Shadows House 2 episode 6 – Bitter

know it’s only August but I started looking into what my blog’s Halloween lineup should be like this year. It does take a while to watch a bunch of spooky anime and unlike last year, I don’t have anything at all lined up.

Shadows House would have been a perfect Halloween review don’t you think? If any of you out there have not seen this show and are considering t, it is very good for spooky season. There are a lot of mysterious and unsettling elements but it’s not bloody or downright horror if you don’t like that. Oh well, maybe I’ll add it to a list or something.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Emilico has just learned that she’s human and now she’s depressed. Well, as depressed as Emilico can get which seems to be just under a minute! But it’s not only that, she’s starting to yearn for sights beyond the wall. And you know what curiosity does to cats! It was quite fun seeing them all as humans though.

This episode had a lot less action than previous ones. It was mostly just characters having conversations. But we did learn quite a lot. The dolls are starting to remember their previous lives which is going to cause problems. And yet, they still seem quite loyal to their masters for some reason.

There is a very strong suggestion that the Shadows, at least the younger ones, are just as much victims as the dolls are. They are kept in the dark about most of what happens in the house. Although they have certain privileges over the dolls, not that much. They don’t have the freedom to leave their quarters any more than the dolls do and they don’t seem to get consulted on anything, ever. The idea that the Shadows actually need humans, not for free labour but because interaction with them is what binds their consciousness is wonderful and I do like how the idea gets developed just a bit more later in the episode. This makes the entire Shadows House arrangement so much more complex.

If the theory is true, then a doll leaving their master would more or less mean death for the Shadow unless it is replaced quickly. I’ve mentioned before that the Shadows don’t seem overly worried about the health f their dolls. Maybe it’s enough to interact with any human, not necessarily their face. Maybe they also have a stash of kids ready for just such an occasion. It does make my theory of Christopher skulking around without a face a little less likely but I’m not giving up. The description of not an enemy but not quite an ally fits him too perfectly.

What else did we learn? There are Shadows in the children’s ward powerful enough to control all the dolls’ emotions at once for a period of time. The potential of soot is quickly surpassing what I had originally imagined.

The research team is even more eccentric than I thought as well. For a second I thought we had actually found our mysterious caped figure but then again, if they wanted to take Shaun out they had the perfect chance in the previous scenes. Instead, we find out that the quiet (lazy) guy is a lot more fun on screen than he looks, and he can use soot to grow extra limbs.

More pertinent though is the crash course we got on scorches. For one, it seems that scorches can’t combine into a phantom by themselves. If this guy is to be believed anyways. That would mean that someone out there has the power to manipulate them and potentially bring them together into a phantom, or there is some sort of catalyst that can be manufactured to create phantoms, and potentially used by different people.

But the older children at least seemed familiar with phantoms. They immediately recognized it and had a name for it. It stands to reason that this isn’t the first phantom they have seen. If it’s a power, it’s been used before. It’s not one of the new kids.

The second, and to me most interesting, thing we learn about scorches is that they follow faces. They do seem to try to jump into dolls’ mouths a lot. Jeremiah says they are “not alive” but what criteria is he going by? Let’s assume that Shadows are like a force of nature or energy. By themselves, they are not sentient. However, through frequent and continued interaction or connection with humans they develop a consciousness of their own, that needs continued interaction to be sustained. Wouldn’t the very first spork of sentience look a lot like a desperate need to be close to any human they can find?

I figure there is probably some sort of difference between Shadows and scorches but not as much of a difference as Shadows would like to admit.

The next episode is called Individual Investigations. Either this means all our main characters are going to have to split up and try to find clues by themselves, or all of them are going to get investigated by the Star Bearers one by one. Starting with John. His last line of the episode was great!

Previous Posts

Season 1

• Shadows House episode 1 – Emilico
• Shadows House episode 2 – Impure
• Shadows House episode 3 – Broken
• Shadows House episode 4 – Murder
• Shadows House episode 5 – Bearer
• Shadows House episode 6 – Proposal
• Shadows House episode 7 – Sunshine
• Shadows House episode 8 – Revelation
• Shadows House episode 9 – Reunion
• Shadows House episode 10 – Fairies
• Shadows House episode 11 – Human
• Shadows House episode 12 – Escape?
• Shadows House episode 13 – Caesura

Season 2

• Shadows House 2 episode 1 – John
• Shadows House 2 episode 2 – Christopher
• Shadows House 2 episode 3 – Phantom
• Shadows House 2 episode 4 – Kate
• Shadows House 2 episode 5 – Friends