(L) Kage no Jitsuryokusha ni Naritakute! (The Eminence in Shadow)

[felix]

We live in the age where "internet inquisition" runs rampant, where throwing guilt around is cheap and burden of proof [of not guilt] is somehow on whoever it falls on. The old adage is still true: Just ignore it, you get used to it; at the end of the day its just the contemporary version of trolling. Nobody until modern day would look at a piece of art like some naked statue and claim sexual harassment, a painting and claim they're not fat enough or their skin tone isnt morally correct, or a paining depicting tragedy and focus in on some person being on the ground in a weird position, rather then the message the artist was trying to convey, but here we are. This is just how some people see the world now, likely a side effect of the proliferation of social media and the sensibilities and habits it teaches, especially it's teaching everyone how to not see the forest for the trees.

The greatest irony is that the show itself makes it a point to show this very aspect in the torture scene after Alexia's abduction.

With that in mind, the way the show presents itself I think is really good.

To get that nice punchline when it does it's jokes it needs the contrast of the serious moments. The BLACK is darker and richer when there is a lot of white to contrast it, and a good joke is sweetest when you don't expect it. If everything was toned down and there was only humor then, much like some of the series brought up as counter examples (such Futoku no Guilt), everything would just be grey at best so a bit murky. I've only see episode 1 of futoku show but, I assume the point of comparison is that in both the protagonist is strong and there is a tone of comedy to it.

The seriousness of the setting also plays well in the show achieving that different feel to others like it. We've certainly seen the overpowered protagonist plenty of times in recent memory and anyone who took a peak at next season knows we getting plenty of them back soon enough. Just in case you havent seen enough of the canned/cliche version, we're getting plenty more soon. In this sort of climate where just being overpowered-impossibly-strong is a dime a dozen in shows, the series being "serious mode" is I believe one of it's better aspects.

People seem to swing to either one camp or the other but I feel you can very easily watch it for both the serious side and the humorous side and enjoy both sides. Similar to how you can watch the recent Witch from Mercury show for both the gundam/robots/sci-fi and the school hijinks.

[magnuskn]

Originally Posted by LG-MAX 2.o

I know, so I suggest you read the source material so you can get in touch with the author's intent.

Oh hell, no. I have quite enough hobbies to waste my time like that.

Originally Posted by LG-MAX 2.o

It's been 5 episodes now and you're clearly not having fun, so I don't really understand your intent with this.

Actually I was quite intrigued with the series until episode four and five, where it became clear that the actual tone is very dissonant from what the series is purported to be. As I said, I'm probably moving on after the next episode, but I'll stick around until then to see where it goes.

[Frontier]

What was this series advertised as? The CM's are as deceptive as the actual presentation .

[magnuskn]

Originally Posted by Frontier

What was this series advertised as? The CM's are as deceptive as the actual presentation .

Supposedly a comedy isekai. ^^

[Tenzen12]

So perfectly on spot. I mean comedy here isn't particularly funny, but ufunny comedy is still comedy. Also we got whole episode of mc in real world so it being isekai isn't false advertisiment either.

[ryllharu]

The appeal is that Cid is doing what plenty of edgelord isekai'd protagonists do, and as a result he is an objectively terrible person and also an idiot from the audience's perspective. And thankfully, instead of self-doubt about why girls are attracted to him (like a certain series in previous seasons), he doesn't even care and continues doing what he pleases whenever he wants.

But the girls flock to him and think he's the coolest and most bravest.

And the series presents those contrasting facts as such, instead of trying to also sell Cid as CoolBadassGuy to us viewers as well. The result is deadpan humor.

He's not been wronged, he's not been cast-out, he's not "the weakest, the worst one," etc. He's a hedonist who just happens to be very skilled.

[magnuskn]

Well, personally I'd call him the Mary Sue who Mary Sue'd hardest, but whatever. ^^ Apparently some people like this stuff.

[Frontier]

Originally Posted by magnuskn

Well, personally I'd call him the Mary Sue who Mary Sue'd hardest, but whatever. ^^ Apparently some people like this stuff.

He's definitely overpowered and plenty of ladies are slavishly devoted to him...but they're all so messed up in the head I'm not sure I could classify him as a Mary Sue. At any rate he's not a straight take on it .

[ryllharu]

Originally Posted by magnuskn

Well, personally I'd call him the Mary Sue who Mary Sue'd hardest, but whatever. ^^ Apparently some people like this stuff.

I also wouldn't say he's a Mary Sue. He's worked and trained incredibly hard to fulfill his dumbest of personal dreams while murdering thugs as test subjects.

