History Manga / ShadowsHouse

The manga was originally published in the {{seinen}} manga magazine ''[[Magazine/ShonenJump Weekly Young Jump]]'' since 2018, and is ongoing. An animated adaptation was announced in 2020.

* {{Bifauxnen}}: The shadow Mary-Rose wears a frilly shirt and breeches unlike the fancy dresses favored by the other female shadows, many of whom think she's cool.

* BlackComedy: Louise, sculpting a clinger out of soot in a world where soot regularly come to life and create havoc is a bit...

* DeathOfPersonality: [[spoiler:Shadows merging with their Living Dolls, if successful, will have this happen to the latter. The Shadow's personality will be the primary personality, while the human underneath serves as a vessel and disguise and nothing more.]]

* IndividualityIsIllegal: The Living Dolls are more or less forbidden to deviate from being exact clones of their shadows, and it's repeatedly stated that they shouldn't think about anything 'unnecessary'. Emilyko's markedly different personality from Kate often gets her accused of being defective, and Louise takes offense at Ricky seemingly getting a crush on Lou. [[spoiler:On part of the Shadows, this is justified; the whole point of the current system is to have the Shadows bond to their Living Doll and be able to use them as their proper body, so if they are not on the same page there's a good chance the Shadow won't develop a personality, which was unfortunately Shirley's downfall.]]

* LaserGuidedAmnesia: [[spoiler:The Living Dolls are actually children taken from other villages and brainwashed with the Great Grandfather's Soot. They still retain their abilities and skills.]]

* MenUseViolenceWomenUseCommunication: [[spoiler:Kate and John break Emilyko and Shaun out of their conditioning this way. Kate makes Emilyko drink some water to flush the shadow out of her, and then convinces her to think the situation through more. Meanwhile, John and Shaun have a fist fight to make the latter realize his humanity.]]

* SmallSecludedWorld: It takes several chapters for Emilyko to even parts of the mansion beyond Kate's bedroom. A glimpse of the world outside the mansion itself isn't seen until after the debut trials.

* TomatoInTheMirror: [[spoiler:Although the protagonists haven't learned it yet, the shadows aren't actually former humans, but the dolls ''are''.]]
* TownWithADarkSecret: The villages that the shadows provide with their soot charcoal have to send children to work at the mansion in exchange. The children never come back [[spoiler:and are made into the 'Living Dolls']]. Downplayed slightly in that the villagers themselves don't seem to be aware of this [[spoiler:due to the soot smoke making them docile and obedient]].

* DeadlyDecadentCourt: The adult shadows, and even some of the younger ones like Sara and Patrick, get up to a lot of scheming in their efforts to be favored by the Great-Grandfather of the mansion. 'Weak' or disloyal shadows are implied to be weeded out quite often, mostly through the debut trials.

* DeathOfPersonaliry: [[spoiler:Shadows merging with their Living Dolls, if successful, will have this happen to the latter. The Shadow's personality will be the primary personality, while the human underneath serves as a vessel and disguise and nothing more.]]

* GenderedOutfit: Both boys and girls wear a similarly navy-blue uniform with fishnets covering their arms, but for girls they have a dress and a white frilled collar, while the boys have shorts and a white wing collar. Before they are officially recognized as a Face, the girls have a frilly blue and white maid outfit while the boys wear a green patterned vest with a white shirt and blue pants.

Faceless shadow nobles living in a vast mansion, attended by living dolls who spend much of their time cleaning up the soot endlessly emitted by their mysterious masters. Being one of the dolls, in addition to being her maid, Emilyko is expected to become Kate's "face" once her mistress is old enough to be introduced to the other residents of the sprawling mansion in which they live. Emilyko believes that all she needs to do is work hard and make Kate happy, but things in the mansion aren't that simple or pleasant...

* AllOfTheOtherReindeer: The timid Ram is bullied by many of the other living dolls due to the fact that her shadow barely acknowledges her. It's so bad that she talks to her pinky finger for company.

