Kage no Jitsuryokusha ni Naritakute! (The Eminence in Shadow)

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Alternative Titles

Synonyms: Shadow Garden

Japanese: 陰の実力者になりたくて！

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Information

Type: TV

Episodes: 20

Status: Finished Airing

Aired: Oct 5, 2022 to Feb 15, 2023

Premiered: Fall 2022

Broadcast: Wednesdays at 22:30 (JST)

Producers: AT-X, BS NTV, Kadokawa, NewGin, Aiming

Licensors: Sentai Filmworks

Studios: Nexus

Source: Light novel

Genres: Action, Comedy, Fantasy

Themes: Isekai, Reincarnation

Duration: 23 min. per ep.

Rating: R - 17+ (violence & profanity)

Statistics

Score: 8.29¹ (scored by 338,279 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #272²

² based on the top anime page. Please note that 'Not yet aired' and 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #334

Members: 637,817

Favorites: 14,756

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8.29

Ranked #272Popularity #334Members 637,817

Episodes: /20

Synopsis

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]

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Background

Kage no Jitsuryokusha ni Naritakute! was released on Blu-ray and DVD in four volumes from January 25, 2023, to April 26, 2023.

The anime adapts volumes 1 and 2 of the light novel series.

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Related Anime

Adaptation:	Kage no Jitsuryokusha ni Naritakute!
Other:	Kagejitsu!
Sequel:	Kage no Jitsuryokusha ni Naritakute! 2nd Season

More characters

Characters & Voice Actors

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

Zeta

Supporting

Asai, Ayaka
Japanese

Eta

Supporting

Kondou, Reina
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Kikushima, Kazufumi

Producer

Watase, Shouta

Producer

Maruyama, Hajime

Producer

Mizuguchi, Takeo

Producer

Edit

Opening Theme

"HIGHEST" by OxT

Edit

Ending Theme

"Darling in the Night" by 七陰

Reviews

Feb 16, 2023

SpRayquaza11

Recommended

I will admit I always wanted to be that one plain-looking guy who at crunch time managed to fight off bad guys bare-handed, steal their weapons pull off some sick reloads and headshots while my crush watched me save the day, and goes doki doki!!
There are two kinds of adults, the first are embarrassed by their childhood self and will surely cringe at the statement I made above If not report it xD and the other who still have a child hidden inside them, unable to let go of all the cool power moves and ninja signs the affinity one might have if they are ... more like the latter will definitely help you love this show more objectively speaking since in kagejitsu, we finally meet a chunnibyo who is actually everything he says he is! sign me the fuck up! Every second of the action is set up to make him look like a cool ninja Edgelord who is all-powerful, all-seeing, and all-knowing although the first might actually hold true the rest is another story.

Kagejitsu is a power fantasy parody, so for it to suit your taste you need to accept the fact that there will never be a tense fight, but Animes like overlord and this (both are rather similar in this regard) have quick but literal meta-breaking fights which are always overkill to the point that you feel pity for the bad guy, all this while the Protag remains oblivious to the true nature of things because he is rather ignorant /dumb.

The only difference between the comedic style of overlord and kagejitsu is,to quote my overlord season 4 review “The way overlord carries comedy with it how ainz is supposed to be benevolent the all-knowing the all-seeing yet inside, he is the most confused person in the room!” Shadow only cares about being the coolest person in the room, so he will keep making shit up as long as it makes him seem so (even though he accidentally ends up being correct!).

Plot (9/10)
The protag has a simple yet twisted goal, he wants to be a normal-looking guy who is actually an eminence in shadow ie his alter ego is basically the strongest person although his named self is the normiest of normies. The show has Amazing pacing for an isekai, it wastes no time in introducing a new and vast cast, and still manages to make sure that the quirk and charm of these characters are well-balanced and explores it enough for a perfectly timed gag, the plot itself is basically shadow-making up crap that more often than not is a convenient flavor text for him, but a reality for the actual world is quite an interesting and hilarious take because to my knowledge he still believes that they are all roleplaying with him xD. It is quite the feat that so many characters have an intertwined story with each having a ‘role to play’ in shadow sama’s VISION.

characters(10/10)
I can't believe the number of waifus this show has produced in mere minutes of each of them being on screen, going from obvious fetish bait to quite endearing and adorable waifus with very distinct personalities. Within 20 episodes we get introduced to a whole slew of characters, and well its no wonder that all the members of shadow garden happen to be hot slime-wearing ladies UwU. but each gets their own time to shine si what makes them truly worth being invested in.

