Review of Shadows House

This review will contain mild or no spoilers. Story: This anime follows the story of the noble Kate, a shadow whose body is made of soot and her body double and face Emilico, her personal maid to be precise. This story is essentially that of a noble and her counterpart commoner. Since shadows don’t have faces, these human ‘dolls’ acts as their personality. In fact, if you think a body should be identical to its case but that is precisely not the case. Kate is very ladylike while Emilico is a klutz. Well, it’s all that until you discover the other characters. The story revolves around thestruggles of these five shadows and their respective counterparts as they slowly discover the truths about the system, the manor and their reason for existence. Not to mention there are some nice plot twists to look forward to after halfway through this season and a minor plot hole or rather plot convenience near the end of the season of ‘dolls regaining their senses’. [7/10]

Animation:
Let’s start with this book’s cover that is the opening, which is very standard of character portraits and their shadows. I personally feel that they could have done it better. As for the ending my opinion is opposite especially how well it goes with the music, especially it being in style of graphitic portraits and movements and reflects plus it goes really well with the song discussed later. The character portraits are very standard and the background is very still with very negligible amount of 3D development. However, their 3D deign wasn’t very bad either except the part where Edward played the piano, they should learn a bit from Disney about finger rendering which downright felt very weird and unnatural. [7/10]

Special Effects:
There isn’t much special effects to talk about as the animation mostly consists of dialogues and character portraits and there aren’t any action scenes however they have done a very good job with the colour palette especially during the night scenes where you could still easily identify the black shadows. In fact, they are worthy of mention that there was no loss of quality even when they made scenes of dim lighting. [8/10]

Music:
The music starts with the opening so we will go over it first. This anime’s general opening is a no vocals opening, and the way of the instruments did give a great feel about the type of setting this anime has. The work done with the violin and voice crafted a wave of emotions and depicted the kind of feels you should have about this anime that is being a general mystery with bittersweetness hidden beneath it. Bringing your attention to the OST which is very average and nothing out of ordinary. Yes, as a gothic setting a lot of original instruments have been used, but their tonal capacity could NOT put it in a league of its own. The ensemble is very similar to fantasy real action movies like “The Lord of the Rings” which is then again very standard nowadays. This anime’s particular signature is the way the guitar was played in all soundtracks. Even so, there weren’t many soundtracks made for this anime and the soundtracks were well repetitive throughout the season. Now the ending is one of the best I have heard this year, “Nai Nai” has a very catchy dark tune which goes well with this anime and the lyrics are a perfect match. Moreover, the contrast to drums and trap style music after 20 minutes of repetitive original instruments was a brilliant idea. The special ending was kind of strange as they just prolonged Edward’s piano prowess and self-indulgence in episode 8. The piece was an original much closer to a Rhapsody. [7/10]

Voice:
Now this is where I have no qualms as the voice acting was indeed good, and for a slice of life its just as good as it can be, with even movements voiced perfectly. [9/10]

Aesthetics:
This anime is based on a Middle Age European setting. The base of the story is framed more like a fairy tale. It generally uses a grim tone with soot and mostly cloudy sky as a sign of always impending chaos, where I personally felt the Emilico’s charm getting suppressed as a figure of optimism. The Prologue, Rising Action and Climax is well defined however, the falling action was very weak. I will consider it as a tease to a second season because that is no way to end any story with much of the carefully built-up tension through the season wasted in a flash. The after-climax felt very dragged while the epilogue was hanging by a thread. [7/10]

Personal Feeling:
The anime is interesting that you will watch it till the end but not feel bored enough to drop the series on any episode. However, this show weakens as it progresses, as it gave off a very strong start then went to follow typical anime tropes. In fact, I was afraid this anime would be enclosed within one room but hopefully that wasn’t the case. Then again, the story isn’t strong enough to sit on your mind and to make you ponder. You will forget about it very soon unlike ‘The Promised Neverland’ which is a similar anime that pulled this off naturally. [7/10]

Overall:
Moral of the Story: Be Positive. Positivity is Contagious. This anime could have been a masterpiece with more effort and innovation put into it. I guess the dampening factor in this anime is its animation and soundtrack which wasn’t at par with the story. [7/10]