Shadows Disaster:

Since there isn't a second season of Shadows House, I went to read the manga.  It was a great manga, newly entered as 21st in my manga hall of fame.  (I kicked out Hikaru no Go to make room.  No big loss, the Hikaru no Go anime covers all but the last few chapters of the manga).

Starting from chapter 48, the Shadows House manga and anime deviate so far that they can't be reconciled.  Which means everyone should start reading the manga there, and stop watching the anime there -- which is episode 11.  Episodes 12 and 13 of Shadows House are entirely filler.  I don't count filler episodes in a franchise's quality count, which reduces Shadows House down to an 11 episode series.  And I just made a new rule yesterday that series below 12 episodes in length must be ranked at the bottom of the rankings in anticipation of eventual removal.

So Shadows House went from being ranked #200, to #69, and now back to #190 in the course of a couple days.  *Sigh*  If the anime had done its job and just followed the manga this never would have happened.  Why did they have to screw everything up right at the end?

Even when I watched the last few eps of Shadows House I felt like something was wrong, that Shadows House always worked its way through deception and subtlety, not forceful straightforward stuff like kidnapping and restraints.  It was totally out of character.  It also seemed too easy for Ricky and Lou to throw off their brainwashing, considering how hard it had been for Emilico and Shaun.  Things weren't clicking.  I thought it was just a weak segment of an otherwise well written story -- but nope, it was a fake segment of an otherwise well written story.  The mangaka weren't to blame for all the sudden plot holes, it was the interposing of some know-it-alls in the anime industry.  They must have felt the need for an exciting kidnapping climax or something and just shoved it in for no good reason, and this is the result.

Well, on the bright side, it may take years or potentially never to eat up the rankings all the way to #190 with new recruits.  Like I said, I only know of two good coming options for newly ranked series, The Eminence in Shadow and Shikkakumon.  Shadows House will be honored in my anime hall of fame for a long time to come, and even if it's eventually pushed out it will still prominently feature in my manga hall of fame.  But it's such a missed opportunity.  The anime was so good, so why ruin it at the very end?

They could fix this by announcing a season 2 and returning to the actual story.  The anime didn't properly cover 60 available chapters of manga, and it's still coming out weekly.  Whenever they want they could have material available for a second or even a third season.  But if they went so far as to make their own filler conclusion it doesn't sound like they have any interest in going back to the source for the real story ever again.  Another franchise ruined by a bad adaption.

The Olympics is only 16 days away.  The new volume of Hai to Gensou is only two days away.  For now I can focus on To Heart2 and listening to my Octopath music the required 80 repetitions.