Im in a tough spot, on one hand I do not like him being such a dense motherfucker high off his own farts. Kinda makes him more unlikable in the face of all the genuine atrocities like kids blowing up into gore, assassination, kidnapping, human experimentation, and deflating things that could actually use the tension. Maybe if these attempts at looking cool actually backfired or made him look like a moron consistently to the other characters Id be more forgiving, ya know, like what most other self aware stories do. On the other it's not like Overlord, Slime, and Spider, which are just predictable power fantasies where they pretend that the main character is as/more interesting than the cast they hang around, and get away with their own atrocities effortlessly cause they're just, that powerful. The ideas that it brings here are genuinely fresh to me and the side characters getting to do stuff is really cool. Also you are an apologist for Bleach's terrible writing, not that it has to do with this, but...yaknow.
Finally, everyone is starting to appreciate this anime for what it truly is.. FUN!! btw you guys should definitely check out the manga, it's on a 'Last of Us' kinda arc..
I think the reason Cid doesn't realise it's all real is because he genuinely does not care whether it is real or not, dude's about one step off of being an actual psychopath.
I just figured Cid was too busy projecting is fantasy onto events to actually pay attention to what is actually happening to catch on that his made up story is actually relatively true. He may pay attention in the moment so that he can use the most dramatic responses, but after he has dealt with whatever group he is fighting he completely forgets whatever they may have said or done because all he cares about is his fantasy.
Except he does care, he cares immensely...that's the biggest problem with the show, Cid's inconsistency as a character. It was still a very fun show, but I can't help but think that parts of the source material didn't really carry over to the Anime as effectively as it could have. I think they missed a chance at making an all timer here, and instead made something that was just very good.
The man sat with his back to an open window for hours, saying the same line, on a chance one of his associates would turn up and be impressed he sensed their presence with his back turned and it worked.
@@walksanator 5 I believe, the atomic episode. When he set up his shadow room with the paintings and chairs. It's implied he waited there for hours by the light shift before Beta came.
He is actually strong enough to sense them though. The real issue is that he kept all that shit for years on the off chance this exact scenario occurred.
It was so funny when the bad guys were discussing if Mundane Mann might be part of Shadow Garden and one of the guys was just like: "No way. He's a guy."
i mean they are from cult, they know one of the requirements to be hero descendants is to be female, and cid are the only male on the shadow garden, and get power not from the hero descendants but because he train it himself...
@@genzo454 i heard that in the LN, it's explained that he KNOWS he can get delusional, which is why when he hears someone talking about the cult, he thinks he is losing it, lol. Bro KNOWS he is easy to gaslight, he said "my schizophrenia will NOT get the best of me" lol.
Another good way to describe this anime is with a comparison. Most would compare it to other anime. Not me! I go all the way! I can compare this show to the Arnold S. movie, Commando. Commando is SUCH an Arnie film. It's a COMPLETELY over-the-top action flick. Where Arnold's character, John Matrix, does shit NO HUMAN can do, and he does it regularly. Like it's just another day at the park. It's SO effortless, and corny, and ridiculous... but it KNOWS what it is and it leans into it fully. It doesn't take half-measures. It goes balls to the wall, and it never stops until the end. And it's SO much better BECAUSE of this. The Eminence in Shadow is very much the same.
@@gajaan316I have a headcanon that his main trait is actually being just super lucky, like if the series had a skill point system he would have dumped it all in luck. Every event he does is to the overall benefit of the world, even the most recent anime one can be spun to be a way to SAVE as much of shadow garden's power as possible.
@thunderspark1536 it makes a ton of sense if you consider that Cid/Shadow pre isekai was already pretty good at fighting, having mastered almost every martial arts. His OPness in the show is just him using his prior experiences to their limit (since it is clearly explained that because the martial arts of that world is underdeveloped and still secretive, there is no one who just uses the most effective part of a martial arts like him). I think his isekai power is reality or fate manipulation, similar to Takaba in Jjk, with just completely unaware of it
The first time I heard "I am Atomic" I almost suffocated from laughter, never in my life have I watched something that is both so fucking ridiculous and so epic at the same time
The delivery, the audio mixing, the genuinely stunning animation, the studio turned what should have been the moment of ultimate cringe into something absolutely god damn beautiful
I love how the manga shows the absolute calculated planning that goes into even the stupidest little mob moments, like how he has to bow at an angle of EXACTLY 90 degrees in order to make the mathematically cringiest love confession to Alexia.
The only down side of that Scene ... is that we'll never see he play the ultimate "Heart Broken Mob" scene, he had planned. The greatest Sin Alexia has ever committed!
IIRC it was actually 45, but who the fuck cares. I don't hide a body similar to Johnathan Joestar if he took up steroids, so I don't know the ways of hiding it.
I wish I had friends that I believed loved me enough to perpetuate and set up a conspiracy about a demon cult complete with snuff film actors whenever we hang out. Cid is truly loved.
Well, he did basically raise them. He saved the original group for a grotesque fate as monstrous abominations. At a certain point he’s at just the right age difference to be the edgy twenty something showing off and posing for the grade schoolers he baby-sits (he died at 18 years old or so and they’re probably 7-12 years old when he saves them). It actually canonically makes sense he’s not interested in any of them but finds Aurora hot- as a mid-late teenager, he’s actually late 30s and the girls he’s usually showing off to are just children in his eyes.
@@voidpunkprincess nah, he wasn't even attracted to Aurora, he only wanted to fight strong people, also Japanese authors rarely cared about the age of the characters, so it didn't matter. From what I've read so far, he has discarded anything unrelated to being eminece in shadow, including love, lust, and romance. He also once said he wasn't interested in the beauty of a woman like Alexia because he was accompanied by seven shades for several years, he got used to it and was actually more attracted to ugliness because of that.
I'd like to point out, as the anime really didn't cover this, that part of the reason why Cid still believes it's all an elaborate LARP is that he thinks he's become unable to tell apart his delusions from reality, so whenever he sees or hears something "confirming" that his bullshit was actually on the mark, he dismisses it as his being delusional. He simply thinks he's both the type of person who'd end up like that, and self-aware enough to recognize it and ignore it.
That is the best possible explanation an author could provide for that kind of character refusing to accept the increasingly obvious explanation for all the weird coincidences around him. It's hilarious, but pretty airtight. As long as his delusions are crazy enough, it makes sense that he'd assume evidence supporting them must be fake.
Honestly, one of my favorite early gags/character building moments is when Beta and Epsilon are having their oppai-off, the camera immediately tells you how normal and unremarkable this is by ignoring them in favor of some randos playing with a cat.
"Run? Who's running? Where? AND WHY?!" I love Cid so much, down to my being pretty sure his Shadow outfit is a mashup between Kirito and Lelouche on purpose.
Wait how did I not realize that before?!? Hell his abilities are literally a mashup of the two now that you've pointed out or to me. His skill with the sword and battle cheats are just as op compared to those around him as Kirito and his actions as a mastermind are comparable to lelouch even when he's making shit up as he goes because he's filtering out evidence he actually got the nail on the head years ago.
@@PrograError I mean now that it's been pointed out yeah that's pretty obvious but somehow I missed that for months despite reaching code Geass a couple times between the start of eminence of shadow and yesterday. Probably missed it because at this point I consider SAO abridged as the true SAO.
@@PrograError To be clear, I mean Cid is such a chuuni isekai dork that he himself designed his own clothing with that inspiration. It's not just visual character design, it's characterization.
@@PaladZerkGamerGF well, here’s my interpretation. A comedy will obviously need jokes in order to be a comedy, and as the protagonist is generally the person the series follows, the way they act will often be part of a joke. Sometimes they will joke intentionally, while other times the joke arises due to a combination of their actions and the situation around them. In this case, the joke is that the main character is just stringing together ideas that go along with his fantasies, but those ideas are actually real, but he still believes they are fantasy. Anyways, the main point should be that the way a main character acts should lead to jokes, whether deliberately told or as a result of circumstances.
They drive the jokes into the ground, though. My immediate thought is that they didn't need to beat to death Cid's stealing the Vampire Hunter's line for two or three full episodes, even reusing the same animation so goddamned much. He comes off as an ass, which can totally work, but when he's selectively unobservant to the point he misses an _artifact_ to the caliber of one that wreck the Academy, that's so fucking shoddy. The biggest problem with this show is Cid himself, but also the failure to even behave like a human and continuity issues.
@@Virjunior01 To be fair he is a chuuni psycho living his own fantasy, it would be weird if he even acted human. I expect him to eat human flesh as a gag
This show makes me even more upset that Arefureta and Master of Ragnarok got such crappy adaptations because the authors of those also understand the tropes and come back around to subverting them in interesting but completely different ways.
I think the "playing Moonlight Sonata in the sewer scene" is when this series goes from "dumb fun trash" to "dumb fun god damn masterpiece." Rose turns from a secondary character who's main role is comedy to being someone I was so invested in that I would genuinely watch a show where she is the protagonist. When he main arc gets rounded off in the Light Novel I totally forgot that what I was reading was supposed to be a dumb fun parody series because it was rounded out in the most genuinely satisfying and brilliant way. As soon as the "secondary protagonist" role switched to Rose it's like Aizawa really hit his stride and forgot that he was supposed to writing a dumb power fantasy
I honestly believe he wrote an actual fantasy story first. Because for everyone but Cid, this is just your troopy fantasy story. But throw in Cid and suddenly the story get's turned and scrambled. Et voila! Fantasy à l'ombre!
That's sort of the charm of the series. Cid is the ONLY person not taking it seriously, because he's both capable enough to not deal with any consequences, and insane enough to not realise what the fuck is actually going on. He just spouts random cool lines that seem like the right thing to say and somehow it always works out and makes Shadow Garden all the more effective, while everybody else is taking it as seriously as it deserves. The only time it seems like Cid ever actually gives a shit is when there's some villain he needs to make an example of, and even then it's unclear how much of the performance is "Cid is actually mad at this asshole" versus "Cid just wants to show off and be cool in this scenario".
It's because Eminence in Shadow is not a power fantasy, it's a solidly written fantasy action anime where one of the major POV characters just happens to be an OP but mostly clueless dude.
It really hit me with the best scene in the anime just when i was recovering from the reveal that the author named a character "Perv Asshat" and i was NOT ready for it.
Can we have a moment of applause for the crowbars? They're what really made that last episode perfect. Like a metaphor for situational awareness that rivals the anime itself.
@@mothersbasement I love how when he grabs the crowbars and is like, “I knew these had promise” he’s speaking of the crowbars but in the perspective of everyone else in serious-land it sounds like he’s trying to prep Iris and Beatrix for more powerful enemies.
The author really became the Eminence in Shadow when writing this. The genre? Background character A. The story itself? A multi-layered harem isekai power fantasy that's able to juggle multiple characters and their development while also parodying the very thing it is. This entire story is just him hiding his true writing skills under the guise of a generic isekai.
I love how everyone in real life thinks the author is a genius, when he only wanted to have a good time writing down his own Chuunibyou delusions. It matches perfectly with the story being told, to the point that no one is sure if it is "trash" anime or the best series of the last season (when it is both, at the same time).
@@SystemBD I agree with it being both. He's writing a story that can stand on its own two legs, while also being uncompromising on his fantasies and what he wants to write. It's like trying to create gourmet fast food. It takes a good amount of skill to do that, but in the end, it's still fast food - and I love it.
@@SystemBD He still needs to be a great writer to be able to make something like this. So he can be both "just writing his own fantasies and having a good time" AND a genius writer.
It feels as if they took a trashy clishe filled harem isekai fantasy and gave it to an actualy good writer to rewrite it, but without making any changes to the story and characters themselves.
I specifically remember him throwing a dagger at the map for the planned rescue and missing his target; the dagger lands in a random area where nothing their intel gathered points to. Coincidentally this turns out to be the correct location of the "secret tunnel" where his sister is being held captive.
