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.
