Kage no Eiyuu no Nichijou-tan: Yuusha no Ura de Anyaku Shiteita Saikyou no Agent. Soshiki ga Kaitai Sareta node, Shoutai Kakushite Hitonami no Nichijou wo Ouka suru.
Shadow Hero's Daily Life

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8.0/10


Coming into this, I thought “Shadow Hero’s Daily Life” would be one of the many generic retired slow life mangas. However, I couldn’t have been further off. To put it out there, “The Fruit of Grisaia” must have been a huge inspiration for this series. By no means is it a stretch, since the last time I’ve heard of “Grisaia” was eight or so years ago, but even I recognized that one of the arcs in this manga is a straight spinoff of said inspiration. With that being said though, I used to fangirl over “Grisaia,” so it was a nice nostalgic feeling of experiencing ... it once again.

Onto the actual plot, each character gets their own arc with the mc also leaving an influence of them. During the side character’s development, the main character is on a journey himself to find his way back in society. Each character gets their own development, even the ones that are meant be throwaways. With that being said, once the supporting character’s arc is over, they aren’t forgotten about and still leave an impression in the story. For the protagonist, he is an emotionless bast@rd so that might be a huge turnoff for some. However, it seems by the chapter that he is slowly becoming more and more empathetic so he isn’t a one-dimensional brick with no room for growth.

The plot doesn’t lack anything besides for the minor plot holes, but the art is a bit of a different story. I wish the manga had a bit better art, since the fight scenes aren’t thrilling but, not to the point where it ruins the ambiance. However, the immersion would’ve been elevated if said art was the slightest bit better.

This is a great story with great character development. If you were looking for a generic slow life manga with an incontestable mc, then this isn’t the stuff you are looking for. However, if you wanted an emphasis on the progression of characters, this might be the thrill you needed.


Reading Rankings (Portnoy inspired + A Huang-Teizan Original)
10 - God’s penmanship
9 - Must-read. Drop everything else.
8 - Instant bookmark
7 - Entertaining
6 - Good to pass time
5 - Why are you reading this?
4 - Bad.
3 - Typical garbage.
2 - My head hurts.
1 - Retirement is a thought.
0 - “Did they even give you a story?!”

While this is obviously the generic fantasy wish fulfillment manga you are expecting there is just a bit of extra flair that makes it above average (in the genre) IMO. In the 22 chapters released so far all 4 of the main characters get a major arc for character development. It kinda feels like a visual novel in how it does these arcs. This leads to some moments feeling inconsistent or impactless but since the style is fairly unique I personally believe this to be a trade off that is worthwhile, though it would depend on how the story develops from here. The main character ... is more of a plot device than an actual main character which is why him still being the focus in each arc feels off. There is some interesting world building elements to the story but nothing has truly been fleshed out yet and it seems like most of it was tacked on as an after thought. The art looks great, character design is fairly unique, especially for this genre. The quality is consistent and stuff like movement looks great. Character writing seems to be a tad bit inconsistent especially for the people around the main cast. Still I do believe there is some potential here, if it's not this manga than this could still open the door for better works by this mangaka.

Despite the manga having such a long title, it is sadly far less interesting than most. While there are parts of decent writing, it is overshadowed by lackluster art, story, and characters. The manga is in the category of being not good or bad; but closer to being mindlessly boring.

Story: 4/10
Let's immediately throw the positives in. The manga does well to present our character's personalities, but also how the overall arc plots affect them. The world, while seemingly bland at first, does touch on the idea of politics. The fighting is also enjoyable at times, due to the story taking a part in it, making ... their fights feel have an emotional impact on these characters.

There are a few issues I have that easily drag the manga down, and I could argue that puts any positives I have towards this manga to shame.
Let's first address what I think is one of the biggest issues in how the story affected the characters poorly, but also meshed with the bland writing. To give an example, there was an entire arc where our protagonist and another student went missing.
While yes, it did definitely affect our protagonist and the student's lives and for these two specific characters are built nicely from it along with attached backstories and backgrounds, did not feel justified to have such a long arc. What also ruins this is our other characters' reactions after this arc. The manga does horribly at writing characters into a story, in the way that the writing completely ignores just to hit story beats. Yes, I'm glad that these few characters got to develop, but why is there almost zero reaction from being away for so long? It's like coming home and your parents went somewhere far without contacting you, and then coming back saying "Oh, nothing happened." You might not be expecting an explanation, but at least a reaction that's not mundane and as if it happens often.