@@tyronepogi3888I think the anime's change is even better then lol, a mistake turns out to be right rather than just coincidence, either is funny tho lol
The dub for this show is also pretty funny not just because most of the actors are very good and play up the funny bits but also because Cid's vo refuses to change his pitch much at all even as a baby or child which i think is hilarious
Two things: 1) I always assumed that Cid didn't take any of the hints of the Cult of Diabolos really existing seriously because he's aware that he's an End Stage Chunibyo and thus is aware that he's clinically insane. If this is true, then it stands to reason why he'll dismiss any evidence that the Cult he thought he invented YEARS before is real and he's fighting it at every step. "I'm just an insane chunibyo, of course I'll be hearing and seeing these things because they just fall in line with my fantasies, thus they're not real" is something you could expect from someone with THIS amount of trope awareness. In essence he's applying real world logic to fantasy land and failing to understand that fantasy land is ruled by chunibyo logic. 2) Can we talk about how he is pretty proud of "The Scream" painting he found on a raid? I thought he got it offscreen, but no. You can see it RIGHT THERE LEANING ON THE BOX WITH THE BOOZE OF THE CULT. That painting is in his possession longer than Alpha on her Elf form. I watched this anime in its entirety TWICE and even if small clips I can find new and exciting uses for the whole buffalo.
The man is role-playing so hard it's altering reality. I mean dude accidentally picked a point on a map, which happened to be where his sister was taken, and happened to find a secondary entrance that brought himself to the final boss, "because it would be cool."
that "crazy people don't think they are crazy so me thinking i must be crazy means i'm not crazy but i know that crazy people don't think they are crazy so me thinking i can't be crazy because i think i'm crazy and i know that means i am tricking myself into thinking i'm not crazy even though i am crazy unless i am not crazy and just think i am" weird logic loop is so fucking funny to me.
For that first point, I think that in source material, because we are privy to peoples thoughts, a lot more plot crucial details are omitted from debriefings Cid receive (for example when Nu gave report of fake shadow garden. She just mentioned that guy they captured was 3rd children without getting into more details since Shadow must already know this) . Therefore to Cid it sounds like people are just name dropping that organization he made up without many details around it.
It bears repeating that Cid is a man so committed to the bit he jumped in front of a truck on purpose to get isekai'd. An absolute madlad Edit: The good people of the comments let me know im mistaken and that he actually banged his head so hard while trying to develop magic powers that he stumbled in front of the truck, thinking the headlights were his powers manifesting. That's still some madlad energy
He didn't. He ran into the truck because his magic training failed and he was so desperate to find magic that he mistook car lights in the middle of the night for some kind of magic spell.
@@-FFFridge Cid ran into the truck because he repeatedly hit his head on a tree in pursuit of magic while training. Then he got a massive concussion/brain damage and saw the lights as his magic power manifested and ran toward them. He didn't run towards them because it failed, but because his brain was so fried that he mistook it as finally receiving his magic powers.
@@-FFFridge I'd have to rewatch the first episode, but i feel like i remember him being so desperate to have magic that he lept in front of the truck on purpose. That's how it looked to me at least through the animation.
The fact that he doesn't realize his adlibs are real while just trying to be a cool shadow monarch adds so much more comedy than if it was played straight and is a major reason its so memorable and good
I do love how he basically tries to be the Batman in his first life and realizes “prep-time” isn’t a good enough super-power, so he reincarnates and is literally able to live as Batman, but with magic….
@@HeilRay Daredevil also had a recent arc where he went to jail because he technically killed a guy, too. Never say never in comics. Unless you're Uncle Ben...
They don't know that he doesn't know and assume he's got it all figured out. Otherwise known as the Ainz Ooal Gown scenario, and oh gosh I love it every time it gets used.
And in both cases they got the physical skill to back it up so no one questions them. It's like Elon Musk in our world, if all he did was coast on his success and never opened his mouth except when carefully rehearsed, everyone would think he's a genius just because of his power. But obviously he doesn't have the sense presentation that cid does.
@@thunderspark1536 That is a very good way to put it, if you think back to Elon before the Child Sub incident, people (Myself included) thought this guy would be the one CEO who would be a hero and start making the Tesla Space X etc. Which is alot like Ainz and Shadow
The Joke about Cid not realizing his own conspiracy is real reminds me of the running joke in King of the Hill with Dale, the conspiracy nut who doesn't see the one actual obvious conspiracy before him of his wife cheating with John Redcorn. It's absurd and stupid. And I love it.
IIRC, he canonically does know about it, he just has decided that the best revenge is to be a good dad, while John will never get to hear his son call him "Dad". To quote a certain movie, "He may have been your Father, but he wasn't your Daddy."
Alpha commands the 7 Shades to never stand out to avoid being revealed as SG members. Gamma: *builds the statue of Shadow and 7 Shades in Mitsugoshi company* at 6:16
I love the secret sauce of of Eminence Everyone out there having thier entire kingdoms and worldviews shattered, being reduced to a literal puddle of tears and Cids just having a sociopathic goof. It's every RPG players weird little fantasy and it's a heckin great time
A hilarious detail I caught at the end of the series is when the credits roll on the final episode while the episode continues. Right after Rose has her name changed to 666, the credits pop up on screen and now her character's name is changed to 666 in said credits. I love how it plays right into her character development and how she truly was stripped of her name.
I noticed that too. Not knowing how to read the japanese, that 666 really stood up. That's her new identity, it's official. It's the small things that make something great.
The piano episode is so perfect, they spend all the time calling the sewers the labyrinth, then they show you the girls talking in stairs for the longest time, implying the place is found very deep beneath the city but you don’t pay attention to that cuz it just seems like another plot exposition to lower costs, then the piano part happens and now you are thinking how many floors he draw it trough a F*** labyrinth just to have that moment and you see the feathers flying and not longer is a edgy scene from any other isekai cuz now you are also thinking about he killing 1000 pigeons and blowing the feathers trough a smoke machine or something just in the name of coolness
I forgot about something, my god this 20 episode show has amazing passing, we goth 3 tournament arks, the cult of diablos, the boood witch, the attack on the school and perv asshat all that and all the girls with amazing arks also in 20 episodes!!! And nothing feels rush or draw just for the sake of it (the piano was and exception but at the end fix it)
@@space1734 having read the manga, it expands a LOT. there's a few scenes that hit harder in the manga, but especially the Sacred Ground stuff with Cid and Aurora is wayyyyyyy better in the anime.
I honestly love that there are so many characters in this story that could pass as the MC in their own story. Alpha, Aurora, Rose, Sherry, Claire, etc. All a bunch of MC-worthy characters stuck in a world where their thunder is taken by an isekaied psychopath
Funnier still is that he recognizes them all! And he helps some along because he thinks it will make for a better story and in consequence a better stage for his own shenanigans. He literally helps Rose only because she’s clearly a main character and he’s so exited about what her storyline in particular can give him as opportunities! But that wouldn’t work with Claire since his background persona is too close too her so he cannot help too much, lest he be involved in the wrong way.
I love how everyone working on the project got the joke and ran away with it Episode 20 was a throwaway chapter in the novel and manga, but the show expanded it into the thematic climax of Cids existence
I remember the first time I saw the "I am Atomic" I was a bit "bruh thats dumb" but I was vibing with the series. But on the the last battle that he faked it, I saw myself craving for him to do that...... did I become the cringe?
He didn't actually fake it, he just shot it into the sky, which is why before then it's raining and overcast, and afterwards it's a sunny day. He altered the weather with a magic explosion.
Honestly, a lot of people say that this anime is "so bad it's good" or "the worst show I can't stop watching" and all I can think is, "why do people say this anime is bad?" It has great animation, a great soundtrack, interesting, likable, and well written and characterized characters, great pacing, good comedy, and all around good concept, writing, execution. Personally, when I ask people why they think Eminence in Shadow is bad, almost all of them say "it's an edgy isekai power fantasy". It may just be me, but since when does that equate to an anime being bad by default? Yeah it's edgy and cringy, but this show proves that can be done right. Same thing with the fact that it's a power fantasy isekai. It just goes to show you can't lump everything into one category. I'm not saying this anime is legendary or a classic or anything (because it does have some issues) , but I just don't agree that Eminence in Shadow is a bad anime. I think this video was well constructed and, while I don't agree with everything, I completely agree with the overall point
Yeah it's like everyone is embarrassed to just say they think it's really good lol It's been weirdly underappreciated. Calling it fun trash ignores how well every single component of it works underneath the hood
@@daiselol Because the standards for this type of anime are so ungodly low that something which does it well seems almost miraculous. Just because this anime does a good job of being trash doesn't make it not trash though. Whether in parody or in earnestness this anime appeals to people who like big boobed women who have one central character trait, a protagonist who is overpowered that they can self-insert, plot points that follow industry tropes almost to a T, and familiar animation/art direction. This video doesn't say anything to the contrary, nor have I heard anything to the contrary elsewhere online. Its fun trash, it doesnt matter if its fun trash thats exceptionally fun. All that being said it should definitely be the go to trash anime that people watch over 80% of bad trash anime out there, the first one that comes to mind being Classroom of the Elite which I honestly think has 0 redeeming qualities and shouldnt be shown even to young adults.
I mean cid literally explicitly said he took everything out of himself and analyzed coldly what really was important. And chose a single thing he really cared about. It was not love Not responsability Nor honor either Not good or evil My dude decided that being a mastermind was the truly important thing in life. He's megamind.
In classic Mother's Basement fashion, I started this video, paused it, then watched the entire anime before finishing it. Now I've got this piano song stuck in my head...
Honestly, "The Eminence in Shadow" was just a fun anime for me at first. Its story was ordinary, and also many of the events and episodes had nothing to do with a story, and sometimes I felt that the anime had no specific story in the first place. But with the last a few episodes, especially the last episode, the level of the anime changed completely and became a really good anime, and even the fight that appeared at the end was amazing. That's why I always say: "Don't judge any anime if you haven't watched it to the end."
"sometimes I felt that the anime had no specific story in the first place." How could you possibly think that? Literally in the second episode they introduce the clear main plotline of the cult. The last few episodes didn't change anything about the level of the anime relative to what previous episodes did either.
@@tonightscake4127 I am sorry but is not. I started reading after the Kidnap of Alexia and the only thing you gain from the manga is to understand better what happened in the alley where Cid kill the guards. Comedy, Action and Drama wise the Anime beats the manga to a pulp with it's music and Voice acting (The bid with Skel being drag out make spit my dream 😂)
@@tonightscake4127 Manga fans always like discrediting anime adaption for no reason at all. The only department the manga was better than the anime was the comedy. I liked how the anime had a good mixture of seriousness and comedy and LN (Original Source material) readers liked it that way too.
This one was winking so hard at its chuuni/power fantasy inspirations that the wink vibrations took it straight through the cringe barrier to a new but incredibly funny dimension. A dimension not of sight or of sound but of mind-blowing. Cannot wait for the second season.
This is not a Harem Anime, it isn't even a Romance. Because Cid is already in a committed relationship with The Bit. He's a very dedicated partner Edit: I almost forgot the best part of this story, there's like a dozen panels in the manga where after Cid does or says something stupidly edgy, deeply fucked up, or just deeply stupid, the Narrator looks us in the eye and goes [Yes, this is our protagonist]
The fact Cid still somehow doesn't realise his bullshitting is based on real/historical fact really is one of the anime's comedic strengths. But I'd never really thought about how it means that Shadow Garden meanwhile is doing most of the plot heavy-lifting to keep dramatic stakes going. Like, I _knew_ they did, but it didn't completely register to me. And that is yet another strength, perhaps giving _everyone but the protagonist_ more relevance to the story.
except Alexia is seldom plot relevant after getting abducted, poor girl. She constantly tries and fails to be relevant, ending up getting condescended to by Beta and left in the dust by Rose. Someday, girl. Someday you'll get your chance!
@@dvillines26 I honestly feel like she's almost a parallel to Shadow. She saw what she could become and her journey is to work hard and eventually get up there, just like Shadow did. She constantly shows growth and I'm pretty sure at some point, she'll be stronger than Iris, which will hopefully end up as a wake-up call to Iris.
I am fascinated by the tech level in this anime. Most isekai just do the genetic medical European fantasy. It's a nice change of pace for it to be an industrialized pre electric civilization. I can't help but wonder how much of this is the influence of Shadow Garden. It would be rather fitting if Cid's actions changed the world on such a level. That said three years is a rather short time frame to rebuild the city like that. You mentioned guns, but the first one we saw was used by a random bandit against Cid before he met Alpha, and by extension Eta. That means they already had firearms. An interesting part is that this world's magic system doesn't like guns. Dark knights are effectively bullet proof if they have their guard up. Only a magic infused sword can harm them unless you catch them with their guard down or when they can't use their magic. If you tried to infuse a bullet with magic it would dissipate before it hit it's target. Granted that only applies to dark knights, regular civilians are just as squishy as the rest of us.
