Funny / The Eminence in Shadow

Don't worry, he's a professional.

In General

• The entire series is just one Sustained Misunderstanding. Every chapter is a gag in itself.
• The idea that the Big Bads and their evil machinations are being completely undone by a teenager^note 30 year old with a severe case of Chuunibyou. Death might possibly be merciful compared to the sheer humiliation should they ever learnt of this.

Light Novel and Manga

Volume 1

• Cid's previous life. He wanted to achieve his childhood dream and he tried to do it by training his mind and body to its peak. The end result in the manga? A very buff high school boy. The other students at that school must had one heck of an experience.
• After some careful thinking, Minoru decides to fulfill his dream on becoming the Eminence in Shadow by learning magic. Of course, magic doesn't exist in the world but that doesn't stop him from trying. List of activities he did includes: Zazen, Buddhism, Yoga, attaching himself to a cross and pray to god and strip himself naked and banged his head against a tree. The Web Novel is even better as he did all the aforementioned things while buck naked. Oh and he ran through the field buck naked.
• When Cid attacks a group of bandits, he looks deranged demanding if they wish to live to hand over their valuables. Below this image the manga tells us that this is the Protagonist as if it needed to remind us after seeing that. It repeats this again after he starts slaughtering the bandits with manic glee. Then again when he sees a victim of a curse and is happy at the idea of using her for his experiments.
• Anytime Cid interacts with his Seven Shadows will lead to several worthwhile, hilarious antics.
• After learning of his sister's kidnapping and witnessing his parents' response (his dad, Baldy decides to give up and his mother beating him up for it.), Cid heads back to his room and meets up with Beta. She quickly informs him on possible sites where Claire could be kept until Cid threw a knife at a particular spot which Beta realizes it's the most likely where Claire is at. She wonders how did her master know. Except he didn't. He already gave up searching for Claire like his old man and was merely entertaining his subordinate.
• The Seven Shadows corner their target but he escapes underground. The Seven believes that they didn't need to follow cause their all-knowing master has anticipated this and is awaiting down there to ambush their prey. Cut to Cid who says that he's lost. And he founds the target by accident.
• Cid's plan to get rejected by Alexia backfires and the two are now dating. He eventually realizes he's being used and confronts the princess, wanting out. Alexia reveals her true colors and offers money to maintain the facade. What happens next is this.
  Cid: Do I look like a guy who can be swayed by money?
  Alexia: You are.
  Cid: Damn straight. *Collecting the cash*
• While Cid slashes the corrupt knights to pieces, Beta is hiding from the side lines, excitedly recording all of this in her book about her beloved Shadow.
• By the end of the second arc, Alexia who despite only had a Fake Relationship with Cid now starts to have some feelings for him and asks him to continue it with her just a little longer. Cid answers this by Flipping the Bird and Alexia answers back by trying to slice him to bits.
• Alexia wants to be part of Iris's team to find out more about Shadow and she did this by blackmailing her older sister about her secret underwear. Iris complies but not before showing a dirty look.
  • Iris returns the favor by having Alexia detained after she gets injured by the Shadow Garden impostors.
• The Running Gag of Gamma and High Heels.
  • This actually saves her life as when she fight off some assassins, she accidentally trips and kills the assassin that is charging towards her. Not wanting to look foolish, she tries to bluff her way by saying that she was using a technique. Like Master, Like Servant.
• After sensing a battle is going on, Cid attempts to get his friends to leave him and check it out. His trick is the funniest part:
  Cid: CUZ I NEED TO TAKE A SHIT.
• Cid and his friends' plan to get chicks by offering them chocolate. The results are as follows:
  • Hyoro walks up to his interest only to encounter the girl's very jealous fiancee.
  • Jaga's turn and he starts stating all the facts about the girl like social circles, room number, favorite food, three sizes and color of panties, but unbeknownst to him she actually noticed him stalking her and it goes as well as you expect.
  • Cid is the least interested and offers the chocolate to the closest girl who also happens to be the new girl of the week. He WINS.
• Nu's entire conversation with Cid at school. She thinks to herself that her master didn't need to learn the other important bits because it's basic knowledge and he probably already knows. All the while Cid sounds intrigued but truthfully, he didn't understand a dang thing at all.
  Story: He is certainly not aware of anything.
• When Sherry and Alexia are having a cup of coffee, Sherry finds it too bitter. She fixes this by dumping the entire jar of sugar into her cup to the point her cup is now just filled with sugar.
  • The next best part is that Alexia learns that Cid gave chocolate to Sherry and although she tries to brush this off but after Sherry thanks the princess for telling her that she and Cid are not dating and leaves in bliss, Alexia smashes her cup in anger.
• At the Senbatsu tournament, Cid intentionally takes all the hits from Rose's attacks to increase his reputation as a mob character. All the while he is sent flying in an overly dramatic fashion, spewing lots of blood from the packet he carries around. Apparently, this is one of 48 forms of Mob-Fu and it's called "Tailspin Parry Bloody Tornado".
  • Also, due to him being so focused on wanted to go through all of his mob techniques, he comes off more as the Determinator and therefore becomes more noticed by everyone.
  • Even better is that after the event, Sherry and Rose are now attracted to him.
• In the manga version when the terrorist attack by the Shadow Garden impostors happens, while the student body, including Cid, face the terrorists, Hyoro and Jaga are the only ones who turn away, squatting down and covering their ears. Or more obviously, the two are immediately surrendering themselves.
• As Cid is observing the terrorist attack, he notices Sherry running away and wonders how she hasn't been noticed. Only to find out that she has been noticed and there is a small army of terrorist right behind her.