Sound and VA (8/10)
THe amazing VA is what helps land most of the jokes, some hidden gags that can only be understood if you were Japanese were well expressed by the subs , so props to the fandom for that. the ost is pretty overused and except of some very epic I AM ATOMIC moments its usually something you heard the last episode. The ED is better than the OP in my opinion.

Art and animation (7/10)
Fights are short and the animation that comes with the more epic scenes definitely outshines any other scenes hence it feels unbalanced, I also do not know why but every scene in the anime seems very 480 p even after turning 1080 p on in many different websites (the exception is the ed ‘ART’ )

A good watch for isekai and power fantasy fans, those who find themselves mostly cringing at the jokes should probably watch for only 3 episodes to see if the plot is strong enough for them to continue onwards.

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Feb 15, 2023

ZNoteTaku

Mixed Feelings

Stop me if you’ve heard a line like this before – “It’s just like in a manga / anime!”

Being meta is more in vogue than ever. Ever since DreamWorks took it upon themselves to poke fun at the Disney company and the Disney brand with *Shrek* back in 2001 and became a monumentally-successful franchise financially, animated film had more or less entered the realm of metacommentary. It didn’t take long for Disney to follow suit; starting with *Enchanted* in 2007 and then expanding that into the soul-sucking exercise of their live-action remakes of the recent years (if not also including choice lines in others like ... *Frozen*). If there is any takeaway from this, it’s not only that animated properties being so overtly meta is here to stay, but that it is also a highly-profitable venture. After all, no company is going to change their course if it affects their bottom line. To the company, there’s a simple credo to follow: whether it be about specific properties or about an entire genre’s convention, give the audience a wink. Let them know that you “get it.”

And in the realm of anime, metacommentary also has its home. I’m not only referring to overall productions that have been regarded as having some kind of meta remarks or supposedly-deconstructive genre assertions like *Neon Genesis Evangelion,* but even the casual remarks that characters make in any kind of story, like the above quotation I left. These kinds of remarks get chuckles for the basic reason that we like to pat ourselves on the back for recognizing a pattern and having the thing we watch acknowledge it as such. Considering the sheer degree of prevalence the isekai genre has enjoyed ever since the early 2010s, no doubt because it provides publishers like Kadokawa a lot of money, it makes sense that isekai too would become susceptible to these kinds of remarks from its own works.

But *The Eminence in Shadow* makes the mistake of assuming that being meta is the same as being funny or a worthwhile piece of entertainment. Glimpsing the greater picture, or making casual reference to things that viewers would recognize, is perhaps a short-term solution. But that does not guarantee that the inner substance of the story will be able to stand on its own two feet, either. Within its audience-conscious asides, it attempts to fashion a fantastical story of Cid Kagenou, a fashions-himself-as-the-ultimate-warrior man who attempts to make the best of both worlds, so to speak. Treating his reincarnated situation as the chance to live out his ultimate fantasy, he adopts the moniker of the background everyman archetype on one hand and the “Eminence in Shadow” in the other. Getting involved, investigating, and dispensing his own form of justice when he sees fit, he treats his new environment as a playground rather than being full of actual people with consequences.

