Shadows House

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This will be a short review since I highly recommend you go into this blind.

Where do I start?

Shadows House is quite a peculiar manga with an abnormal setting. It follows the relationship between Emilyko, a living doll, and her shadow master Kate. Emilyko has a duty to clean the room of her master who continues to emit soot that dirties her living space.

And we'll stop there for introductions.

Shadows House is still in publishing but what's nice are the fully-colored chapters in tandem with Soumatou's cutesy art that work well in creating a mysterious atmosphere.

As the manga goes on, you might pick up ... on various points of world-building and character, and it might do you well to keep these in mind as you read through. Like another certain Shounen Jump series, Shadows House has its own way of storytelling that's sure to keep fans of the mystery genre hooked. And maybe you can find out what it is before they tell you.

I might have said too much already so I'll leave the detective work to you.

Did I already say to go in blind?

This is a GREAT manga full of mysteries and EXCELLENT art + storytelling.
It follows the story of Emilyko, the living doll, and her shadow, Kate. Emilyko has to clean every single day all the soot that comes out of Kate, but why is it? What's soot? Just what is a living doll? What does it mean to be "a face"? What even are shadows?

They live in a mansion owned by the Shadow family. Little by little you (and them) learn about their surroundings and context. What is that mansion, though? What on earth is the Shadow family anyway?

Chapter by chapter you gather ... new questions while finding new answers, it keeps you hooked. The more you read, the more new and interesting characters are presented and more questions arise.

At first it may seem very light and wrote only for the aesthetic, but the plot so far is very interesting and gets deeper by the chapter (and it is also consistent! which is not actually quite easy to find). It has a nice pace, good characters, great story and, mostly, it's beautiful. I love it, I absolutely recommend this manga to anyone, really.
UPDATE: it seems a Shadows House anime has been confirmed. I recommend reading the manga anyway, because it is just exquisite, don't miss it.

While Kuro by the same team was a niche hit, Shadows House now is an AOE crit hit. It’s colored, it has one of the most unique worlds in recent manga, it’s fantastic. Shadows House seems to be beloved in France, and the French are right - they know good bande dessinée when they see’em.

First of all – this is not slice-of-life as some people call It, evidently judging by the covers, the description, and the few first chapters. The manga starts slow, because of delayed exposition. The characters learn about the world together with us, cause the world is the main mystery here, ... and also the main attraction. When they learn enough though, they start to act.

I have the chance to write a review at the time when this manga has run for a while already, so I can say that it has separated into two main distinct halfs so far:
1 - The first is mostly eery subversive exploration, from the point of view of Emilyco, the young maid you see on the covers. She’s plunged in a vast strange Gormenghast-like world of a castle, where she’s both limited and free, overlooked, as lowly servants are. She serves her master, deals with her problems, and tries to learn more about the space. The subversion comes from the juxtaposition of her cheerful open personality and the closed-off terrifying “habits” of the place, which her pure soul tends to overlook. It is normalcy for her even if it looks horrible to us, after all.
2 -The second is a high tension political intrigue between nobles with some action elements. Here the attention switches to Kate, Emilyco’s master. This part has a bigger cast of distinct characters, spy-like mental battles, deathly competitions, and a fight against the oppression of the elders.

Both are united at heart around the secret of the order in the house. Who or what are shadows? Why do they act this way? What is hidden beneath the many bloody lies the giant house is built on?

The majority of events takes place in the giant labyrinthine stone castle of the Shadows family, divided by class and age and the favor of the ruler. It’s heavy and inescapable, lost in the perpetual mist – its own surreal world, reminiscent of European dark fantasy, of its many feverish dystopias and disturbing dreams. The style of interiors and clothes is also European – we see Victorian things, some art deco, the characteristic imagery of English industrialism. It’s also colored as European comics usually are. The team cites Edward Gorey (an illustrator beloved by Tim Burton) as an inspiration apart from the Japanese horror manga.

This work has the intense narrative consistency of Japanese comics too though, and a great cast of characters mangakas like to grow. I don’t want to spoil, since discovery is so fragrant, do delicious here, but there’s a complex interplay between the servants and their masters, and within the classes – between different groups of servants and nobles. The manipulative rules of the house are masked as duty and care. Beneath them, behind the impenetrable masks every character fights for their own survival and goals, mostly warped goals only warped people can cook up, while slowly losing themselves further. The stakes are death or complete erasure for all.

The art is very pleasing even besides the color. The characters are distinct, interesting effects are used to show the shadow people’s difference. There's clear juxtaposition between the cuteness of designs and the bone chilling elements of the story, which compliments the same device in narration. The cuteness is good on its own as well. The interiors are well realized and combine European high class late XIX - early XX century interiors with steampunk and surrealist oil art. The outfits are especially eye catching and elaborate (and no wonder, since it’s the most Shadows get to show their personality, which is absolutely vital for them), the maid/butler outfit fans also won't be disappointed.
The art in Shadows House is soul food for the eye. As for fanservice – one can point out that the protags look like children, and there’s some cleavage shown off, but it’s wholly ignorable.

