Shadows House (Official Colored) - Ch. 238 - Dancing on the Battlefield

[MangaDex]

 

[Hikineet]

Thanks for the chapter.

 

[swimminginsand]

My hero Babara is about to blow that mother fucker out

 

[Dudewheresmymecha1]

Thank you for another action-packed and suspenseful chapter!

Hey, Ryan really is a nice fellow, isn't he? I think we'll all be heart-broken, if anything should happen to Ryan, right?

(How many of us thought we'd actually feel sympathy for Edward and his friends, way back when they were introduced?)

 

[BalrogDeMorgoth]

The fights suddenly got a lot more brutal.

 

[HOMIZAPEINS]

Damn, what a terrifying duo! Ryan, you are so dead, bro...

 

[Doomroar]

Thank you for another action-packed and suspenseful chapter!

Hey, Ryan really is a nice fellow, isn't he? I think we'll all be heart-broken, if anything should happen to Ryan, right?

(How many of us thought we'd actually feel sympathy for Edward and his friends, way back when they were introduced?)

I still don't have much sympathy for Edward and his friends i was mostly concerned for Maryrose and that's about it

 

[fennec]

This just keeps getting more and more brutal in a realistic way. I actually cringed at Eileen's tongue being sliced and Edward's fingers getting broken. I read tons of horror manga, but in a series where actual violence has been fairly rare, seeing actual, realistic injuries like that is a lot more jarring.

...also help I now ship Maryrose and Barbara

 

[NilnisNilneef]

Fucking hell. It's been a while since a manga made me physically recoil like that. I won't rehash my thoughts on how this series uses violence but goddamn.

Something something Maryrose about to drain Barbara dry and leave her satisfied for the first time in her life.

 

[hishokos]

the ultimate tag team is here...this is hype!!!

 

[KappaDvorak]

the ultimate tag team is here...this is hype!!!

Unlimited Soot Work

 

[UncleKaos]

brutal damnit.. very brutal.

 

[Cloverdex]

it's been a while since we got a
[ John Punch ] I hope to see it soon. Great chapter. I'm excited for what's to come.

 

[Dudewheresmymecha1]

Oh, come on - let's be fair to Edward's friends at least: we really haven't seen Eileen or Gerald do anything especially villainous, other than hang around with Edward - certainly nothing bad enough to deserve the punishment that Ryan dished out for them.

Spoiler: Putting it in Perspective

And their time away from Shadows House did seem to do Edward and his friends a little good: Edward still hasn't quite made up for some of the callous things he's done in his time leading the children's wing, and his continued loyalty to Great Grandfather is dubious given how little reason we've seen for anyone to be so loyal, but when we consider the paranoid and corrupt environment that produced Edward, it's maybe a little easier to get where he has been coming from... and really, it seems like even where his methods might be questionable, his instincts on who might be untrustworthy don't seem to have been very far wrong: Kate, Candy, Anthony, Maryrose/Rosemary, and so on really were conspiring or hiding something! And the punishment Ryan is dealing onto Edward is pretty brutal stuff, too - if those three characters have to bleed before we can forgive them, then surely they've at least put down a large down-payment on bleeding for their penance, and something tells me Edward has a little more suffering to do, before his story reaches its conclusion.

Still, look how far Rosemary/Maryrose have evolved since the reveal that she was Master Robe/The Phantom, or how far Sarah/Mia, the Belles, or Barbara/Barbie have come in their story arcs: from where I'm standing, it looks like Edward is on a similar trajectory. He definitely still has a little further to go to finish humanizing him a bit, but only a little further.... I think we're due a flashback to show us how and why he went wrong in Shadows House (the place does bring out the worst in these characters!), something that will force him to question his seemingly unreasonable loyalty to Great Grandfather, and maybe a bit more suffering yet until he makes his amends and finishes his story.

