The Winter 2021 Manga Guide

The Eminence in Shadow

What's It About? 

There's only one thing in this world Cid wants to be. And it's not some bland protagonist or the final boss—he has his eyes set on becoming a mastermind working in the shadows.

The Eminence in Shadow is based on the light novel by Daisuke Aizawa and Tōzai (character design). The manga is drawn by Anri Sakano and Yen Press has released its first volume both digitally and physically for $6.99 and $13.00 respectively

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Is It Worth Reading?

Rebecca Silverman

Rating:

It doesn't happen often, but sometimes I find that I enjoy an adaptation more than the original. That's absolutely the case with The Eminence in Shadow, mostly because the art and asides make the parody work better on a humor level than the source light novel. Not that the original isn't funny, because it is – the franchise has a premise that's pretty tough to ruin: a young man named Cid thinks that he's totally made up an evil organization to fight with his fake shadow organization…except that the evil organization is real and his minions actually are fighting it. But what the manga does better is in how Cid's mental health is handled; in the novel, Cid's behaviors, particularly in his previous life as a Japanese student (yes, this is isekai), came off more as red flags for certain mental illnesses rather than the try-hard efforts of a wannabe superspy. The manga makes the humor inherent in the situation much clearer, mostly by having the art contradict Cid's assertions that he was just an average background character at his school while also throwing in your friend and mine Truck-kun to dispatch him to his isekai reincarnation – in the novel, he's just hit by a plain old car. (Well, runs into a car thinking it was a heavenly signal after having explicitly beaten himself into brain damage on a tree. You can see how that's a bit less humorous.)

Luckily for Cid, he sees his rebirth as the ultimate chance to finally live out his dream of heading up a mysterious shadow organization, and this time he's starting everything from day one – faking his own mediocrity, enlisting “agents,” the whole nine yards. By the time he's fifteen, he's got a full complement of Charlie's Angel-Elves under his command and is getting to live out his dreams of saying cringey things in a very serious way. The kicker is that the evil group he thought he created to facilitate his fantasy – and its light novel-esque backstory – are 100% the real deal. Admittedly, he probably shouldn't have based the organization on a popular myth, but the implication is that it all sounds so much like the media he consumed in his past life that he's somehow missed that he's now living that same media.

Cid's hammy scenery-chewing antics are definitely a major draw here. He goes from playacting the most average guy in the room to putting on a hood and spouting lines that would embarrass a Bond villain, and the contradiction works very well. We haven't seen much of his Greek-letter named henchwomen, but they're fully aware of the veracity of what they're doing, even if Cid thinks they're just excellent LARPers. The art features faces that are silly but not too much so, fairly attractive ladies, and a decent sense of movement, but it's the sense of humor that's most important here. It isn't universally funny, but it does a good enough job to make it worth checking out.

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Christopher Farris

Rating:

When you're setting up a power-fantasy isekai, it's important to concoct an interesting, engaging system for how your hero gets so overpowered – something your audience can relate to in a manner where they can see themselves pulling off similar self-serving exploits. The Eminence in Shadow proposes the revolutionary setup of "What if the main character didn't have the faintest clue what he was doing, made it all up as he went along, and just bumbled into success anyway?". Meet Cid Kagenou. He's a chuuni-ass goober with a very specific niche he thinks is cool. He's trying to fill it by specifically hiding the strength and magical skills he's trained. And it's all just so he has the opportunity to brag about his cool custom magical equipment and say stupid shit like "The Nocturne has begun." I love him.

The lengths Cid's 'machinations' go to might stretch the suspension of disbelief under normal circumstances. The idea that his self-amusing delusions keep turning out to be true is continuously absurd, but because the book is committed to being absurd as a farcical comedy, it works. Part of it might also have to do with the fact that, at least as of this premiere volume, Cid hasn't actually caught on to the fact that his self-aggrandizing setups in the fantasy world are all true, instead thinking he's just having fun while taking down low-level local bandits and the like. It makes him feel more earnest even as it's part and parcel to all his bluster, creating an amusing dissonance given the fact that Cid's whole gimmick is that he doesn't want to be recognized as a big deal.