Shadows House is simply without peer at the moment, in many ways because it creates a playing field of its own. It’s very distinct, combining the best of Japanese and European comics, aesthetics and art inspirations into a unique captivating fictional world. While at the time I am writing this it’s announced that Shadows House will get an anime adaptation, this work is literary-inspired, so it feels right to read it. It’s also very carefully planned and focused, it's clear that the whole story is ready and thought through, so it is more pleasurable to read it as a whole. Anyways, whether you plan to wait for the adaptation or not, whether you prefer manga like me – this is a work worth picking up for everyone and all. Shadows House is magical and deserves more attention and more readers.

This will be a long read, so buckle up.

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Imagine you are sleeping inside a box. As the bell rings loudly, you open your eyes while your hand is opening the box which you’re sleeping in, it will then signify a new day in the house. You change your outfit and prepare yourself for the day. You don’t know who you are or even what you are. The only reason for your existence that keeps ringing inside your head is to serve your noble master, a living shadow. Every day, you have to serve your master starting from cleaning the room, helping with their needs, and ... most importantly, keeping your appearance similar to your master’s.

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That’s all I need to say about the initial phase of the story. I’m sure you already have imagined many different scenario based on that one paragraph alone. I don’t know what ends up in your mind, but I can say for sure that what you have imagined are only half-truths at best.

Introducing Emilyko, a living “doll” who is serving her shadow master, Kate. Emilyko is an innocent and pure-hearted girl who is more than happy to serve Kate. While serving her master’s needs is her duty, cleaning the room is one of the more important thing to do as a servant. Why? Because shadow masters produce soot while they are asleep, leaving the whole room dirty with black soot all over the place. Also there is another duty which isn’t stated that much between Kate and Emilyko initially. Since Kate is a shadow, she does not have the ability to express herself through her face. Therefore Emilyko must fill that role and become her master’s “face”. Hence why she needs to keep her appearance to be similar to Kate's. Although you may have recognized the uncanny similarities between shadows and their living dolls. Again, I’ll leave those questions to your own mind for now.

Surely there isn’t only one shadow master and her doll in the manor. Thus far, Emilyko’s duty is only limited to cleaning Kate’s room. And once the time is up, she will eventually join other dolls to clean the whole manor. As she encounters fellow living dolls, she experiences tons of new things that leave her in nothing but pure awe. Looking around the manor, it fills her with happiness and pride to be able to serve the Shadow House. At this time, Emilyko feels that as long as she happily serves Kate and the Shadow House, she will have a happy and carefree life……………… not until she questions her “existence” and the shrouded mystery of the house.

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I will leave the story section at that. To say the least, Shadow House is at least on par with The Promised Neverland’s first arc. The mix of mystery, mind games, and the innocence of children are all there. If you love The Promised Neverland’s first arc, then you simply can’t go wrong with Shadow House.

Now, let’s talk about the other aspect of drawn media, the art. Simply put, it is sublime. The series is colored, which is the first time for me to read a fully colored manga. Oh ho ho… Do you really think a mere colored manga can steal my heart? No, sir. There is so much more into it. I will thoroughly explain how Shadow House is more than a series of paneled pictures and texts, as it is rather a work of art that will please your eyes.

Character Design:

Aside from its stories, the other most important trait that differentiates between good characters from the great one is their design. How can your design be memorable to your audience? How can your reader easily identify between different characters? How can your design emphasize the story of its character? The artist of Shadow House truly nails it in this department. I really love the choice of garments for the characters such as long coats, thick dresses, and glaring pattern and laces. The amount of details are simply surreal. I often find myself stopping while reading to appreciate the clothing and to try drawing it myself. Yeah, I have a preferred taste on classic western noble clothing.

Interior:

When an artist is good at drawing figures, sometimes they are bad at drawing something more rigid such as interiors. I know mangas are not necessarily created by sole creator. Some mangakas will only draw the characters while there will be another person who co-create the manga by drawing its background/interior. In short, again, the interior art is also a feast to my eyes. There is another important aspect that emphasize the already good quality of the background which I will explain in the next section.

Composition:

Absolutely wonderful. You know the thing that right-handed artists will tend to draw based on their comfortable “sides”, which is drawing from left to right. It often results in a static and predictable layout and composition for characters, interiors, and compositional directions. Shadow House artist challenges themselves to draw the most dynamic panels I’ve ever experienced. Sometimes the perspective will shift to the bottom as the character is frightened with the situation at hand. Sometimes the perspective will be angling on top of character’s forehead to signify the condescending and cunning nature of them.

