I’m on sort of a reverse light novel titeling kick. What I mean is that I’m enjoying making my post titles as short as possible this season. So far both Sgadows House and To Your Eternity are the winners with single word titles from the start. Let’s see how long I can keep it up for.
But it’s not just a rando word either. You see, on this week’s Shadows House we got to see a lot more of the relationships between the different shadows and their dolls. And it also gave us some insight as to what it means to be someone’s face. You aren’t simply trying to mimic an expression, the doll needs to understand, almost intuitively sense their shadow’s emptions. They are servants thinking only of their masters and they bear the brunt of their feelings, never the other way around. And yet for all that, shadows seem to generally like, even love their dolls.
Sure there was that odd scene with Mia but she initiated it. So there might be more than meets the eye. And Shirley seems as shy as Rum which has slowed their bonding but they do seem to like each other. Everyone else had a pretty great relationship in fact. I particularly liked Shaun and John but that’s just because I really liked John. He’s the type of character that would make an excellent foil for just about anyone in the series.
However, there was one line that really struck me. Louise really loves her face, which means she loves herself. But how does that work when someone else is your face? So far the theories I have been spouting have been a bit one-sided. Casting the dolls in a victim role. After all, they are the servants and their lives seem kind of though. But what if shadows were just as bound and tied to their roles.
I’ll be honest, the episode was over in a flash for me. I thought it was at most halfway through when the end credits started. I am liking this series a lot and I do hope other viewers will appreciate it as well.
The entire debut ceremony was much better than I expected. A supposedly casual party where everyone gets judged by a mysterious doll and no one knows the rules. (There’s something not quite right with Edward, we all agree, right?) It’s a great setup and more interesting and flexible than anything I could have come up with!
Even better, you could grasp everything that was happening and inherently understand the rules, social climate and expectations of the Shadows House universe from this sequence, without any exposition at all. I was very curious by what upset Edward about Ricky at the end there, however. I mean he didn’t seem to do anything out of place. Everyone was dancing so that’s not it. Then I looked through my screencaps.
In traditional ballroom dancing, the man leads. That means the man puts one hand around the woman’s waist or ribcage while she puts her hand on his shoulders. This allows him to basically nudged and push her into place if required. In the fans, Ricky was leading. He was the one and only doll that was leading. In all other cases, the shadows her the ones with the leading role. I only saw it thanks to blurry screencaps so I wonder if they’ll explain in the next episode. I don’t think so and I really like that.
Previous Posts
- Shadows House episode 1 – Emilico
- Shadows House episode 2 – Impure
- Shadows House episode 3 – Broken
- Shadows House episode 4 – Murder
I told my hubs what you said about Ricky leading Patrick and that cleared it up for us.
Ricky and Patrick get very interesting in s2
I’m not good at noticing who’s leading, so I didn’t catch that, but I still got the gist of it, because they were talking about it. I don’t remember what they were saying. Maybe they were addressing it indirectly?
That was a really interesting episode.
As for the scene with Mia… She may have initiated it in the scene, but I’m not sure if the broken doll was a deliberate message. It doesn’t seem to me like they get along. I could be entirely wrong; we’ve seen too little. But the sooty room is off the charts (and it’s not the first time we’ve seen it like that). I’m also curious about the oddly low enterance. That just seems so random. Maybe I’m imagining it?
I didn’t notice the entrance – interesting. Shadows House throws in a ton of little details, I do hope we get a payoff.
I may have imagined it. I sometimes spot details that aren’t there. Comes with an overly active imagination, I suppose. (In any case, I could check, but I’m lazy, and also I’m a little afraid to be proven wrong, because I kinda like that detail – imaginary or real.)
Nice catch! I watched the ballroom anime, and I missed that.
I did not watch that yet! I should
The reasoning of Edward’s actions will be shown in the beginning of the next episode, if the studio decides to animate his inner monologue. And in this case his motives for taking points of Ricky are interesting, to say the least.
Also, animation made him look even more unhinged than in the manga! XD
Edward looked like he had one too many coffees before the shoot.