The Shadows House Season 3 anime will have Lady Kate and Emilico being rewarded for solving the soot phantom mystery. The pair hope to use their promotion to stage a rebellion against Lord Grandfather and the shadow nobility, but a new crisis begins as Edward returns to the Children’s Building to carry out an inspection along with a team of spies.
But when will Shadows House Season 3 come out?
Unfortunately, the announcement isn’t coming quickly. On November 26, 2022, a special event celebrated the release of the Shadows House Season 2 Blu-Ray/DVD. Japanese voice actors Akari Kitou (role of Kate), Yuu Sasahara (role of Emilico), and Koudai Sakai (role of John/Shaun) were in attendance and they looked back on the 2nd season, took a quiz, and talked about the series.
On Twitter, the seiyuus all stated that they “believe that we will meet again”. They wish they could “do an event again” but they didn’t tease any plans for a third season.
The studio and main staff making Shadows House Season 3 hasn’t been announced yet.
The second season of the Shadows House anime TV series featured a returning main staff at animation studio CloverWorks. The company is known for producing the popular Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai anime and the anime original story Wonder Egg Priority. They also co-produced Darling in the FranXX with Studio Trigger, and SPY x FAMILY Season 1 with WIT Studio.
As for the future, it’s predicted that CloverWorks will return to animate My Dress-Darling Season 2, which was confirmed to be in production in September 2022.
The first two seasons of the Shadows House anime were helmed by first-time main director Kazuki Oohashi. In the past, he’s been an episode director for Ace Attorney Season 2, Digimon Adventure, Kakegurui, and Persona 5: The Animation.
Writer Tohiya Ono (Blue Exorcist, Land of the Lustrous, 86 Eight-Six, The Promised Neverland both seasons) handled series composition. Original creator Somato (or so-ma-to) once again was supervising the creation of the anime scripts while working on the manga.
Artist Chizuko Kusakabe (Inazuma Eleven, Pumpkin Scissors) was the character designer. Composer Kenichiro Suehiro (Darwin’s Game, Fire Force, Goblin Slayer, Golden Kamuy, Re: Zero) wrote the music.
The Shadows House Season 3 OP (opening) and ED (ending) theme song music hasn’t been announced yet.
The Shadows House Season 2 OP “Shall We Dance?” was performed by ReoNa, while ClariS performed the ED “Masquerade.” For the first season, the Shadows House OP “A Hollow Shadow” was written by composer Kenichirou Suehiro. The ED “Nai Nai” was performed by ReoNa (singer for Sword Art Online, Happy Sugar Life).
The second season’s finale, Shadows House Season 2 Episode 12 (Shadows House Episode 25), was released on September 23, 2022.
The 12 episodes were released as six Shadows House Season 2 Blu-Ray/DVD box volumes.
- Updated October 12, 2022: Shadows House manga circulation surpasses 2 million copies.
This article provides everything that is known about Shadows House Season 3 and all related news. As such, this article will be updated over time with news, rumors, and analysis. Meanwhile, let’s delve down into what is known for certain.
Shadows House 3 release date predictions: Renewal chances difficult to predict
As of the last update, Aniplex, Shueisha, Studio CloverWorks, or any company related to the production of the anime has not officially confirmed the Shadows House Season 3 release date. Nor has the production of a Shadows House 3 sequel been announced.
Once the news is officially confirmed this article will be updated with the relevant information.
In the meantime, it’s possible to speculate about when, or if, the Shadows House 3 release date will occur in the future.
The premise of the Shadows House anime was a breath of fresh sooty air in comparison to the many contenders from the isekai and RomCom anime genres in recent years. But it was a sleeper hit that suffered some setbacks.
In June 2021, the Shadows House Blu-Ray Volume 1 sold less than 500 copies in its first week after release in Japan. It was also reported at the time that streaming numbers in Japan weren’t great, either. It’s possible these low numbers were the result of backlash to the anime original ending of the first season.
In 2021, Shadows House manga received a modest boost thanks to the first season. Back then, the manga didn’t make even the Oricon Top 100 but it was still doing better than To Your Eternity (Fumetsu no Anata e) in May 2021 according to Oricon.
A year later on May 30, 2022, the Shadows House manga had 1.6 million copies in circulation including digital volumes.
