Kage no Jitsuryokusha ni Naritakute!

OK. Listen. I absolutely love this series its actually hilarious. The MC is funny, hes unique, hes different from other common loser anime mc's. This guy is hilarious. HOWEVER, THAT IS IN THE MANGA. The manga is 10000000000000X BETTER THAN THIS GARBAGE. please take this from someone who has read the whole manga, it is so funny. I love it. Do not use this as your impression of it, because they jump around and skip over things. The anime is horrendous and puts this amazing series to shame. I genuinely believe this is an amazing piece of art and needs to be spread, but NOT ... THE ANIME. THE ANIME ISN NO9THING COMPARED. IT IS GARBAGE. DO NOT WATCH IT. IT SUCKS. READ THE MANGA INSTEAD PLEASE ITS SO MUCH BETTER.

tl;dr: Bland power fantasy isekai story for edge lords.
It's really bland. It's a power fantasy isekai story. The show says MC is OP whenever he show up and bulldozes and terrorizes the villains. As far as blandness the show places the MC in a sword and magic high school. There's little world building. MC wants basically be a mix of superhero powers with no weaknesses. Batman(vigilante, fight at night, wear black), superman (invulnerable). For some reason on top of being untouchable, he can instantly heal any wound. I almost forgot the background characters. He gets a massive background harem. They just popped up out of ... nowhere. There's no backstory or how they joined. There's not much interaction other than admiring MC in the background.

This is not a good anime. The protagonist is repulsive. The writing is bad. The only thing saving this from a 1/10 is the animation. The main character is absolutely unlikable. There isn't a single saving grace with him. You're spending the entire time watching for the story around him. I didn't read the manga, but unless it is meant to be a meme, it's truly a bad series. I've seen some real stinkers over my years of watching anime. From slice of life to Isekai to Sports. This is one of the very few that left me with such a bad taste in my ... mouth that I would forever use it as an example of what not to do.

It's like a bad horror movie. I stuck around for 20 episodes because I couldn't stop watching the train wreck.

I can't imagine this was the goal of the writer though, as it seems to take itself way, way too seriously.

People complain about generic trash isekai... Eminence in Shadow takes all the generic isekai plot points, plus a few other lame tropes from other anime genres - throws them in a blender and then farts all that malodorous slop directly into your face. At least the generic isekai know they are generic and embrace it. This show tries to be extra with it, like it thinks it's better because it's dark or subverts expectations, but I think actually makes it even more cringe than something that is actually generic.

There were several times in the first few episodes where I just closed it and stopped ... watching because it felt so lame. Unfortunately I have watched nearly all the other isekai out there and I am an isekai addict so I kept coming back(for a while), but whereas I can normally accept the dreariness of a lame show, this one somehow grinds my gears. I guess that is a testament that it isn't completely forgettable, but I feel like the story thinks it is clever by purposely taking weird turns while I just find it childish.

Rather than creating real tension or drama it feels more like a collection of "haha, gotcha" moments with the story twisting this way or that, so much to the point that you aren't even surprised or don't care when it seems like things are going one way then turn out another. To me, it borders on insulting how obvious this gets while acting like its crap don't stink.

The directing and pacing of this show is just bad, things seem to jump from one thing to another, or it seems like other parts get skipped. Some scenes just feel randomly inserted. The show as a whole feels disjointed. This show also heavily relies on built-in watchbait to get you to keep watching. Bringing things up in a mysterious way, teasing that there is something important and then not explaining anything is a very regular trick of this show. Some crap that doesn't make sense or is purposely left unexplained to make you wonder "wait, what is going on there?" so you have to watch 3 more episodes to get an explanation.

