Kage no Jitsuryokusha ni Naritakute!

For as long as he can remember, Minoru Kagenou has been fixated on becoming as strong as possible, which has led him to undertake all kinds of rigorous training. This wish, however, does not stem from a desire to be recognized by others; rather, Minoru does everything he can to blend in with the crowd. So, while pretending to be a completely average student during the day, he arms himself with a crowbar and ruthlessly thrashes local biker gangs at night. Yet when Minoru finds himself in a truck accident, his ambitions seemingly come to a sudden end. In his final moments, he laments his powerlessness—no matter how much he trained, there was nothing he could do to overcome his human limitations.

But instead of dying, Minoru reawakens as Cid, the second child of the noble Kagenou family, in another world—one where magic is commonplace. With the power he so desired finally within his grasp, he dons the moniker "Shadow" and establishes Shadow Garden: a group whose sole purpose is to combat the enigmatic Cult of Diablos, an organization born from Cid's imagination. However, as Shadow Garden grows in both membership and influence, it becomes increasingly apparent that the Cult of Diablos is not as fictional as Cid had intended.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Kagenou, Cid Main

Yamashita, Seiichirou Japanese

Delta Supporting

Fairouz Ai Japanese

Alpha Supporting

Seto, Asami Japanese

Beta Supporting

Minase, Inori Japanese

Kagenou, Claire Supporting

Hidaka, Rina Japanese

Midgar, Alexia Supporting

Hanazawa, Kana Japanese

Epsilon Supporting

Kanemoto, Hisako Japanese

Gamma Supporting

Mimori, Suzuko Japanese

Aurora Supporting

Nazuka, Kaori Japanese

Zeta Supporting

Asai, Ayaka Japanese

Kikushima, Kazufumi Producer

Watase, Shouta Producer

Maruyama, Hajime Producer

Mizuguchi, Takeo Producer

Reviews

Jan 20, 2025

Goldsoldier75

Recommended

At first this may just look like your standard power fantasy, and well in many ways it is, but it’s so so much more.

For me to score a show a 8, it must be memorable, very well polished and have few flaws, this is just that, while it has its flaws namely how from about episode 11 through to episode 14 there is far too much fan service for my taste it more than makes up for it with funny jokes and a simply superb concept and execution.

Its attention to detail is similarly notable for example in the scene where Cid, the weaker half of ... our main character, wiggles his hand free from between the clutches of rose one of his heroines, but her hands stay firmly in their place showing how she’s held his hands so tightly she can keep the shape of his hand in the air, and while this is nothing major it is these little details that build up over time to elevate a show greatly, it’s pacing also helps in this matter, it never drags and yet it’s not too fast to go by you.

Now in a anime like this there a two things that take it to the top of its genre or sub genre, they are:
Jokes and memorable scenes. And this show has the both by the bucket load, I shall attempt not to spoil too much for you, but the fight scenes are excellent they build nicely and manage to layer on the story and not simply run adjacent to it, and the jokes oh the jokes.

There are many jokes throughout the season, some run the course and some are more episode specific, possibly the best running joke or bit throughout the season, is how serious Cid is about his role as a background character, his dedication to acting that role to perfection is somehow laughable and admirable at once, it’s done in a superbly creative way each time it re appears.
This is something we can all appreciate as nothing is worse then a bad repeating joke well perhaps a pretty good joke repeated so many times it becomes a hated joke and you just want it to stop is worse…

But what about Cid’s other much more powerful half shadow? Well shadow is the most stereotypical overpowered character imaginable so much so that even he himself is unaware of how much control he has over the world around him, one example is how he credits his seven shadows for the ‘inventions’ and ‘discovers’, which they ripped straight from his foggy memory of his much more advanced home world, which leads to some great scenes and pleasant jokes.
It also reflects what would be most likely to happen if a teenager was transported to a much more primitive world; there would be a grand revolution of the world around them, as their foggy memories of modern technology and culture would still trump any on the greatest minds of the time.
This is done in a way surprisingly many anime with similar occurrences have failed to do (looking at you “in another world with my smartphone”), I will mention that with a show like this your opinion of the jokes might be very different from my as humour is highly subjective.