He has most of his stats in Luck, Agility, Intelligence, Magic, and Charisma, absolutely zero in Wisdom.

[magnuskn]

He's an insane person who, yes, worked hard, but everything is basically going his way, despite it making no sense whatsoever. Also, most of that hard work was basically told to us in way that goes "and then THAT happened!", especially the slime weirdness. And he has an overpowered secret organization which he didn't even have to work for, because his harem build it for him in the background.

The harem is just standard anime stuff, I'm not even counting that in.

Anyway, let's leave off here. You guys like it, I don't, no need to go around in circles. I'll watch one more episode and if it doesn't get drastically better for me (and little chance of that happening, I'm pretty sure), I'll yeet out.

[Tenzen12]

Well if nothing else THAT is legit criticism. I don't think that makes mc Mary Sue, but it's good reason to not liking him and show.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by magnuskn

He's an insane person who, yes, worked hard, but everything is basically going his way, despite it making no sense whatsoever. Also, most of that hard work was basically told to us in way that goes "and then THAT happened!", especially the slime weirdness. And he has an overpowered secret organization which he didn't even have to work for, because his harem build it for him in the background.

And which he doesn't realize exists.

[felix]

Originally Posted by magnuskn

Well, personally I'd call him the Mary Sue who Mary Sue'd hardest, but whatever.

Given he went though a training arc in both worlds if he's mary sue then just about every main character thats strong is a mary sue. What would even count as non mary sue yet strong character?

That said since this is isekai and his "training arc" is as hand wavy as any other isekai, albeit at least better presented, while I wouldnt call him a mary sue per se (since he doesnt fix the problem just the symptoms), he is definitely in the invincible main character category of isekai protagonists (at this time at least).

[Chosen_Hero]

LN/manga readers seem to not understand that the anime should be judged based on what the anime shows and to some (read as: a lot) of people the anime is disjointed and tonally deaf at best, if you have to tell someone that they should go read the LN/manga to understand something then that just means that the show has failed at either explaining or showcasing something properly, which is the fault of bad writing.

As for Cid, he is without a doubt a Gary Sue, outside of one scene where he is shown sparring with his sister and her being supposedly better than him we are never shown anything about him training to obtain his powers, he just has them from one scene to the next, why? Read the LN or manga apparently.

Then there's the Shadow Garden girls of which we only see him formely find and meet ONE, the rest just appear from one scene to the next and we are once again told not shown that they come from similar circumstances as Alpha, and just like Cid, they are all just insanely strong without rhyme, reason or explanation.

Then we get to the most egregious part of the whole show, where the world bends itself over backwards and into it's own asshole to accomodate Cid and his delusions.

We are, once again, told not shown that back on Earth he just one day goes crazy and decides to kill himself in hopes of getting to another world to gain magic and it conveniently just happens because... reasons, then when he is in the new world he just starts to make up bullshit at random and for no discernible reason it all just happens to be true because, once again, reasons outside of any proper explanation.

To anime only watchers there's a serious lack of proper interconnectivity between what's happening and we are supposed to just accept what we are told without a proper explanation, then we are supposed to believe that this anime, that is completely lacking in proper comedic value, is supposed to be a comedy, especially after we are shown scenes and situations that are shown as serious, that contain serious and messed up ramifications and that are played straight up as serious and we are to somehow laugh at them because Cid isn't taking it seriously or something... why? Because of LN/manga reasons apparently.

"Hey, this traumatized girl in the first episode that got kidnapped is about to get raped, but ignore that and laugh at the chuuni name the MC gave himself and how he is admitting to basically having committed murder or something as training, lol", "Oh look, this human that got tortured and experimented on to the point where she became a horrific blob of goo, but forget that and the fact that the MC is using her for his own messed up experiments and laugh at the reveal that it was a girl all along and how she believes he saved her, lmao", "his sister got kidnapped, look and be amazed at how the MC doesn't care too much about her fate or in hurrying to her rescue and laugh at him being lost and stumbling into the villain, rofl", "Yet another girl gets kidnapped for yet another experiment with messed up visuals that could mean something worse and look at her mind broken face while her messed up pseudo clone creature looks at her with sorrow in it's face, but who care about that, let's laugh at the MC being in the dark about it and marvel at how cool he is when he blows up a chunk of a city that somehow got conveniently fully evacuated within minutes of them starting their attacks, lmao XD"... you know, it feels like this show is a one trick pony that relies way too much on the exact same plot development happening ad nauseum every single arc just so that Cid and Shadow Garden can show off their Gary/Mary Sueness... just call it a hunch.

