Being born a twin comes with certain expectations. To speak or act in tandem. To share belongings, space and birthdays. To exhibit a closeness that comes from a ready-made bond since birth. But what happens when the very existence of your twin is a lie?
In “Daemons of the Shadow Realm,” based on the manga by acclaimed “Fullmetal Alchemist” creator Hiromu Arakawa, Huru leads a simple life in the premodern Edo-style Higashi Village. With his trusty bow and arrow, he hunts game and safeguards his twin sister Asa – who, for unexplained reasons, resides behind bars in a dark cell. One fateful day mysterious interlopers massacre the villagers, including Asa. One of the intruders – a tall, dark-haired young woman – claims that she’s the real Asa, not the body in the cell, and that Yuru is in danger if he stays.
“When Yuru is faced with that situation, and everything he thought he knew about Asa was fake, and there happens to be another Asa, I think he’s in this state of shock,” Kensho Ono, the voice actor for Yuru, told Salon at Anime Expo via interpreter Mike McNamara. “He’s unable to process what’s happening in front of him.”
According to the real Asa, their parents had smuggled her out of the village at a young age but weren’t able to take Yuru with them. Although not quite a situation of being separated at birth, this Asa still poses a similar challenge for Yuru. Not only is the eyepatch-wearing young woman taller, stronger and more aggressive than the Asa he once knew, she grew up with their parents in the modern world. How could he embrace this stranger as his twin?
“I think in ‘Daemons of the Shadow Realm,’ when you see the real Asa appear, there’s some kind of connection. There’s a lot of time apart, but that time you spent together that can’t be denied,” said Ono. “That introduces an interesting relationship between the twins. In the show we haven’t gotten to see much of the twin component yet, so I think that’s something that will definitely be unique as we start to draw more of those connections between each other going forward.”
All this time, he had hardened his heart against his parents, believing they had abandoned him and Asa. In truth, his parents had wanted to save him from the same villagers who deceived him with the False Asa. But just as he found hope in reuniting with them, he also learned that they had mysteriously disappeared mid-flight en route to Okinawa. Now, he has to contend with replacing the memories of the other Asa with the reality of this badass sibling and accepting that he still may never see his parents ever again.
“If Kensho-san says something in the character Yuru, and I hear that, I actually adjust my performance a little bit to match some of his tempo or timing.”
In contrast, Asa has had the benefit of their parents’ love and still feels affection for her brother whose absence she felt keenly. Once he enters the modern world to search for their missing parents, she tries to make up for lost time. Asa delights in sharing mundane activities like eating a meal together or taking his picture with her phone.
“Despite the similarities that twins have, there’s still this dynamic of like an older and a younger,” said Yume Miyamoto, who voices Asa. “In our case it feels like an older brother and me the younger sister in the relationship, and I think there’s this idea that he has to protect me in some way, so there’s a dynamic there.”
In spite of the characters’ separate upbringing, Miyamoto still wanted to convey their bond in her vocal performance.
“For example, if Kensho-san says something in the character Yuru, and I hear that, I actually adjust my performance a little bit to match some of his tempo or timing,” she said. “It’s something that might be very subtle, and maybe most viewers won’t even notice it, but for me it feels like we’ve closed the distance between the characters.”
Ono added, “I had no idea until she told me that.”
(©Hiromu Arakawa/SQUARE ENIX/Project Tsugai) “Daemons of the Shadow Realm”: A young Yuru and Asa
As if their unconventional childhoods weren’t troubled enough, Asa and Yuru’s twinship comes with another heavy burden: saving the world. (This is shonen anime after all.) According the legend, boy and girl twins born in Higashi Village on a day with equal parts day and night herald a cataclysm that only they can mend.
They’ll have help of course. The prophecy states that they’ll acquire the powers of “Break” – to dismantle or undo something – and “Seal” to contain, reconstruct or suppress something. At this time, only Asa has unlocked the power to break and essentially died to do so, which partly explains her rakish eye patch. This weighty destiny also explains why the Higashi villagers went out of their way to keep Yuru close.
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As with anyone who’s been manipulated by others, Yuru isn’t sure he wants to cooperate with anyone at the moment. He’s still trying to grasp who he is in this world and in relation to the real Asa.
“I think [the theme of] identity for me resonates because you look at our character Yuru and how he must feel like he’s been betrayed by the villagers and the people around him,” said Ono. “They hid a very big truth from him, so I think trying to understand what he wants to do and the source of his actions and motivation, there’s a lot of trust issues for sure that that he’s going to have. How he faces reality in his own right is something he has to think really, really hard about.”
(©Hiromu Arakawa/SQUARE ENIX/Project Tsugai) “Daemons of the Shadow Realm”
The prophecy also claims that the fated twins have the power to command daemons, supernatural beings with unearthly abilities. Before leaving the village for the modern world, Yuru awakens Left and Right, two statues that have marked the entrance to the village. Resembling oni, hulking entities with superhuman strength, Left and Right are only too happy to be free of their stone confinement and explore the strange new world of speeding palanquins (cars) and hand-held smoke signal devices (cellphones).
“There’s a lot of trust issues for sure . . . How he faces reality in his own right is something he has to think really, really hard about.”
In fact, daemons of all stripes populate the series – and always in pairs. Much like the twins, their abilities appear predicated on a complementary duality to assist their masters. A sampling of daemons Yuru encounters are, in no particular order, the cat and dog Kotetsu and Jiro; the Tenaga-Ashinaga known as (and for having) Long Arms and Long Legs; and a ponderous tortoise named Torty and speedy hare named Bunbun. And most recently, Yuru learned about the child spirits Zashiki-Warashi, who had disguised themselves as the False Asa and his childhood friend Danji for many years.
With each new set of daemons Yuru meets, the more he becomes aware that he and Asa are also part of this ecosystem of balanced pairs. Whether he chooses to fulfill his destiny alongside his twin remains to be seen.
Meanwhile, Yuru is happy to utilize Left and Right to investigate his parents’ mysterious disappearance. Whether it’s vanquishing assailants or surreptitiously surveilling enemies, daemons provide significant advantages for their masters. This led Salon to ask the series’ voice stars how they’d command their own daemons.
“My focus is more on mundane daily life,” said Ono. “Within the anime, there are daemons that help and assist the chores of daily life, and that to me I find quite attractive. Like folding the laundry.”
Miyamoto has a similar humble but thankless task she’d want help with. “I’d love to have a daemon that can blow dry my hair for me,” she said. “My hair is quite long, and it takes a long time [to dry], and by the end of it, I’m usually sweating. So if someone can do it for me, that’d be amazing.”
For some of us, it’s just enough to get by with a little help from our daemons. Not everyone is fated to save the world with their prophecy-fulfilling twin.
“Daemons of the Shadow Realm” releases new episodes on Saturdays on Crunchyroll.
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