Midgar is not so different from FF7's Midgar. The leaders of the Cult refer to themselves as "Knights of the Round" as in FF7's strongest summoning materia. The footsoldiers call themselves 1st, 2nd and 3rd Children, like how SOLDIERS are divided into classes. Dark Knight is staple class in FF. Diablos cells are basically Jenova cells being studied by the same shady scientists. Though I guess Cid would consider Sephiroth a sellout for giving up the Eminence shtick in favor of becoming the final boss even if he's got the drip.
This was an anime that I was like "oh yeah, im going to hate this after like 5 episodes and drop it" and then here I am 20 episodes in wondering when the season 2 is coming out. It was fun.
What surprises me the most ... is that this is one of the Only Isekai Anime where the MC doesn't have a unique special bullshit power what so ever. - His Strength, Skills and Magic? Diligent training. - Slime Suit? Diligent Research and Development. - His Harem? Most of it is because of Alpha, actually. - All the cool shit around him? The Diligent Work, from the girls. - The Power to turn bullshit into reality? Isn't actually rarer to find a story where the MC talks about something and it doesn't happen?
And you know what's amazing they have a character that actually fit the description of isekaied protag , the dude with golden armor I always though he was pretty unique like super unique.he even have a special power 😆😆😆
I started Eminence in Shadow with my partner, and it was just us constantly losing it over how over the top and played so straight the story is, and for some god forsaken reason it is somehow really enjoyable and decent writing
the way i'm forever going to remember this show is basically the thought process i have every time it comes up; "that one mobile game crunchyroll advertised to hell but didn't actually have the streaming rights to, also what the hell is hidive"
@@jakespacepiratee3740 They don’t have the license for the anime, so they cannot stream it. But they licensed the game, so they can show what in it (which includes the anime cutscenes. Even cut dialogue from the anime, like the actual funny jokes and plot relevancy, cause they want you to play the game.)
@@Sonicdaniel123 imagine if someone pulls those removed scenes from the game and splices them back into the show to create the ultimate cut of this Anime lol
This legitimately was one of the funnest experiences I have had with anime in recent memory. With the 20+ anime I watched the last two seasons, nothing made me look forward to the next week like this. I am so glad it came out when it did, because I was personally super disappointed by Demon King Academy season 2. For some reason season 2 just didn't hit at all with me. Despite loving season 1.
@@mothersbasement I feel like something went wrong with the writing, it just wasn't there for season 2. I didn't engage with the characters at all. Until you mentioned it in a video I did not even realize the voice actor changed.
I agree with you both in regards to TEIS being my most looked forward to anime in the last 2 seasons but also I stopped watching Demon King Academy season 2. Season 2 is definitely worse and cant hold my interest enough to justify watching. I was pretty tired while watching it but I couldnt follow what was happening in episode 2 or 3 they just kept name dropping all these characters, things and events in rapid succession and its been some time since I saw S1. The writing is definitely off.
The real kicker for me is that Cid’s subordinates are all what “competent” Isekai protagonists are. They are either combatively unmatched or using other world knowledge to make their lives amazing-kind of the two main sub-genres of Isekai right there. Heck, Alpha is *literally* doing what Cid is *pretending* to do. But Cid isn’t interested in being a “competent” Isekai protag. He’s not even interested in the literal tsunami of consenting waifus crashing into him. Dude’s number one priority is his Live Action Roleplay. On one hand, that’s hilarious unto itself. On the other, this show has enough weird quality where I could see all that being a character arc or big plot point down the line.
Just binged the whole show because of this video. I agree with a lot of the points you made, Jeff. The world really does feel lived in, populated by characters with agency and motivations all their own. A small but notable example of this that you didn't mention was of the King (Iris's Dad). Like, he gets mentioned and named dropped several times throughout every arc and both his daughters are prominent. Yet that whole time, he gets brushed off as being "hands-off" in policy, as painted by said daughters. It seemed like a lazy excuse at the time. But when the King shows up with a speaking line of himself for the first time, his whole implied characterization is turned on its head. He is a level headed maintainer of peace and security for his people rather than a slave of the status quo; Iris is the one painted as immature for impulsive nature rather than him for his inaction. The lazy excuse, as with all the other tropes in Eminence, was actually just a way to take the audience's expectations to make a framework it later subverts to fantastic multi-faceted effect. And it doesn't just add to the characters, it adds a ton to the world as well. That one moment for me defined the shape of the board every piece was playing on on a global scale, which was so important to do given that final arc's turn towards international politics. But anyway, that's enough rambling for me. Thanks for the recc, I would never have given this show a chance if not for this video. Great work as always.
Oh and, one extra point about the King. That scene also really sold me on the way Iris's characterization seemed to shift over the course of that last arc. The audience starts the series exposed to her via Alexia's life in her shadow, which is obviously quite the biased view. And from then on we get only brief glimpses at her just trying her best to help however she can. Yet at the end of the show, she's unhinged and frustrated and screams a guttural cry of inadequacy, which felt so earned. So what changed? Nothing, because Iris was complex the whole time. The way she comforted Alexia, the way she labeled both shadow garden and the cult as her enemies immediately, the way she approached the threat of that monster girl thing that kept regenerating, even the fucking fluffy episode! The scene where Iris and her sister are trying on clothes that was definitely pushing the limits of how much I could tolerate the anime tropes, it was legitimate character moment for Iris looking back on it. Eminence is trash without a doubt, but it does so in a way that takes it as an opportunity to play around with the audience's perceptions and expectations it could never do without said trashyness as its core. So yeah, I totally agree with the thesis of the vid.
I never thought about how well TEiS builds its characters in the background until you mentioned it with claire and rose. Excellent analysis and it has given me even more appreciation for the show.
Yeah Cid's always come off as 1 step away from being a Psychopath. Especially when he's more concerned about experimenting on this weird creature he found after the bandit attack than showing concern for what it becomes. Also "I AM ATOMIC" is both one of the funniest and coolest things I think I've ever seen in an isekai.
Nah he’s fully there. On multiple occasions he sits back while people are suffering or dying because he’s waiting for the coolest entrance. Also he blows up two cities with atomic bomb magic. The dude has serious blood on his hands.
@@zigzag8392 he really doesn't give a fuck. Like seriously how many people has he killed, there's no where those 2 atomic bombs did nothing, sure the flood after the second did something.
@@zigzag8392 to be fair he only blew up a small portion of the first city like a neighborhood sized amount. The second one was in the water so he only flooded the city after it flowed into it from the explosion. Still pretty bad but not as bad.
And in manga, when he always show his greed, crazy ideas including using people as his research material with label "this is the protagonist". Hilariously cringe.
@@zigzag8392 I would say he's by a thread cause of Shirley , my guy didn't even wanna tell the truth to the girl cause well no way she would be ok after knowing what really happened
I kinna feel like the whole unaware bit is making the protag kun infinitely more likeable. Like, it doesn't matter if he knows whats going on or not, he puts his best effort into any role that comes his way, he is so into it, it makes it really fun to watch xD
Also, I just love how the anime plays with its own making process. The "camera" constantly changes focus to things other than the main plot, the audio mixing hides the generic and rehearsed fantasy dialogue behind screams of agony of a worthless gambler boy. Its amazing
@@shadowLurker4v The audio direction seals this as a great anime. It would be no where near as good and feel much more generic if the audio direction wasn't probably some of the best ever done.
@@shadowLurker4v I learned recently that constantly changing focus to things other than the main plot is not always a good thing. Tsukimichi Moonlit Fantasy in Season 3 does this and it does not work well at all.
I think for the plot hole that makes more sense (headcanon) is that these two groups existed without their current names, Cid adlibed so hard that both groups were like “hey that goes hard” and adopted it.
honestly as long as you realize its trash. saw someone compare eminence and monster as all time greats and its just like, sorry no you dont get to do that even if this trash isnt as nakedly self-indulgent as most others are
The Anime Pope has now blessed the most important anime out there, Haruhi be praised. I read this manga back when it first started, and it's one of the few pieces of written media that has made me laugh out loud, and at times laugh so much it hurts. So seeing it got the adaptation it deserves is amazing. And for our Anime Pope to preach it's good word to others is even better, so others may be inspired by it.
Cid constantly goes "Doing this is too norm... What should I do instead? Ahhh yes! They will never expect that! Applaud for my performance!"... He is essentially a lead performer at night, background character at day. It contrasts a double life considerably well and is done well. You can see him constantly thinking about this "Performance" during both day and night. To him, it's all about the performance... until he finds someone good enough to fight him, in which case he wants to have some fun. It's boring being the strongest, you see? This anime is very good.
This was the final push I needed to demand my friend watch this with me. We just got to 'I am atomic' tonight and I don't think I've laughed this much at an anime in a long time. Thank you for your continued trash sommelier service.
I unironically love the world development in this story. Even if you look at it outside the lens of "it's all due to the MC's will" it doesn't feel that artificial. Also like the "mystery" behind the girls as well. And Iris' personality
You forgot to mention that, unlike most of the "self-insert loser turns hero" Isekai MCs out there, Cid put in a LOT of effort to become OP. That's why he's a great character that we can truly support despite being cringe as fuck.
exactly! I find really really hard to believe that one who never even fought a person in his first life will be able to fight grandmasters in another world. Like if the enemy is stronger than for some reason the mc is more skilled and uses his brain as if the villain is a bumbling idiot. And if the villain is more skilled than the hero wins because he has an op system that has thr exact same power that can counter the villain😂
My standards are so low now that I'm just glad he's not shouty, whiney, or always running away from women to be honest lol. Well, at least not when his background character act does not call for it.
I had to think about a by now legendary quote from Megamind while watching this anime: "Oh... you are a villain. But not a super one." - "What's the difference?" - "PRESENTATION!" I think Cid has that point trained up to a T and hits his "role" mostly spot on.
It’s the kind of series that puts a stupid smile on your face and you have to give it some love for it, it’s pacing is also very smooth and I don’t feel it dwells on anything for too long or drowns you in the exposition ocean
Lol. “Kill not the part that makes you cringe, kill the part that cringes” Is honestly probably the most stupid and yet accurate statement I’ve heard in a while. We were all stupid once, realizing that is essential for growing up, but keeping the memories of your childhood alive. Remind yourself that when you see something cringy, that you were once in that position. This show gives me life. And I’m so glad it exists.
I tried sticking so hard to this line to force myself watching it, it was a bad cringe, not a childhood cringe but a ''the author wants to jerk of the protag and you're gonna watch him being jerked off'' kinda of cringe. I can easily watch some cringe ass shows normally, this show just make it too hard
I’m pretty sure the reason why Cid only thinks the Diabolos cult is a bunch of bandits is because when compared to his level of power, not many things can challenge him, and therefore when not many things challenge him, he probably just thinks they have the same power level, thereby making him think that there is no diabolos cult and that everything is just a bunch of bandits
im trying to do my homework and have this video play in the background, but the editing is so good that i keep getting distracted, and i think i might just watch this for half an hour rather than doing my german homework thats infront of me.
I absolutely love that reveal at the end of the season. Like, we knew it was bigger than cid imagined, but the sheer scale of just how much bigger was a fantastic punchline
The great part is, in the game we see Cid defeat and talk to the mist dragon protecting the ancient city, so he _knows_ what the girls planned to do with it, but being the absolute chuuni idiot he is he assumedly just brushes it off as "cool, I got to fight a dragon" and never bothers to check out the literal city-sized cult following him with unrelenting loyalty
@@hunterzero8 oh really? I uninstalled the game a while ago so I didn’t know this. I’m not sure how canon the events are, but the 7 shadow chronicles are unquestionably canon according to Aizawa
Just reminding me that I need to binge this entire show after watching it week to week. I was absolutely obsessed with this one as it was airing specifically because it knows exactly what it is and revels in it.
