The Eminence in Shadow

Intro to The Story

Have you ever read a Manga or watch an Anime of Shonen series before? Have you ever noticed sometimes there are mysterious characters who shows up only A VERY SMALL moments, maybe only one panel in manga or maybe three seconds appearance of anime, in the beginning or the middle of the story and usually their faces is either covered by mask, or got hidden by a shadow. Plus, we got the impression that this character is a bad-ass, which the protagonist surely can’t defeat in the beginning of the story. And these kind of character will be either be a Big Shot as Antagonist or, they will become an great Ally of the Protagonist in the future.

Anyway, our MC, Kageno is a teenager who has GREAT SERIOUS obsession in becoming THAT KIND OF PERSON. How serious, you asked? To the point he sacrificed his youth to learn and master various martial arts and combat arts, which is probably won’t be much of value if he intended to work in company or go to college etc… If he wanted to become a soldier to serve the country, or to work in a security company, OR an athlete, then it might be a different story, though.

One day, he realized that no matter how strong he become in terms of brawl fight but if he got hit by a nuclear, he’ll be dead either way. So, do you think he will walk the life of a normal high-schooler? NO, HE DIDN’T. He cannot accept such weakness in the mysterious character he adored of. He eventually hit the reality that based on the current human science and technology, there is no way a human body can withstand a nuclear direct explosion. So he went to look for an alternative one, such as Religion and Superstition, but still he couldn’t find a realistic solution. If he cannot find a solution from anything in this world, then there should be one from something OUT OF THIS WORLD. So he concluded to look for……… Magic power, Mana power, Wizardry, you name it.

So he went, exploring places and doing various meditation, spiritual training in order to obtain Mana Power until one day, he was too engrossed in training, he forgot to eat regularly and caused him to feel dizzy, head spinning, and seeing hallucination. He saw a light was guiding him and he though it was the Mana Power he was looking for

He ran, ran and ran.

Almost got it.

The light became brighter.

He streched out his arms to it and……. he heard a screech noise.

“At last, my mana power”

…and that was his last word before leaving the present world and got reincarnated in a another world. Lucky for him, this time it was a world with mana power.

He was reborn as Cid Kagenou (thank you Aizawa-sensei for setting the alphabet naming by yourself) a son from a Noble family. Their family is famous for raising great Magic Swordsman (it’s 魔剣士 so it’s either that or Magic Knight, but everytime I want to write Magic Knight, I always got reminded of Rayearth so I write the other one), literally meaning swordsman who can use magic power to enhance own body strength.

He got engrossed in developing his magic power. Just like as he mastered combat arts in the past, he develops his magic power in quite an advanced level although he is still young. And when he’s about ten years old, he wiped out a group of bandits and found a chunk of meat inside of a cage which is guarded by them. He felt that the magic power from this thing is out of control so he decided to stabilize this thing magic power as a purpose of training and… voila! The meat turned into a pretty elf girl.

The girl is thankful for him because she was claimed by the church to be possessed by demon. The people who was marked that way will be exiled from their family, relatives and also village because in months,they will turn into a demon. So this is where Cid will be the Knight in the shining armor? HELL NO! He doesn’t stray from his path. He doesn’t want to save someone out of pure kindness so he told her the great conspiracy theory.

K : “There’s a tale of three heroes, a human, an elf and a beastman fought together against a demon called Diabo. Diablo was defeated but left a curse upon those three and their descendants. You are one of them. In old times, the curse bearer are once respected but now they are the object of hatred. Why? Because a great power manipulated the history. I intend to fight them but the enemy is great. Will you help me?”

A : “From the day you saved my life, this life is already yours. If that is your wish, then I shall accompany you”

K : “Very well. From now on, your name is Alpha. We will gather allies to fight them to prevent the resurrection of Great Demon Diablo. We must keep our action in the dark. We shall become the shadow in order to hunt down the shadow. We are… The Shadow Garden”

~The Eminence in Shadow vol 01~

And that starts the epic life of Cid Kagenou.

What is the charm point of this series?

1) The Lie is actually a Truth

I’m actually wavering whether I should write this point or not because it’s actually kind of spoiler but I decided to write it down because it is the MAIN REASON why I like this series.

