rick both having different people set in their hearts with Rick still crushing on Emilico.

Concerning adulthood, what does it mean to be an adult Shadow? Well for one we learn that once they get an invitation for adulthood, they leave the Children's Wing never to be seen or talked about again. Second, there seems to be some sort of aptitude that they're assessing before deciding who gets to be adults, likely concerning their ability to control soot. Adults also have way more social power, they can even petition for marriage.

But we also learn that a Shadow reaches adulthood after fusing with their living doll, completely taking over their body, and essentially killing them.

This explains part of why living dolls are treated as so disposable and trained into feeling lesser. It's not only a way to keep them in line, but it makes them more likely to comply in a moment of death, while their Shadow masters don't have to feel guilty about taking someone else's life.

Yeah, unwilling to devour someone else in order to survive high society is a sign of weakness. But for our main characters, their empathy and closeness with each other is a sign of strength and their main inspiration for growth. Ironically, this makes them more likely to be chosen for adulthood, not less!

Even if Louise treats Lou more like an adorable pet than a person at times, I think she would balk if she was asked to kill her cutie for her own gain.

She's having a ball! And so am I! We got a bit of Maryrose before, but as a walking Takarazuka gimmick, I was surprise she got more focus as the gang's trusty senior.

I say suspiciously and nervously glancing over at the ED for many, many episodes.

For the second time, I might add!

John, for once, was late to the punch, because although it's revealed that Rose's motivations truly are in line with Kate's, she's also out of options and can only resort to desperate measures. Her role as both hero and villain matches her theatrical roots.

It's also sad because Kate could've very much have ended up the same way if she hadn't reached out and expanded the amount of people she could trust. Maryrose and Rosemary only have each other. Despite once being close friends with Barbara, she ended up without a single person to turn to.

Also despite being tragic, Rose is a total joy to see perform in action. The way she uses scorches is really cool. It never stops feeling like she's trying to be an older sister and is really trying to foster the kids' growth, even as she's ultimately threatening them. The solution to her downfall is also super clever and made an excellent episode-to-episode watch. Y'know, assuming you don't get any soot in your eyes (or too many tears).

All solutions are a combination of unconventional thinking, good intuition, and most of all, trust. The humans could've easily been a burden against a powerful Shadow, but they prove to be equally reliable. Which is good because fighting Rose Shadow-to-Shadow turned out to be a fruitless against her ability to use another Shadow's soot to her advantage. No one else would've done it that way since it goes against the House's values.

Still, even in their final moments there's a clear display of love for each other. In a mad attempt to decide their own fate, Rose and Rosemary launch themselves from the house and into the chasm below, with Rose putting herself below her human companion in whatever small chance it means of survival. A lover's suicide.

I'd like to imagine an Adolescence of Utena-style ending for them where they get to live a life outside the system that's clearly being alluded to, even if nobody turned into a car!

Currently, they can't know what lies on the outside, but they know that it exists, and that's enough. But even if the two Roses obtained freedom, the house still stands and a house based on cruelty towards everyone living under it should fall! Though, that path is not all sunshine and roses, either. The last episode had Emilico struggling with the weight of her situation, thinking that it might've been better if she could simply live her life in blissful ignorance sipping coffee like everyone else. Similarly, there are some that cannot handle the truth. Christopher taking his own life after learning the secret of adulthood was the trigger for the Roses' descent. For some, life in the house is idyllic, peaceful, controlled. There are even those who realize its faults but still have optimistic ideas about the system, thinking it can be changed from the inside.

I believe characters such as the Barbies and Edward to be the latter. They seem equally, if not more, disgruntled with the current system despite acting as parts of it.

Barbara, with her deep blue color scheme and rose-filled hair particularly starts looking like an inversed Kate. This season had a lot of themes about who you should trust and with Rose it shows that things aren't as hard-lined as being sympathetic or against you. Barbie may seem like an enemy now but she could be a potential ally or someone to learn for just as much as Rose. Hell, maybe even Edward could teach Kate a thing or two? Who knows. It's not unusual to share some form of kinship when they're all living under the same roof (both literally and metaphorically, so to speak). Part of the inherent tragedy of systems is that it encourages you to inflict pain upon others as badly as it was inflicted upon yourself, incorporating you as part of its structure to uphold it as it weighs down.