The fan service in this show is distractingly bad. I'm not typically one that cares one way or the other about its presence in anime, but I can't help but notice it in EiS because it almost always feels totally out of place, and I think it serves as a good microcosm of how poorly put together this show actually is. It genuinely feels like they had one animation team make the anime, and then when it was done, somebody noticed they forgot to add in any fan service so then they went back and just edited in disjointed fan service shots every couple of minutes. Every dedicated fan service shot seems to be jankily framed, like some of them you know it's coming before it even happens because the camera is in some weird spot and zoomed in on something, then a woman walks in front of the shot and it's suddenly focused on her thigh gap or something. They also aren't even good and usually it's just something weird or creepy. Like one of them is a zoom in on a girls mouth as she teasingly inserts an oblong brown object(ostensibly chocolate, but it absolutely looks like she is lovingly sucking down a turd) into her mouth and then licks her lips for 10 seconds, like it is so out of place, unappreciated, and feels added in. I don't know what kind of thirsty stuff kids go for these days, but it seems very teasing and weird with the way it handles fan service. That's pretty much the same feeling all of these shots have, they are less tittilating and more just freaking weird and out of place.

Which that brings me to another point. Guess what the end credits of every episode is? It's a fan service image with pieces missing that slowly get filled in. Which is actually the perfect analogy for the entire show: vapid, meaningless, and incomplete - but alright to look at if you are a drooling, brainless, nerd who only cares about lowbrow thrills.

If you are juvenile enough to think being predictably edgy, irreverent, and subverting of expectations is genius, you might like this show. If you are attentive enough to have seen that too many times in other media and gotten bored with it, this will seem lame in how it thinks it's cool for doing so. I normally don't call even bad isekai trash, but I think this one is actual trash masquerading as a good show.

Just another bland isekai to add to the never-ending list, checked it because how popular and high regarded it got, but oh boy, there was nothing original or of value here.

It starts by having the edgy loner MC being a jerk on his first interaction, and how inrealistically the popular girl at school only has eyes for him for no reason. The show tells us how the struggle of ow the edge MC is being so strong but as a human, but being powerless agaisnt firearms, which the show contradicts itself by showing him being faster than bullets and able to follow a car by ... being of foot (while as a human).

There's a thing about good storytelling that is "show don't tell" and then there's this show doing the "tell and show the opposite".

Isekai'd as typical fashion, MC is reincarnated as Kirito (another trash main character), the OP blackswordsman surronded by woman. Now with magic, he goes to school pretending to be the loner kid to have the popular girl into him again. This one by having more screen time gets even worse written, being a boring tsundere at best, and a contradiction and worst.

----
Every character and every plot-point is as bland as it gets:
-MC is a male fantasy, same design as every other isekai MC, is OP, edgy and faces no threat in every fight, jerk and unlikable.
-popular girls only serve to be kidnapped and a damsel on distress.
-the 7 girls part of the MC's group have as much personallity as their names (you can easely find them in the character list), only exist to be attracted to the MC.
-every male character, either the friends of the MC which are losers kids at school, or the worthless villains who get stomped by the MC in combat, either way, both only exist to make the MC look cool.

The show even fails at every genre that it is:
Action - animation is only serviceable at best, fight scenes are pointless by having the MC being so OP.
Comedy - there wasn't a single joke, unless you count fanservice as comedy
Fantasy - it's the blandlest of isekai worlds

---

The show as a 8.30 score and a 2nd season with 8.40, however there was not a single positive point about it, this got as popular as it is by the fantasy of popular girls being into the loner kid, having ecchi, and a OP edgy MC in a harem state.
Having a MC be "cool", win every fight, and be surrounded by girls for no reason does not make it a good written character, but it does make the show gain undeserved success.

Tldr: imagine a t3 vtuber sub, being as creasy and slimy as possible trying to mansplain his cringe self fullfilment fantasy on some weird reddit and you get this.

Ok to be fair i saw this many times being recommended and always thought to my self this sound so bad... like really bad... but the reviews seem actually good, so maybe just maybe it isnt nearly as bad as i imagine it... well it was even worse.

The whole pacing, storytelling and all other aspects are complety of and make no, sense.
The whole story is just stupid, everything could be explained as bad guys have red glow ... to weapon and some looser good guys also have red, glow... but good guys teh have a blue glow to their weapons...
Honestly when i wonderd how beating up thugs with a crowbar translated to becoming an op mage fighter knight, the show actually presented the perfect solution. This is a literal quote: "I am atomic" by Cringelord wannabe MC

Oh and if you think it might be a parody or something, just be warned that there was not any ounce of comedy in it so far.