Therein lies its initial draw, and its first real gag; take the common thought that many isekai protagonists have (that they’re either dreaming / don’t take their new situation seriously enough), and have it last for the entire show. This gag quickly devolves into overreliance; *The Eminence in Shadow* spends so much of its time with Cid making jokes about the isekai world, drawing upon his knowledge of its conventions and general structure. But the show is confusing its meta remarks for comedic cleverness. Cid is seemingly incapable of going ten minutes without making a remark akin to, “At a time like this, X would happen!” or “Doing Y would be so awesome!” These moments are meta humor at its most flaccid, requiring no creativity to make its point. The goal is to be funny and double down by committing what’s tantamount to beating a dead horse, when being unfunny and doubling down only succeeds in compounding the problem.

The show’s insistence on its meta humor tries to function both comedically and dramaturgically. In having Cid make all these remarks, it attempts to paint him as being more keenly aware of what is transpiring, both in the heat of the moment and in the overarching saga that plays out in the overall world, bolstered by his sheer magical and physical power. In emphasizing the brooding aesthetic, punctuated by its dark colors and mood lighting, as well as the occasional action phrase (I will indeed give props to the line “I am atomic,” as it was as grand and dumbly epic as Cid himself thought it to be). Cid is portrayed as being consistently “cool” and slick. The “Rule of Cool” is fine for an occasional indulgence, but to make it a part of the show’s framework is a dangerous game. Cid Kagenou is *The Eminence in Shadow’s* attempt to make the “Rule of Cool” personified via the main protagonist.

Yet in all that time focusing on him, most of the ensemble gets left out in the lurch. The “Greek chorus,” or the series of women who serve under Cid in Shadow Garden, are the prime example. They are caricatures rather than characters, a harem in principle and occasional sexual connotation, though not with Cid himself. No chance is given to develop many of them into substantial beings—they don’t even get names beyond Greek letter designations, hence why I referred to them as “Greek chorus” before—because the show’s structure deemphasizes their own relevance. Throughout most of the story, they appear for brief moments and then vanish for long stretches of time, and their contributions to Cid’s shadowy operations do little more than deliver messages or background information. There’s a bizarre fixation on several of them being either competitive, protective, or envious of other members’ breasts. Even when they fight, the moments themselves do barely enough to give the women a sense of dimension. It took nearly one dozen episodes of their sporadic appearance before I finally learned who was named what.

The more-prominent side characters of each arc do not fare much better. Sherry is reduced to little more than buttshot eye candy despite the great intelligence we are told that she has, all the while the show decides to relentlessly dump tragedy upon her. Rose has her character more or less centered on her adoration of, and personal history with, Cid and an involvement with cultist Perv Asshat (yes, that is his name in-universe). Annerose, introduced as a warrior of high caliber, becomes a complete no-show for the last few episodes. Each new arc introduces more and more characters who become little more than blips on the show’s radar, unintriguing toys for Cid to use for whatever fantasy kick he’s on at the moment. They are constantly janked around by forces they don’t understand, which does little to make them compelling players in the larger game.

But within the desert of characterization stand Alexia and Iris, sisters to their own Midgar throne, as the exceptions to the material’s obsession with Cid being detrimental to everyone else. Their early introduction plot-wise and the fixation both on their personal status and relationship to one another and the larger-scale circumstances more-cohesively set off their personal journeys. Both are perplexed by both the antagonistic forces in their world and Shadow Garden’s mysterious presence, unsure what to make of them. Alexia especially acknowledges her own lack of understanding of what is transpiring since she’s not privy to her sister’s circle of information among the knights or overall skill; she takes the first step into becoming more proactive in the grand scheme of *The Eminence in Shadow’s* shenanigans. Her resolve, and the resulting alliance she forms, is one of the show’s shining moments for developing its intrigue.

I’ve used the word “moment” more than once throughout the course of talking about *The Eminence in Shadow,* and that’s because it’s the show’s ultimate flaw. Underneath the choking meta humor jokes, the occasional bits of good action, mediocre characterization, and the show’s aesthetic managing to capture the balancing act it’s trying to perfect, the show is propelled by moments, not narrative. The good moments come too few and far between; it leaves the rest of the experience pertaining to the Cult of Diabolos (or “Diablos,” depending on who’s translating it) and its actual world lumbering along until it gets to the next meme-worthy instance. It comes in both the form of emphasizing things that don’t really need to be emphasized, or blasting through things when it should stop and catch its breath. The result leaves *The Eminence in Shadow* as an organizational mess, which diminishes its bright points greatly.