Volume 2

• Cid's reaction to Beta's plagiarism.
  Cid: Holy Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976.
  • After: The %#@! You are doing?
• How did Epsilon learn how real breast look and feel to make her fake ones as real as possible? She grabbed Beta's breast to her confusion.
  • Not to mention that how much alike Epsilon is towards her master. There's even a panel in the manga where she did the exact kind of training her master did prior to his reincarnation.
• Alexia and Beta. If there is a contest for Cat Fights, this would surely get the trophy. We have the Tsundere Princess who dated the protagonist and the Secret Agent Elf who hates the princess for dating the protagonist. It goes well as you expect.
• Epsilon's time with Shadow and her friends. Being second to everybody did a bit of a number on the poor girl, especially when breasts are involved.
  • The first thing she did after evading death is ask anyone if they saw ''it''.
• Whenever Delta ever goes under her "Wild Side", Alpha can shut it down by threatening the former; taking away her snacks. This immediately pacifies her.
  • And after the Holy Ground is destroyed, Delta is seen munching on what could be a bone.
• Jimina (Cid in disguise) vs Goldoh. The latter is furious that Jimina didn't take the chance to attack him when his guard was down. Not that Goldoh wants Jimina to attack him but he is bugged that Jimina didn't think he was that much of a threat. He calls upon a golden dragon to finish off Jimina who defeats that attack by sneezing. You heard me! Cid beat a dragon shaped attack with just a sneeze!
• The entire chapter of Annerose and Quinton discussing about Jimina, who he is, where he came from etc. After the discussion gets so ludicrous that Quinton just gives up and decides to fight Jimina to prove that he's a fraud. A chapter later, he gets knocked out.
• Annerose acting the Comically Serious.
• Following his meeting with Rose, Cid gets jumped on by his sister, Claire. The next is Claire straddling on top of Cid all the while strangling him.
• Turns out Rose actually met Cid as children when he saves her from bandits. Rose remembers his nickname, Stylish Bandit Slayer.
  • This actually happened before in his past life when Cid/Minoru calls himself the Stylish Bad Guy Slayer. Unlike Rose, Akane thinks the nickname is lame.
• At the end of his fight with Iris and Beatrix, Shadow looks like he's about to level the city with his Atomic attack... only for it to be a harmless flash as he vanishes.
  Cid: I mean, this time it really is just for show.