I always thought peopel who say the died of cringe are weird, because i never understood the feeling that actual cringe would induce in people, but after this show i get them. I only watched 5 episodes and even those i had to pause regulary because they were so cringy.
Well teh show was absolut garbage, but at least now i know what 1000000% Cringe actual feels like.

I really don't know what got into me because I kept watching this anime until 20 episodes, this anime is really bad.

The pacing is slow, the soundtrack is too big and unmemorable so I'm not impressed by the soundtrack at all, the comedy is really pathetic because it's not funny at all, the npc interactions are really not shown to the point of not being shown.

I want to discuss the pacing of this anime first, bruuh seriously I have boosted the speed up to 2x but what do I get, this anime is very slow even so slow that many scenes are useless, ooh come ... on are you guys seriously going to give fanservice scenes with a duration of 6-8 minutes? what a waste of time.

for the soundtrack itself I have a problem when the protagonist uses his moves, the soundtrack at the beginning is very loud, and for the soundtrack problem it is really not memorable at all and even when maybe you watch the anime you will not realize that there is a soundtrack in this anime.

And for comedy problems, the comedy in the manga is much better than the anime, I'm really confused about what to laugh at because the comedy is really not funny, and the expressions given by the main character are really better expressions in the manga, in the anime itself it seems that the protagonist is made serious and not funny like in the manga even though I know the anime follows the novel but still his expression is flat and not funny like in the manga, even the debut of the castle prisoner from onepunch man is much better than the overall comedy in this anime.

and for npc interaction is very less highlighted, in my opinion it is also one of the important elements because we can know what the npc sees/feels when seeing the protagonist fight with his enemy.

I wanted to like this anime. I really did. The the start of the first episode showed an interesting setup for an isekai. And then it got worse.

The main character's motivations are never explained past a weak sense of chuunibyuo taken to the extreme. The other characters and the narrative offers no challenge to the protagonist either, meaning after the excitement of seeing a battle for the first time, it just becomes a boring drawn out fight knowing the mc will never be in danger nor will his opponent ever win.

The harem of girls the mc has following him around is a cliche done ... poorly. The author even throws in some meta jokes about this and other anime cliches and then shamelessly goes forward with it.

Honestly what annoys me the most is that this show had potential. The world was fleshed out, the backstory could have been engaging. Some of the supporting characters could be interesting given more agency and room to grow. And this got 20 episodes with a decent enough animation team.

The last 6 episodes were a grind for me, my mind ignoring the sunk cost fallacy. I only wonder what could have been if another work had gotten this slot.

Kage no Jitsuryokusha ni Naritakute, or The Eminence in Shadow, is an example of an adaptation that failed to understand its source material.
The Eminence in Shadow is a genre parody—at least, it's supposed to be. In reality, this show plays out like any other power fantasy Isekai. The adaptation is comedically dry and tone-deaf, to the point of wondering if it was even meant to be a comedy in the first place.

This review needs more information!

Is the story unique? If it was predictable, did you enjoy it anyway because you like this genre/set-up?
Do you think the art style is fitting for the story?
Do you think ... others will enjoy/dislike this series, even if you didn't ...

After i saw the First 3ep. For me was all mess, i didnt understand anything, 1) the plot armor that he want to be a Shadow that fight the Shadow, ok ... So on which base, where Is the motivation the event that make him choose this way... I have no answer.2) why in the First episode they kidnapp the girl... Only cause She a daughter of someone of a zaibatsu... Not knowing our MC saves her, Just because he beat motorbike band ... And again , only because he want It ,without a maggior event, or at least some explenation of his motive. 3) ... why they kidnapp his sister in the other world , of course play of Power in the palace, ok...,then again which his the plot , where Is the line that tie everything , and why he save and Elf girl, and he make up and absurd story about a cult ,,that Is ruling the world from the Shadow, so he can be the Shadow that fight the Shadows...... And After some time they leave him without a reason , without showing the other character story, so i dropp and give 5 , that's because the anime didnt give me, a reason to Watch It, maybe of if Watch the rest all Will be explain It, but no...

Won't mince my words.