Cid was a guy so focused on gaining magical power to withstand a nuclear bomb, that he went into the mountains headbutting trees until he had a concussion, after which he jumps in front of a truck because its headlights looked like the source of magic or something to him. Needless to say I find it completely believable that he wouldn't catch on to the cult of diablos lol
The anime's story mostly focuses on Cid/Shadow but the mobile game's story focuses on the 7 Shades with their struggles to grow and develop Shadow Garden after parting ways with Cid/Shadow on episode 2 of the anime (tho the girls still came back to him occasionally to report their progress). Examples: 1. Who Lambda is 2. Ancient city Alexandria and Mist Dragon. 3. How Beta becomes the famous writer, Natsume Kafka. 4. How Gamma build her business from accidentally discover a tuna burger. 5. How Epsilon's pride almost killed her and how she became the wandering pianist, Shiron. There are many others too
And add into this unholy mix of seriousness and goofiness the dulcet tunes of Kenichiro Suehiro, the man who made the OST of Re: Zero, and BOY. 👌 Honestly, this is one of those ultra rare cases where the anime version far outclasses the source material. Take for example the now classic legendary cringe moment of I AM ATOMIC. In the novel it's impactful and cool (it is narrated from Alexia's perspective, and she is genuinely admiring Shadow at that moment), but the anime's collage of image, sound and Seichiro Yamashita's stellar delivery dial the whole thing over 9000. It's simply so trashy that it's so good. Like Cid's dedication to roleplaying, THAT is commitment.
10:35 And it's important to mention that now the kingdom economics is dependant of Mitsugoshi. If they wanted, they could vanish and make the entire economy collapse.
I've been reading the manga for this and even just the clips shown here make me want to watch the show cuz its clear theres even MORE insanity packed into the anime Cid being simulateously the Most and Least genre savy person in his isekai world is a feat of character writing I will never get over, its so good
This anime is the absolute perfect "turn off your brain and enjoy the epicness" series. It just caters and feeds off of young adults' power fantasy and chuuni vibes so much and I love it.
I don't fully agree I actually think that you have to have some level of brainpower to understand a lot of the jokes and that's why people are calling is bad
@@anotherwilliam9199 he wasn't being literal, he was implying to not think too much into the show and enjoy it for what it is. People are so hungry for shows that mentally bend their brains that they forget simple dumb fun like this exist. Obviously you don't have to put much brain power into understanding jokes when comedy doesn't take much effort to understand unless it's subtle or just that ridiculously clever where you gotta think about it for a min before laughing. People call the show bad because it's pretending to be bad, just like cid himself. So when people say *"'It's so bad it's good"* it's a play on words. Instead of them implying it's objectively bad but still entertaining, they're implying it's actually good but just acting bad on purpose.
It's also good to watch while actually trying to figure out the characters and world and figure out the what and why. Surprisingly deep, after the lovely enjoyable surface. As an aside I wrote it off on the first episode because of the tone and events. I watched a video that basically pointed out he has issues and that made it so much more enjoyable to watch.
Damnit I've seen and read the LN and anime twice and I didn't pick up that Cid used loot from cult to come up his starting Diablo story, lol you've made me consider a 3rd reading to see if there's anything else I've missed... This story shouldn't have this much depth to it...
Perv Asshat would be the best name in the series if not for a background character from the 5th light novel, Glup Shitto. Not only is his name obviously ridiculous, but it’s also a reference
Cid is so committed to his bit that it's hard to tell what he actually knows, what he thinks he knows, and what he's just cluelessly running with. There are parts of the story that even he couldn't believe are set up by Shadow Garden, like the stuff with the witch and the research center, or the takeover of his school. It's clear, to me at least, that he does know somethings about the stuff that is going on. Maybe even that the cult is actually real. But it doesn't really matter because fighting them is not his motivation, being cool and mysterious is. At no point will he ever admit to his ignorance, and the girls of Shadow Garden think so highly of him that there's no way anyone could convince them that he's been playing this whole time. This isn't the kind of story where that sort of dramatic reveal would make sense. Honestly it would be more amusing if at the very climax of the story, Shadow turns up at Shadow Garden HQ and starts immediately organizing the girls for the final battle, showing once and for all that no actually he knew everything the whole time, and it was us, the audience, that was the ultimate target of the gaslighting from the beginning.
With the parallels it seems one could draw between this series, and Trails (using worldbuilding and character writing in tandem to give a sense of immersion, plus what some would call Anime Bullshit (TM), demon pills being a plot point), it's no surprise I adore both. I would also say the anime brings some stuff to the table that the LN outright lacks, and am quite happy with the adaptation. Thanks for the video!!
I think it's interesting to note that the anime and manga actually have a lot of differences. All of the main plot points remain the same of course. But there's a lot of background changes. For one I do not remember the manga world being nearly as high tech, lacking guns, trains, and the high rise buildings and looking instead more like a normal fantasy world. For another, Shadow Garden's main heads didn't include nearly as many people. Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, and Nu. Cid also appears more aware of Shadow Garden being his organization from the shadows and is only ignorant of the cult. Iris also seems more aware of the situation than the anime portrays her where she's more singlemindedly focused on Shadow being the bad guy where in the manga she picks up on "the true enemy" Tldr, the manga has quite a few difference is how the world and characters are characterized compared to the anime
That's because the anime is based off of the LN. The anime is also taking minor liberties to move up the level of technology slightly and gives a little extra time to the characters who will become important later, (Zeta and Eta for instance don't really start showing up much until vol 5 from what I understand and Rose showed up a bit earlier.)
Because capitalism, Kadokawa want you to consume all the medium. Manga has more focused comedy, LN has all the details, Anime improve the serious stuff and have details that aren't in LN, while gacha has Cid monologue and Loli shadow garden
I live in a city called Melbourne in Australia. While Sydney may (barely these days), be the largest City in Aus. We're certainly a heart of culture. In the CBD we have an extremely iconic station, Flinders St Station. The main station used for the capital in TEIS looks identical to it. Which is really cool, as Melbourne was founded in the late 1800s. A new city, constructed when the industrial revolution was at it's height. Trams litter our streets, and that specific type of architecture you see in TEIS is all over the place. It was really interesting to recognize Flinders St Station and ask my parents about what Melbourne looked like when it was younger. Digging through photos, it's really similar. It's not appropriation at all, and it lead me to connect deeper with the city I live in (and love).
Thank you for putting words to why I enjoy this anime so much. It pulls off all the worst tropes in anime and I loved every second of it. It’s so self aware that it may have achieved enlightenment! Sure, Cid is unquestionably a psychopath, and I love this story. Don’t know if anyone can ever put themselves in Cid’s shoes, but this also feels just perfect
It's fully embraced the potential of Trash. Gorgeous. Also, can't wait to find out if Rose discovers Eminence is Cid at some point. Not made clear in the anime whether all the low tier members of Shadow Garden are made aware of Cid's identity.
At first I was just watching it because it was fun Isekai trash, then after episode 4 or 5 I was watching it because I was genuinely invested in the story and characters. Honest to god peak fiction.
When you started talking about the magic + technology, I genuinely got chills up my spine, because most just use tech to get bigger explosions, but I love the magic actually being used to fuel the tech, like the circuit board thing you showed.
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Im in a tough spot,
on one hand I do not like him being such a dense motherfucker high off his own farts. Kinda makes him more unlikable in the face of all the genuine atrocities like kids blowing up into gore, assassination, kidnapping, human experimentation, and deflating things that could actually use the tension. Maybe if these attempts at looking cool actually backfired or made him look like a moron consistently to the other characters Id be more forgiving, ya know, like what most other self aware stories do.
On the other it's not like Overlord, Slime, and Spider, which are just predictable power fantasies where they pretend that the main character is as/more interesting than the cast they hang around, and get away with their own atrocities effortlessly cause they're just, that powerful. The ideas that it brings here are genuinely fresh to me and the side characters getting to do stuff is really cool.
Also you are an apologist for Bleach's terrible writing, not that it has to do with this, but...yaknow.
You can keep your cool if you stay zen
god I loved this anime so much I can't wait for season 2
13:11 Imatry Nottalos during the final tournament was probably my favorite name.
Finally, everyone is starting to appreciate this anime for what it truly is.. FUN!! btw you guys should definitely check out the manga, it's on a 'Last of Us' kinda arc..
I think the reason Cid doesn't realise it's all real is because he genuinely does not care whether it is real or not, dude's about one step off of being an actual psychopath.
You know what that explains a lot
I just figured Cid was too busy projecting is fantasy onto events to actually pay attention to what is actually happening to catch on that his made up story is actually relatively true. He may pay attention in the moment so that he can use the most dramatic responses, but after he has dealt with whatever group he is fighting he completely forgets whatever they may have said or done because all he cares about is his fantasy.
He is an actual sociopath
Nah Cid is already psychopath
Except he does care, he cares immensely...that's the biggest problem with the show, Cid's inconsistency as a character. It was still a very fun show, but I can't help but think that parts of the source material didn't really carry over to the Anime as effectively as it could have. I think they missed a chance at making an all timer here, and instead made something that was just very good.
The man sat with his back to an open window for hours, saying the same line, on a chance one of his associates would turn up and be impressed he sensed their presence with his back turned and it worked.
Which episode is this
@@walksanator 5 I believe, the atomic episode. When he set up his shadow room with the paintings and chairs. It's implied he waited there for hours by the light shift before Beta came.
He is actually strong enough to sense them though. The real issue is that he kept all that shit for years on the off chance this exact scenario occurred.
No, he quite literally renovated the entire place for it, the dude tore out his wood floor and replaced it with stone
@@brz757 No it's episode 4, and you're right episode 5 is the Atomic ASMR!
It was so funny when the bad guys were discussing if Mundane Mann might be part of Shadow Garden and one of the guys was just like: "No way. He's a guy."
I found it funny too. XD
Even the background character realize that Shadow Garden is mostly Shadow's harem
That and perv asshat got me fuckin everytime!
I like how it actually made sense for them to assume so. That one line is backed by a whole lot of narrative, it ends up way funnier than expected.
i mean they are from cult, they know one of the requirements to be hero descendants is to be female, and cid are the only male on the shadow garden, and get power not from the hero descendants but because he train it himself...
I think the quote "literally gaslighting everyone including himself" is the perfect way to describe this anime
Even he wasn't a match for his incredible powers, it seems.
@@genzo454 i heard that in the LN, it's explained that he KNOWS he can get delusional, which is why when he hears someone talking about the cult, he thinks he is losing it, lol.
Bro KNOWS he is easy to gaslight, he said "my schizophrenia will NOT get the best of me" lol.
@@3bodYking99 “isn’t that right horrific mass of nightmares that appear every time I stop taking my meds”
Another good way to describe this anime is with a comparison. Most would compare it to other anime. Not me! I go all the way! I can compare this show to the Arnold S. movie, Commando. Commando is SUCH an Arnie film. It's a COMPLETELY over-the-top action flick. Where Arnold's character, John Matrix, does shit NO HUMAN can do, and he does it regularly. Like it's just another day at the park. It's SO effortless, and corny, and ridiculous... but it KNOWS what it is and it leans into it fully. It doesn't take half-measures. It goes balls to the wall, and it never stops until the end. And it's SO much better BECAUSE of this. The Eminence in Shadow is very much the same.
Wrong.
Cid's the kind of guy who'd genuinely say "I know you're here, you can stop hiding" whenever he enters an empty room, AND IT'S AWESOME
Heck he might say just out of nowhere and he'd STILL be right
He actually did just that at least 3 times in the story know just on a whim and there was actually someone hiding LMAO
@@gajaan316I have a headcanon that his main trait is actually being just super lucky, like if the series had a skill point system he would have dumped it all in luck.
Every event he does is to the overall benefit of the world, even the most recent anime one can be spun to be a way to SAVE as much of shadow garden's power as possible.
@thunderspark1536 it makes a ton of sense if you consider that Cid/Shadow pre isekai was already pretty good at fighting, having mastered almost every martial arts. His OPness in the show is just him using his prior experiences to their limit (since it is clearly explained that because the martial arts of that world is underdeveloped and still secretive, there is no one who just uses the most effective part of a martial arts like him).
I think his isekai power is reality or fate manipulation, similar to Takaba in Jjk, with just completely unaware of it
If bet money that exactly this happens at some point.
