Shadow Eliminators: Unedited Audio and Recording Notes

Manga Details

• Tucker’s Title notes:

  • Roo-ee roo-ee sen-key

  • The “senki” part means “war record/chronicle”

  • “Rui” is written with the kanji for “accumulate,” but can also be used to refer to troubles/difficulties piling up. The repeater kanji 々 that makes it “rui-rui” gives it a sense of plurality or something that keeps happening

  • So altogether, it means something like “Tale of the fight against that which is accumulating”...yeah, I can see why they didn’t even bother figuring out an English version of the original title

• Kento Amemiya

  • Other works

    • Kuroma -Divine Beast Keeper- (2019, 3 chapters, Jump GIGA)

      • Another one of those short GIGA minis they use to show off talent. I’ve not read it, but at least one major character in Shadow Eliminators began existence here (see trivia section)

• Publishing

  • Run Dates: 

    • December 4th, 2023 to April 22nd, 2024

  • Series it replaced

• Ice-Head Gil by Ikuo Hachiya (2 vols, flop, Shonen Flop episode 92)

• Series that replaced it

  • Psych House by Omusuke Kobayashi (1+ vol, [David: just got canceled lmao])

• Series that started at the same time as it

  • Green Green Greens by Kento Terasaka (of Beast Children fame) (3 vols, flop, Shonen Flop episode 112)

• Chapters/Volumes: 

  • 19 chapters/3 volumes

About the Manga

• Plot

  • Asakaze is the head of the public morals committee at his high school and he is obsessed with justice and by that I mean he’s a huge narc. One day however a guy named Aoba Kuromori joins his class and he doesn’t care about rules at all! Aoba and his “grandma,” an old lady who isn’t his grandmother and looks ~ 22, moved into town so he can train in order to fight Kasane, or shadows. And eliminate them. Because he’s a shadow eliminator which is the title of this manga. They end up fighting a possessed teacher who was bullied by her students when Asakaze finds himself drawn into the fight. Aoba, it turns out, has a Kasane inside of him, which lets him turn his right arm into a cool slinky-sword. Aoba takes out the Kasane and all the other people can’t remember what happened so we can establish a status quo. Aoba and Asakaze agree to start a “shadow eliminators” club where they eliminate shadows shadow eliminators shadows eliminators shadows shadows eliminators. 

  • There’s some monster of the week shit where they help an actor dealing with pressure from his dad and a girl whose only friend disappeared. Grandma then trains them real hard until they become each other’s’ first friend. Their class goes on a field trip to an arboretum when a guy who looks like Mash turns into a Kasane and is taken out by Nagito, an officially sanctioned Eliminator with magic guns who has a sad backstory when his dad turned into a Kasane so now he hates Kasanes and wants to kill Aoba because he has a Kasane inside of him Kasane Kasane Kasane. However Aoba’s backstory is just as tragic so he fights Nagito to a draw. Kinda. They infiltrate a mansion with a bunch of missing people who are forced to be servants and family of a guy who’s really sad that his wife died and not quite as sad that his daughter died. Nagito shows up to help along with his partner Togami, a girl who speaks with a paper bag puppet and doesn’t wear underwear. They defeat the bad guy but then Aoba’s evil twin Zen shows up. No really his evil twin Zen shows up and he’s got two friends: a hot girl named Hisame and a weird dude whose name doesn’t matter because he’s not hot. They turn into Kasanes and start causing shit so Aoba turns into a Kasane and continues to cause shit until some other shadow eliminators show up to save them. 

  • Aoba ends up in a containment tube and he tells Asakaze his tragic backstory about how he and his brother were raised in a cult that worshiped Kasane. They were both descendants of a guy who died and sent his skull back to the living world and are taken care of by Seri who is a double agent working for the shadow eliminators. One day the skull calls to them and drags them both to hell where they both get the Kasanes and then resurrects them. Zen goes crazy and kills Seri. He says he wants to rule the world and kills everyone at the cult compound. Aoba is taken in at the Shadow Eliminators HQ where he’s raised and taught to fight. Aoba’s master shows up and makes him accept his Kasane by sending them into a magic book. Zen and his posse attack and all looks lost until Aoba appears and activates his devil trigger, allowing him to easily kill zen with 500 swords. The skull then showed up and made Aoba disappear for some reason. Two years later Asakaze is the school president and he ends up being reunited with Aoba, who was protected from the skull by Zen somehow and that’s the end wow Asakaze did nothing. 

• Characters

  •   Yayaoi Asakaze

    • Tight with the rules, you can tell because he wears glasses

    • Has the power of a lil house

    • Doesn’t really do anything

    • Def reminds the teachers about hw

  • Aoba Kuromori

    • All about training

    • Dumb

    • Has a cool grandma

    • Got a demon in him or somethin

    • EVIL BROTHER WOAHHHH

  • Grandma

    • Big we have dadadan at home 

    • Mysterious 

Why it Failed - Mugi

• This plot makes no sense they wipe everyone's mind so how can people come to them

• I really don't understand the plot of this or how threads work or like the little house it's all poorly explained

• 6 chapters in and it feels like it’s treading water

• They talk about how technology is key to fighting threads but they don’t really go into how it’s made

• None of the characters are well developed, especially yayoi who we learn like nothing about despite being the MC. We also don’t really see his growth at all we’re just told he’s weak and that now he’s brave but no real transition or him coming up with new uses

• The grandma character is a huge crutch of the series and it just does not work when she isn’t on screen

• Did it completely abandon the shadow eliminator plot line?

