Hello and welcome to Project Nitsuj. It’s the final week of the Reincarnation Arc so let’s end on a high strong note by taking a look at the second half of The Eminence in Shadow. Last time, we saw Shadow Garden defeat a group of pretenders masquerading as them. The fight ends at the school where Shadow Garden gets blamed for the attack and Cid kills Sherry’s father. Where does the story go from here? Let’s find out.
Episodes 10-15
Episode 10 gives us a number of stories. We see Alexia and Iris go shopping for Alexia’s trip to Lindwurn, the Sacred Land where she will participate in an event known as the Goddess Trial while investigating the corruption of the land. While shopping at Gamma’s store, Alexia buys some special underwear for Cid (she’s still after him? I don’t know if she truly loves him or just wants to marry him so that she can torture him to the end of time. Scene here: https://youtu.be/uEX2AmSYBcE). Cid also seems to be heading to Lindwurn to investigate the corruption. He travels by train where he runs into Rose who has become smitten by him. She’s also going to Lindwurn so the two share a cart together and she even tries to sneak into his bed a few times on the trip (scene here: https://youtu.be/6sbqHVFbv0M, his background character persona is slowly fading with all these girls after him). Once they arrive in Lindwurn they run into Beta who is a successful writer after she plagiarized all the stories Cid told her about from our world (I mean I don’t blame her for doing this and this is clearly the author naming their favorite stories). She leaves him a note during her book signing event on what Alpha has been investigating (scene here: https://youtu.be/ubSdh2blyzQ). Speaking of Alpha, we see her kill an archbishop and take her leave.
We start episode 11 with Cid enjoying the hotsprings with Alexia (and the former lovers meet again). Alexia talks about how she’s here to audit the church, but those plans have changed now that the archbishop is dead. She talks about the Goddess Trial which is basically a fighting tournament where brave warriors from across the world fight against the spirits from past warriors (wow, this world allows you to fight ghosts). If a warrior manages to win they receive a medal which will allow them to join any knight order of any nation in the entire world. Alexia also wants Cid to join the Crimson Knights but he says no and shows her his Excalibur (scene here: https://youtu.be/t5MgPVL3QlA, the look on her face tells the whole story). At the Goddess Trial we see Alexia sharing a booth with Beta and the two don’t like each other (can’t say I’m surprised). Alexia thinks Beta is secretly corrupted (she’s not wrong. She’s also a plagiarist) and Beta doesn’t like Alexia clinging onto Cid (scene here: https://youtu.be/S6w7r1iDn18). The tournament begins where nobody is able to summon a spirit to face them. Only one guy was able to do it and they skip over it. So I’m just going to assume it was nothing important. However, things get interesting when Cid’s name gets called. Somehow, Rose entered him into the tournament and now he’s in a precarious position. If he fights he’ll be exposed as a strong fighter destroying his background character persona. If he runs away he’ll be expelled from the school and his sister will kill him (risk exposure or get killed by sister who is a brocon? Choices). In the end, Cid goes with option 3 (join Smash!). He dawns his Shadow persona to confuse everyone in attendance (everybody’s got a plan until a bomb goes off). He manages to summon Aurora, the Witch of Calamity. In the past she brought chaos and destruction to the world and was said to be the strongest witch ever. Records of her are very scarce and few in the church know her name. Shadow defeats her quite easily and makes his escape. After he’s gone, the shield around the arena breaks and a large rune appears (scene here: https://youtu.be/CN66a41VMcw, well next episode should be interesting).
At the start of episode 12 another rune appears before Cid. He tries to ignore it and walk away but the rune just follows him (like a lost dog). Seeing no other way around it and bored, Cid enters the rune. Back at the arena, we find out that the rune leads to the Sanctuary where the hero Olivier sealed the left arm of Diablos after he cut it off. Shadow Garden appears where they take Beta and the new archbishop, Nelson, hostage and enter the rune with Alexis and Rose right behind them. Once on the other side we get to learn some truths. First off, Olivier was a woman. Second, she was experimented on. Olivier was injected with Diablos cells to get stronger. Many orphans were injected with the cells (including Alpha), but their bodies rejected the cells and they all died or turned into monsters. Olivier was the only one who survived and rather than defeat demons her mission was to instead extract new cells from Diablos. The cult’s goal like any other cult was to gain power and immortality and they believed Diablos’s cells could make that wish come true. Nelson was one of the researchers and through their extensive studies crafted these beads to make them immortal, but there were two flaws. They had to be consumed on a yearly basis and they could only make 12 beads a year. Thus, the beads were reserved for the 12 members of the round table and Nelson is one of them. Nelson frees himself after finally having his past exposed and gets ready to fight Alpha and Delta. As this is all going on, we see Cid have his own little side story in the episode. He comes across Aurora again strapped to a chair (well I’m sure we’re seeing someone’s fantasy right about now) and frees her where they begin touring the Sanctuary hoping to escape. As they traverse the Sanctuary they come across a young Aurora who was also used in the experiments.
