KAGE NO JITSURYOKUSHA NI NARITAKUTE!

DESCRIPTION

CAST

NOVEL ActionKage no Jitsuryokusha ni Naritakute!
MANGA ActionKage no Jitsuryokusha ni Naritakute!
ONA ComedyKage-Jitsu!
ANIME ActionKage no Jitsuryokusha ni Naritakute! 2nd season

REVIEWS

• 

  Mcsuper

  72/100
  I. AM. kind of... ATOMIC

  Aw, it’s another edgy isekai with an overpowered MC? Wait, there’s a guy in the show whose actual name is called Perv Asshat? Another guy called Imatry Nottaloos? Sign me up!!!

  Fundamentally, this show has quite a garbage formula, but did I enjoy it anyway? Yes. At the outset, it has most of the isekai tropes. Protagonist gets truck-kun’d, he’s really OP, has a harem of sorts, so what’s different about this one? The main character is a chuunibyou, whose wild ideas come to life in the new world. The cackling cult of baddies that he’s always thought of is actually in this world, and he constructs an organization called Shadow Garden to loom in the shadows, not to destroy bad guys or anything, but… actually, I have no idea what their goal is.

  If you are coming in expecting a well-told story, you won’t get that, at all. I won’t say the story was a huge mess, it definitely wasn’t the best part of the show. At its core, this is a self-aware “parody” of isekai, that is mostly a comedy. The show balances itself between some serious politics and stories, mixed with very dumb comedy, which works sometimes, and sometimes falls flat. One of the gripes I have with this show overall is its tonal inconsistencies, and while the tonal shifts work sometimes, it detracts from the serious undertones the show has as well. It delivers solid entertainment value at a consistent quality, but I can’t say I was ever really interested in the politics or even a bunch of the characters, because there were just too many of them.

  What did draw me in though, was the uniqueness of Cid’s character. He clearly does not care what happens in this world, it seems like he was just there to mess around and be the background character he always wanted to be. However, as much as he might not know it, his actions drastically impact the world around him, and while some of his chuunibyou ideas come to life, the world is still fluid, and you can see with the politics and the other plot lines, that he doesn’t control the world at all, and the world doesn’t revolve around him. The fact that he believes that doesn’t take anything seriously even in such a dangerous world made it fun to watch, at the very least. A guy who actively celebrates terrorists invading a school so his band of Shadow girls can save the day, a guy that celebrates getting defeated by others so he looks weak, a guy that practiced the Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven just to look cool? Certainly, there’s no one like you, Cid.

  Though, I do wish some other characters got more development than they got, especially the girls in Shadow Garden. I wish there was a better balance in some of their screen time for sure. There were some other characters that piqued my interest as well, such as Iris and Alexia, who had some genuinely strong character moments, but the show didn’t really capitalize enough on those moments, which was a shame. The large cast definitely made it difficult to care deeply during the more serious moments.

  The production behind this was alright. It was pretty consistent all the way through with no real bumps along the way, which was good. It wasn’t a sakuga-laden series by any means, but it had its share of hype moments that got me engaged. The sound design was also decent, and the voice actors did a nice job, especially Cid’s voice actor.

  Overall, it was a decent ride that had too much of a rocky start for me to care deeply for the more serious parts in the second half. It was entertaining for sure, but the comedy mixed with serious plot just didn’t work all the time. When the show was on, they were really on. When it’s off, it can be a snoozefest. Not a series I would wholeheartedly recommend, but it was fine, and I still look forward to Season 2.

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• 

  ZNote

  45/100
  “It’s just like in one of those isekai anime!”

  Stop me if you’ve heard a line like this before – “It’s just like in a manga / anime!”

  Being meta is more in vogue than ever. Ever since DreamWorks took it upon themselves to poke fun at the Disney company and the Disney brand with Shrek back in 2001 and became a monumentally-successful franchise financially, animated film had more or less entered the realm of metacommentary. It didn’t take long for Disney to follow suit; starting with Enchanted in 2007 and then expanding that into the soul-sucking exercise of their live-action remakes of the recent years (if not also including choice lines in others like Frozen). If there is any takeaway from this, it’s not only that animated properties being so overtly meta is here to stay, but that it is also a highly-profitable venture. After all, no company is going to change their course if it affects their bottom line. To the company, there’s a simple credo to follow: whether it be about specific properties or about an entire genre’s convention, give the audience a wink. Let them know that you “get it.”

