Shadow

**CAUTION!**
**This place has many spoilers!**

## Shadows

* Manga
* Anime

## Name

**Shadows** (シャドー, *Shadō*?) are the nobles living in the Shadows House and masters of the living dolls.

## Appearance

A shadow is completely black and is covered in soot. Their body is exactly the same shape as that of their living doll, though their voice is different. Shadows do have internal organs and bone structure similar to humans and have all the same systems as them, seen as they can cry, bleed, etc.

Each shadow wears fancy clothing fitting for nobles as well as to differentiate their appearances. At night, the shadows change into nightwear which have the same appearance specific to gender, as they don't have to be differentiated at night. Female shadows wear a frilly, light pink nightgown, slippers, and a nightcap with flower decorations on the sides of the head. Male shadows have a light green nightgown, slippers, and a floppy nightcap.

## Behaviors

Shadows emit soot from their heads when they experience negative emotions. The stronger the emotion, the more soot is emitted. Individuals with higher soot capacities can create soot stalactites on ceilings with their soot when they lose control of their emotions.

Another characteristic among shadows is that they all refer to themselves in the third person.

## Shadows Family's Teachings

    The Shadows Family's Teachings is a book created for the shadows for them to learn about the rules of the Shadows House. Here are some of the texts located in the book.

* The Shadows House is a wonderful family of noblemen who are loved by the people. Let us be prideful as an aristocrat of the Shadows Family.
* “Living Dolls” are your tools, who will take care of you and act as your “face.” Let us master using our “living dolls.” This is also connected to raising your personal value as well.
* Shadows who haven’t passed the “Debut” can’t leave their rooms of their own volition.
* Shadows name the “living dolls.” A “living doll’s” name does not matter. Therefore, let us give them a name that is easy to remember. For example… your nickname, something close to your name, or something simple.
* “Scorches”: Malicious lumps that come from soot. They occur when cleaning is neglected.

## Stages

### Mimicry

    The shadows start their life as a morph. The morphs are brought into the mansion along with the selected human children and are led into the "morph room". Here, they're expected to select a human to mimic, or morph into the form of, shifting its appearance to resemble a fully shadowed copy of the human.

When a pair is formed, they are led out of the room and are given to a teacher shadow, who oversees the next step of mimicry - copying behavior and abilities of a human - like reading and writing, clothing oneself, etc. Once the mimicking process is complete and the Shadow is ready to be a functioning individual, they are let out of the classroom and transported into their personal room.

### Contact

The shadows are to remain in their personal rooms until the Debut. During this time, they are supposed to come in contact with their human - now referred to as a living doll, to acquire a personality and a personal bond, which will lead to a successful Fusion once the shadow becomes an adult. The shadows will only interact with their living doll, being influenced by their beliefs and knowledge they bring from outside the room to form their own. One of the most important parts of this stage is the "contact", also known as the goodnight kiss, which is performed by a living doll to solidify the bond between them and their master.

### Debut

After a shadow and a living doll get closer, they will take a test to see how well the shadow and face match. These tests normally happen in a group, presumably five pairs, where it is expected that at least one pair fails. After they debut, shadows can leave their room and interact with others. They must follow a schedule of activities and also take part in some hobby (gardening, dancing, etc.). A debuted shadow gains more privileges, as they can apply for new furniture, wallpapers, perfumes, or clothing.

### Invitation

Star Bearers are responsible for reporting notable children in the house to the Manager of the Children's Building. The Manager then decides, after analyzing the reports, who will be invited. The invited shadows will receive a letter containing the invitation through the Star Bearers and will be led through the Passageway of Glory to proceed to the next step, the "Fusion". Getting an invitation is the highest honor for the young shadow. It appears that awakening a soot power is necessary for this step.

### Fusion

The process the newly invited shadow will go through after being invited to Lord Grandfather's Wing. The shadow-face pair are put together inside a Box of Completion, with the shadow forming a cocoon from one to three weeks, where they will either unify or die. The unified shadows gain control of their living dolls' body whose consciousness will no longer exist. After this, the newly emerged shadow is considered an adult.

Due to the tragic end of the living doll in case of success, and the death of both if it fails, this process is kept an absolute secret from the children. As measures against leaks, adults can only appear in the Children's Building in special occasions and they are not allowed to show their faces. Children are to not mention the name of invited pairs for the same reason.

### Obligation

Another momentous ritual in the Shadows House. Performed by 2nd floor shadows, after permission from the 3rd floor, the adult shadow is allowed to leave the manor for the first time. Is still unknown what exactly they do, but since it involves meeting with the people of the Soot Island, the shadow needs to be well qualified to keep the secret of their true bodies, passing the image of notable nobles.

## Trivia

* There is a misleading translation from Japanese to English, which leads to a wrong assumption and therefore to a wrong impression. In Japanese, there are at least 8 major ways to use a first person pronoun. The most used one is *watashi* [わたし], but there are others: One is, using the own name or nickname as a personal pronoun. In Japanese, this gives at the listener the impresion of a small/young child like one before entering elementary school. Also, the own name as first person pronoun is used when someone tries to be popular, especially girls towards the other gender or to sound cute. In Shadows House child shadows are using their first name as first person pronoun while adult shadows using *I*. The intended impression is, that the shadow childs are just kind of newborn children. Which they are, in a way. [8 Ways to Say "I" in Japanese] In contrast, the human children using *I* instead.
* As noted by Ryan in Chapter 45, a shadow decays when they die, though a shadow dispersing into soot upon death is never seen before until the end of Kate's Debut.
* Chapter 125 reveals that Shadows become drunk if they drink too much coffee.
* The official English localization differs between Funimation's anime and Yen Press' manga in some terms as well:
	+ Fusion is called Integration
	+ The Shadows Family's Teachings is called The Shadow's Handbook