Speaking of those other characters, Edward's allies in this fight are an interesting selection of characters who have come a long way since their introduction, aren't they? Edward and his friends, Rosemary/Maryrose, Barbara/Barbie: these are all characters that looked quite a bit like villains at the start of the story, but now?

~~~~~

Edward's group aside, things do seem to be moving along at a faster pace than I expected - I expect Ryan won't long outlive the next chapter, Kate is (apparently) on her way to confront Great Grandfather with Joseph (something I thought they'd take another year to build up to), the children are consolidating their un-brainwashed strength together in one place for the first time against Christopher/Anthony (a conflict that is surely about to come to a conclusion soon....)

I think that as things stand right now, we're looking at three or four major conflicts or core mysteries that have been set up a long time ago - in a couple cases, almost from the first volume:

Spoiler: What's Next

• Conflict: Christopher/Anthony (and as mentioned, I feel like this one is surely coming to a conclusion soon)
• Mystery: Who/what the Great Grandfather really is, and what really happened when the Mirror House became Shadows House. (This seems like the stuff of a chapter or two of flashback exposition, similar to some of the other background information we've seen. Maybe we'll find out a little more about this when Kate confronts the Great Grandfather? Seems like this mystery still needs a little time to unfold, but I'm already surprised by how fast things are moving....)
• Conflict: The Third-Floor adults and Great Grandfather (After seeing Ryan in action, Kate hardly seems prepared for a straight fight with Great Grandfather alone, even with a little help from Joseph, so it's a little difficult to imagine how this might be brought to a quick resolution! I don't think Ryan is much longer for this story, while we've seen the set-up for Dorothy and only need to see how Kate's group meet that challenge; Sophie is still a bit of a mystery, but I'm not sure Sophie I can think of any way that Sophie would be destined for a particularly big part of the remaining story....)
• Challenge: What will the island look like after Kate and her friends overthrow the Shadows family and reclaim Mirror House? (The various smaller plots in the story up to this point seem to be divided between showing us how wrong the institution of Shadows House is on one hand, and on the other how even some well-intentioned alternatives can go just as wrong, and with a coalition as varied as the one that Kate is building, there are surely going to be differences of opinion on the best way to govern the island, some more practical and realistic than others! This seems more like the stuff of an epilogue to the main content, than anything else.) Among other things, the island is surely filled with second-floor adults that still need to be dealt with, and most of the ones we've met don't seem like particularly good people....

Most of the other open story arcs I can think of seem to play support to one of those, and seem to generally be coming to their logical conclusion, such as the resolution to Barbara/Barbie's story arc, Edward's gradual heel-face-turn (his loyalty to Great Grandfather is still in his way, but surely coming to a turning point soon), there doesn't seem to be much development left to complete for Sarah/Mia to make up for the trouble they've caused, and so on.

 

[Sakidornis]

Well, I have never liked Edward. But seeing his fingers got snapped one by one kinda made me feel bad for him.

Ouchie

 

[Swagner]

Oh god, I feel especially bad for Eileen.

Maryrose + Barbra seems like an OP combo, but on the other hand we did just watch Ryan grow his head back. Maybe they're gonna have to drown him, soot dissolves in water, right?

 

[OwUmbreon]

Oh god, I feel especially bad for Eileen.

Maryrose + Barbra seems like an OP combo, but on the other hand we did just watch Ryan grow his head back. Maybe they're gonna have to drown him, soot dissolves in water, right?

I think the gameplan here is to assimilate all his soot. Barbara basically drowns him in soot attacks, and mixed into the smokescreen is Maryrose to soot steal.

 

[Dudewheresmymecha1]

Oh, I forgot another pair of characters who have gone through a lot of change since their introduction: it's easy to forget that our introduction to poor Lou/Louise probably gave all of us a bad impression, with the shadow half of the pair in particular coming off as vain and vapid.

I talked my mother into watching the anime a year or two ago, and she decided she didn't like or trust Ricky/Rick right from their introduction, and it was a bit of fun for me to realize that I'd forgotten how much he changed over time, coming off as sneaky, conniving, and unscrupulous at first, before we got to know him better (especially by the end of the Margaret/Maggie subplot and/or the flashbacks to before he got to Shadows House!)