Unfortunately, the anime’s second season failed to give a major boost to Shadows House manga sales since it didn’t make Oricon’s Top 20 manga series chart for July 2022. But it still received a significant boost, since the manga sold 200,000 copies in two months’ time and surpassed 1.8 million copies in circulation by August 1, 2022. By October 2022, the manga had 2 million copies in circulation, which meant the series continued to sell around 100,000 copies per month after the second season finished.
To be fair, the only Summer 2022 anime series to make that Oricon Top 20 chart was Kingdom, Ao Ashi, and Call of the Night. Even the Chainsaw Man manga made it to the Top 20 based on sheer hype for the Chainsaw Man anime release date in Fall 2022. (We’re also predicting that Kingdom Season 5 and Ao Ashi Season 2 will happen in the future.)
However, manga sales are only an indicator of an anime series’ popularity in Japan, whereas global streaming revenue is the major factor. In that regard, the second season did just okay since it was regularly featured in Crunchyroll’s popular anime list in Summer 2022, but not usually near the top 5.
Additionally, the Season 1 reviews weres solid, and the Shadows House Season 2 review scores were even better since the second season managed to reconnect the anime’s plot back to the manga without a major stumble. It’s also possible that the international streaming numbers were good enough on their own for the anime production committee to justify greenlighting the sequel.
Assuming that Shadows House Season 3 is being planned out in advance, animation studio schedules are still booked out years in advance.
In the best-case scenario, the third season could be announced in 2023 and the Shadows House Season 3 release date is planned for 2024 at the earliest.
Crunchyroll’s Shadows House Season 3 English dub release date predictions
FUNimation’s Shadows House Season 1 English dub release date was May 29, 2021. Following Sony’s acquisition of Crunchyroll, the first season was moved to Crunchyroll.
Crunchyroll’s Shadows House 2 English dub release date for the first season was on July 22, 2022, which was only several weeks behind the series premiere on July 9, 2022.
Here was Crunchyroll’s Shadows House dub cast:
- Dani Chambers (Reina in Aharen-san wa Hakarenai) as Emilico
- Emi Lo (Destiny in takt op.Destiny) as Kate
- Jordan Dash Cruz (Leon in Trapped in a Dating Sim) as John/Shaun
- Marisa Duran (Kyoko in Horimiya) as Louise/Lou
- Adam McArthur (Itadori in JUJUTSU KAISEN) as Patrick/Ricky
- Elizabeth Maxwell (Albedo in Overlord) as Barbara/Barbie
- Michelle Lee (Tohka in Date A Live) as Maryrose
- Emily Fajardo (Bojji in Ranking of Kings) as Sarah/Mia
- Ben Balmaceda (Aoshi in Orient) as Ben
- Christopher Smith (Kittan in Gurren Lagann) as Edward
- Jad Saxton (Chika in Kaguya-sama: Love is War) as Susanna/Susie
- Aaron Campbell (Almanfi in Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation) as William
Warning: Major spoiler! The fact that Emilico and Kate have different voice actors is actually anime-only foreshadowing for a major revelation that’ll happen in Shadows House Season 3.
Presumably, now that Funimation is being phased out by Sony, Crunchyroll’s Shadows House Season 3 English dub release date will be announced in the future after Shadows House 3rd Season has first premiered with Japanese audio and English subtitles.
Hopefully, future English dubbing will be faster once the COVID pandemic winds down and becomes endemic. In order to protect voice actors from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, they were forced to temporarily pause production or take extra safety precautions that resulted in slowed work.
Many English dubbing houses have experienced delays since voice actors often travel to the recording studio. By mid-2022 Crunchyroll began switching from remote recording to in-studio recording again (most of the work is done in their Texas studio).
Shadows House manga compared to the anime
The story for the anime TV series is based on the Shadows House manga by Somato, which is a pen name. The creator is actually an artist duo.
Serialized in Shueisha’s Weekly Young Jump magazine since September 2018, the series is up to Shadows House Volume 12 as of October 19, 2022. Volume 11 includes up through Chapter 124.
In December 2021, North American publisher Yen Press announced an official English Shadows House manga translation. The first English volume was scheduled for June 21, 2022, while Volume 2 came out on October 18, 2022, and Volume 3 on February 21, 2023 (the third volume was delayed from December 13, 2022). In addition, fan-made translation projects have kept up with even the latest chapters.