With its second season being announced, I do not doubt that there will surely be more masturbatory indulgences in its own supposed cleverness.

I would not, however, find that “atomic.”

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Oct 4, 2023

Ionliosite2

Not Recommended

Have you ever heard of Poe’s Law? Here’s a little definition if you haven’t, Poe’s Law is that without a clear indication of the author’s intent the parody of something extreme can be mistaken for the real thing and if a real thing sounds extreme enough it can be mistaken for a parody. Kage no Jitsuryokusha ni Naritakute falls exactly into this, if I wasn’t told like a dozen times by multiple people in social media groups that talk only about Light Novels and other places then I would fail to know that this thing is supposed to be a parody, after all, it plays ... every single cliché on it so completely straight that I don’t know what is supposed to be the parody in here.

This anime is claimed to be some sort of parody and even more bafflingly a deconstruction of isekai that makes fun of all OP MC tropes, but the idea of a parody is to take certain aspects of a work and imitate it in an exaggerated or comedic fashion, the thing with this anime is that it takes itself extremely seriously, from the liters of blood being spilled every time a battle happens to the multiple episodes where there isn’t a single joke in them, and the tropes presented across the anime are, as I said before, played completely straight. It’s no different than watching every other isekai that comes out every season because it looks and feels exactly like them. And I don’t get where the idea of it being a deconstruction is from, this anime has every single trope used in isekai out there, with no change in the normal execution unlike what an actual deconstruction would do. But what’s worse when it actually tries to make a token effort to be irony poisoned by pointing out almost every time an isekai trope is being used and played straight, but let me tell you something, just because you are saying that a certain trope is happening doesn’t stop it from being the same thing as always. So this anime is just the same isekai you see every other season, just knowing that it is using the same tropes as every other isekai, but without doing anything clever with that knowledge, since it won’t go out of its way to not play it straight. If you want to see a series that is actually a parody and a deconstruction of the isekai genre at the same time, then go and watch Konosuba, even if I’m sure a lot of people who are here already watched that one, yet even a rewatch of that anime is more worth your time than watching this one.

The humor is bad, like so bad that I can’t believe they are supposed to be jokes, and even when they are executed well enough, the sheer repetitiveness of them will wear them off extremely quickly. One of the worst offenders of this was in episode 7, do you remember that scene in the fence tournament where Cid “fights” against Rose? Well, that scene has this joke that when Rose attacks Cid, he is thrown in the most ridiculous ways he can, to me that scene wasn’t particularly funny, but wasn’t bad enough, the bad part came after that, the joke was repeated again and again and again and again to the point that it was just a pain to watch. I don’t think that even if you laughed at it the first time you would have enjoyed it by about the 5th time it got repeated in the very same scene. Besides this is also weird with Cid’s character, he doesn’t want to stand out and to be a mob character, but then he goes and stands out again and again making this big clown show that obviously makes him stand out no matter if it is as the idiot that got beaten like a pulp. This is even more jarring to me because I later checked the manga, and while I still have a lot of issues with it, its tone and presentation was a lot better than here in the anime, making me wonder why the hell is the anime trying to be so serious when the source material embraced being absurd, as this adaptation is honestly so somber the times they do attempt a joke, it just sticks out like a sore thumb.

