When Minoru Kageno is hit by a truck, his dreams of
becoming the strongest are seemingly dashed forever. That is until he discovers he’s been
reincarnated into another world with the means by which he can attain his
impossible dream. Slowly, Kageno, now
Cid Kagenou, begins to amass a following of beautiful maidens coerced into
helping him into fighting a shadowy organization. But fantasy is becoming reality and the more
power Kageno builds in this new world, he must now live up to his newfound
reputation and strike back against a legitimate Cult aiming to bring society
under its control.
One common component with Isekai Anime is that the main
character is 9 maybe 8 times out of 10 an overpowered protagonist, a power
fantasy come to life.
While Emincence in
Shadow looks to be another one of those kinds of Isekai tales, there’s one
other bit that left me baffled watching the first episode.
So you know the saying, “Always be the very
best you can be…unless you can be Batman”?
I couldn’t get that out of my head watching the first episode of this
Isekai series.
Is that a good or bad
thing and does it make me want to see where this premise goes?
The first episode doesn’t give us a lot of time in the
new world Kageno gets sent to.
It’s only
in the final minute or so we see his power fantasy is well on its way to
becoming a reality.
He’s rocking an all
black get up, plus hooded cloak.
His
crowbars become swords and, most importantly, he has an enormous harem of cute
girls in similarly sexy clothing ready to kick ass on his command.
Let’s backtrack though cause, like I said,
it’s hardly the focus of the Premiere.
No that honor goes to examining Kageno’s Batman like mentality of
wanting to be the very best like no one ever was and then some.
He’s so self absorbed in his quest to gain
more power that everything seems secondary to him, including normal human interactions.
I don’t know but something about his overall
attitude bugged me.
Kageno’s definitely
got a superiority complex because he refused to give up on his dream of becoming
invincible.
The main character of the
Premiere even believes he’s wearing a mask to keep up appearances of being a
self centered jerk…boy could she not be more wrong when we see Kageno living
the dream in another world, another life.
When he says he’ll sacrifice everything to have all the power in the
world, I believe him…and I don’t like him.
What surprised me most about the first episode was Kageno
is there but he’s not the main focus.
We
spend most of our time following his beautiful classmate Nishino, whose name
Kageno refuses to pronounce correctly.
The
girls got a tortured past she cant fully move on from and only seems to get
into more trouble when she’s abducted and held for ransom.
Nishino witnesses Kageno go full proto Batman
on her two captives, beating them to within an inch of their life before he
saves her and…ok I have to ask.
What is
the point of having Nishino be the central perspective of Kageno’s exploits
when it doesn’t look like she’s got any other part to play in the series since,
you know, she’s alive and he’s dead and reincarnated into another world?
It’s a strange way to start an Anime like
this.
It would make sense if this were
trying to be something like Batman or Arrow and Nishino gets more involved with
Kageno’s after school exploits.
Long
story short: the show isnt about Nishino and she isnt part of Kageno’s enormous
harem of super heroine partners so…what is she doing here?
The pilot episode of Eminence in Shadow left me
scratching my head with more questions than I’d like to have.
Nevermind all of Kageno’s main team of
hotties look pretty similar just with different cat ears and color
hairdos.
Considering I didn’t really
warm up to the full of himself Kageno, I might give this one a pass.
And yes, I know we only glimpsed his Isekai
life at the end of the first episode.
Still, even if the start is different from other Isekai’s that just drop
you right into the mix like Konosuba, I think I’m just good with what I’ve
seen.
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