There was a brief Shadows House hiatus that started in July 2021. Shueisha’s Weekly Young Jump 2021 Issue 33/34 announced that the manga would be on break until August 26, 2021, when Issue 39 was released.
In Weekly Young Jump 2022 Issue 1, which was released in the first week of December 2021, the magazine announced that the manga was going on hiatus again until January 6, 2022. No reason was given for the long break.
Ever since the disaster that was The Promised Neverland Season 2 anime fans have been (unfairly?) leery of Studio CloverWorks since that anime condensed well over 100 manga chapters into one short anime season. Of course, the anime production committee, not the anime studio, was likely at fault in that case. Studios are typically just contractors, not stakeholders in the production, and they produce the number of episodes and cover the story material as ordered by the committee.
Some anime fans may not be aware that Season 1 ended with an original story in the last 3 episodes. This decision was actually planned out under the direction of the original manga creator duo and they tweeted about their decision-making process while the first season was airing.
For the second season, Somato addressed the elephant in the room: how did they plan on correcting the anime so it reconnected to the manga’s story?
“Since the first season of the anime was designed to be cohesive, the second season will have a structure that loosely follows the flow of the original work while mixing in a few other developments,” Somato tweeted on July 9, 2022. “We asked the director and production staff to utilize their strengths in the second season, so we hope you will enjoy the differences in direction.”
While Edward kidnapping Emilico made for an exciting climax to the first season, this ending made it difficult for the second season to continue the story without making some major changes. As such, the majority of Season 2 Episode 1 was anime original content intended on reconnecting the anime’s story back to the plot of the manga source material.
The biggest issue was that Shadows House Season 1 Episode 4 entirely skipped the introduction of Master Robe, instead replacing the Ghost Robe with a Faceless that startles the children. In the manga, the Ghost Robe character followed Emilico and Shaun as they searched for Rum during the night patrol.
Shadows House Season 2 Episode 1 resolved this inconsistency by having Barbie confront Master Robe in the opening sequence. The problem is that Shaun was only able to sniff out the familiar scent of Master Robe due to their first encounter during the night patrol, so Shadows House Season 2 Episode 3 added a small scene during the soot phantom fight where Shaun and Ricky noticed the robed figure and chased it through the rafters.
But that created a new plot hole since Shaun and Ricky could have cleared Kate’s name by pointing out that Master Robe may have been the culprit who caused the Belle Twins to break the coffee.
It was also noticeable that the anime avoided having Master Robe speak since that would have revealed the person’s identity despite the intentional manipulation of her voice. Anime-only audiences also probably perceived Master Robe as a potential threat to everyone since the anime didn’t show the character helping Emilico and Shaun. It’s even possible that some watchers mistakenly concluded at first that Master Robe could be Rum in disguise (at least, until it became very clear that Master Robe was “adult-sized” due to subterfuge).
And that leads us to the next major continuity problem. During the Debut story arc in the anime, Shirley’s death scene had the shadow girl disintegrating completely whereas the manga has Rum being left with only a small handful of soot left from her beloved shadow master. In the manga, Rum’s fate is left hanging for many chapters and it’s a huge revelation that Shirley has been reduced down to a shadow morph.
By contrast, the anime simply reveals the morph’s identity in Season 1 Episode 13, casting aside any uncertainty. While it’s nice that anime-only audiences received early closure in that regard, this reveal ruined the dark mood and thus the shocking surprise for anyone who decides to read the Shadows House manga after finishing the anime.
Another issue is how the first season depicted John/Shaun, Lou/Louise, and Patrick/Ricky falling under the thrall of the brainwashing coffee. In the manga, there was a sense of intrigue and suspense since Kate and Emilico needed to surreptitiously contact the others, test their alliances to the shadows house, and then inform them of the real human identity of the “living dolls” without being caught.
Although breaking the brainwashing via water-drinking and punching did occur in the manga, the first season blew away several chapters worth of carefully built suspense by simply having Kate gather everyone and blurting out the big secret. Considering how much emphasis the manga put on Kate not doing exactly that it felt weird to see how the scene played out.