In all, the story feels sometimes dragged on and meaningless in some arcs, even almost episodic due to the lack of overall impact. This is due to the story sometimes having a lackluster ending of an arc, and then suddenly starting another.
I don't want to spoil too much, but this is just one example. There are plenty where once the story focuses on one part, anything else outside is frozen in time until the author decides to bring it back.


Characters: 6/10
While not exactly "smart" and derived from clichés, the characters have a mind of their own and are not always driven by the story, but by their own search for value, self-worth, and ideals. Sadly, as grand as it might've sounded, this is the only positive I could find in the manga. They are pretty much frozen in time until our protagonist interacts with them. Yes, they have backstories, even interesting ones, but so does every living person. Why is this the main way the manga highlights characters? These characters are supposed to have their own values and ideals, but there's no point unless our protagonist is there to do that job for them.
Because of this, the characters are sometimes sidelined and almost forgotten for an entire arc. While yes, this is to develop a few other characters, the issue is how the manga dealt with it. This is explained already in the section above, but this definitely affected the characters in writing, where you don't really believe that they are characters.

Now, to go into our second issue - the protagonist.
His plain expressions should've been given more thought, as he would show some emotions, maybe at some defining moments. But no, his face almost stays exactly the same throughout. The only time he does show somewhat of emotions is when the protagonist is in his inner dialogues along with his actions, which is completely fine to do. Especially for his backstory, it fits him perfectly. But because of this, along with the mix of character design, he doesn't feel like a character that has lived through crappy situations, but an uninspired robot.
But throughout all of this, while I do think that it is a character trait, nevermind how boring he is written, the painful problem is that he's our protagonist. We follow this bland robot that has more inner dialogue than outside and nothing fun like Death Note. It's as if the author wrote notes on what the protagonist's mindset is, but forgot to develop that into a character instead of sticky notes.

While I do think the manga does best with characters in comparison to the other parts, I would reach out to say if it's actually good. While the characters are far from being wasted, it is tainted by storytelling and its neglect.


Art: 3/10
While it might be harsh to say, the artstyle is what brings this manga down the most, and the simple reason is - the artstyle is incredibly boring to look at.
While not awful, you don't feel anything while reading it. The artstyle feels so incredibly uninspired in many ways, that I can't even come up with an emotion like hate or dislike to it - easily the artstyle is the worst part of the manga.
The design choice of guns for our protagonist feels so incredibly out-of-place and forced. But unfortunately, it is the only redeeming thing in the manga; since it at least stands out. Everything else is hard to pay attention to, not because of the clutter and messiness of artstyle; actually the opposite.
The magic is somehow overshadowed by a giant rifle because of how outlandish that idea is in a fantasy setting. The magic in this world, while serving a purpose, is used and looks so uninterestingly. Even the background you just don't feel anything, which I think should've been paid more attention towards.
Even if we derive clothing styles from a fantasy world, there are so many options. But for some reason, the author/artist decided to have most of them wear uniforms. There are a few accessories that help improve character designs, but their general body shape and clothing make it so uninteresting.

Everything's just so bland that you almost forget you're supposed to be reading a manga for fun and/or to delve deeper into.
If we take lower quality artstyles for example, ONE's One Punch-Man webcomic. No, to even go further back to the earliest chapters, because the more recent ones are even better than this.
Yes, the manga does well with proportions, and perspectives, while boring character designs do well with defining them based on their personality traits. But it does not do well with making it interesting. ONE's was interesting because it was also accompanied by great worldbuilding, much better character designs (character proportions, clothing), more interesting perspectives, weight, etc.

I am generally not as critical of art, but I just cannot find any emotions in the manga. It may be due to the writing, and while the manga does shine more when expressing emotions with other characters than our protagonist, it is only enough to be serviceable.


Overall: 4/10
and I can see some enjoying this manga and others find this to be one of the most boring mangas out there, at least for a fantasy world's standard. There are plenty of bad isekais that have degraded the fantasy formula of manga. This manga felt like the result of that.

While it does have a decent potential with character writing, sadly in other departments; this manga lacks. This is not a "bad" manga, but it doesn't excel in anything special. Vanilla still tastes good, water is refreshing. But this manga feels like air without any smell. It exists, you're breathing it, but you're not going to be amazed by it.