Episode 13 sees Delta take on Nelson. Despite losing her magic power and most of her outfit (she look good. Look at her abs! Grind some meat on them) she’s able to slaughter all of Nelson’s clones until the Sanctuary has enough and just stops. We also see Cid and Aurora make it to the center of Sanctuary as well and find a sword that can shut the Sanctuary down, but they can’t pull it out. The sword can only be pulled out by a descendant of the hero Olivier. Speaking of Olivier, we see Nelson summon her to fight Delta and Alpha (I can definitely see the family resemblance between Alpha and Olivier), but once the other members of Shadow Garden arrive saying that they’ve copied all the data Alpha calls for a retreat (even though they have the overwhelming advantage. That’s new). Shadow Garden leaves with Beta, Alexia, and Rose vowing to come back when they feel like it (I mean, who’s gonna stop them? Scene here: https://youtu.be/KIXwG-JyhCc). Nelson finally senses Cid and Aurora in the center of the Sanctuary and sics Olivier on them. Cid fights against Olivier where it seems like he’s gonna lose but his smile says otherwise.
At the start of episode 14 Cid gets pierced by Olivier but she missed his vital organs. This allows Cid to grab Olivier and bite into her neck like a vampire (or Kaneki from Tokyo Ghoul. Seriously, this is a Tokyo Ghoul moment). He manages to kill Olivier but Nelson reveals he has a whole army of Oliviers ready to fight. Cid fights where he obviously has the advantage despite the overwhelming odds against him. He finally has enough and unleashes another atomic attack to destroy the Sanctuary and kill Nelson (scene here: https://youtu.be/CYH2iH6UWeY). When Cid wakes back up he’s resting in the lap of Aurora who is starting to disappear (shame, I was hoping she would join Shadow Garden as Shadow’s mistress). Alexia, Rose, and Beta also got out safely where Alexia feels frustrated about what transpired. She was useless. She couldn’t do anything. Corruption is all around her and she’s powerless to stop it or make a difference (she might as well be Sakura from Naruto at this point). She enters into a partnership with Rose and Beta to dig up information, get stronger, and then decide what they’ll do from there. After this, we see Gamma buy up some property and Alexia tells Iris about her trip. Iris still considers the cult and Shadow Garden enemies and in my opinion, is secretly afraid of Shadow Garden’s power (up until this point she’s thought of herself as the strongest person around, but then Shadow Garden shows up and all of a sudden she’s fallen in the pecking order and it scares her. So much so that she’s convinced herself that they’re using artifacts to make themselves strong when deep down she knows that’s not the case). We also see Rose training where a strange red mark appears on her chest.
In episode 15 we’re back in the kingdom and everyone is excited for the Bushin Festival, where some of the best fighters in the world will gather to prove their skills. Cid is excited and plans to take part in the event but he’ll need a disguise to hide his identity. He goes to Gamma where using some special cream and a machine is able to transform his face to look like a weak man who hasn’t slept for days and could die at any second (sounds like a millennial. Scene here: https://youtu.be/HAAm-z2EG-o). The disguise works as some of the other competitors think he truly is weak and tell him to stay out of the tournament for his own good (scene here: https://youtu.be/ILn5eaWrnao). He meets up with Rose who tells him that she’s off to meet her father and fiancé where she plans on doing something drastic and wants Cid to trust her no matter what. He of course says yes (it’ll make a boring afternoon exciting). The next day Cid enters the preliminaries in his disguise and wins with one strike to advance (scene here: https://youtu.be/S3D5Rf2WhsA, this is going to be fun). As the episode ends Cid hears the news that Rose stabbed her fiancé and is now on the run (Rose! What the fuck!? When you said you were gonna do something drastic I didn’t think it would be this! I thought she was just going to announce Cid as her man. All right, guess we’re doing this. Like I said, exciting afternoon).
Episodes 16-20
At the start of episode 16 Beta and Alexia hear the news about Rose and are both shocked and mad at her. Not because of what she did, but because she chose not to tell them what she was planning (what happened to our sisterhood vow?). Speaking of Rose, we see her still in the city but is hiding underground. Beta has Shadow Garden keep tabs on her and keeps Alexia busy for the time being so she doesn’t run headfirst into trouble. Meanwhile, Cid runs into an elf named Beatrix who bears a striking resemblance to Alpha (well I see her family is full of beautiful elves). Beatrix is looking for her niece who resembles her so it’s hinted that she’s Alpha’s aunt (scene here: https://youtu.be/87dpcR5bCtg). We get to see Rose’s fiancé who seems to be totally fine and plans to catch Rose himself. Continuing with the tournament, Cid continues to dominate and advances to the main tournament as the dark horse that everyone is afraid to bet on because they have no idea how he’s winning (is he cheating or is he really knocking out opponents?).