So yeah, the criticism the anime is getting from the people that find it either tonally disonant, a disjointed mess or both is completely valid, telling them to read the LN/manga to get answers to questions the anime should have answered not only doesn't help, but also does not invalidate their criticism.

[Tenzen12]

I might be wrong, but when it was said "maybe you should read novel to get in touch with author intent" it probably didn't mean you shouldn't judge show based on anime only, just that you are unable to do so despite anime doing adequate job and need to be spoonfeeded things that are clear to everyone else already.

That said I do agree with lot of what you said. Not everything but lot of it.

[Frontier]

Originally Posted by Chosen_Hero

LN/manga readers seem to not understand that the anime should be judged based on what the anime shows and to some (read as: a lot) of people the anime is disjointed and tonally deaf at best, if you have to tell someone that they should go read the LN/manga to understand something then that just means that the show has failed at either explaining or showcasing something properly, which is the fault of bad writing.

As for Cid, he is without a doubt a Gary Sue, outside of one scene where he is shown sparring with his sister and her being supposedly better than him we are never shown anything about him training to obtain his powers, he just has them from one scene to the next, why? Read the LN or manga apparently.

Then there's the Shadow Garden girls of which we only see him formely find and meet ONE, the rest just appear from one scene to the next amd we are once again told not shown that they come from similar circumstances as Alpha, and just like Cid, they are all just insanely strong without rhyme, reason or explanation.

Then we get to the most egregious part of the whole show, where the world itself bends itself over backwards and into it's own asshole to accomodate Cid and his delusions.

We are, once again, told not shown that back on Earth he just one day goes crazy and decides to kill himself in hopes of getting to another world to gain magic and it conveniently just happens because... reasons, then when he is in the new world he just starts to make up bullshit at random and for no discernible reason it all just happens to be true because, once again, reasons outside of any proper explanation.

To anime only watchers there's a serious lack of proper interconnectivity between what's happening and we are supposed to just accept what we are told without a proper explanation, then we are supposed to believe that this anime that is completely lacking in proper comedic value is supposed to be a comedy, especially after we are shown scenes and situations that are shown as serious, that contain serious and messed up ramifications and that are played straight up as serious and we are to somehow laugh at them because Cid isn't taking it seriously or something... why? Because of LN/manga reasons apparently.

"Hey, this traumatized girl in the first episode that got kidnapped is about to get raped, but ignore that and laugh at the chuuni name the MC gave himself and how he is admitting to basically having committed murder or something as training, lol", "Oh look, this human that got tortured and experimented on to the point where she became a horrific blob of goo, but forget that and the fact that the MC is using her for his own messed up experiments and laugh at the reveal that it was a girl all along and how she believes he saved her, lmao", "his sister got kidnapped, look and be amazed at how the MC doesn't care too much about her fate or in hurrying to her rescue and laugh at him being lost and stumbling into the villain, rofl", "Yet another girl gets kidnapped for yet another experiment with messed up visuals that could mean something worse and look at ther mind broken face while her messed up pseudo clone creature looks at her with sorrow in it's face, but who care about that, let's laugh at the MC being in the dark about it and marvel at how cool he is when he blows up a chunk of a city that somehow got conveniently fully evacuated within minutes of them starting their attacks, lmao XD"... you know, it feels like this show is a one trick pony that relies way too much on the exact same plot development happening ad nauseum every single arc just so that Cid and Shadow Garden can show off their Gary/Mary Sueness... just call it a hunch.

So yeah, the criticism the anime is getting from the people that find it either tonally disonant, a disjointed mess or both is completely valid, telling them to read the LN/manga to get answers to questions the anime should have answered not only doesn't help, but also does not invalidate their criticism.

I feel like that dissonance is intentional and kind of builds into the absurdity of Cid and how he reacts to the world and how the world in turn reacts to him. I don't find it a mess because it feels like every element, disparate as it is, are intentional and build on what the show is. It's like if the Detective is Already Dead actually managed to properly execute all the random genre's, characters, and story beats it had while being more open about being tongue-in-cheek about it.

Like reality bending over backwards to cater to Cid's whims in a way even he isn't aware of is the point and emphasizing how crazy it all is, especially because he's so Chuuni.

That doesn't mean you aren't supposed to take some stuff seriously, but anything involving Cid probably isn't meant to be seen that way.

Judging from the next episode preview it looks like we're going to get Gamma's backstory. They haven't really gotten a chance to dive into the other Shadow Garden girls aside from Alpha and Beta getting more screentime, so I feel like that'll unfold as we get to know them better.

