In all his previous and present lives, Cid’s only desire was to be a cunning manipulator in the background. He doesn’t want attention for his skullduggery, yet today he’s receiving just that!
The Eminence in Shadow first appeared as a light novel series five years ago on November 5. The Isekai series has been turned into an anime and a manga in the meantime. Makoto Iino, an anime character designer, created this gorgeous, eerie image of Cid to commemorate the book’s fifth anniversary:
Enterbrain has been publishing the Eminence in Shadow light novel series in Japan since November 2018. A manga adaptation with illustrations by Anri Sakano debuted in December 2018. The manga and light novel’s English language versions are published by Yen Press.
Directed by Kazuya Nakanishi, the first TV anime season was produced by Nexus and broadcast from October 2022 to February 2023. The Eminence in Shadow is streamed by HIDIVE, which says the following about the tale:
Cid doesn’t want to be a flashy hero or a dastardly villain. He wants to operate in the shadows and pull the strings of society through wit and cleverness. So, when he’s isekai’d to another world armed with magic powers (and an overactive imagination), he forms Shadow Garden, an underground organization that fights an evil cult he totally made up. But while Cid happily roleplays his favorite antihero tropes, little does he know Shadow Garden’s recruits treat his every lie as gospel, and worse yet? That “fake” cult is actually real, and they’re not happy his power fantasy just impeded their plan to gain ultimate power in THE EMINENCE IN SHADOW!