Instead of carefully and slowly plotting each move it was their common angst against Edward and feelings toward Emilico that united them into an instant rebellion. This scene didn’t make much sense based on the previously established character motivations since Patrick is too calculating and Louise too selfish to quickly be dragged into an ad hoc rescue scheme where they assaulted the adult side of the manor. Plus, Ricky and Lou were still fully brainwashed during this scene, so why would they just stand there while their shadow masters planned a revolution?
The second season tried to pick up these disparate fractured pieces and recreate a new way to move forward the narrative. In order to recreate that sense of suspense, the second season reset the rebellion by having the humans arbitrarily fall under the sway of the soot coffee again, but that scriptwriting decision probably came off as forced to manga readers.
The second season even had John make an awkward reference to using violence against Shaun after receiving the secret message from Kate. Originally, that’s when John punched Shaun to awaken the human after John learned about the brainwashing coffee and how shadows aren’t completely loyal to Lord Grandfather until they are influenced by their living dolls. Besides the timeline changes making that scene awkward, it’s also very odd that the re-brainwashed Ricky and Lou wouldn’t simply tell the Star Bearers what’s really going on once their allegiance switched back to obeying the shadows house.
More importantly, the fact that Patrick and Louise previously helped Kate changed the tone of the secret meeting between the shadow masters in Shadows House Season 2 Episode 5. At that point in the manga, Kate and John still didn’t want to openly speak of their intention to revolt, but in the anime, Patrick and Louise already knew their intentions. Even though Ricky and Lou had been re-brainwashed and were influencing their shadow masters’ allegiance to the house, it was still odd that Kate needed to coerce their agreement by showing she could have fun by making soot dolls.
Additionally, before all these anime original story events Edward was only suspicious of Kate due to how she hid her soot powers. In later manga chapters, he relied on spies rather than taking direct action himself and thus avoided being caught openly breaking the rules. It really defies the suspension of disbelief that Edward would tamp down on his paranoia after a child he kidnapped is rescued!
Arguably, Shadows House Season 1 Episode 13 resolved the conflict in a manner that made it somewhat believable that the status quo returned and that the mind games can commence. Edward acted in secret and without permission so it’s reasonable that he was forced to back down and avoid the children’s wing in order to prevent any further backlash from his superiors, but the manner of his punishment still came down to justifying plot holes that affect Edward’s characterization moving forward into the second season and beyond.
Thankfully, the second season was able to seamlessly resolve the issue of explaining Edward’s absence since the manga essentially sidelined Edward for much of the Master Robe story arc, anyway. Certainly, the pressure from the scheming Edward is the reason that the Star Bearers target Kate and challenge her to uncover the culprit behind the shadow creature attack and the Belle Twins breaking the coffee, but Edward’s missing presence for most of the second season fit within the context of the first season’s ending.
Thus, the underlying current of conspiracy was preserved by the second season without having to dramatically rewrite the remainder of the Master Robe arc. While I do hold some reservations that I’ve already outlined, overall it seems that Studio CloverWorks did a good job of reconnecting the anime to the source material.
Further, it could be argued that ending the first season with Kate simply declaring revolution after the loss of Rum and Shirley would have been a weak ending. Manga creator Somato says the first season’s ending was based on his original plans for a story arc that would have begun with Chapter 86, but he changed his mind and the story ended up being used in the anime script.
The second season also enhanced the viewing experience by fleshing out the side characters more and providing flashback scenes regarding Christopher and the back stories of the four Star Bearer pairs: Barbara and Barbie, Suzanna and Suzy, Olive and Orie, and Benjamin and Ben. These flashbacks were pulled from parts of manga Chapters 75 and 76, which did mean that the anime once again rearranged the story, but it was probably a net positive (critics might say that explaining who Christopher was too early took away from the aura of mystery).
Still, it’s not like the second season stayed completely true to the manga. Some dialogue and scenes were condensed or skipped.
For example, the Belle twins were shown not being able to stand 10 minutes cleaning the sootery, but the anime skipped a small scene where they were shown testing out a new protective helmet for preventing soot sickness (the glass helmet also blocked soot clingers from entering the mouth).
There was also a lot of inner monologues and explanatory narrative. When Kate, Emilico, John, and Shaun searched the manor grounds they often referenced the map written by Mia.
