Shirogane walks into your life like he owns it, and the show knows the only thing keeping you watching isn't the shadow monsters, it's whatever is actually happening between these two. The plot repeats itself into the ground and the pacing drags like nothing else, but the character moments are so sharp and the chemistry so electric that you forgive it every single time. This is a show that works only if you're here for the banter, the glances, the way two people can make a repetitive formula feel like it matters.

Akira Nikaido is a slacker high school student leading an ordinary life until a mysterious man named Shirogane appears and insists the two of them share a destiny. Akira refuses to believe a word of it. Then, during a night visit to his school, he is attacked by a shadow monster. According to Shirogane, the human world and the shadow world have fallen out of equilibrium, and setting things right requires Akira to turn into a shin, a being that belongs to the shadow realm. The supernatural action series also adds shonen-ai elements that the original manga does not have.