It probably wouldn’t be precisely accurate to say I’m disappointed in Shadows House.  Or fair, for that matter.  It’s not as if I dislike it, and I had no experience with the manga beforehand.  My expectations were mostly based on intuition (which admittedly I hate being wrong with) rather than anything concrete.  Still, it was the series that most intrigued me among the cold turkey premieres this spring, and that alone raises the bar to a not inconsiderable degree.

So far, if I’m honest, this show isn’t really working for me.  I like the look, I like the overall vibe, I like the music.  But the actual narrative seems kind of clumsy.  And Emilyko is, frankly, very annoying.  To the extent that she’s the center of the story it’s always going to be a problem for me unless her character completely transforms (which doesn’t seem likely).  Most seasons have at least one series that I find myself wanting to like more than actually liking, and my fear is that this time it’s going to be Shadows House.

Still, it’s only two episodes.  And I am intrigued by the premise, which those episodes actually did a decent job teasing out without revealing too much.  We know there’s a “Grandfather” Shadow, who apparently decides whether a family member is good enough to make the cut (“discarded” has an ominous ring to it).  It seems as if the shadow residents have relatively little contact with each other.  That’s certainly true in Kate’s case, though she may be an unusually shy and retiring resident.  Is this some sort of demonic situation?  Scientific experimentation?  I’m interested enough to be curious.

The devil is in the details, as usual.  I see something in here that reminds me of a bit of The Promised Neverland (from the same studio, as it happens) in that both strike me as series with great premises and mediocre execution.  With Neverland of course the execution was best at the start of the series and it started to go downhill once the premise was expanded (I’m just talking the manga here, never mind the dumpster fire adaptation).  So maybe Shadows House will be just the opposite – a stumbling start, then finding its footing?  It feels more like wishful thinking than anything else at this point, but I don’t think it can be ruled out.

I guess all I can do is give Shadows House an “incomplete” at this  point.  None of the characters (Kate is the most interesting of them) have connected much, and my interest is more an abstraction than a concrete reality at this stage.  But because of how much this series tripped my sleeper radar going in I’ll likely give it a pretty long leash, even in a season as bonkers (by modern standards) busy as this one looks to be.  That means at least one more episode to do something to grab me, and possibly more.  Hope springs eternal, and spring is the season of hope (in 2021 anime terms, anyway).