The first time I heard "I am Atomic" I almost suffocated from laughter, never in my life have I watched something that is both so fucking ridiculous and so epic at the same time
It's pronounced 𝒜𝓉𝑜𝓂𝒾𝓆𝓊𝑒~
@@qfqfsaa6558 I am still impressed that they made him speak in italics
@@Wawrzino "italic cursive" no less
The delivery, the audio mixing, the genuinely stunning animation, the studio turned what should have been the moment of ultimate cringe into something absolutely god damn beautiful
@@brandonhughes4076 the scene was so cringe it looped back around to based
I love how the manga shows the absolute calculated planning that goes into even the stupidest little mob moments, like how he has to bow at an angle of EXACTLY 90 degrees in order to make the mathematically cringiest love confession to Alexia.
The manga is going into a weird arc, but atleast our beloved Eminence is the same even in that setting.
The only down side of that Scene ... is that we'll never see he play the ultimate "Heart Broken Mob" scene, he had planned.
The greatest Sin Alexia has ever committed!
IIRC it was actually 45, but who the fuck cares. I don't hide a body similar to Johnathan Joestar if he took up steroids, so I don't know the ways of hiding it.
I dropped the anime because I was missing the explanations that came from the mc constantly inner monologging
@@kitsaimin9344 So you dropped the Anime because there wasn't enough exposition for you? I can only assume "show don't tell" is beyond you.
I wish I had friends that I believed loved me enough to perpetuate and set up a conspiracy about a demon cult complete with snuff film actors whenever we hang out. Cid is truly loved.
Well, he did basically raise them. He saved the original group for a grotesque fate as monstrous abominations. At a certain point he’s at just the right age difference to be the edgy twenty something showing off and posing for the grade schoolers he baby-sits (he died at 18 years old or so and they’re probably 7-12 years old when he saves them). It actually canonically makes sense he’s not interested in any of them but finds Aurora hot- as a mid-late teenager, he’s actually late 30s and the girls he’s usually showing off to are just children in his eyes.
@@voidpunkprincess Except Delta, Delta reminds him of his golden retriever.
@@term02 I mean he isn’t wrong , she does behave exactly like any random golden retriever lol.
@@term02 Delta is best girl
@@voidpunkprincess nah, he wasn't even attracted to Aurora, he only wanted to fight strong people, also Japanese authors rarely cared about the age of the characters, so it didn't matter. From what I've read so far, he has discarded anything unrelated to being eminece in shadow, including love, lust, and romance. He also once said he wasn't interested in the beauty of a woman like Alexia because he was accompanied by seven shades for several years, he got used to it and was actually more attracted to ugliness because of that.
I'd like to point out, as the anime really didn't cover this, that part of the reason why Cid still believes it's all an elaborate LARP is that he thinks he's become unable to tell apart his delusions from reality, so whenever he sees or hears something "confirming" that his bullshit was actually on the mark, he dismisses it as his being delusional. He simply thinks he's both the type of person who'd end up like that, and self-aware enough to recognize it and ignore it.
god he really is my idol, my inspiration, the thing we should all aspire to be.
Same as Tilea from Tilea's Worries, another misunderstanding comedy about a former Chuuni. Though compared to TEIS's writing, it's a lot rougher.
Oh shit that makes a little bit more sense now
So he knows he's susceptiable to conspiracy theories, so he automatically think it's all bs despite how believable they are.
That is the best possible explanation an author could provide for that kind of character refusing to accept the increasingly obvious explanation for all the weird coincidences around him. It's hilarious, but pretty airtight. As long as his delusions are crazy enough, it makes sense that he'd assume evidence supporting them must be fake.
Honestly, one of my favorite early gags/character building moments is when Beta and Epsilon are having their oppai-off, the camera immediately tells you how normal and unremarkable this is by ignoring them in favor of some randos playing with a cat.
NGL, my impression of that scene was them metaphorically lamp-shading the male gaze, but that might be a bit too based to have been intentional.
@@rahzaelfoe3288 I hope it was.
"Run? Who's running? Where? AND WHY?!" I love Cid so much, down to my being pretty sure his Shadow outfit is a mashup between Kirito and Lelouche on purpose.
Wait how did I not realize that before?!? Hell his abilities are literally a mashup of the two now that you've pointed out or to me. His skill with the sword and battle cheats are just as op compared to those around him as Kirito and his actions as a mastermind are comparable to lelouch even when he's making shit up as he goes because he's filtering out evidence he actually got the nail on the head years ago.
pretty sure those are the inspiration, since those are older popular series...
@@PrograError I mean now that it's been pointed out yeah that's pretty obvious but somehow I missed that for months despite reaching code Geass a couple times between the start of eminence of shadow and yesterday. Probably missed it because at this point I consider SAO abridged as the true SAO.
@@PrograError To be clear, I mean Cid is such a chuuni isekai dork that he himself designed his own clothing with that inspiration. It's not just visual character design, it's characterization.
*“Run? Who’s Running? Running where? AND WHY!”* dEMONIC ECHOING VOICE
I may or may not have called it "Eminem in Shadow" due to the strong lyricism of the protagonist.
The real Eminence in Shady
will the real Cid Shady please stand up
We're gonna have a misunderstanding here
He's Slim Shadow the real Slim Shadow
I wouldn't be surprised if Eminem did something like Cid.
The greatest writing advice I've ever received: "If your series is a comedy, then your protagonist is a comedian, whether he knows it or not."
Can you elaborate on that please?
@@PaladZerkGamerGF well, here’s my interpretation. A comedy will obviously need jokes in order to be a comedy, and as the protagonist is generally the person the series follows, the way they act will often be part of a joke. Sometimes they will joke intentionally, while other times the joke arises due to a combination of their actions and the situation around them. In this case, the joke is that the main character is just stringing together ideas that go along with his fantasies, but those ideas are actually real, but he still believes they are fantasy. Anyways, the main point should be that the way a main character acts should lead to jokes, whether deliberately told or as a result of circumstances.
You spelled clown wrong
They drive the jokes into the ground, though. My immediate thought is that they didn't need to beat to death Cid's stealing the Vampire Hunter's line for two or three full episodes, even reusing the same animation so goddamned much.
He comes off as an ass, which can totally work, but when he's selectively unobservant to the point he misses an _artifact_ to the caliber of one that wreck the Academy, that's so fucking shoddy.
The biggest problem with this show is Cid himself, but also the failure to even behave like a human and continuity issues.
@@Virjunior01 To be fair he is a chuuni psycho living his own fantasy, it would be weird if he even acted human. I expect him to eat human flesh as a gag
"Perfect genre awareness, and total situational ignorance" perfectly describes it
This show makes me even more upset that Arefureta and Master of Ragnarok got such crappy adaptations because the authors of those also understand the tropes and come back around to subverting them in interesting but completely different ways.
@@Steelblaidd the first season of Arefureta was good but the second total trash ;C
@@MrZockHDThe books were sooo so much better.
A good friend will LARP with you but it takes a truly great one to hire actors that are totally okay with being murdered to play the bad guys.
To be fair, he thinks THOSE are just oddly strong bandits. Still nice of his friends to keep LARPing for him in the situation, though.
I think the "playing Moonlight Sonata in the sewer scene" is when this series goes from "dumb fun trash" to "dumb fun god damn masterpiece." Rose turns from a secondary character who's main role is comedy to being someone I was so invested in that I would genuinely watch a show where she is the protagonist. When he main arc gets rounded off in the Light Novel I totally forgot that what I was reading was supposed to be a dumb fun parody series because it was rounded out in the most genuinely satisfying and brilliant way. As soon as the "secondary protagonist" role switched to Rose it's like Aizawa really hit his stride and forgot that he was supposed to writing a dumb power fantasy
I honestly believe he wrote an actual fantasy story first. Because for everyone but Cid, this is just your troopy fantasy story. But throw in Cid and suddenly the story get's turned and scrambled. Et voila! Fantasy à l'ombre!
That's sort of the charm of the series. Cid is the ONLY person not taking it seriously, because he's both capable enough to not deal with any consequences, and insane enough to not realise what the fuck is actually going on. He just spouts random cool lines that seem like the right thing to say and somehow it always works out and makes Shadow Garden all the more effective, while everybody else is taking it as seriously as it deserves. The only time it seems like Cid ever actually gives a shit is when there's some villain he needs to make an example of, and even then it's unclear how much of the performance is "Cid is actually mad at this asshole" versus "Cid just wants to show off and be cool in this scenario".
It's because Eminence in Shadow is not a power fantasy, it's a solidly written fantasy action anime where one of the major POV characters just happens to be an OP but mostly clueless dude.
It really hit me with the best scene in the anime just when i was recovering from the reveal that the author named a character "Perv Asshat" and i was NOT ready for it.
Can we have a moment of applause for the crowbars? They're what really made that last episode perfect. Like a metaphor for situational awareness that rivals the anime itself.
It was so fuckin hype when he caught the sword with the bar
It's also such a nice a callback to the first episode where he fights with two crowbars, back in his original world.
@@mothersbasement I love how when he grabs the crowbars and is like, “I knew these had promise” he’s speaking of the crowbars but in the perspective of everyone else in serious-land it sounds like he’s trying to prep Iris and Beatrix for more powerful enemies.
@@Hablamannen “the Hero’s Journey” but in reverse. And a nice open and close for a perfect 1st arc.
Someone mentioned my man became nightwing with the dual wielding crowbars
The author really became the Eminence in Shadow when writing this. The genre? Background character A. The story itself? A multi-layered harem isekai power fantasy that's able to juggle multiple characters and their development while also parodying the very thing it is. This entire story is just him hiding his true writing skills under the guise of a generic isekai.
as expected of Shadow-sama
I love how everyone in real life thinks the author is a genius, when he only wanted to have a good time writing down his own Chuunibyou delusions. It matches perfectly with the story being told, to the point that no one is sure if it is "trash" anime or the best series of the last season (when it is both, at the same time).
@@SystemBD I agree with it being both. He's writing a story that can stand on its own two legs, while also being uncompromising on his fantasies and what he wants to write. It's like trying to create gourmet fast food. It takes a good amount of skill to do that, but in the end, it's still fast food - and I love it.
@@SystemBD He still needs to be a great writer to be able to make something like this. So he can be both "just writing his own fantasies and having a good time" AND a genius writer.
It feels as if they took a trashy clishe filled harem isekai fantasy and gave it to an actualy good writer to rewrite it, but without making any changes to the story and characters themselves.
I specifically remember him throwing a dagger at the map for the planned rescue and missing his target; the dagger lands in a random area where nothing their intel gathered points to. Coincidentally this turns out to be the correct location of the "secret tunnel" where his sister is being held captive.
Not to mention he missed where he was aiming.
@@langadube9611"throwing a dagger for the planned rescue and missing his target"
In the light novel he wasn't actually aiming at anything he just threw the knife at a random location
@@tyronepogi3888I think the anime's change is even better then lol, a mistake turns out to be right rather than just coincidence, either is funny tho lol
He’s that asshat who breaks the plot but keeps rolling Nat 20
The dub for this show is also pretty funny not just because most of the actors are very good and play up the funny bits but also because Cid's vo refuses to change his pitch much at all even as a baby or child which i think is hilarious
The shitting his pants scene was even funnier in the dub TBH
I died hearing him cry as a baby in the dub
still "i am atomic" scene is weak af compared to og
@@seiyuuvoice I think that's less because of the VO and more the lack of the same effects that added so much to OG. Otherwise yeah I totally agree.
Two things:
1) I always assumed that Cid didn't take any of the hints of the Cult of Diabolos really existing seriously because he's aware that he's an End Stage Chunibyo and thus is aware that he's clinically insane. If this is true, then it stands to reason why he'll dismiss any evidence that the Cult he thought he invented YEARS before is real and he's fighting it at every step.
"I'm just an insane chunibyo, of course I'll be hearing and seeing these things because they just fall in line with my fantasies, thus they're not real" is something you could expect from someone with THIS amount of trope awareness. In essence he's applying real world logic to fantasy land and failing to understand that fantasy land is ruled by chunibyo logic.
2) Can we talk about how he is pretty proud of "The Scream" painting he found on a raid? I thought he got it offscreen, but no. You can see it RIGHT THERE LEANING ON THE BOX WITH THE BOOZE OF THE CULT. That painting is in his possession longer than Alpha on her Elf form. I watched this anime in its entirety TWICE and even if small clips I can find new and exciting uses for the whole buffalo.