The Eminence in Shadow is a generic isekai that is somehow revered in the anime community under the pretense that it is a self-aware anime, but being a self-aware anime doesn't excuse the fact that it is a generic, goofy ass isekai, no matter how self-aware it may be.

You're just watching another 2/10 isekai, but oh, "9/10 because, ackchyually, it's a giga-brain anime that makes fun of other isekai's!!!", yet the content you're consuming is the exact same as that of a generic isekai

Because it's a socially acceptable isekai, it's let people proudly enjoy power trip bs; I'm convinced the same people ... who praise it to the heavens would also love 80% of other isekai's but just don't let themselves watch the genre because of its reputation.

It's kind of funny sometimes, and the fights have cool effects, but this show is structured badly and the mc is terrible. The main girls of Shadow Garden hardly get any screen time and the show is building towards nothing. It seems the only goal was to check all the boxes that 14 year old boys might like. So, if you are a 14 year old boy go ahead you will likely enjoy it. But if you are expecting ANYTHING of value from the show beyond 100 girlfriends with magic powers stay away. I made it to episode 10 convinced that some subversion or twist ... was coming, but it doesn't, and it won't. It's just a maniac that got isekaied to a world where he can do anything and doesn't treat anyone like a human, more like toys.

I actually feel betrayed by the MAL rating as this thing was a pile of garbage. However it isn't poorly animated, and most of the voice acting is good, so 3 is where I'll leave my rating.

Disappointed ☹️

None of the jokes were funny at all. I don’t know who they were trying to get a laugh of with those lame ass jokes 🙄
The characters all are all generic , bland, cardboard cutouts with no depth whatsoever 🫠 the concept of the show was pretty cool ngl but the execution was horrible as hell. Where is thrill? That’s what it’s all about isn’t? Well maybe Cid got some but not us 😤

It’s all just a bunch of bullshit that you get thrown into with occasional lame jokes and horrible animation 😭

Yep, it’s just another generic, bland and Trashy ... isekai we all love 👍

Cringe garbage

Guy wants to become best in the world for no reason and then becomes the best in the world for no reason. In the process he creates an army of sicophant women that follow him around and do his bidding, but he has 0 sex drive so he doesn't think about it in a harem way.

The MC simply does not make sense. He is not human. His motivations, progression in power and character growth, all of it is either SKIPPED completely or it simply does not make sense. Why does he want to be the best? Why does he need the army of ... females? No clue. His motives are beyond mortals to understand.

It's a story about Empathetic herbivore Chuuni MC that tries too hard to be mob characters, it's so bland, not exactly interesting tropes thus making it overused and boring real fast, kinda ironic considering the genre they made a mockery of, they have a good jokes, good animation works, but the downside really just overshadowed all the good part of this anime, alot of missing background story/development, luck laster voice acting, and the afterthought fan service.. why even bother at this point? either stay puritan like most English Localizers/Morale police wants it or go full ham and dgaf like splitting their enemy NPC's body in ... half, you can't satisfy everyone by "walking down our own path" lol that's a cowardice. I'll have more fun watching those typical isekai harem power fantasy anyday than whatever this thing is, at least i don't have to listen to some pretentious dialogs of anime character stressing about staying out of main protag route, Schrodinger Centrist Anime.

Not recommended.

The anime was hyped up massively for some reason but the first episode was really bad.
Excessive use of cliffhangers in basically almost every episode.
Cringey and unfunny jokes (subjective, but eh)
Poor/terrible character balance and screentime,
Main character is "flanderized" at best or some even say borderline insane. And your usual op/broken isekai MC of course.
Slow pacing, things happen very slowly.
Anime tries too hard (to be different and just ends up falling flat on its face)

... It's not terrible, but not really worth watching.
(You know it's bad when you can completely skip the first episode and it would change basically nothing)

I see some ani-tuber say this is like Overlord, they couldn't be more wrong!
Aniz is trying to be cool while not all that perfect --- relatable and funny
Shadow is trying to be an side character while doing all the protagonist stuff and oh so perfect --- Kirito with a complex, cringe
Why?
The premise of this show is the MC is super capable but pretend to be useless side character.
And at first this is quite refreshing, and even get me laughing a couple of time. But the show quickly drop all this pretense, and gone full Kirito mode. The only thing that is making this ... show unique is him pretending to be a side character, but this has become more and more forced and unbelievable.
This show is genuinely better without the MC. All the scenes with MC are 'generic female magnet' cringe or 'overpowered so cool' cringe. While the other characters are much more interesting!!!