As for the pacing adaptation, Shadows House Season 2 Episode 1 began by adapting manga Chapter 48. The final scene of Shadows House Season 2 Episode 5 corresponded to the ending of manga Chapter 61. Including the two flashback chapters, the second season adapted 16 chapters with the first 5 episodes.
That meant the adaptation pacing was able to slow down slightly for Season 2 Episodes 6 through 12.
All in all, the second season’s finale, Shadows House Season 2 Episode 12, found a stopping point corresponding to manga Volume 7: Chapter 82 (except for the last 2 pages) and the final pages Volume 7: Chapter 80.
It’s the best stopping point since it’s the end of the Master Robe story arc but it dips down slightly into the Inspection arc. The insidious cruelty of the system just gives Kate and Emilico more determination to unify the other children as allies against the shadows house leadership. Emilico declaring that she won’t lose another team made for the perfect final scene for the second season.
The animation of the post-credits scene was an anime-original way of ending the season. However, the voiceover provided by Kate’s soliloquy came from the ending of Chapter 80, which is where Anime Geek originally predicted the second season would conclude.
When it comes to creating Shadows House Season 3, Studio CloverWorks may need to resort to introducing anime original content again due to the manga pacing. Creating a good stopping point will be difficult based on the standard format of 11 to 13 episodes and the story arcs aren’t short enough to be adapted into a Shadows House movie.
The Inspection arc provides a strong stopping in Chapter 101, but it’s relatively short since it’s only 21 chapters long (or 19 chapters, since 2 chapters have already been adapted). Even if it’s combined with the 14-chapter Flashback arc for a combined total of 33 chapters, the problem is that Chapter 115 is a relatively weak stopping point by comparison. And the Hunted On The Powerless arc that begins with Chapter 116 is too long to adapt as part of a single-cour anime season.
The good news is that there is plenty of source material available now for making Shadows House Season 3. In fact, in September 2022 there were almost enough manga chapters for making Shadows House Season 4.
The only bad news is that English-only manga readers who wish to read ahead of the anime will have to wait a while before the English Volume 7 comes out.
Shadows House S3 anime TV spoilers (plot summary/synopsis)
In return for solving the soot phantom mystery and uncovering the identity of Master Robe, Lady Kate replaces Maryrose as the team leader. Sara is immediately outraged since she thought she deserved to be the team leader.
What’s more, Isabelle, Mirabelle, and one of the Belles end up joining Team 10. The sad twist is that Mirabelle is absent since the other twin Belle was disposed of by the manor!
Kate and Emilico hope to use Kate’s promotion to stage a rebellion against Lord Grandfather and the shadow nobility by increasing their number of comrades. Barbara also acknowledges Kate’s role in recent events and desires to have Kate act as a consultant from time to time in the future.
However, the official story is that the Belle Twins were responsible for the coffee incident. Kate and her allies are not allowed to acknowledge their role in uncovering the truth so the official cover story for the ghost was that it was caused by negligence in cleaning. Most of the children think that Maryrose was invited to become an adult whereas the reality is that she jumped from the Hall of Glory. All of these lies mean that Kate or her friends can’t publicly explain why Kate is worthy of being the team leader.
Kate being the team leader means that Emilico is also a team leader of the living doll faces. It’s a rough start on her first day since she’s running late as the jealous Mia is quick to point. Emilico also has to deal with a traumatized Belle
The poor girl just lost her twin and she’s afraid of the mere mention of any “cleaning” since she has PSTD from the horrible sootery cleaning punishment. Isabelle and Mirabelle are also bitterly fighting over who Belle belongs and the remaining twin doesn’t know what to do. And Barbie immediately threatens Emilico, claiming that if the team doesn’t function properly then they’re in danger of disposal.
But a new crisis immediately begins as Edward returns to the Children’s Building to carry out an inspection! This is the first time an adult has carried out such an inspection and the Star Bearers don’t even know the time or day it’ll start.
In the manga, Kate is worried that Edward is coming for an inspection since she believes that means the adult shadow master is still suspicious of them. Of course, in the anime version, it goes without saying that Edward is 100 percent suspicious!
Kate and Emilico are also hoping to finally reveal all the secrets of the manor to Patrick and Louise. Can they win even more comrades to Kate’s revolution?
Unfortunately, anime fans will have to wait until the Shadows House Season 3 release date to watch what happens next. Stay tuned!