• It’s so lame how every bad guy is unambiguously evil

• Wow evil brother so fucking edgy I just stopped caring

• In the end even grandma became lame

What it Did Well - Mugi

• David: And before we get into what it did well, if you’ve been enjoying the show we’d really appreciate it if you subscribed to the Shonen Flop Youtube! We’re trying to hit our goal of GoalNumber_ and if we hit it we’ll do a special bonus episode on BonusContent_Name_. If you’re already subscribed, thanks so much!

• I like the interviews with the grandma 

• Demon possession manifesting as mental illness is a cool idea 

• The paneling art, etc is all pretty well done

Where it Could Have Gone  - Jordan

• What if it was like the therapy club as a cover and it's all about working through mental illness. Man i love the body improvement club from mob psycho 

• Just like guys being dudes fighting monsters or something

• Maybe it’s an invention series like dr. stone but for magic artifacts

• Fuck it make it about the grandma, have a badass grandma monster fighting detective agency

Misc Thoughts

• School idols are always such a weird thing 

• Weird no kidnapping cold open for the mansion storyline

• Are there any good manga that have like a monster hunter society the protags ends up joining? It feels like such a lazy way to have a forced plotline

• Was grandma supposed to have white hair or just like she old or something, is she their grandma man idk

• Who the fuck was the girl on the leading cover art?

• Maxy Bee thoughts:

  • Shadow Eliminators is a rarity in modern Weekly Shonen Jump, in that it was canceled and removed from the magazine before volume 1 even hit shelves!

    • In the afterword to volume 1 it's clear that Amemiya knew well in advance, and dedicates the space to being thankful for what they did achieve: they got serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump, received fan letters (saying they felt like those letters saved their life), and managed to get three whole volumes published. We look at these series as flops, but Amemiya is right, those are huge accomplishments!

    • In the time between writing this note and the episode coming out Psych House ALSO got canceled before vol.1 came out. 

  • In volume 1 the author notes that this is a work of fiction and that you should always shut the school gates gently. Responsible!

  • Amemiya is a fan of Tezuka’s star system, and says not to be surprised if some character designs resurface in future work.

  • Kuromori’s design is based on the Kamen Rider characters Yusuke Godai and Hibiki.

  • Grandma Aine Hachiyo has ‘seen the era name change 4 times in her lifetime’, meaning that at a bare minimum she is over 112 years old, as she would have to have been born in the Meiji era.

  • Togami, the ventriloquist girl, first appeared in Amemiya’s short series ‘Kuroma -Divine Beast Keeper-.

    • Her profile page also refers to her as the ‘mysterious Big Baby Girl’, which made me laugh.

  • Volume extras include:

    • Inter-chapter doodles

    • Character profiles

    • Afterwords (the author has quite nice handwriting)

    • Pre-serialisation character designs

    • Assorted pages for explaining story concepts and design choices.

    • A guide on how to make Togami’s paper bag puppet.

    • A small epilogue comic (3 pages).

    • The one-shots that became Shadow Eliminators:

      • Shikigami (vol.2)

      • Shadow Eliminators(vol.3)

Final Verdict

• Six Word summary

  • Community

    • Tucker: Peel back character designs: nothing underneath

    • Maxybee:  A shadow of better exorcism manga

    • Artil: Wait guys this isn't Persona 3

    • AuraPaladin: Isn't this that new Sonic movie?

    • Balth: I'll eliminate your shadow... Shadow Eliminators...

    • blahmoomoo: Nearly eliminated, overshadowed by everything else

    • Chickenwarlord: Best left unread in the dark

    • dackerson: Shadow inside of you? Okay Chuunibyou

    • Diego: They eliminate shadows, Not See Phantoms (picture of Mr. Fantastic and the Thing from F4ntastic)

    • duderocks the earthchild stan: You can’t eliminate the ultimate lifeform (picture of Shadow and shadow chao)

    • FunkyAct4: They really did eliminate those shadows

    • Glornak Ironspawn: Well..... at least it's over now.

    • GreyPotter: Instructions unclear : eliminated shadow from memory

    • Isekai Sensei-Sama 🎙: First chapter title drop, thread eliminated

    • jrpg astrologist: Black hole son, oops it's done

    • Kpt.Kluless: Eliminates Interest or Your Money Back!

    • LordAnubis: Let me guess, you’re Bleach inspired? (Picture of emperors new groove) 

    • Luffy0321: Fujoshi bait ruined by nothing plot

    • Meru: Ghastly Undertakers Not Delighting At Manga

    • Portal man: should've leaned into the BL vibes

    • Riel: Oh boy! Another bad bleach clone.

    • Sbubby: Even worse than bad: forgettably mediocre

    • Scott: Oops, I forgot I read this.

    • Spike: 1.2 Terra Formars worth of creativity

    • 𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕸𝕱 𝖄𝖊𝖙𝖎: Shadow-slashing students sustain subpar storyline

    • The Wolf The Wood The Trafalgar: Eliminators failed, still have my shadow

    • Thores: rest in peace paper bag girl

    • Watchtower: Well it’s an exorcist manga…..Again…. (picture of Bill Murray from Groundhog Day)

  • David: poor plot hooks with yaoi bait | exorcist manga didn’t need to exor-exist

  • Jordan: please eliminate my shadow shadow eliminator-san

  • Guest:  

• Flop or not

  • David: Issa flop, perhaps the most inoffensive thing I’ve ever read. Go read any fucking other exorcist manga than this, shit go read phantom seer or something