Not much happens in episode 17. We learn about Cid teaching Epsilon how to play the piano and even teaching her some famous pieces making her a popular pianist and composer (these girls do not know the meaning of plagiarism). We see Alexia and Beta search for Rose in the underground ruins. It’s here that we learn her fiancé is a member of the cult and drugged her dad (well that explains the attack). She’s now starting to doubt herself and believes she should just turn herself in, but then hears Moonlight Sonata being played by Cid (who actually stole a piano and dragged it underground just to create this scenario. He is such a dork). He offers Rose the power to overcome this adversity and she accepts it (scene here: https://youtu.be/lguh1z8qep4). When Rose runs into Alexia and Beta she gives them the cold shoulder as she doesn’t want to get them involved. Alexia takes offense to this and the two fight where Rose knocks her out. She hands Alexia to Beta and then takes her leave with Beta saying they shall meet again (oh I don’t doubt it. Scene here: https://youtu.be/yH77ABr178s). At the end of day, Cid returns to his dorm where Claire has been waiting for him (hey Claire, still got a brother complex?).
Episode 18 starts in Cid’s room with Claire straddling on top of Cid and choking the life out of him (this is still a form of sex play for some people). As you would imagine she’s upset at Cid for ducking and dodging her, so she gives him one last chance to make it up to her. She’s also participating in the festival and has given Cid a premium ticket to witness her winning the whole thing (quite the confident fighter aren’t you?). The next day, Cid goes to his seat where he’s sitting next to Iris. When it’s time for his match he takes his leave and manages to win. Iris also wins her match which means the next match will be Cid against Iris and he is excited (of course, he may not make it to tomorrow if Claire has her way. Scene here: https://youtu.be/YlOPS9FTRWc).
Episode 19 opens up with Iris training and getting a peek into her psyche. Iris is fully aware of the corruption going on within the kingdom and hates being told there’s nothing she can do about it. For her, being powerless is the worst feeling imaginable and she believes that if she can be seen as the strongest then the kingdom will be safe no matter what. We then go to the festival where it’s time for Cid vs Iris (and the weather couldn’t be more perfect. Dark clouds, thunder, a storm on the horizon, and plans for an assassination on royalty. No doubt Cid is secretly geeking out right now). The match starts off epically with Iris instinctively backing away because she sensed her own death (in fact, we actually see her vision of death as she was decapitated). Iris tries to fight through the fear but every time she gets ready to make a move she keeps seeing her death (no matter how far away she is, his sword will reach her). She finally says fuck it and just lunges forward where Cid deflects the sword with his barehand and then pins her to the ground to win the match much to the shock of everyone (she couldn’t do nothing against him). While this is going on, Rose sneaks in prepared to do what needs to be done and kill her fiancé who is named Perv (I didn’t want to believe it either but that’s the name they’re going with). Perv uses Rose’s dad as a shield and with his last shred of consciousness tells Rose to do it and that he forgives her. Rose kills her father in front of everyone putting a wrench into Perv’s plan to use him as a puppet to rule the kingdom. As Rose gets ready to kill herself, Cid busts in and dawns his Shadow persona to stop her. This moment of intenseness gets ruined by Rose who reveals that she saw Shadow a long time ago. When she was younger she was kidnapped by some bandits and then saved by Cid donning a crappy disguise (well before his Shadow persona. We all gotta start somewhere). She fell in love with his swordsmanship which would inspire her to pick up the sword. Getting back to the situation at hand, Shadow tells Rose to go while he handles clean-up duty but Perv gets saved by Beatrix. Not because of some noble purpose, but because she wants to fight strong opponents (and Shadow is the strongest she’s ever seen. Scene here: https://youtu.be/zK3uXoviM2o).
