Just a reminder: The future of LiA is very much in doubt, and it’s up to you to decide what happens next.  Thank you for all your support!

Soredemo Ayumu wa Yosetekuru – 09

Have we had an episode of Soredemo Ayumu without a holiday?  This time around it’s Golden Week, which is actually a clowder of holidays all jammed together in order to make a week straight of them.  Except most years there’s a work/school day stuck in the middle of them, which makes absolutely no sense to me.

The focus of this episode was definitely Sakurako and Takeru, who I would normally call the B couple but with this series the line is so blurry as to be almost meaningless.  Ayumu and Urushi have their say too, as he pulls a deep fake on her by seeming to ask her out on a date, only to have it be the “entire” club getting together.  The key here is definitely Urushi’s delighted (if flustered) reaction before she figures out what’s really going on.

Mostly this is just romcom slice-of-life well executed, which is pretty much what this series is.   Timely accidents while hunting four-leaf clovers, suggestive air hockey strategies, plot-advancing confessions from a rando boy.  That it works as well as it does is testament to Soredemo Ayumu’s charms and Yamamoto-sensei’s dexterity with this sort of material.  Thee stuff like the buff koalas is funny but overall, this is definitely straighter and more earnest than his best-known (and best) series, and it lacks a certain comic edge because of that.  But for what it is, it’s all good.

The one odd element in this for me is Rin.  She’s certainly moved things along for the main couples, but it seems odd for a series that never seems to miss a trick to not have some sort of potential romantic interest for her.  She seems to have read the writing on the wall with Ayumu and given that up, so I don’t think he counts.

Shadows House 2nd Season – 09

Things are getting real pretty fast now.  I have to be honest  – with the issues the writing has had, I was very worried that when secrets starting getting revealed, the whole superstructure would start to collapse.  That’s pretty much what happened with Yakusoku no Neverland, a series with which Shadows House has much in common.  Both have very clever premises but struggle with execution.  On balance, this has gone better than I expected – the plot is holding together pretty well.

Maryrose is the key to this phase of the story at least.  Her limited soot output is counterbalanced by her very useful talent, scorch control.  I can’t fault her initial reasoning for wanting to rebel, and I think she started this whole Master Robe thing out with lofty intentions.  But the clock was against her and Rosemary, and desperation has turned her into this arc’s big bad.  Although that’s definitely in the context of a much bigger bad awaiting in the adults’ wing.

The key reveal here, obviously, is the fact that becoming an adult means the shadow stealing their living doll’s body.  “Fusion” is a euphemism for murder, and it seems a safe bet that that the time juvenile shadows spend with their dolls is about building compatibility so that they successfully fuse.  That apparently only happens about half the time (with grisly results when it doesn’t).  But when a shadow like Maryrose finds the idea of consuming their human unacceptable, what options do they have?  Escape seems literally impossible, which only leaves revolt.

There are a lot of big questions still outstanding, like just what shadows are and where they came from.  But for now the problem is survival, for Maryrose is willing to throw anyone under the bus in order to escape the fate she shares with Rosemary, and has effectively taken Shaun and Emilico hostage.  And not even the “John Punch” can slow Maryrose down – she’s been pulling Kate’s strings all along and has well and truly outflanked her.  Kate is smart enough to get herself in deep trouble – now she’s going to have to prove she’s smart enough to think her way out of it.