  And in the realm of anime, metacommentary also has its home. I’m not only referring to overall productions that have been regarded as having some kind of meta remarks or supposedly-deconstructive genre assertions, but even the casual remarks that characters make in any kind of story, like the above quotation I left. These kinds of remarks get chuckles for the basic reason that we like to pat ourselves on the back for recognizing a pattern and having the thing we watch acknowledge it as such. Considering the sheer degree of prevalence the isekai genre has enjoyed ever since the early 2010s, no doubt because it provides publishers like Kadokawa a lot of money, it makes sense that isekai too would become susceptible to these kinds of remarks from its own works.

  But The Eminence in Shadow makes the mistake of assuming that being meta is the same as being funny or a worthwhile piece of entertainment. Glimpsing the greater picture, or making casual reference to things that viewers would recognize, is perhaps a short-term solution. But that does not guarantee that the inner substance of the story will be able to stand on its own two feet, either. Within its audience-conscious asides, it attempts to fashion a fantastical story of Cid Kagenou, a fashions-himself-as-the-ultimate-warrior man who attempts to make the best of both worlds, so to speak. Treating his reincarnated situation as the chance to live out his ultimate fantasy, he adopts the moniker of the background everyman archetype on one hand and the “Eminence in Shadow” in the other. Getting involved, investigating, and dispensing his own form of justice when he sees fit, he treats his new environment as a playground rather than being full of actual people with consequences.

  Therein lies its initial draw, and its first real gag; take the common thought that many isekai protagonists have (that they’re either dreaming / don’t take their new situation seriously enough), and have it last for the entire show. This gag quickly devolves into overreliance; The Eminence in Shadow spends so much of its time with Cid making jokes about the isekai world, drawing upon his knowledge of its conventions and general structure. But the show is confusing its meta remarks for comedic cleverness. Cid is seemingly incapable of going ten minutes without making a remark akin to, “At a time like this, X would happen!” or “Doing Y would be so awesome!” These moments are meta humor at its most flaccid, requiring no creativity to make its point. The goal is to be funny and double down by committing what’s tantamount to beating a dead horse, when being unfunny and doubling down only succeeds in compounding the problem.

  

  The show’s insistence on its meta humor tries to function both comedically and dramaturgically. In having Cid make all these remarks, it attempts to paint him as being more keenly aware of what is transpiring, both in the heat of the moment and in the overarching saga that plays out in the overall world, bolstered by his sheer magical and physical power. In emphasizing the brooding aesthetic, punctuated by its dark colors and mood lighting, as well as the occasional action phrase (I will indeed give props to the line “I am atomic,” as it was as grand and dumbly epic as Cid himself thought it to be), Cid is portrayed as being consistently “cool” and slick. It's fine for an occasional indulgence, but to make it a part of the show’s framework is a dangerous game. Cid Kagenou is The Eminence in Shadow’s attempt to make the it personified via the main protagonist.

  Yet in all that time focusing on him, most of the ensemble gets left out in the lurch. The “Greek chorus,” or the series of women who serve under Cid in Shadow Garden, are the prime example. They are caricatures rather than characters, a harem in principle and occasional sexual connotation, though not with Cid himself reciprocating. No chance is given to develop many of them into substantial beings—they don’t even get names beyond Greek letter designations, hence why I referred to them as “Greek chorus” before—because the show’s structure deemphasizes their own relevance. Throughout most of the story, they appear for brief moments and then vanish for long stretches of time, and their contributions to Cid’s shadowy operations do little more than deliver messages or background information. There’s a bizarre fixation on several of them being either competitive, protective, or envious of other members’ breasts. Even when they fight, the moments themselves do barely enough to give the women a sense of dimension. It took nearly one dozen episodes of their sporadic appearance before I finally learned who was named what.

  

  The more-prominent side characters of each arc do not fare much better. Sherry is reduced to little more than buttshot eye candy despite the great intelligence we are told that she has, all the while the show decides to relentlessly dump tragedy upon her. Rose has her character more or less centered on her adoration of, and personal history with, Cid and an involvement with cultist Perv Asshat (yes, that is his name in-universe). Annerose, introduced as a warrior of high caliber, becomes a complete no-show for the last few episodes. Each new arc introduces more and more characters who become little more than blips on the show’s radar, unintriguing toys for Cid to use for whatever fantasy kick he’s on at the moment. They are constantly janked around by forces they don’t understand, which does little to make them compelling players in the larger game.

  

  But within the desert of characterization stand Alexia and Iris, sisters to their own Midgar throne, as the exceptions to the material’s obsession with Cid being detrimental to everyone else. Their early introduction plot-wise and the fixation both on their personal status and relationship to one another and the larger-scale circumstances more-cohesively set off their personal journeys. Both are perplexed by both the antagonistic forces in their world and Shadow Garden’s mysterious presence, unsure what to make of them. Alexia especially acknowledges her own lack of understanding of what is transpiring since she’s not privy to her sister’s circle of information among the knights or overall skill; she takes the first step into becoming more proactive in the grand scheme of The Eminence in Shadow’s shenanigans. Her resolve, and the resulting alliance she forms, is one of the show’s shining moments for developing its intrigue.