Shadow Garden are a bunch of non-characters, it’s like they don’t exist, they aren’t people, they are plot devices that help Cid do whatever, from gathering information from who knows where to being stupidly strong for the sake of being strong. Like I cannot even remember who most of them are, I can remember Alpha since she had screen time alone and we learned some stuff about her, then like 10 episodes later I could recognize who was Beta since she got an actual character across those episodes, even if ironically Alpha lost her time in the limelight at the same time. But my problem with these girls is not remembering their names, Greek letters aren’t something difficult to remember and I’m guessing that’s why the author didn’t bother to give them actual names, it’s these girls are complete non-characters, sometimes when they appear again I wouldn’t know who they are if they weren’t wearing those outfits everyone in Shadow Garden wear, after all, they aren’t characters I can recognize because they aren’t written to be recognizable, I couldn’t even tell which hair color each of them has or a single personality trait, there’s nothing memorable at all about them because they are never used as anything but a plot device galore.

An anime with a better execution at making an organization with only-girls for who knows what reason (actually, the reason is pretty clear, just look at the ending song video) and that turns out they are very strong too is, and I can’t believe I’m saying this given how the writing in that series is, Sekai Saikou no Ansatsusha. That series was written by the clown known as Tsukiyo Rui, the same man behind Kaifuku Jutsushi no Yarinaoshi, and it had the process to recruit them all, seeing their training and gave them an actual character even if it just a generic waifu characterization that you would find in other isekais. What happened with Shadow Garden? Well, they just started to exist in episode 2, it was only Alpha and then suddenly there was a bunch of girls that came out from who knows where, they seem able to do literally anything, they one-shot the enemies they face and are able to investigate every single minimal thing they are asked to. I can understand Alpha being strong since it was explained she is descendant from a hero, but the others? They are strong because of the slime suits that they somehow are super mega experts at using even if it this is said to be a super advanced thing just about no one else can do. If Tsukiyo Rui of all people managed to write the same thing as you but in a more competent fashion, then you are definitely doing something wrong.

The opening isn’t special, actually, the vocals seem like they were sung when the singer didn’t want to get heard by other people so he recorded it in the background of a room, and the video is simply weird, specially because it isn’t about anything in the series, as it mainly features the girls of Shadow Garden in modern Japan. I had to ask what the opening had to do with the series in some LN group and I was told by people who read the novel that even they didn’t know, the opening is actually very random aside from the parts where Cid is featured. The ending song is nicer and it is sung by a different member of Shadow Garden while featuring a pic of the girl in question, the pic is fanservicey, nothing wrong with that, but when I see the video I have to ask to myself “who is this girl again?”. The animation is fine, it knows how to make the flashy light look good even if fight scenes are lame because the MC is super OP and can’t be defeated or even get to put any effort in the battle.

I was wondering if the series would ever address again what happened in episode 1 as that one actually had an interesting set up and a girl with an actual character alongside Cid, sadly the anime just decided to ignore everything that happened there, which was the thing that finally made me drop the series to a 1 rating, because the only interesting part of the series wasn’t addressed at all, and even now I think that Nishino is more memorable than every single member of Shadow Garden combined.

PD: The best joke in the series is that the first 3 episodes are so haphazardly put together, you can start the series with any of them, and all are equally able to serve as an episode 1.

Thank you for reading.

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Poll: Kage no Jitsuryokusha ni Naritakute! Episode 1 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ... Last Page ) Stark700 - Oct 5, 2022	730 replies	by Sayan_Pal »» Apr 19, 3:27 AM
Will it get less cringe? ( 1 2 ) fghPOWA - Mar 28	71 replies	by TRXPLE »» Apr 18, 6:01 AM
Poll: Kage no Jitsuryokusha ni Naritakute! Episode 20 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ... Last Page ) Stark700 - Feb 15, 2023	745 replies	by HatsuoIM »» Apr 18, 3:56 AM
How is Cid so strong? eWEQRW123123 - Apr 13	5 replies	by Sayan_Pal »» Apr 15, 7:32 AM
This anime would be 10x better without Cid ( 1 2 3 4 ) Apollo_Injustice - Dec 21, 2023	173 replies	by Sayan_Pal »» Apr 13, 7:43 PM

Kage no Jitsuryokusha ni Naritakute!

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Kagenou, Cid

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Kagenou, Claire

Midgar, Alexia

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Kage no Jitsuryokusha ni Naritakute!

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Synopsis

Background

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