* {{Brainwashed}}: [[spoiler:The living dolls are given coffee laced with soot from the Great-Grandfather that makes them rapturously loyal to him. The soot of the other shadows is also shown to pacify humans.]]
* CastHerd: You take your cast and multiply by two because they all come in pairs of living doll/shadow. But each living doll and shadow are part of at least one team/clique; and if you know one of either the living doll or Shadow, you can remember their other pairing.

* ContemplateOurNavels: [[spoiler:Some time after Emilyko and Shaun are freed from brainwashing, they have a chance together to imagine what freedom might look like outside the Shadows House, wonder what their lives were like before they arrived, and reconcile their identities between their roles as actual humans and living dolls.]]

* EmpathyPet: A human and justified variation. Proper living dolls are supposed to carefully time their movements to match their Shadow's emotions, in order to act as their Face.

* IDontPayYouToThink: “Living dolls should not think any unnecessary thoughts.” The bigwig Shadows of the Great Grandfather's Third Floor even debate Edward's conduct of the Debut where the living dolls have to think.
* IndividualityIsIllegal: The living dolls are more or less forbidden to deviate from being exact clones of their shadows, and it's repeatedly stated that they shouldn't think about anything 'unnecessary'. Emilyko's markedly different personality from Kate often gets her accused of being defective, and Louise takes offense at Ricky seemingly getting a crush on Lou. [[spoiler:On part of the Shadows, this is justified; the whole point of the current system is to have the Shadows bond to their Living Doll and be able to use them as their proper body, so if they are not on the same page there's a good chance the Shadow won't develop a personality, which was unfortunately Shirley's downfall.]]

* LaserGuidedAmnesia: [[spoiler:The living dolls are actually children taken from other villages and brainwashed with the Great Grandfather's Soot. They still retain their abilities and skills.]]
* TheMasquerade: There’s actually a masquerade inside the masquerade. [[spoiler:The villages near the Shadows House don’t realize the Shadows House is more than just a “helpful” family of nobles. And at the Shadows House itself, inhabitants of the Children’s Building don’t realize the inhabitants of the Great Grandfather’s Building are Shadows who merged with their living dolls.]]

* MirrorRoutine: Living dolls are expected to do a version of this after their shadow debuts, mimicking the shadow's movements exactly and showing an expression befitting their emotions when they speak. It's more than a little unsettling in action given that the first example we see is Mia, a doll who Emilyko had started to befriend, playing "face" for her AlphaBitch shadow, Sara.
* NonstandardCharacterDesign: In contrast to all of the other living dolls, Barbie has a feral, fanged appearance.

* RaisedAsAHost: [[spoiler:The origin of the living dolls - they're humans taken from villages near the mansion as children who have their memories wiped by the Great-Grandfather's soot. The shadows that imitate them eventually fuse with their bodies.]]

* StepfordSmiler: Mia acts like a CoolBigSis to the other living dolls in her part of the mansion, but is viciously abused by her shadow for failing to become a Star-bearer.

* TownWithADarkSecret: The villages that the shadows provide with their soot charcoal have to send children to work at the mansion in exchange. The children never come back [[spoiler:and are made into the 'living dolls']]. Downplayed slightly in that the villagers themselves don't seem to be aware of this [[spoiler:due to the soot smoke making them docile and obedient]].

* HypocriticalHumor: When [[ItsAllAboutMe Louise]] said Kate was being egotistical, Kate realized she needed to take a hint.

* LivingShadow: The inhabitants of the mansion are three-dimensional ones. In a reversal of this trope, they're apparently the original selves under some sort of curse, creating the living dolls in their old images [[spoiler:although this is later revealed to be a lie - the shadows are a sort of FairFolk mimicking humans who are made to ''think'' they're dolls]]. They also give off sooty smoke when experiencing negative emotions, and some can even manipulate it.

* LiterallyShatteredLives: Although it's more of a crumbling than a shattering, this is what happens to [[spoiler:a shadow who fails to form a strong enough personality through the bond with their face]].