[magnuskn]

Originally Posted by Chosen_Hero

LN/manga readers seem to not understand that the anime should be judged based on what the anime shows and to some (read as: a lot) of people the anime is disjointed and tonally deaf at best, if you have to tell someone that they should go read the LN/manga to understand something then that just means that the show has failed at either explaining or showcasing something properly, which is the fault of bad writing.

As for Cid, he is without a doubt a Gary Sue, outside of one scene where he is shown sparring with his sister and her being supposedly better than him we are never shown anything about him training to obtain his powers, he just has them from one scene to the next, why? Read the LN or manga apparently.

Then there's the Shadow Garden girls of which we only see him formely find and meet ONE, the rest just appear from one scene to the next amd we are once again told not shown that they come from similar circumstances as Alpha, and just like Cid, they are all just insanely strong without rhyme, reason or explanation.

Then we get to the most egregious part of the whole show, where the world itself bends itself over backwards and into it's own asshole to accomodate Cid and his delusions.

We are, once again, told not shown that back on Earth he just one day goes crazy and decides to kill himself in hopes of getting to another world to gain magic and it conveniently just happens because... reasons, then when he is in the new world he just starts to make up bullshit at random and for no discernible reason it all just happens to be true because, once again, reasons outside of any proper explanation.

To anime only watchers there's a serious lack of proper interconnectivity between what's happening and we are supposed to just accept what we are told without a proper explanation, then we are supposed to believe that this anime that is completely lacking in proper comedic value is supposed to be a comedy, especially after we are shown scenes and situations that are shown as serious, that contain serious and messed up ramifications and that are played straight up as serious and we are to somehow laugh at them because Cid isn't taking it seriously or something... why? Because of LN/manga reasons apparently.

"Hey, this traumatized girl in the first episode that got kidnapped is about to get raped, but ignore that and laugh at the chuuni name the MC gave himself and how he is admitting to basically having committed murder or something as training, lol", "Oh look, this human that got tortured and experimented on to the point where she became a horrific blob of goo, but forget that and the fact that the MC is using her for his own messed up experiments and laugh at the reveal that it was a girl all along and how she believes he saved her, lmao", "his sister got kidnapped, look and be amazed at how the MC doesn't care too much about her fate or in hurrying to her rescue and laugh at him being lost and stumbling into the villain, rofl", "Yet another girl gets kidnapped for yet another experiment with messed up visuals that could mean something worse and look at ther mind broken face while her messed up pseudo clone creature looks at her with sorrow in it's face, but who care about that, let's laugh at the MC being in the dark about it and marvel at how cool he is when he blows up a chunk of a city that somehow got conveniently fully evacuated within minutes of them starting their attacks, lmao XD"... you know, it feels like this show is a one trick pony that relies way too much on the exact same plot development happening ad nauseum every single arc just so that Cid and Shadow Garden can show off their Gary/Mary Sueness... just call it a hunch.

So yeah, the criticism the anime is getting from the people that find it either tonally disonant, a disjointed mess or both is completely valid, telling them to read the LN/manga to get answers to questions the anime should have answered not only doesn't help, but also does not invalidate their criticism.

Thanks for putting into detailed words what I was too lazy to write up. I'm quite tired of huge online discussions, I guess, since they never end with one side admitting that they were wrong in the first place.

[Magewolf]

One of the more annoying things about the show to me is that it has had two well done segments,the Earth part and the fake dating part, that either one of which could have been good stories but they were both dropped for unfunny "comedy".

[moridin84]

"Cid isn't a Mary Sue because he trained really hard offscreen" is a pretty strange argument. "Hardworking" Mary Sues aren't that uncommon.

I agree that the anime dropped the ball on the comedy part. With the princesses being serious all the comedy, the mob part of the anime wasn't all that funny.

[nojay]

Originally Posted by moridin84

"Cid isn't a Mary Sue because he trained really hard offscreen" is a pretty strange argument.

Mary/Marty Sue is an author self-insert character in badly-written fiction, golden by the writer's intent and people aren't supposed to laugh at them. They are acknowledged by the world they inhabit as golden, they do not hide their superiority in all things from others so they can bask in the well-deserved adoration of lesser folks.

Cid Kagenou on the other hand is a chuunibyou, the victim of wishful thinking but he is now in a world where his fevered imaginings all become true. Why they do become true we don't know, they just do. As Shadow he is treated with suspicion and outright accusations of wrong-doing, hunted by the authorities, as Cid Kagenou he is regarded as a mob character with few redeeming features, except by a very few people (who still think he's a putz but an endearing one in some ways).

As for the "training arcs" they are usually boring and repetitive and are often glossed over in stories like this. When they are presented in animes like "Reincarnated as a Sword" the complaints of time-wasting and pointlessness come thick and fast.