A few months ago, I had the pleasure of watching Shadows House, a very unique anime with fantastically creepy vibes. Shadows House season 2 continued this trend, in brilliant fashion, with an excellent story and fascinating world.
I won’t rehash what I covered in my season 1 post to try and keep this post short. This will be more of an addendum, mostly me blabbing about what I liked. I’ll sum up the first post by saying there’s shadow masters and their human dolls, and there’s suspicious and nefarious stuff happening. Okay, moving on.
After regretting I didn’t do it for season 1, I saved season 2 for October (I love creepy anime for the Halloween season). Glad I did. The chilling atmosphere from the first season was still there, an impressive feat really.
Normally, things lose that suspenseful aspect when you know the “deep, dark secret”, but it just didn’t matter here. The sinister motives are only magnified, and the actions of the cast show the lengths they’re willing to go to escape the horrid machinations of Lord Grandfather and his house.
Getting more characters fleshed out was also great. There’s a lot of backstory for the side characters that helps give context to the events, like with Rosemary and Maryrose, or Barbara and Barbie. It was all very dramatic, and added so much to the story.
The main cast remains awesome as well, though it felt like Emilico, Kate, Shaun, and John got significantly more screen time. Not that I minded. The relationship between these characters is something I absolutely love.
One thing that felt kind of odd was a lot of the exposition about how Shadows House works behind the scenes, most of which was explained at the end of season 1. Makes sense, as season 1’s ending wasn’t one-to-one with the manga, but was still weird.
Overall, the second season of Shadows House was great. I still love the atmosphere the series creates, even without the mystery. The looming dread for these characters keeps you deeply invested. I hope to see a season 3 at some point.
Okay, that’s it for this one. Told you, nice and short. Catch you in the next one.