In the final episode we get the fight between Shadow and Beatrix with Iris joining the fun to get revenge on Shadow (dancing with two ladies. I like his style). The three fight throughout the city moving so fast that they go unnoticed by everyone (except when they collapse a building). While that’s going on, Rose manages to get away safely but wonders what she should do now. Alpha approaches her and extends an invitation to join Shadow Garden (you got an invitation to join Shadow Garden from the woman herself. What an honor). Rose accepts and gets taken away (welcome to the shadows. Or garden party. Your choice). Back with Shadow, he does a great job battling Beatrix and Iris. Even going as far as using crowbars to fight them (it’s a very effective weapon in swordfights). One of the things I do like about this is Shadow always manages to keep it to a one-on-one fight. It never becomes a two-on-one fight (he’s in complete control of this fight. Controlling the tempo and everything) and even when it does it’s only for a brief moment. Not that it matters as Iris is only focused on taking down Shadow. She is so mad at Shadow for humiliating her that all she wants to do is beat him and nothing else. When Iris finally sets aside her ego to work with Beatrix, she tries to create an opening for her to take down Shadow only to fail. Shadow manages to counter their attacks and takes them both down to win (you get a C for effort). Despite losing Iris still runs her mouth saying that Shadow will have nowhere to run after this (you don’t seem to understand. He doesn’t need to run from you. You need to run from him). Shadow laughs at Iris’s remark and shows off just how strong he is before disappearing (scene here: https://youtu.be/tTYV4vdUdU0). After this, Shadow gets labeled public enemy number 1 in the kingdom (again) and Claire is declared the winner of the festival (seeing as Iris lost and Shadow is a wanted criminal). Beatrix takes her leave not finding her niece but still enjoying her visit. As for Rose, she gets taken to Shadow Garden’s HQ where she will be trained (scene here: https://youtu.be/5DA70lBRIbQ).
Final Thoughts
The Eminence in Shadow was way more enjoyable than I originally thought it was going to be. The storytelling is great, the fights are exciting, and I like how it doesn’t follow the reincarnation pattern we’ve seen in other animes. Cid/Shadow is such a fun and great character. One of the things that makes him so enduring is despite being this overpowered character at his core, he’s a huge dork. He secretly revels in creating these scenarios and lines you’ve seen a hundred times in other shows and enjoys doing them. In his mind they’re cool and he’s overjoyed that he gets to enact them the way he always dreamed of doing them because a part of you has always wanted to do them as well. You can’t help but enjoy his dorkiness and laugh whenever he gets to live out his fantasy scenarios. It’s also funny how his white lie at the beginning turned out to be so true (again, it’s like this anime is the visual definition of failing upward). I like how he’s not this hero seeking glory or the spotlight, but instead comfortable and content with being a hero from the shadows. He’s the true embodiment of an anti-hero. Not on the side of evil, but not entirely on the side of good either. He’s prepared to do what needs to be done and kill those that need to be killed. One drawback is the members of Shadow Garden don’t get focused on as much as we would like. They do get a moment to shine in the second half but I wish we got to see more of them and what they were doing while Cid/Shadow did his own thing. For the moments we got to see they’re definitely is a good dynamic in the group. Alpha has the respect and fear of everyone making her the perfect leader in Shadow’s absence, and the group is very well-organized. It’s obvious that there’s a lot of members within the group and they run like a well-oiled machine with and without Cid/Shadow’s presence. Surprisingly, outside of Cid/Shadow the characters that get the most spotlight are Alexia, Iris, and Rose. Alexia and Iris are so alike and yet so different. Both sisters desire power to protect what they love but when each one is confronted with how powerless they are they react differently. For Alexia, it motivates her to get stronger and reach their level. For Iris, it’s a nightmare and something she can’t accept. She’s been viewed as the strongest person out there so when she comes across someone stronger than her she’s in disbelief and believes they’re cheating to make themselves stronger. I look forward to seeing what they’ll do going forward and how their stories will unfold. Rose’s story is also good in that in order to save her kingdom she has to sacrifice everything including her relationship with Cid. Her joining Shadow Garden at the end was great and I hope Alexia joins her down the line maybe as a secret agent or something. Even Sherry’s personal vendetta against Shadow has me intrigued. In the end, there are a lot of possibilities for these characters and I’m looking forward to seeing what the future has in store for them.
Now as far as the world goes it’s nothing really all that special, but I like how there seems to be more technological advancement than in some of the other animes I’ve seen. This world seems to view technology as a means to help them with everyday life while magic as a tool for fighting. I did like Cid sharing knowledge of our world and the members of Shadow Garden recreating that knowledge for this world. So far it’s been harmless stuff but will he introduce them to stuff that could be potentially harmful? We’ll have to wait and see. Fight scenes are good but one-sided as Shadow Garden just seems to mow through everyone they fight. The best fight in the series so far is Shadow vs Iris and Beatrix. While Shadow was stronger it was nice to see some characters put up a fight and not go down so easily. The animation is decent. Nexus isn’t well-known for its animation but it does have a few moments here and there where it does look cool. Surprisingly, I did enjoy the music in this anime. Especially Shadow playing the piano.
Final Score
The final score for The Eminence in Shadow is an 8/10. Aside from wanting to focus on more characters within Shadow Garden this series really doesn’t have that many faults and is worth checking out. It’s one of the best isekais I’ve seen in a while and has become one of my favorites. This series is getting a second season down the line and it definitely deserves it. Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you next time on Project Nitsuj.