It also helps that despite being one of those one-joke comedies, The Eminence in Shadow doesn't sit in a single situation to use that joke in for too long. The first half, which focuses on Cid's preteen days, does a brisk job of explaining his unique situation while making clear how the humor is going to work (also, massive shout-out to the amazing visual gag of pre-isekai Cid being a hulking bodybuilder who still desperately tried not to stand out). The second half takes that tone and runs to just a few further complexities with it, as Cid ends up getting paid good money to feign being in a relationship with a bratty, sadistic princess. Living the dream. I do question how long this concept can effectively go on while actually maintaining its humor, especially as so much of it relies on Cid being oblivious to his own joke. But for a first volume, I was honestly kind of shocked at how funny I found most of the proceedings to be, primarily powered by how successfully the writing landed on making the lead character the right kind of lovable dipshit. As an example of a more irreverent isekai setup, this one's worth a look.

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Grant Jones

Rating:

The Eminence In Shadow sure is… a manga… that… exists, I guess.

I'm not quite sure how to put it, but I felt literally nothing reading this. I have read a fair amount of isekai since I've joined the writing staff here at ANN – far more than I ever would have on my own. I've found most to be pretty run-of-the-mill, but at the same time, even the most rote entries tend to have a unique idea or interesting twist.

The Eminence In Shadow is perhaps the most generic of the lot thus far.

Reading this felt dull, pure and simple. Just start listing off isekai plot points at random and you'll probably cobble together the gist of what happens in this volume. In theory, there's a veneer of “comedy” to pull it all together and make the tropes more palatable. “Look, the hero knows all about protagonists and side characters, see? Isn't it funny how he's trying to be a side character but ends up as the protagonist?” That kind of thing, ad nauseum. The tropes and gimmicks come so fast and furious in this volume that it's hard to even remember what's supposed to be going on. Trapped in another world, training to be the best but it's not good enough, super magic powers, the mean but loyal big sister, a harem of deadly assassins, going to magic school and on and on and on and on.

What… is… happening? Who knows and who cares.

The Eminence In Shadow really should have picked one or two ideas and settled on them for a minute. The most engaging plot point in the volume has to do with the kidnapping segment in the latter portion, which isn't necessarily all that well-written, mind you. But unlike the first three-quarters of the volume, the narrative slows down and spends actual time with the sub-plot. Imagine that, focusing on an idea and exploring it. It even makes the jokes funnier now that the audience has time to get invested in the material! What a novel idea.

The most egregious aspect of the volume, to me, was the wish-fulfilment elements. There's an argument to be made that all fiction is wish-fulfilment of a kind, but look you gotta wine me and dine me a bit. Use a little smoke and mirrors to cloak the pandering, for God's sake. “As the protagonist of the story, I may be a master of magic and peerless warrior with an endless reserve of mental alacrity and a secret harem of busty elven assassins who hang on my every word, but I suffer from one crushing weakness: I'm too good to hide my success.” God almighty, give me a break.

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MrAJCosplay

Rating:

Based purely off of the title and cover art for this volume, I thought I was going to read yet another rather basic generic edgy fantasy story. But what I ended up getting was probably one of the funniest things that I've read in a while. The Eminence in Shadow basically asks what happens when you put a chunni in a fantasy world and make said world completely corroborate to his random stupid whims. And the best part is he isn't even aware it's happening! He namedrops a mashup secret organization that he's fighting against just so he has an imaginary foe to fuck around with. But when it turns out that said organization is real, he just thinks that others are in on the joke. Everyone seems to think that he has all of these things completely and meticulously planned out when in reality he is just pissing into the wind and being rewarded for it at every waking turn. What you get is over-the-top reactions with ZERO self-awareness that left me laughing after every few pages.

I mean, the character is someone who is totally within the mindset that everything going on in front of him is for show while everyone around him is treating things as seriously as they should be. This is a guy that is as capable as your standard shounen protagonist but his goal is to live a life where he hides in the shadows? If you're going to make your character a Mary Stu where everything just seems to work out in their favor, I would argue this is one of the best ways to do it because there's so much potential for comedy that the author takes full advantage of. My favorite bits are where our protagonist gets so involved in his dark crusader persona that he ends up acting horrible only for the author to break the fourth wall in an attempt to remind us that he is indeed our protagonist. I have no idea what's going to happen because there are so many ways you can continue to just flesh out this crazy misunderstanding, but if you wanna have a good laugh and are curious along with me then I highly recommend you check this out!