English Dub Review: Shadows House “The Shadow and Her Doll”

Overview:

Shadows are the humans and the ones that look human are “living dolls”. Every shadow has a living doll counterpart once they come of age. What is the origin of the shadows? Why do they need a living doll? And why do the dolls seem more human than the “human” shadows?

Our Take:

This was a really strong and intriguing first episode. As you may have noticed from my overview there are a ton of questions it throws out but no answers as of yet. In fact, there are only two characters present in the first episode outside of Emilico seeing another shadow and her doll at the end of the episode.

So that means the two voice actresses really get to own the episode and they do a pretty great job. Kate is the first role I am really experiencing Emi Lo’s work. For this episode at least I was really impressed with how well she did. Kate is a sophisticated character that also likes to talk in the third person and Emi brought a lot of charm to that. I am really interested to see where she takes the character for the rest of the series.

Dani Chambers who plays Emilico, I have a little more experience with. Mainly for her roles in The Day I Became a God and The Quintessential Quintuplets. She does those fun playful bits really well. Basically, if it’s a cute anime girl doing cute anime things leave it to Dani and you will get a solid performance. Since they were the only two with speaking roles in this episode they are the only ones I can mention but seeing the cast list has me excited for future episodes.

I have heard a lot of good things about Shadow House so I was interested to see if it lived up to it. I have seen a lot of people call it one of the more underrated anime of this spring anime season. I can’t say if it is for sure yet but after one episode it definitely has my attention. It has a post-apocalyptic vibe to it which I am a fan of. I want to see how the world got like this, is it our world? I am definitely anticipating some of the reveals.

By now I’m sure you all know I love my anime openings and endings. The opening isn’t too interesting to me at the moment. I say at the moment cause I have found some OP’s take it appearing in an awesome moment in the show to really sink in. The ending though? Whooooooo boy! That song is an absolute banger. It’s called “Nainai” by ReoNa and I suggest you give it a listen, you will be hooked. It has a nice creepy vibe that fits the show. I don’t know if this will be a simuldub where they keep up weekly but hopefully, I got another review for you next week!