“The Eminence in Shadow” is what happens when an anime decides to go head to head with “Seikon no Qwaser” for the amount of edge and cringe on screen… and somehow wins!
That in itself should prepare You for what You’re about to experience.

Now… I get that this is supposed to be a parody but the problem is the show plays a lot of its parts completely straight.

The show uses cliches You’ll find in most self indulgent fan fiction:
- Harem of hot chicks? Check
- OP AF MC? Check
- The MC not being capable of making mistakes? Check
- Living in a world that bends over ... backwards for the MC? Check
- Bringing modern luxuries and social changes to a world less developed? Check
- The MC not having any real challenge? Check
- Most of the confusions and dumb plans happen only because the world is filled with idiots (that includes the MC)? Check
It is supposed to make fun of them but… if that’s the case, why does it play a lot of them with a straight face? Yes, even comedy needs drama for contrast but this doesn’t seem like it was written with contrast in mind. More like the writers weren’t sure what they really wanted to create so they created two shows and just stitched them together.

The main character of the show is Cid, he’s… “interesting”, in a sense that he’s a narcissist living in his own world, before and after being isekaied. Obsessed with keeping up the appearance of a useless weakling in public just to play Batman at night. He trained his body and fighting skills to a proficient level and isn’t a complete moron when it comes to combat but that’s about it. He has his head so far up his ass that he doesn’t realise the kind of situations he gets himself into.If gaslighting oneself was a power, he would be the master of it.
He spends a lot of time planning his cringe acts. I do mean cringe. He beats up a weaker opponent just to literally nuke his ass, and a big chunk of the city, while delivering a one liner that so cringe I considered giving up on the show. He buys specific furniture and art to decorate a room just to look cool while receiving guests and that’s not all he does just for show.
To be fair, as a mock character he's pretty good. He doesn’t take himself or the world around him too seriously and that, contrasting with the situation he finds himself in, makes for an absurd overall picture. Apart from his being the grandmaster of cringe his main flaw is his passivity. Despite having a goal (becoming the eminence in shadow, I’m guessing it’s his way of saying “grey eminence”), albeit a one that’s not very well defined, he doesn’t actively pursue it. Most of his success on that front comes from his lackeys. The only thing he contributes is his power during combat. If I am to be completely honest, any member of the supporting characters is far more interesting than he is, even if at the end of the day I couldn't care about any of them. I want to believe that it was made intentionally but… I won’t hold my breath.
Now… regarding his “goal”. If he means “Gray Eminence '' when he’s referring to “The Eminence in shadow”, and I think there is enough evidence that he is… someone should buy him a dictionary. By his actions it’s pretty obvious he has no idea how such a figure should act. Not only does he and his servants give away the name of his “secret” organisations at every possible moment, he just nukes everyone and everything. He literally nukes a part of the city. The Russian invasion on Ukraine was more subtle. Then again… I don’t think he ever specifies what being the eminence in shadow entails so…

Apart from a metric shitton of cringe and second hand embarrassment that this show serves there is still the issue with how much of it’s…boring.
I’m not sure if it’s intentional or just a side effect of characters being OP but there is zero to no tension in the fights. Even as soon as episode 2 the action scenes (and I use this term extremely loosely) are boring, one sided and apart from a close up with a moving hand, static. It hurts to watch something so boring. It’s actually impressive how bad they are. After Cid proved how proficient and knowledgeable he was in combat I hoped that the fights would have at least good choreography, animation and tension… Yeah… I was naive. I get that animating fights is difficult and requires people that actually know something about them, but c’mon… anime in the 80s and 90s could pull them off, so what the hell is wrong with studios today?