  I’ve used the word “moment” more than once throughout the course of talking about The Eminence in Shadow, and that’s because it’s the show’s ultimate flaw. Underneath the choking meta humor jokes, the occasional bits of good action, mediocre characterization, and the show’s aesthetic managing to capture the balancing act it’s trying to perfect, the show is propelled by moments, not narrative. The good moments come too few and far between; it leaves the rest of the experience pertaining to the Cult of Diabolos (or “Diablos,” depending on who’s translating it) and its actual world lumbering along until it gets to the next meme-worthy instance. It comes in both the form of emphasizing things that don’t really need to be emphasized, or blasting through things when it should stop and catch its breath. The result leaves The Eminence in Shadow as an organizational mess, which diminishes its bright points greatly.

  With its second season likely to be announced, I do not doubt that there will surely be more masturbatory indulgences in its own supposed cleverness.

  I would not, however, find that “atomic.”

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• 

  Namaryu

  90/100
  An Atomic Entertainment

  Prologue

  In a distant place shrouded in darkness a lone figure sit across the table. None could identify who the person is or what their intension were but one thing was for certain, they were devoted. The mysterious being took a deep breath, looked around and after confirming their suspicions started writing.

  Chapter 1

  He was but a man who like many before him had a dream. He wished to achieve an impossible feat and was willing to go through unspeakable lenghts to do that. He had an appearence of a normal person, a background character so to speak but this was precisely what he wanted to look like. His personality, however was a completly different case. His charisma and power brought him many allies and through sheer wisdom he shared knowledge to his followers that were put in good cause, or rather one that would suit the newly created organization needs. He treated the world like a joke and used it and other people as a mean to satisfiy his made up persona but to those around him this was a painfully serious situation. Each and every encounter had one or 2 more perspectives to look at and depending on lenses through which one were to witness such events, the reception would drastically shift. The world around him felt vast with plenty of characters to meet and encounters to face and it never seemed like there was an end to his performance and the ploy at large.

  Chapter 2

  Animation is a concept unknown to the likes of such world but it was an important part in creating the best show. An aid of multiple people is required to best utilize their talents and time necessary to achieve it. The moves gracefully complementing one another with utmost precision enabling a powerful but simple solution. The faces of creations that are part of this process had a consistent quality and hardly faded into an amalgamation from unknown lands. The fights fulfiled their job and each one had a coherent build up to it that made for an exciting and thrilling experience, something that residents of this world may soon learn the existence of.

  Chapter 3

  No matter the quality of resources and time required it would all be for naught had not it not be for the work and vision of a director overseeing the whole performance. Kazuya Nakanishi whose name may not resound yet in this realm but will no doubt start appearing more often sooner rather than later. From an absurdally huge amount of credits throughout each episodes to the impressive feats during more demanding ones, he brought the team together and through his eyes and effort managed to mix a serious nature of world around with a particularly distinctive trait of a certain leader figure flawlessly. The comedic timing, a concept not yet fully established within world has brought joy to many people. It is not an easy task to carefully nail the different atmosphere while not making it feel to jarring for audience.

  Chapter 4

  No performance is complete with a music to be accompanied by. The resounding sounds of powerful instruments along the drops during pivotal moments have caused many to be immersed in the spectacle unfolding before their very eyes. From soothing voices playing in the backgrounds as Mob figure goofed around with his friends to a bombastic and religious sounding choir of followers during the showtime. The music plays an important role in conveying atmosphere and characters due to associations that it brings to viewers. Their name has been documented in multiple ancient records appearing often than not but neither can find the true nature of such individual, he is known as the composer Kenichirou Suehiro, the man behind such spectacle.

  Epilogue

  The following day there was no trace left of the figure that once stood in that room. Nothing that could possibly trace back the culprit has been found, what remained was a short book laying on the table. The man entered the room and put his hand on the creation, he sensed a strange but familiar feeling and spoke. "Another Eminence". The man had passion in his eyes and could not stop the maniacal laughter that followed after. He knew what must have been done and so he departed from the room.

  "My job here is done" spoke a voice responsible for writing the text and just like the recipient, they vanished into the air shrouded in darkness unknown what the future may hold. But they knew for certain that whatever it will be, they would document it all for that is a role they bestowed upon themselves.

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