I occasionally draw myself, and I often find myself shying away from challenges like this. Drawing from unique angles are very difficult. I have to take into account things such as perspective and foreshortening. The drawing will get weird very quickly if I lose my focus while drawing. Drawing this kind of unique situations purely out of imagination is difficult at first. To get used to it, you actually need to draw from references. I really have nothing but admiration and respect towards the absurd dynamicity of the composition which will never leave you bored while reading and appreciating it.

Now, all those aspects are good and all. But there is one part of the art that shines the brightest, taking the spot light, and definitely stole my heart. And that is………

Facial Expressions:

(…………………..) Can you see me being speechless? Yeah, that’s pretty much it. My praise won’t be enough to express my utter admiration to the facial expressions in the series. Have you ever seen the happiest laugh? Emilyko has it. Have you ever seen the most adorable tearful face when you mess up your job? Emilyko has it too. Have you ever seen the brightest smile that is so bright that it will literally burn your eyes? Guess what? Emilyko has it.

This is a probably a subtle spoiler which I have mentioned earlier, the thing about shadows couldn’t express themselves through their face and therefore rely on their living dolls as their face. Hence why facial expression is simply the life or death of the series. Shadow House doesn’t manage to either live or die because of its facial expressions, but it rises beyond and break the heaven’s roof instead. Seriously guys, I can’t think of a word of praise for this part of the art. All I can say is that humans are natural at reading facial expressions of their peers. Even something as subtle as a twitch of a smile, a raise of an eyebrow, or a widening of an eye lid can signify the emotion of the said subject. The best thing I can say to you is “Just look at the god damn expressions yourself and you will understand”.

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Conclusion:

I first rated Shadow House at 8/10, which means “normal good” in my book because of its slow start. But then as I go forward and I notice how astronomically good the artwork is, the score bumped up to 9/10, which means “something that stands out” in my book. And finally as the story and mystery unveils itself, it becomes the cream at the top and it gets 10/10, which means “something special for me personally” in my book. I hate the word “Masterpiece” because it sounds too objective. My masterpiece is definitely different to your masterpiece. That’s why I use the word “special” instead. And Shadow House is definitely special to me. I’ll save up to buy the digital volumes because this is the least I could do to express my gratitude to its creator.

“If you do have the time to spare, then read it” is all I can say. This has been a damn long review and I’ll actually be surprised for you who manage to reach this very word. I want to say thank you for reading my review and I hope you can experience the enjoyment I’ve had with the series. Have a good day :D

Shadows House sadly belongs to one of the most underrated pieces of fiction I've witnessed so far, simply because the premise is not appealing enough for most people, and therefore it is ignored by the mainstream. But what people miss out on through this is easily one of the best told and most unique mystery stories you can find. If you already liked TPN, then this is even better.

Going into this, one might think that it's a simple slice of life just in a very obscure scenario whose plot only goes further for the sake of some self-contained storylines. But the truth is, once you ... get more and more involved, you realize that things are much more connected and play together in a way that you didn't even consider first. The plan for the plot and setting seems to have been certain from the beginning on.

Starting relatively simple with only the two main characters who merely get to know each other at the beginning, more and more characters and plot points get introduced after time, simultaneously with new arising questions while also getting a continuous darker tone.
While other mystery stories often fail to execute its own resolutions to their plot by lazily adding more and more elements to its own lore (making it seem like a forced scenario by the author), Shadows House meanwhile manages to keep a systematical vibe throughout the story which characterizes through having tons of details and foreshadowings from the beginning on that help to point out to much later plot points in a great logical way.
As you progress, you repeatedly get tiny bits of information that slowly make you realize the thoughtful concept behind the shadows house and its mysteries. And in the middle of nowhere you occasionally get to witness some bigger reveal that turns the whole plot into another direction. Overall the whole story is very intelligently written.

Thanks to the very unique concept, you also get confronted with topics that usually don't get addressed in other fictional works. The unusual scenarios and their philosophical background make a particular basis for deeper thoughts.
Another point are the various characters that all play their own part in the shadows house. Having the main focus on children might turn off some people, but it is indeed an important part of the plot that makes certain things possible in the first place. Also because of its concept, it again opens new ways for unique character traits and interactions. Each character has its own quirks, but they are all still very likeable (or at least understandable) to some degree, and each has their own development process. Especially Kate is an incredibly good character.

Lastly I want to point out the very enjoyable art style of the manga which also happens to be colored as the standard. Speaking from an anime view point, I only got to read the manga after chapter 80, but I think besides one little arc being changed, there is not much difference. Also while writing this, Shadows House is still far away from being finished, so there is still a lot of potential in the air for waaaaay more twists and turns.
Summarized I can highly recommend to read this manga or at least watch the anime first.