The characters in this story are (not always, but often) a bit more complicated than they seem to be at first, especially those who start of as a bit off-putting or even villainous!


And, on a silently different track, since I was just thinking of the anime again and this last chapter reminded me that Maryrose/Rosemary and Barbie/Barbara had a thing about dancing, I just wanted to stop a moment to say that the end credits for the anime's second season are particularly beautiful - I enjoyed the anime all around, but this was especially well done:

 

[fennec]

Oh, I forgot another pair of characters who have gone through a lot of change since their introduction: it's easy to forget that our introduction to poor Lou/Louise probably gave all of us a bad impression, with the shadow half of the pair in particular coming off as vain and vapid.

I talked my mother into watching the anime a year or two ago, and she decided she didn't like or trust Ricky/Rick right from their introduction, and it was a bit of fun for me to realize that I'd forgotten how much he changed over time, coming off as sneaky, conniving, and unscrupulous at first, before we got to know him better (especially by the end of the Margaret/Maggie subplot and/or the flashbacks to before he got to Shadows House!)

The characters in this story are (not always, but often) a bit more complicated than they seem to be at first, especially those who start of as a bit off-putting or even villainous!


And, on a silently different track, since I was just thinking of the anime again and this last chapter reminded me that Maryrose/Rosemary and Barbie/Barbara had a thing about dancing, I just wanted to stop a moment to say that the end credits for the anime's second season are particularly beautiful - I enjoyed the anime all around, but this was especially well done:

Shadows House's greatest strength may very well be the characters. It's rare to see a series where so many characters have such well-defined arcs and development. It's why I'm personally quite open to Edward potentially becoming an ally (even if potentially only in an "enemy of my enemy" way). Several characters' impressions have flipped from their first appearances, and it's done in a truly organic way as it explores emotional states and responses to various traumatic events. It's incredibly rare to see stories in any medium handle such topics so well.

Also, that ending is one of my favorites in all of anime. Such an immaculate gothic aesthetic with a beautifully haunting melody. Though somehow, only now am I fully registering how Maryrose and Barbara both have roses as their central motif to further emphasize their connection...

 

[Dudewheresmymecha1]

...Though somehow, only now am I fully registering how Maryrose and Barbara both have roses as their central motif to further emphasize their connection...

I couldn't help noticing the roses on subsequent viewings of that season, but what struck me early in my very first viewing of the anime was that the opening title animations for both seasons, quite naturally, featured Kate and Emilyko, but that second season's closing animation featured Maryrose/Rosemary and Barbara/Barbie alone: in retrospect, it telegraphed the identity of "Master Robes" right from the start, but I hardly noticed! And, it looks a little different now all over again, all these chapters of the manga later, after what we've seen in the Christopher/Anthony story arc, and the last couple volume's worth of chapters, as we're seeing the pay-off from what was only hinted at in the introduction of these characters so long ago!


And now that you've got me thinking of it again, one thing I really regret, is just how little I know about the flower motifs in this series: so many of the main characters are associated with a specific flower (figuratively) pinned right on their sleeves for us to see, and the flower symbolism was showcased pretty directly in Patrick's story arc with Margaret: I don't think the amount of time spent focusing on flower symbolism in that arc was haphazard or accidental.

A big part of my trouble here is that I just can't recognize most flowers by sight, so I have no idea what to even look for when reading up on the symbolism....

I'm guessing most of it wouldn't surprise me, but I imagine there's surely a chance that knowing what's behind a given character's motif might change the way I look at them completely....


Apparently with roses, besides the familiar love symbolism, there are the thorns as well as the flower to note: a little defensive danger beneath the vulnerable beauty of the flower. And, sometimes (but not always) in Japan there's a homosexual connotation to the symbolism. Not too many surprises there, given what we're seeing from these characters, but tantalizing anyway....

I can't help noticing the colour motifs for these characters, either, and again, I just don't know enough about how the symbolism works in Japanese culture to get everything I suppose I could out of it or how the two motifs work together to add a layer to the story that I might be missing.