Remember the intro above where Cid told Alpha the bogus conspiracy theories about Diablo Cult, well….IT TURNS OUT TO BE TRUE! So the whole conspiracy theory which Cid made up to build up his mysterious persona, is ACTUALLY a real deal. Later on, Cid will save 6 more girls who faced the same destiny as Alpha, and they all will be named Beta, Delta etc and he will train them in not only in combat but also intelligence aspect. The girls are all thankful to Cid and they take that bogus as a serious matter. Therefore, they were all taking the training and education so seriously. Although, Cid was actually training them only for a sparring partner in order to hone his own skills. And what they called education was actually Cid was only telling them stories or basic education stuff which he learned in the past life. And as a result, they become a group of elite warriors, where one may call them as the mysterious defender of justice, while other will call them as terrorist. (Wait, I feel so familiar with that kind of story. The one starred by the Britanian Prince)

Those seven act secretly to save more of their kind. And due to this continuous “salvation” activity, Shadow Garden is slowly becoming a giant organization which is slowly got recognized as a threat by the Diablo Cult.

2) The Unraveling Misunderstanding

After being saved by Cid, the seven girls decided to part ways temporarily with Cid, so they can move independently to expand the Shadow Garden. Some are continuing to save another curse bearer, some are gathering information about the Cult, and some are arranging their war fund…WITHOUT CID REALIZING IT. When the girls declared to part way, Cid thought that they have gotten sick of this farce and leave him for good but in reality, the girls are preparing Shadow Garden so Cid can later sit on the throne above them without any shame.

When Cid enter school of magic knights, the girls have came in contact with Cid and invite them to their base and guess what? The kid is still clueless and get into a situation like this:

G: (on her knees) My Lord, we are very grateful for your presence.

S : (Wow Gamma is still great in acting. She even went out and hire many ladies and this building to set a stage I’m fond of. I guess I’ll play along) Long time no see, Gamma. As an appreciation for your work…(Cid raised his right hand and shoot out countless blue radiant poured down into all the girls). A part of my mana.”

G : (body shivers and tears drop) we are grateful to be graced by your mana inside of us. But I must report that the plan is put into a hold because we haven’t found the enemy’s hideout”

S : (haha. She even remembered that I like this kind of cool conversation. It’s a play for sure) I have a feeling they are hiding…over there! (Shooting dart to the map on the wall)

G : As always, your greatness knows no boundaries.

Eminence in Shadow vol 01

These kind of misunderstanding situation is quite similar to Overlord where Demiurge often plans ahead of Ains and Ains don’t know a thing about it. But while Ains will eventually learned from Demiurge himself, Cid will stay clueless. But he will always coincidentally takes the correct action or decision, which makes his followers worship him more and more.

3) The Man behind The Mask

I personally like the idea of heroes hiding their true identity by using mask. This aspect can enable the MC to have two sides of stories progress in parallel.

Cid had this front face as Magic Knight trainee going to school, hanging out with his friends etc, but in the other side, he kicks ass the Diablo Cult, accomplishing his role quest. Wait, what is a role quest?

4) Role Quest

Do you still remember what kind of person is our Cid wants to be? Yes. Apparently, Cid has this list of situation and scenes which are befitting his role. Ie:

• Playing piano under the moonlight……ooowkay
• Entering a martial arts competition by pretending as a weak person but keep winning until the finals then disappear………uh-huh
• Standing on a school roof looking down………….sorry, I lost you Cid

Sometimes, Cid’s action are based or triggered by those events and he is actually thinking about how he can execute such scene perfectly rather than the threat before him. His worshipper thought he was thinking ahead or had everything all planned BUT in reality, he actually had ulterior motives such as Role Quest. And the funny thing is…in the end, all the trouble, the issue, the crisis will all be solved by Cid.

Conclusion

If you like cool yet a bit chuuni main character, then you shoud read this.

If you have the same behaviour like Cid, then you should read this.

If you like an OP main character, then you should read this.

Links

Light Novel is currently released vol 01 – 02 by Kadokawa Enterbrain.

Light Novel vol 3 is already released. (update Sep 6th, 2019)

You can buy them officially through Booklive.com by clicking the link here.

All images in this page are owned by Kadokawa.