Shadows House is a great anime:

Shadows House keeps getting better every episode as more characters and more mysteries and more menaces intrude.  The series is ominous but not frightful.  It doesn't rely on cheap thrills of slashers jumping out of closets, it simply has dark corners everywhere you're not allowed to look.  From one point of view it's a horror story, from another a mystery that needs to be solved by proper detective work, and from a third it's no different from Kiki's Delivery Service, the story of a young girl finding her inner strength by becoming good at her job.

Emilico is a particularly beautiful as well as admirable girl, but she's not alone.  Kate is interesting as Emilico's Shadow, and the other living dolls also seem to have their own cool stories to tell.  I like how no matter the circumstances if people make an earnest effort to be understanding and considerate towards each other you can be happy.  Conversely, no matter how great your material situation if everyone around you treats you like dirt it's impossible to be happy.  Heaven and hell are other people.

Overall the artistic sense of the series is off the charts.  I rarely see anything drawn this well, and Emilico's character design is basically perfection incarnate.

I upranked a new series last season as well, Idoly Pride, which looked good by the 3rd episode but became ordinary by the end.  Will the same thing happen this time?  I doubt it, because Shadows House is such an original setting, concept, and characters that I find it hard to believe it could ever lose its momentum.  But assuming it does somehow fall through, there's no harm, I'll just replace it with the upcoming Kanojo mo Kanojo due out this July.  Whether now or later Grave of the Fireflies was going to get the boot.

I'm no longer considering Slime Taoshite for greatness due to the basic flaw of 'I know what's going to happen next.'  I've read the manga, and it's nothing but placid silly hijinks from here on.  Compared to Shadows House where every minute I'm holding my breath wondering what's going to happen there's no contest.  Shadows House has infinitely higher potential.

Grave of the Fireflies made me cry and Shadows House hasn't, but that isn't the sole criteria for greatness.  Grave of the Fireflies is a very unsubtle film.  It bludgeons you over the head with how sad it is and how pathetic the kids are.  Shadows House is onions within onions.  There's so much depth to everyone and everything involved.  You can learn more and more every episode.  Another reason to prefer Shadows House -- there's just more content.  An entire tv series vs. a single movie.

With Grave of the Fireflies out and Shadows House in, I had to adjust my fictional character hall of fame as well.  I couldn't do a one-for-one replacement because Seita is a boy whereas Emilico is a girl, but I want to keep the same son-daughter balance regardless of who's coming or going.  The son-daughter ratio is a fixed entity everything else must work around.  So Seita was replaced by Rentarou from 100 Girlfriends who really, really, really love you.  Anyone who can handle a harem of 100 girls is an admirable fellow worthy of inclusion, especially in a book titled '100 Waifus.'

Emilico meanwhile replaced Ami from Toradora!.  Emilico of course required entry as the sole representative of Shadows House which, being in my rankings, must be commended.  But even without the affirmative action she's a better person than Ami.  She's a better girl than virtually anyone, so earnest and loyal.  Ami meanwhile is a mere 4th wheel, who never really makes much sense why she's in the series.  She's neither the new nor old love interest of the main character or any other character.  She's just there, making sarcastic comments or whatever.  I admit as a model Ami is pretty but not as pretty as Emilico so she has nothing to be proud of left.  And on top of all that Ami is a doubled up name whereas Emilico is a wholly new name, so it lightens the name confusion issue to banish her as well.

So by introducing Shadows House to my top anime rankings I not only improve that hall of fame but also my fictional character hall of fame and '100 Waifus' overall.  Two birds with one stone.

For now Shadows House will hang out at #200 until the end of the season, where we can see what the show did with itself, and whether there's going to be a sequel season.  Then I can rank it where it actually deserves.