* IndividualityIsIllegal: The living dolls are more or less forbidden to deviate from being exact clones of their shadows, and it's repeatedly stated that they shouldn't think about anything 'unnecessary'. Emilyko's markedly different personality from Kate often gets her accused of being defective, and Louise takes offense at Ricky seemingly getting a crush on Lou.

The manga was originally published in the {{seinen}} manga magazine ''Shuunkan Young Jump'' since 2018, and is ongoing. An animated adaptation was announced in 2020.

''Shadows House'' is a manga by Somato, author of {{Manga/Kuro}}. Starting out as a SliceOfLife story but gradually accumulating more elements of mystery and horror as it goes on, it follows Emilyko, a young and cheerful doll who serves LivingShadow Kate.

[[quoteright:225:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/shadowshousecover_1.jpg]]
''Shadows House'' is a manga by Somato, author of {{Manga/Kuro}}. Starting out as a SliceOfLife story but gradually accumulating more elements of mystery and horror as it goes on, it follows Emilyko, a doll who serves LivingShadow Kate. In addition to being her maid, Emilyko is expected to become Kate's "face" once her mistress is old enough to be introduced to the other residents of the sprawling mansion in which they live. Emilyko believes that all she needs to do is work hard and make Kate happy, but things in the mansion aren't so simple or pleasant...

* DefrostingIceQueen: Kate starts out a bit cold to Emilkyo, but this is largely due to the stress of preparing for her upcoming debut. Emilyko quickly melts that shell with her boundless cheer.

* GenkiGirl: Nothing can keep a smile off Emilyko's face for long.

* SadistTeacher: Edward, the doll who oversees the debut trials. He singles out at least one of every group and makes things as unfair as possible for them so that their failure will be a spectacle (and hopefully advance him to the Great-Grandfather's inner circle).
* ShrinkingViolet: Ram, one of the other dolls Emilyko meets on cleaning duty.

* ThirdPersonPerson: The shadow people refer to themselves and each other in this way.

''Shadows House'' is a manga by Somato, author of {{Manga/Kuro}}. Starting out as a SliceOfLife story but gradually accumulating more elements of mystery and horror as it goes on, it follows Emilyko, a doll who serves LivingShadow Kate. In addition to being her maid, Emilyko is expected to become Kate's "face" once her mistress is old enough to be introduced to the other residents of the sprawling mansion in which they live.

* CorporalPunishment: Mia is on the receiving end of this from Sara, who is nowhere near as kind a shadow as Kate. Even worse, she's internalized the belief that it's a way for Sara to 'better' her when she makes mistakes, so at one point she brings the cane to Sara and ''requests it''.
* CuttingTheKnot: Emilyko rescues Kate from where she's trapped in the maze, but there's no way for the two of them to make it back in time on foot. Their solution? Turn the flower cart Emilyko brought into a makeshift raft to traverse the waterways and launch themselves over the walls.

* IndividualityIsIllegal: The living dolls are more or less forbidden to deviate from being exact clones of their shadows. Emilyko's markedly different personality from Kate often gets her accused of being 'defective', and Louise takes offense at Ricky seemingly getting a crush on Lou.

* FusionDance: [[spoiler:The shadows and their faces are intended to eventually 'unify' by one absorbing the other. This enables the shadow to switch into a human form at will. The reason the dolls are trained to be loyal to the house is so that the shadow takes on this trait, since the Great-Grandfather's brainwashing soot doesn't affect them otherwise.]]

* Bifauxnen: The shadow Mary-Rose wears a frilly shirt and breeches unlike the fancy dresses favored by the other female shadows, many of whom think she's cool.

* AsteroidsMonster: If the soot generated by the shadow people isn't properly cleaned and disposed of, it gathers together and becomes animate, spawning amorphous blobs called 'clingers' that try to latch onto and kill the dolls.

* CerberusSyndrome: At first, the manga focuses on Emilyko trying to better herself as a maid and her growing friendship with Kate. Once they have their first meeting with another shadow, however, the twisted nature of the mansion begins to come to light.
* LivingShadow