The fights aren’t the only reason for lack of tension. Cid couldn’t give a damn about anyone or anything that doesn’t involve him directly. His whole shtick is that he wants to be the eminence in shadow and has a boner for fighting. Apart from this he’s just a reactive character who mainly reacts to what happens to him and doesn’t act as a catalyst to get the ball rolling. Even if he thinks he’s only playing a game he could be more active.

That said… this show has some nice jokes and Cid’s fuckery can be entertaining at times. It plays with convention and is bold enough to embrace its own cringe and bullshit writing. Does it make it better? Hell no. Shit writing is still shit writing and being self aware doesn’t change that. Helps a bit to swallow it but does not redeem it.

For an anime with a score above 8 I expected a lot more.

You ever had the experience where you sit down next to a stranger and he then stares at you, tells you about his deepest fetish fever dream as if he seeks your acceptance, only for you to end up feeling extremely creeped out? Thats essentially this anime in a nutshell.
Its simply a juveniles biggest fetish fever dream turned into ridicules display of the creators smug self-satisfaction.

First episode starts strong and leads the viewer into a false sense of hope, the anime essentially starts with preview of what it could have been, but instead we are completely rick-rolled after the main character Cid is isekai’d ... into the otherworld and then presented what can only be described as a time wasting disappointment.
As many self-proclaimed expert connoisseurs of trash have pointed out, the anime is mocking the isekai genre, this is simply, not true and I will explain why.

If by ones imagination that said character being overpowered beyond even being funny, One Punch Man does portray this far funnier but also grows stale after the same joke is overdone, but Kage no Jitsuryokusha grows old after 3 episodes.
The story itself seems to have no idea what it wants, there very little explanation or buildup, you simply time skip over everything, all the suspense is simply blown away by Cid in a second and then the story is left stumbling through what to do next.

Its almost like the author is too incompetent to think of anything interesting, instead we get overbloated gratification shots of women with oversized breasts, buttocks and everything imaginable, then thrown into precarious situations because thats the kind of viewer this anime targets, the thirsty prepubescent kind who never talked to women other than their own mother.

And this is the problem of Kage no Jitsuryokusha, its simply the creator expressing himself as Cid, showcasing his deepest desires, its hardly entertainment, but rather self-indulgent trash with no meaning to it. There could have been a very interesting story of the formation of Shadow Garden, but instead the creator just decides to skip over all the interesting parts, showing Cid just blowing everything up.

Instead of being a mockery of isekai, its a mockery of itself, the anime does not take itself serious yet at the same time, wants to be serious, its mind boggling how confused everything is, at one point it jumps over everything important, at another point there is a lot of drag on the pointless story parts, it turns serious, then Cid just makes a clown dance of everything and the story moves on, for 20 whole episodes, the same old stuff, happens over and over again, the Shadow Garden goes from being predominant force, into a background afterthought, Cid goes from being an afterthought into a clown who is simply going from one venue to another to do his clown stuff with jokes so horrible no one laughed during the pre-screening in Japan, thats tragic!

Serious story time? (SKIP) -> Something happens? (Cid blows it up) -> Show 10 minutes of padding scenes in every episode. -> Show one of the female characters breasts or buttocks up close.
This is the anime in a nutshell, does that sound good to you?

The only redeeming feature of this joke, is the fact its second season had to be cut in half because of how unpopular it was in Japan, it really blew hard, and its no wonder, only a “Cid" would watch this and genuinely enjoy it.

P.S
Anime =//= Manga
Learn the difference, or stay away from either, they are not the same medium, or format, they are entirely different, while the manga might be terrific, the anime cannot simply be adapted 1:1 and expect same results.

a show too ambitious for it's own good, I got my hopes up with the first episode, before seeing the same old formula of overpowered mc that never struggles, gets all the girls because why not?, and a world that revolves around making "chad" mc look cool.

to be honest, the mc is the only thing holding the show back, perhaps drawing inspiration from shows like Overlord, but making the mistake of focusing too hard on an MC that although unique, can't quite carry the show by himself.

it might be trying to be a parody of some sort but fails to change up the tropes ... it's "parodying"or properly be humorous.

things were taken too fast, but it certainly had potential, if only the MC was properly fleshed out or we actually got to see some growth before he just got everything handed to him by the plot.