The man is role-playing so hard it's altering reality. I mean dude accidentally picked a point on a map, which happened to be where his sister was taken, and happened to find a secondary entrance that brought himself to the final boss, "because it would be cool."
that "crazy people don't think they are crazy so me thinking i must be crazy means i'm not crazy but i know that crazy people don't think they are crazy so me thinking i can't be crazy because i think i'm crazy and i know that means i am tricking myself into thinking i'm not crazy even though i am crazy unless i am not crazy and just think i am" weird logic loop is so fucking funny to me.
@@abiean222 It's a weird variation of the Catch22.
Worth a rewatch then, thanks. I'm actually coming to agree with point 1. He seems logical enough.
For that first point, I think that in source material, because we are privy to peoples thoughts, a lot more plot crucial details are omitted from debriefings Cid receive (for example when Nu gave report of fake shadow garden. She just mentioned that guy they captured was 3rd children without getting into more details since Shadow must already know this) . Therefore to Cid it sounds like people are just name dropping that organization he made up without many details around it.
It bears repeating that Cid is a man so committed to the bit he jumped in front of a truck on purpose to get isekai'd. An absolute madlad
Edit: The good people of the comments let me know im mistaken and that he actually banged his head so hard while trying to develop magic powers that he stumbled in front of the truck, thinking the headlights were his powers manifesting. That's still some madlad energy
He didn't. He ran into the truck because his magic training failed and he was so desperate to find magic that he mistook car lights in the middle of the night for some kind of magic spell.
@@-FFFridge it would not suprise me that he isekai'd himself
@@-FFFridge Cid ran into the truck because he repeatedly hit his head on a tree in pursuit of magic while training. Then he got a massive concussion/brain damage and saw the lights as his magic power manifested and ran toward them. He didn't run towards them because it failed, but because his brain was so fried that he mistook it as finally receiving his magic powers.
@@-FFFridge I'd have to rewatch the first episode, but i feel like i remember him being so desperate to have magic that he lept in front of the truck on purpose. That's how it looked to me at least through the animation.
@@TheBraedon2 nah mate I just finished reading the manga and bro still thinks too this day that those were magic lights LOL.
The fact that he doesn't realize his adlibs are real while just trying to be a cool shadow monarch adds so much more comedy than if it was played straight and is a major reason its so memorable and good
I do love how he basically tries to be the Batman in his first life and realizes “prep-time” isn’t a good enough super-power, so he reincarnates and is literally able to live as Batman, but with magic….
I imagine if they were allowed to reference DC and Marvel Cid would be saying stuff that batman and daredevil would say
@@Kai_Mercer The irony being that he then murders people, something neither Batman nor Daredevil would ever do.
@@SomeRandomJackAss exactly
@SomeRandomJackAss
Batman kills now. He is just a rich massive hypocrite about it
@@HeilRay Daredevil also had a recent arc where he went to jail because he technically killed a guy, too. Never say never in comics. Unless you're Uncle Ben...
They don't know that he doesn't know and assume he's got it all figured out.
Otherwise known as the Ainz Ooal Gown scenario, and oh gosh I love it every time it gets used.
And in both cases they got the physical skill to back it up so no one questions them.
It's like Elon Musk in our world, if all he did was coast on his success and never opened his mouth except when carefully rehearsed, everyone would think he's a genius just because of his power.
But obviously he doesn't have the sense presentation that cid does.
@@thunderspark1536 That is a very good way to put it, if you think back to Elon before the Child Sub incident, people (Myself included) thought this guy would be the one CEO who would be a hero and start making the Tesla Space X etc.
Which is alot like Ainz and Shadow
The Joke about Cid not realizing his own conspiracy is real reminds me of the running joke in King of the Hill with Dale, the conspiracy nut who doesn't see the one actual obvious conspiracy before him of his wife cheating with John Redcorn. It's absurd and stupid. And I love it.
IIRC, he canonically does know about it, he just has decided that the best revenge is to be a good dad, while John will never get to hear his son call him "Dad". To quote a certain movie, "He may have been your Father, but he wasn't your Daddy."
@@Crazael that's actually pretty clever and wholesome
@@Crazael It is a revenge that was served tundra cold to Redcorn.
Alpha commands the 7 Shades to never stand out to avoid being revealed as SG members.
Gamma: *builds the statue of Shadow and 7 Shades in Mitsugoshi company* at 6:16
Freakin makes the giant statue in Alexandria seem subtle.
@@collecter343 also the enemies of SG be like:
*Blind to the oblivious clue*
How did i not notice that?
OMEGALUL
and somehow nobody bats an eye
I love the secret sauce of of Eminence
Everyone out there having thier entire kingdoms and worldviews shattered, being reduced to a literal puddle of tears and Cids just having a sociopathic goof. It's every RPG players weird little fantasy and it's a heckin great time
yep hes destroying livelihoods and shit and hes like" welp time to get badk to being background chara A-kun i guess".
Cid has the same appeal as Palpatine from Star Wars, except you can root for him without feeling guilty.
A hilarious detail I caught at the end of the series is when the credits roll on the final episode while the episode continues. Right after Rose has her name changed to 666, the credits pop up on screen and now her character's name is changed to 666 in said credits. I love how it plays right into her character development and how she truly was stripped of her name.
I noticed that too. Not knowing how to read the japanese, that 666 really stood up. That's her new identity, it's official. It's the small things that make something great.
The show is so full of small details it has to be watched more than once to catch them.
Cid is the physical embodiment of what makes a villain a SUPER one.
PRESENTATION!
YYEEESSSS!!!!
Fax
The truth has been spoken!!!
Cringe
Hehehe. Mega reference you got there! I bet you have a sharp Mind to come up with it ^^
"I gotta poop" gotta be the most relatable anime quote.
*When you gotta go, you gotta go*
took me a solid minute to click on the like button on this comment because I was laughing too hard.
The piano episode is so perfect, they spend all the time calling the sewers the labyrinth, then they show you the girls talking in stairs for the longest time, implying the place is found very deep beneath the city but you don’t pay attention to that cuz it just seems like another plot exposition to lower costs, then the piano part happens and now you are thinking how many floors he draw it trough a F*** labyrinth just to have that moment and you see the feathers flying and not longer is a edgy scene from any other isekai cuz now you are also thinking about he killing 1000 pigeons and blowing the feathers trough a smoke machine or something just in the name of coolness
He manage to turn the most draw on episode into a genius plot that was being show from the start and we only have the conclusion at the end… Bravo 👏🏻
I forgot about something, my god this 20 episode show has amazing passing, we goth 3 tournament arks, the cult of diablos, the boood witch, the attack on the school and perv asshat all that and all the girls with amazing arks also in 20 episodes!!! And nothing feels rush or draw just for the sake of it (the piano was and exception but at the end fix it)
Yeeees the pigeons! Will somebody will think of the Pigeons!?!? 😢
@@conejonegro957 heard it only adapted 2 volumes, which is rare.
@@space1734 having read the manga, it expands a LOT. there's a few scenes that hit harder in the manga, but especially the Sacred Ground stuff with Cid and Aurora is wayyyyyyy better in the anime.
I honestly love that there are so many characters in this story that could pass as the MC in their own story. Alpha, Aurora, Rose, Sherry, Claire, etc. All a bunch of MC-worthy characters stuck in a world where their thunder is taken by an isekaied psychopath
Funnier still is that he recognizes them all! And he helps some along because he thinks it will make for a better story and in consequence a better stage for his own shenanigans. He literally helps Rose only because she’s clearly a main character and he’s so exited about what her storyline in particular can give him as opportunities!
But that wouldn’t work with Claire since his background persona is too close too her so he cannot help too much, lest he be involved in the wrong way.
@@OscarGomez-hg8cb Even with that, he still encourages her as much as he can.
Cid literally just doesn't care about the plot in his own show 😭
Bro saw the amount of LN written so far, said "i aint readin all that" and does whatever the hell he wants
I love how everyone working on the project got the joke and ran away with it
Episode 20 was a throwaway chapter in the novel and manga, but the show expanded it into the thematic climax of Cids existence
The sound design team is literally called
THE SHADOW GARDEN
I remember the first time I saw the "I am Atomic" I was a bit "bruh thats dumb" but I was vibing with the series.
But on the the last battle that he faked it, I saw myself craving for him to do that...... did I become the cringe?
Everyone has that tiny pieces of personality hidden underneath, just need to find the trigger...
Xxx_3mbr4c3_th3_cr1ng3_xxX 😜
He didn't actually fake it, he just shot it into the sky, which is why before then it's raining and overcast, and afterwards it's a sunny day. He altered the weather with a magic explosion.
@@Azzaciel How did I miss that lol, that's amazing
@@tomc.5704 He even gave a fun verbal hint about it. He called it sky-rending.
Honestly, a lot of people say that this anime is "so bad it's good" or "the worst show I can't stop watching" and all I can think is, "why do people say this anime is bad?" It has great animation, a great soundtrack, interesting, likable, and well written and characterized characters, great pacing, good comedy, and all around good concept, writing, execution. Personally, when I ask people why they think Eminence in Shadow is bad, almost all of them say "it's an edgy isekai power fantasy". It may just be me, but since when does that equate to an anime being bad by default? Yeah it's edgy and cringy, but this show proves that can be done right. Same thing with the fact that it's a power fantasy isekai. It just goes to show you can't lump everything into one category. I'm not saying this anime is legendary or a classic or anything (because it does have some issues) , but I just don't agree that Eminence in Shadow is a bad anime.
I think this video was well constructed and, while I don't agree with everything, I completely agree with the overall point
It’s so good at pretending to be bad people think it is. Just like the eminence himself
Yeah it's like everyone is embarrassed to just say they think it's really good lol
It's been weirdly underappreciated. Calling it fun trash ignores how well every single component of it works underneath the hood
I think because it "simulates" the so bad its good anime
Speaking facts
@@daiselol Because the standards for this type of anime are so ungodly low that something which does it well seems almost miraculous. Just because this anime does a good job of being trash doesn't make it not trash though. Whether in parody or in earnestness this anime appeals to people who like big boobed women who have one central character trait, a protagonist who is overpowered that they can self-insert, plot points that follow industry tropes almost to a T, and familiar animation/art direction. This video doesn't say anything to the contrary, nor have I heard anything to the contrary elsewhere online. Its fun trash, it doesnt matter if its fun trash thats exceptionally fun. All that being said it should definitely be the go to trash anime that people watch over 80% of bad trash anime out there, the first one that comes to mind being Classroom of the Elite which I honestly think has 0 redeeming qualities and shouldnt be shown even to young adults.
“Chekkumeito-da, Athiest-tachi!” is probably the weebiest thing I’ve ever heard, and I will cherish it forever. 🥰🥰🥰
As agnostic, i'am envious but also cringing.
I mean cid literally explicitly said he took everything out of himself and analyzed coldly what really was important.
And chose a single thing he really cared about.
It was not love
Not responsability
Nor honor either
Not good or evil
My dude decided that being a mastermind was the truly important thing in life.
He's megamind.
In classic Mother's Basement fashion, I started this video, paused it, then watched the entire anime before finishing it. Now I've got this piano song stuck in my head...
Honestly, "The Eminence in Shadow" was just a fun anime for me at first. Its story was ordinary, and also many of the events and episodes had nothing to do with a story, and sometimes I felt that the anime had no specific story in the first place. But with the last a few episodes, especially the last episode, the level of the anime changed completely and became a really good anime, and even the fight that appeared at the end was amazing.
That's why I always say: "Don't judge any anime if you haven't watched it to the end."
Wait til I tell you the manga is even better!
"sometimes I felt that the anime had no specific story in the first place."
How could you possibly think that? Literally in the second episode they introduce the clear main plotline of the cult.
The last few episodes didn't change anything about the level of the anime relative to what previous episodes did either.
@@tonightscake4127 I am sorry but is not.
I started reading after the Kidnap of Alexia and the only thing you gain from the manga is to understand better what happened in the alley where Cid kill the guards.