"Shadows house" is a mistery, slice of life manga which shows the day by day of Emiliko (the face) and Kate (her's shadow) through the house, as well as their intereactions with the other shadows and faces that live in that same house. In this universe "faces" reconize themselves as living dolls, and therefore, they have the ultimate purpouse of serving their shadow, by cleaning this "dust" their masters release, performing good-night kisses, or even making the facial expressions of the feelings, that is somethig shadows can't do.

Story: 10
The manga has great qualities in story, especially because of the way the story-telling is built, by ... first, doing a shadowy introduction of the process of "making" the dolls and then throwing the reader into a whole new, and scary World in which a lot of values and conceptions are being questioned at the same time. What are the Shadows? Why the dolls have to clean the dust? Are the dolls people? If so, what are they doing there? Everything is gonna be aswered as you and the characters discover, and dive together into this sad, even though funny and warm story.

Art:10

Shadow House is possibly one of the best slow burn, tightly focused mystery thrillers currently being published. If you like that genre you will like this.

Story:

It's hard to evaluate a plot of a mystery series until said mystery concludes (*cough* snk *cough* tpn *cough*). However, so far, shadow house is very well put together. The core mystery that defines shadow house does a good job at roping the reader in. The story does an excellent job of weaving together both SOL, thriller, and mystery elements together in a way that puts the readers in the same shoes as the characters, which both does a great ... job of sparking curiousity but also gives the readers a chance to solve the smaller questions by themselves with the clues collected along the way.

Unlike many of its contemporaries, shadow house is both very well paced and very tightly focused. It does a good job at balancing the rate of new questions and answers and makes sure every revelation is impactful and earned. The subplots all do a good job of building up to the main goal. None of the SOL scenes feel like wasted filler and instead contribute to the characters/setting/pacing or provide clues to be used later. So far there are no major plot holes that couldn't potentially be explained by later reveals, and the story seems to be well planned and progressing organically.

Unfortunately, shadow house has somewhat questionable application of stakes and hesitation to kill off characters especially this early on.

Characters:
Nothing special but well done. Some prominent characters have interesting backstories, motivations, development, or personality. Some transcend normal manga archetypes to a degree, but never in groundbreaking or particularly unique ways. A few members of the cast have some charm, but personally I found no jaw droppers.

However, the way the manga handles interactions and relations between characters is outstanding. The dialogue is well written, symbolism is used well, and the way characters can influence eachother is fascinating.

Art:
Both the linework and textures are good. Looks incredible in color. Paneling is nothing special, but there is always a lot of clarity and it never negatively impacts the experience.

Themes:
Thematically consistent, but also nuanced enough to try to question itself and evaluate its core themes from multiple angles. No complaints.

Conclusion:

The series isn't brilliant but it holds itself to consistently high standards and executes well. Clearly crafted with thought and care to be a very enjoyable experience.

So the manga is getting an anime later this season at the time of writing this review. I was drawn in by the synopsis of the anime and found out that there was a manga, and to say that I had close to no expectation for this manga is an understatement, I was surprised by the quality of the manga, it has the feeling of the promised neverland but a little better, the manga doesn't prioritize horror which was a small surprise since I was expecting something like The promised Neverland, the manga focuses on the mystery of the manor and it's adults.

The manga revolves ... around Emilyko and Kate.
Emilyko is the "Living Doll" that lives to support Kate and be her face.
Kate is the faceless shadow noble that is trying to solve the mystery of the manor.

Emilyko is your generic happy-go-lucky protagonist that just wants her master Kate to be happy
Kate is our deuteragonist and is the main mystery solver in the manga and she is an ambitious girl that tries to solve the mystery of the manor.

The art is great and is one of its main charms the manga is fully coloured if that is one of your concerns, it's a breath of fresh air.

The plot is as simple as a detective novel, it revolves around the mystery of the "Living Dolls" and the mystery of "The Great-Grandfather" we follow as Emilyko helps Kate to solve the mystery in the manor.

This manga took me by storm. I'm a huge fan of the ones that start out innocent, even possibly mistaken as a kids show, only to get incredibly dark. In that sense, this manga hits the spot perfectly.

But the plot itself is great. The author sets up a solid foundation and links back to things from the very beginning that you wouldn't think twice about at that point - but not so that you forget it happened. It makes you go, "Holy shit! THAT's what that meant!?"

The characters are amazing. Really great development. It's rare for a manga that introduces so many characters ... to not be overwhelming/chaotic, but the author manages it superbly. You feel a connection to most, if not all, of them.

Plus, it says something that even the shadows have in-depth personalities - to the point where you can assume their facial expressions without actually seeing their faces.

Of course, the fact it's published in full color doesn't hurt.

All in all, this manga has the potential to be 10/10 if the author nails the ending.