In conclusion for me, this show sums up why I love anime as a medium, something of this scale and description would never be possible outside of a book, in a different medium, and that would be a terrible loss, thus I am giving The Eminence in Shadows a 8/10 a great score.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Aug 11, 2024

LangleyAsuka

Mixed Feelings

Out of all the post-isekai anime we're getting lately The Eminence in Shadow is certainly the one that marks most checkbox out of the bunch. It's straight face-humor just hits right as it impeccably weave critiques to the established Isekai tropes in a way that is not only funny, but also a little horrifying.... but I'm getting ahead of myself.
Starting from zero, it's been quite some time since I felt so disorientated when watching the first episode of an Isekai, coming into this with no further information I was feeling disoriented as the first episode continue playing and I had no idea the direction it ... was taking, it gave me no ground to stand on. Meanwhile, it all felt a little off, they anime never fully commit to the indecorum of breaking the fourth wall, but at points the characters would speak in a very artificial way as if they're aware of tits existence, giving the impression they performed that same trope a handful of times. That creates a nice fun tension in the anime as Cid, our most deluded character, who gives up his very life to chase a far-fetched fantasy that can never be realized based on the tenuous and elusive idea of becoming the Eminence in Shadow, is also the one closer to the truth. As his prize, instead of dying Cid is reborn in world that at times seems like the product of his own fanciness, where under the distorting light of the moon he shapes this world according to his whims. Ignorant to the truth that this reality is just a distillation of all the crappy niche Isekai he grew up with.
All that to say that the Eminence in Shadow reaches its peak at episode 5. By this time all these elements had enough time to build on each other and crate one of the most fun, action packed and surreal sequence I've watched. Ending with the words that will forever be engraved in my soul I AM ATOMIC. Everything after that, is just a reiteration and recycling of the same idea in increasingly uninteresting ways, not to say it doesn't have its moments, but all it had to say was already said.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Jan 20, 2025

Mache9

Not Recommended

This is absolute dog-ass. A pointless, worthless waste of time, there is no other way to put it.

After all, The Eminence in Shadow has over 8 rating and so does its second season, so even if it turns out to be bad, it can't be that bad, right? RIGHT?! WRONG!!

I must admit that after watching the first 10 episodes, I was confused, flabbergasted. I had to investigate, look up what the actual hell was going on with this anime, as nothing made sense and it felt like a bad parody that was trying to take itself serious.

As it turns out, this anime is an ... adaptation from a light-novel which is meant to parody the isekai genre, with the clichés and poor storytelling usually found in the mainstream isekais. Now, it is possible that the anime doesn't do justice to the source material and this is just a bad adaptation. However, that is not something that I will look into, as my intention is to review the anime only.

If you have watched One Punch Man, you can imagine this series as basically One Punch Man (as both were made to parody genres of super-powerful MCs). However, this is One Punch Man if it was intentionally made to be insufferably bad.

The overall plot and story is pointless, bad, unimportant. It's meant to be a comedy, but it is offensively bad.

Our MC gets killed and transported to a new world, where he reincarnates with his memories and the power he desired from his past life. This is the main cliché/starting point in some isekais and it has basically become a meme, and up until this point, The Eminence in Shadow has theoretically nailed its purpose to be a parody.

However, the goal of the MC is to be the strongest person without revealing its identity. This does not sound as bad when it's read out loud, but it is executed in a way that is so obnoxious, unfunny and straight up unsatisfying, as the character has self-awareness of his position as MC. Also, the MC apparently has the power to script the events in the story (or absolute, fourth-wall awareness-level plot armor).

Now, pair it with characters that are a joke in itself, and you get some of the most unfunny formula for a show ever conceived. The characters don't make any sense, are irrelevant, incoherent, plain bad.

So, just like in One Punch Man, the unbeatable, unrivaled MC arrives fashionably late to save the day and the side characters, but this is done without charm. All the characters aside from the MC are just bad side characters, which don't even serve the purpose to make a power-scale for the MC to showcase its strength. At best, the side characters' purpose is to provide fan service. Some side characters have a story and background which you may think are meant to be serious and add some kind of depth, but these get thrown into the background and end up not being that important, but are just part of the scenario for the MC.

The art (animation and sound) is good. Not extremely good, but not bad at all. This anime did not deserve the funding it got.

I want to finish this by saying that I just dropped the 2nd season halfway in episode 8. I truly wanted to give this anime a fair try, as I have done with other animes before. However, I found this straight up annoying to watch. It was not just boring, it was bad to the point I felt discomfort watching it.

Some scenes had certain charm, but these are so far between it cannot salvage the consecutive crashes in this roller coaster of garbage.

I wrote this review filled with rage and disappointment that oblige me to shout-out my friends and acquaintances, who recommended this absolute trash, and the MAL community, who rated this anime with over 8.2, gaslighting and betraying unsuspecting passerbyers who only wanted to find something entertaining to watch.

Just... avoid this thing, don't waste your time.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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