English Dub Review: Shadows House “Watchers in the Night”

Overview:

After the phantom issue, a lot of the dolls are being questioned. One of the leaders of the group, Barbie, has a real angry personality. Emilico is naive to how things work and steps up to defend a fellow doll named Rum. Due to her outburst Emilico, Rum, and another doll named Shaun get night watch duty. What could go wrong?

Our Take:

This was more lackluster than the previous episodes but sometimes it takes a little time. We also had a few new characters to develop so I wouldn’t be too worried. There was just less world-building and more character interactions this time is all. Rum is the quiet and shy type who always seems to be screwing up. While Shaun mostly seems to keep to himself but still stands up for others when he feels it’s necessary.

I have a feeling the night watch group that gets formed in this episode will be our main group for the plot. I could be wrong but it seems like they’re all connected in some way. Plus, most of them have yet to have their debut yet so they got that in common as well. Meanwhile, there were two characters introduced that seem to be more on the antagonistic side of things.

Barbie was slightly introduced last week but this time we got more of an idea of her personality. The best way I can describe it is abrasive, to say the least. She even kicked Emilico for standing up for Rum. Which causes Shaun to “accidentally” make her trip to spare Emilico. Then Ricky hits Shaun. Ricky seems to be on the side of Barbie and is one of those brown-nosing get ahead types. Both of these characters have excellent voice talent associated with them as well.

Barbie is voiced by Elizabeth Maxwell who I really enjoy as Arisa in Fruits Basket. She has become one of the more recognizable voice actresses recently and has gotten a lot more roles it seems. Ricky is voiced by Adam McArthur who you may recognize as Itadori from the immensely popular Jujutsu Kaisen. He is pretty new to anime VA work but not animation as he was also in Start vs The Forces of Evil. I think this is a sign that he may be breaking into the anime scene more permanently.

This episode was enjoyable and necessary but not as good as the previous three. I think next week we will be getting into the debut. So, I imagine we will start to uncover even more about this intriguing world.