Comedy, Action and Drama wise the Anime beats the manga to a pulp with it's music and Voice acting (The bid with Skel being drag out make spit my dream 😂)
@@firesong7825 people just be saying anything man💀
@@tonightscake4127 Manga fans always like discrediting anime adaption for no reason at all. The only department the manga was better than the anime was the comedy. I liked how the anime had a good mixture of seriousness and comedy and LN (Original Source material) readers liked it that way too.
This one was winking so hard at its chuuni/power fantasy inspirations that the wink vibrations took it straight through the cringe barrier to a new but incredibly funny dimension. A dimension not of sight or of sound but of mind-blowing. Cannot wait for the second season.
I liked how in the final episode, when Iris told him to not run, he was actually OFFENDED.
This is not a Harem Anime, it isn't even a Romance. Because Cid is already in a committed relationship with The Bit. He's a very dedicated partner
Edit: I almost forgot the best part of this story, there's like a dozen panels in the manga where after Cid does or says something stupidly edgy, deeply fucked up, or just deeply stupid, the Narrator looks us in the eye and goes [Yes, this is our protagonist]
Cid is not merely volcel. He is Perfect Cel
"I AM THE STYLISH BANDIT SLAYER!! GIMME ALL YOUR GOLD"
[Our protagonist]
usually the manga does that gag when Cid goes psycho for the bit
The Eminence in Shadow is to Isekai, like how One Punch Man is to Shounen Action.
They do their genre well while satirizing it.
This show gives me everything I need since one punch man season 3 doesn't want to come out any time soon
The fact Cid still somehow doesn't realise his bullshitting is based on real/historical fact really is one of the anime's comedic strengths. But I'd never really thought about how it means that Shadow Garden meanwhile is doing most of the plot heavy-lifting to keep dramatic stakes going. Like, I _knew_ they did, but it didn't completely register to me. And that is yet another strength, perhaps giving _everyone but the protagonist_ more relevance to the story.
except Alexia is seldom plot relevant after getting abducted, poor girl. She constantly tries and fails to be relevant, ending up getting condescended to by Beta and left in the dust by Rose. Someday, girl. Someday you'll get your chance!
@@dvillines26 I honestly feel like she's almost a parallel to Shadow. She saw what she could become and her journey is to work hard and eventually get up there, just like Shadow did. She constantly shows growth and I'm pretty sure at some point, she'll be stronger than Iris, which will hopefully end up as a wake-up call to Iris.
I am fascinated by the tech level in this anime. Most isekai just do the genetic medical European fantasy. It's a nice change of pace for it to be an industrialized pre electric civilization. I can't help but wonder how much of this is the influence of Shadow Garden. It would be rather fitting if Cid's actions changed the world on such a level. That said three years is a rather short time frame to rebuild the city like that.
You mentioned guns, but the first one we saw was used by a random bandit against Cid before he met Alpha, and by extension Eta. That means they already had firearms. An interesting part is that this world's magic system doesn't like guns. Dark knights are effectively bullet proof if they have their guard up. Only a magic infused sword can harm them unless you catch them with their guard down or when they can't use their magic. If you tried to infuse a bullet with magic it would dissipate before it hit it's target. Granted that only applies to dark knights, regular civilians are just as squishy as the rest of us.
Midgar is not so different from FF7's Midgar. The leaders of the Cult refer to themselves as "Knights of the Round" as in FF7's strongest summoning materia. The footsoldiers call themselves 1st, 2nd and 3rd Children, like how SOLDIERS are divided into classes. Dark Knight is staple class in FF. Diablos cells are basically Jenova cells being studied by the same shady scientists. Though I guess Cid would consider Sephiroth a sellout for giving up the Eminence shtick in favor of becoming the final boss even if he's got the drip.
This was an anime that I was like "oh yeah, im going to hate this after like 5 episodes and drop it" and then here I am 20 episodes in wondering when the season 2 is coming out. It was fun.
What surprises me the most ... is that this is one of the Only Isekai Anime where the MC doesn't have a unique special bullshit power what so ever.
- His Strength, Skills and Magic? Diligent training.
- Slime Suit? Diligent Research and Development.
- His Harem? Most of it is because of Alpha, actually.
- All the cool shit around him? The Diligent Work, from the girls.
- The Power to turn bullshit into reality? Isn't actually rarer to find a story where the MC talks about something and it doesn't happen?
And you know what's amazing they have a character that actually fit the description of isekaied protag , the dude with golden armor I always though he was pretty unique like super unique.he even have a special power 😆😆😆
Other isekai : game system, level up system
I started Eminence in Shadow with my partner, and it was just us constantly losing it over how over the top and played so straight the story is, and for some god forsaken reason it is somehow really enjoyable and decent writing
I marathoned this show over the past week just to be ready for this video. I genuinely cannot believe I slept on this series, it's awesome.
the way i'm forever going to remember this show is basically the thought process i have every time it comes up; "that one mobile game crunchyroll advertised to hell but didn't actually have the streaming rights to, also what the hell is hidive"
My guild in that mobile game clowns on Crunchyroll for that 🤡 lmao
@@Sonicdaniel123 so wait, does Crunchyroll straight up illegally streams it or do they not even have the Anime?
@@jakespacepiratee3740 They don’t have the license for the anime, so they cannot stream it. But they licensed the game, so they can show what in it (which includes the anime cutscenes. Even cut dialogue from the anime, like the actual funny jokes and plot relevancy, cause they want you to play the game.)
@@Sonicdaniel123 imagine if someone pulls those removed scenes from the game and splices them back into the show to create the ultimate cut of this Anime lol
This legitimately was one of the funnest experiences I have had with anime in recent memory. With the 20+ anime I watched the last two seasons, nothing made me look forward to the next week like this. I am so glad it came out when it did, because I was personally super disappointed by Demon King Academy season 2. For some reason season 2 just didn't hit at all with me. Despite loving season 1.
Demon king academy s2 had a lot of production problem. They even had to change the actor for Anos
@@mothersbasement I feel like something went wrong with the writing, it just wasn't there for season 2. I didn't engage with the characters at all. Until you mentioned it in a video I did not even realize the voice actor changed.
I agree with you both in regards to TEIS being my most looked forward to anime in the last 2 seasons but also I stopped watching Demon King Academy season 2. Season 2 is definitely worse and cant hold my interest enough to justify watching. I was pretty tired while watching it but I couldnt follow what was happening in episode 2 or 3 they just kept name dropping all these characters, things and events in rapid succession and its been some time since I saw S1. The writing is definitely off.
@@mothersbasement Not a good time for seiyuus with the initials TS, bruh.
The real kicker for me is that Cid’s subordinates are all what “competent” Isekai protagonists are. They are either combatively unmatched or using other world knowledge to make their lives amazing-kind of the two main sub-genres of Isekai right there. Heck, Alpha is *literally* doing what Cid is *pretending* to do.
But Cid isn’t interested in being a “competent” Isekai protag. He’s not even interested in the literal tsunami of consenting waifus crashing into him. Dude’s number one priority is his Live Action Roleplay.
On one hand, that’s hilarious unto itself. On the other, this show has enough weird quality where I could see all that being a character arc or big plot point down the line.
Just binged the whole show because of this video.
I agree with a lot of the points you made, Jeff. The world really does feel lived in, populated by characters with agency and motivations all their own. A small but notable example of this that you didn't mention was of the King (Iris's Dad). Like, he gets mentioned and named dropped several times throughout every arc and both his daughters are prominent. Yet that whole time, he gets brushed off as being "hands-off" in policy, as painted by said daughters. It seemed like a lazy excuse at the time.
But when the King shows up with a speaking line of himself for the first time, his whole implied characterization is turned on its head. He is a level headed maintainer of peace and security for his people rather than a slave of the status quo; Iris is the one painted as immature for impulsive nature rather than him for his inaction. The lazy excuse, as with all the other tropes in Eminence, was actually just a way to take the audience's expectations to make a framework it later subverts to fantastic multi-faceted effect.
And it doesn't just add to the characters, it adds a ton to the world as well. That one moment for me defined the shape of the board every piece was playing on on a global scale, which was so important to do given that final arc's turn towards international politics.
But anyway, that's enough rambling for me. Thanks for the recc, I would never have given this show a chance if not for this video. Great work as always.
Oh and, one extra point about the King.
That scene also really sold me on the way Iris's characterization seemed to shift over the course of that last arc. The audience starts the series exposed to her via Alexia's life in her shadow, which is obviously quite the biased view. And from then on we get only brief glimpses at her just trying her best to help however she can.
Yet at the end of the show, she's unhinged and frustrated and screams a guttural cry of inadequacy, which felt so earned.
So what changed? Nothing, because Iris was complex the whole time. The way she comforted Alexia, the way she labeled both shadow garden and the cult as her enemies immediately, the way she approached the threat of that monster girl thing that kept regenerating, even the fucking fluffy episode! The scene where Iris and her sister are trying on clothes that was definitely pushing the limits of how much I could tolerate the anime tropes, it was legitimate character moment for Iris looking back on it.
Eminence is trash without a doubt, but it does so in a way that takes it as an opportunity to play around with the audience's perceptions and expectations it could never do without said trashyness as its core. So yeah, I totally agree with the thesis of the vid.
I never thought about how well TEiS builds its characters in the background until you mentioned it with claire and rose. Excellent analysis and it has given me even more appreciation for the show.
In based there is cringe, in cringe there is based. In Cid Kagenou, they are one and the same
Yeah Cid's always come off as 1 step away from being a Psychopath. Especially when he's more concerned about experimenting on this weird creature he found after the bandit attack than showing concern for what it becomes.
Also "I AM ATOMIC" is both one of the funniest and coolest things I think I've ever seen in an isekai.
Nah he’s fully there. On multiple occasions he sits back while people are suffering or dying because he’s waiting for the coolest entrance. Also he blows up two cities with atomic bomb magic. The dude has serious blood on his hands.
@@zigzag8392 he really doesn't give a fuck. Like seriously how many people has he killed, there's no where those 2 atomic bombs did nothing, sure the flood after the second did something.
@@zigzag8392 to be fair he only blew up a small portion of the first city like a neighborhood sized amount. The second one was in the water so he only flooded the city after it flowed into it from the explosion. Still pretty bad but not as bad.
And in manga, when he always show his greed, crazy ideas including using people as his research material with label "this is the protagonist".
Hilariously cringe.
@@zigzag8392 I would say he's by a thread cause of Shirley , my guy didn't even wanna tell the truth to the girl cause well no way she would be ok after knowing what really happened
I kinna feel like the whole unaware bit is making the protag kun infinitely more likeable. Like, it doesn't matter if he knows whats going on or not, he puts his best effort into any role that comes his way, he is so into it, it makes it really fun to watch xD
Also, I just love how the anime plays with its own making process. The "camera" constantly changes focus to things other than the main plot, the audio mixing hides the generic and rehearsed fantasy dialogue behind screams of agony of a worthless gambler boy. Its amazing
@@shadowLurker4v The audio direction seals this as a great anime. It would be no where near as good and feel much more generic if the audio direction wasn't probably some of the best ever done.
@@shadowLurker4v I learned recently that constantly changing focus to things other than the main plot is not always a good thing. Tsukimichi Moonlit Fantasy in Season 3 does this and it does not work well at all.
I think for the plot hole that makes more sense (headcanon) is that these two groups existed without their current names, Cid adlibed so hard that both groups were like “hey that goes hard” and adopted it.
I feel like Mundanne Man is the best metaphore about this show itself.
It's like your Mundanne isekai but.. HOLD ON! IS IT REALLY? type of feeling
Another video justifying my trash taste in anime. Beautiful
One person's trash can also be their treasure.
You don't have trash taste, you have good taste
Nah Eminence is a good show, your taste is fine.
honestly as long as you realize its trash. saw someone compare eminence and monster as all time greats and its just like, sorry no you dont get to do that even if this trash isnt as nakedly self-indulgent as most others are
This anime is trash and so am I/are you.
- A certain monk
The Anime Pope has now blessed the most important anime out there, Haruhi be praised.
I read this manga back when it first started, and it's one of the few pieces of written media that has made me laugh out loud, and at times laugh so much it hurts. So seeing it got the adaptation it deserves is amazing. And for our Anime Pope to preach it's good word to others is even better, so others may be inspired by it.
Cid constantly goes "Doing this is too norm... What should I do instead? Ahhh yes! They will never expect that! Applaud for my performance!"... He is essentially a lead performer at night, background character at day. It contrasts a double life considerably well and is done well. You can see him constantly thinking about this "Performance" during both day and night. To him, it's all about the performance... until he finds someone good enough to fight him, in which case he wants to have some fun. It's boring being the strongest, you see?
This anime is very good.
This was the final push I needed to demand my friend watch this with me. We just got to 'I am atomic' tonight and I don't think I've laughed this much at an anime in a long time. Thank you for your continued trash sommelier service.
I unironically love the world development in this story. Even if you look at it outside the lens of "it's all due to the MC's will" it doesn't feel that artificial.
Also like the "mystery" behind the girls as well. And Iris' personality
Funny how you mention Claire getting more spotlight, since she's the main focus of the next arc in Season 2.
You forgot to mention that, unlike most of the "self-insert loser turns hero" Isekai MCs out there, Cid put in a LOT of effort to become OP. That's why he's a great character that we can truly support despite being cringe as fuck.
exactly! I find really really hard to believe that one who never even fought a person in his first life will be able to fight grandmasters in another world. Like if the enemy is stronger than for some reason the mc is more skilled and uses his brain as if the villain is a bumbling idiot. And if the villain is more skilled than the hero wins because he has an op system that has thr exact same power that can counter the villain😂
Man trains so much he literally have no life outside of moments where he needs to play his characters. Gring god
My standards are so low now that I'm just glad he's not shouty, whiney, or always running away from women to be honest lol. Well, at least not when his background character act does not call for it.
I had to think about a by now legendary quote from Megamind while watching this anime:
"Oh... you are a villain. But not a super one." - "What's the difference?" - "PRESENTATION!"
I think Cid has that point trained up to a T and hits his "role" mostly spot on.
It’s the kind of series that puts a stupid smile on your face and you have to give it some love for it, it’s pacing is also very smooth and I don’t feel it dwells on anything for too long or drowns you in the exposition ocean
as Sun Tsu once said
"I am cringe... and that is based."
And I think he'd know a LITTLE bit more about getting likes from Geoff than _you_ would, pal, seeing as he *invented it!*
Lol.
“Kill not the part that makes you cringe, kill the part that cringes” Is honestly probably the most stupid and yet accurate statement I’ve heard in a while.
We were all stupid once, realizing that is essential for growing up, but keeping the memories of your childhood alive. Remind yourself that when you see something cringy, that you were once in that position.
This show gives me life. And I’m so glad it exists.
I tried sticking so hard to this line to force myself watching it, it was a bad cringe, not a childhood cringe but a ''the author wants to jerk of the protag and you're gonna watch him being jerked off'' kinda of cringe. I can easily watch some cringe ass shows normally, this show just make it too hard
The frenzy has begun. The moon is red. We are out of time
I’m pretty sure the reason why Cid only thinks the Diabolos cult is a bunch of bandits is because when compared to his level of power, not many things can challenge him, and therefore when not many things challenge him, he probably just thinks they have the same power level, thereby making him think that there is no diabolos cult and that everything is just a bunch of bandits
im trying to do my homework and have this video play in the background, but the editing is so good that i keep getting distracted, and i think i might just watch this for half an hour rather than doing my german homework thats infront of me.
My favorite boy from the entire season was him trying out like a 100 different ways to rag doll himself during the school tournament
UwU All hail the man who doesn’t even know he has a statue of himself engraved.
I absolutely love that reveal at the end of the season. Like, we knew it was bigger than cid imagined, but the sheer scale of just how much bigger was a fantastic punchline
The great part is, in the game we see Cid defeat and talk to the mist dragon protecting the ancient city, so he _knows_ what the girls planned to do with it, but being the absolute chuuni idiot he is he assumedly just brushes it off as "cool, I got to fight a dragon" and never bothers to check out the literal city-sized cult following him with unrelenting loyalty
@@brandonhughes4076 in the current Rose of Garden event, he came to Alexandria and saw Rose getting carried by Nu after she lost to Lambda
@@hunterzero8 oh really? I uninstalled the game a while ago so I didn’t know this. I’m not sure how canon the events are, but the 7 shadow chronicles are unquestionably canon according to Aizawa
Just reminding me that I need to binge this entire show after watching it week to week. I was absolutely obsessed with this one as it was airing specifically because it knows exactly what it is and revels in it.
Cid was a guy so focused on gaining magical power to withstand a nuclear bomb, that he went into the mountains headbutting trees until he had a concussion, after which he jumps in front of a truck because its headlights looked like the source of magic or something to him.
Needless to say I find it completely believable that he wouldn't catch on to the cult of diablos lol
The anime's story mostly focuses on Cid/Shadow but the mobile game's story focuses on the 7 Shades with their struggles to grow and develop Shadow Garden after parting ways with Cid/Shadow on episode 2 of the anime (tho the girls still came back to him occasionally to report their progress).
Examples:
1. Who Lambda is
2. Ancient city Alexandria and Mist Dragon.
3. How Beta becomes the famous writer, Natsume Kafka.
4. How Gamma build her business from accidentally discover a tuna burger.
5. How Epsilon's pride almost killed her and how she became the wandering pianist, Shiron.
There are many others too
It's a pity that the english version of the game, which is managed by Crunchyroll, is full of bugs.
@@sail1144 yeah, the JP server have strict vpn rule too
And add into this unholy mix of seriousness and goofiness the dulcet tunes of Kenichiro Suehiro, the man who made the OST of Re: Zero, and BOY. 👌
Honestly, this is one of those ultra rare cases where the anime version far outclasses the source material. Take for example the now classic legendary cringe moment of I AM ATOMIC. In the novel it's impactful and cool (it is narrated from Alexia's perspective, and she is genuinely admiring Shadow at that moment), but the anime's collage of image, sound and Seichiro Yamashita's stellar delivery dial the whole thing over 9000.
It's simply so trashy that it's so good.
Like Cid's dedication to roleplaying, THAT is commitment.
Geaff. Can you make a video about the most anime that made you cry?
I really want to know how many anime could make you cry, honestly.
10:35 And it's important to mention that now the kingdom economics is dependant of Mitsugoshi. If they wanted, they could vanish and make the entire economy collapse.
The train fight was actually anime original. The source has them fight for a few moments in the arena. But the anime stretched it into a season ender.
I've been reading the manga for this and even just the clips shown here make me want to watch the show cuz its clear theres even MORE insanity packed into the anime
Cid being simulateously the Most and Least genre savy person in his isekai world is a feat of character writing I will never get over, its so good
This anime is the absolute perfect "turn off your brain and enjoy the epicness" series. It just caters and feeds off of young adults' power fantasy and chuuni vibes so much and I love it.
I don't fully agree I actually think that you have to have some level of brainpower to understand a lot of the jokes and that's why people are calling is bad
@@anotherwilliam9199 he wasn't being literal, he was implying to not think too much into the show and enjoy it for what it is. People are so hungry for shows that mentally bend their brains that they forget simple dumb fun like this exist. Obviously you don't have to put much brain power into understanding jokes when comedy doesn't take much effort to understand unless it's subtle or just that ridiculously clever where you gotta think about it for a min before laughing.
People call the show bad because it's pretending to be bad, just like cid himself. So when people say *"'It's so bad it's good"* it's a play on words. Instead of them implying it's objectively bad but still entertaining, they're implying it's actually good but just acting bad on purpose.
It's also good to watch while actually trying to figure out the characters and world and figure out the what and why. Surprisingly deep, after the lovely enjoyable surface. As an aside I wrote it off on the first episode because of the tone and events. I watched a video that basically pointed out he has issues and that made it so much more enjoyable to watch.
love how its a parody of the sub-genre
Damnit I've seen and read the LN and anime twice and I didn't pick up that Cid used loot from cult to come up his starting Diablo story, lol you've made me consider a 3rd reading to see if there's anything else I've missed... This story shouldn't have this much depth to it...
That scene in the final fight where he says “NAZEEEEEE!!!!” Literally gave me goosebumps lol. I was wearing headphones at the time too, good shit.
Perv Asshat would be the best name in the series if not for a background character from the 5th light novel, Glup Shitto. Not only is his name obviously ridiculous, but it’s also a reference
As Megamind once said the different between a good villain and a bad villain is PRESENTATION!
Can we just talk about how the first monologue/battle soliloquy he has is how a crowbar is more useful as a weapon when you use it... as a crowbar
Cid is so committed to his bit that it's hard to tell what he actually knows, what he thinks he knows, and what he's just cluelessly running with. There are parts of the story that even he couldn't believe are set up by Shadow Garden, like the stuff with the witch and the research center, or the takeover of his school. It's clear, to me at least, that he does know somethings about the stuff that is going on. Maybe even that the cult is actually real. But it doesn't really matter because fighting them is not his motivation, being cool and mysterious is. At no point will he ever admit to his ignorance, and the girls of Shadow Garden think so highly of him that there's no way anyone could convince them that he's been playing this whole time. This isn't the kind of story where that sort of dramatic reveal would make sense. Honestly it would be more amusing if at the very climax of the story, Shadow turns up at Shadow Garden HQ and starts immediately organizing the girls for the final battle, showing once and for all that no actually he knew everything the whole time, and it was us, the audience, that was the ultimate target of the gaslighting from the beginning.
With the parallels it seems one could draw between this series, and Trails (using worldbuilding and character writing in tandem to give a sense of immersion, plus what some would call Anime Bullshit (TM), demon pills being a plot point), it's no surprise I adore both.
I would also say the anime brings some stuff to the table that the LN outright lacks, and am quite happy with the adaptation. Thanks for the video!!
I think it's interesting to note that the anime and manga actually have a lot of differences. All of the main plot points remain the same of course. But there's a lot of background changes.
For one I do not remember the manga world being nearly as high tech, lacking guns, trains, and the high rise buildings and looking instead more like a normal fantasy world.
For another, Shadow Garden's main heads didn't include nearly as many people. Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, and Nu.
Cid also appears more aware of Shadow Garden being his organization from the shadows and is only ignorant of the cult.
Iris also seems more aware of the situation than the anime portrays her where she's more singlemindedly focused on Shadow being the bad guy where in the manga she picks up on "the true enemy"
Tldr, the manga has quite a few difference is how the world and characters are characterized compared to the anime
That's because the anime is based off of the LN. The anime is also taking minor liberties to move up the level of technology slightly and gives a little extra time to the characters who will become important later, (Zeta and Eta for instance don't really start showing up much until vol 5 from what I understand and Rose showed up a bit earlier.)
Because capitalism, Kadokawa want you to consume all the medium. Manga has more focused comedy, LN has all the details, Anime improve the serious stuff and have details that aren't in LN, while gacha has Cid monologue and Loli shadow garden
I live in a city called Melbourne in Australia. While Sydney may (barely these days), be the largest City in Aus. We're certainly a heart of culture. In the CBD we have an extremely iconic station, Flinders St Station. The main station used for the capital in TEIS looks identical to it. Which is really cool, as Melbourne was founded in the late 1800s. A new city, constructed when the industrial revolution was at it's height. Trams litter our streets, and that specific type of architecture you see in TEIS is all over the place. It was really interesting to recognize Flinders St Station and ask my parents about what Melbourne looked like when it was younger. Digging through photos, it's really similar. It's not appropriation at all, and it lead me to connect deeper with the city I live in (and love).
Thank you for putting words to why I enjoy this anime so much. It pulls off all the worst tropes in anime and I loved every second of it. It’s so self aware that it may have achieved enlightenment! Sure, Cid is unquestionably a psychopath, and I love this story. Don’t know if anyone can ever put themselves in Cid’s shoes, but this also feels just perfect
It's fully embraced the potential of Trash. Gorgeous.
Also, can't wait to find out if Rose discovers Eminence is Cid at some point. Not made clear in the anime whether all the low tier members of Shadow Garden are made aware of Cid's identity.
At first I was just watching it because it was fun Isekai trash, then after episode 4 or 5 I was watching it because I was genuinely invested in the story and characters. Honest to god peak fiction.
When you started talking about the magic + technology, I genuinely got chills up my spine, because most just use tech to get bigger explosions, but I love the magic actually being used to fuel the tech, like the circuit board thing you showed.