Volume 3

• Beta makes her usual reports to Cid but when the latter smells something, she gets nervous. Then, Cid explains that he smells blood and Beta sighs in relief that it wasn't her.
• Following their failed attempt in taking down the Red Tower, Goldoh and Quinton were captured and reduced to slaves. In the manga, it portays them eating a sunflower seed and a carrot.
• The antagonists from the Red Moon arc suffer some humiliating defeats.
  • The Watchdog at least knows that he's no match against the two Monarchs. But when he sees Shadow, he jumps right in only to be killed off seconds later.
  • Watchdog's master's is even worse. When he sees Shadow, Crimson goes on a speech about how vampires are superior and humans are inferior. Shadow, on the other hand, just didn't care and casually just cuts Crimson up, mid-way during his speech and does it again whenever he regenerates. It got so bad that Crimson starts to grovel and tried to bargain to be spared. Who is the superior species now?
• Cid's whole plan was to team up with Yukime and steal the riches from two corporations, one of them being his own company (which he doesn't know he owns). There is just one flaw to that plan: Him shooting himself in the foot. He had handed Beta a secret coded message that revealed his agenda and Beta and the Seven Shadows believe he is handing them over the treasures he and Yukime gathered. When he arrives at the hideout, he's horrified to see that all the gold is gone and he doesn't know that Shadow Garden took them. Whether Shadow's the idiot or Shadow Garden's the idiot or both but one thing is sure, looks like another of Shadow's schemes has flushed down the drain.
  • Even funnier is when John Smith shows up enraged against Gettan. Both Yukime and Gettan think he's angry due to Yukime but Shadow is only angry due to the gold stolen.
• The Epilogue to the Corporate Warfare arc. Cid and Delta tried to dig under snow to get the gold that was allegedly stolen by Gettan. Cid thought it was there because Gettan pointed at the snow but he was referring to Yukime due to part of her name. Obviously, Cid would not have made that conclusion. What's ironic is that his own organization took the gold because they thought he was giving it to them.

Volume 4

• Back when Cid was still Minoru, he had a love-hate relationship with his classmate Akane with a huge emphasis on hate from her end. It was bad enough that she had met this weirdo at the school gate every day but she had to hear him mistake her name and has been doing this for months.
• Cid trolling Beta in the online forums as Fallen Angel Of Rebellion and promptly getting her banned.
• Cid reunites with Akane years after saving her from a kidnapping. After he rescues the now-adult Akane from being kidnapped (as well as curing her of the Earth-version of possession), he tells her to "be careful not to get kidnapped again." Moments later, Beta kidnaps her.

Volume 5

• Skel and Po's utter inability to understand that they are being scammed by Mitsugoshi to pay only the minimum amount of their loan every month, which only amounts to the interest they accumulate. Even more hilarious is that Cid is easily able to see through the scam and tries to get them to increase the monthly payout. On top of that, they lose everything they lend to Cid in a card game... after already losing their normal savings earlier against him.

Volume 6

• The fact that Skel and Po somehow managed to borrow a million Zeni from Mitsugoshi again and once again try to earn their losses back from Cid. This has already become so common that Cid is simply bored over his easy victory over them.
• When inside the Hope Family mansion, Kanade looks enamored at the amount of art in the hallway and starts estimating their worth. Naturally Cid is interested in this and asks what has the most value, which Kanade points out is the vase. After Jack the Ripper kills all the assailants, Christina notices the vase is missing, but is only confused about it since it is only a replica worth less than the paintings. Kanade and Cid's dejection when Christina and Alexia comment that only poor people with no shred of culture would mistake it for the real deal is hilarious.
• Akane desperately tried to escape the room Beta put her in, only for it to turn out that said door wasn't even locked in the first place.
• When trying to stop Eta from taking Akane away to experiment on her, Beta calls in several numbers and Epsilon to stop her. Eta defeats them with a new invention called a Magic Disruption Barrier that nullifies their slime suits. While Beta is still able to fight, she tries to call Epsilon for help, only to see a note stating Epsilon suddenly had to go somewhere. Beta's reaction towards this is hilarious.
• The sheer amount of attempts Eta made to experiment on Shadow is hilarious due to how over the top her methods are which include an invention called Brain Sucker No. 19, poison, dissecting his brain, and magic circuit extraction.
• Alpha countering Eta's Magic Disruption Barrier with "Shadow Wisdom", which is just coating herself with aluminum foil to counter the jamming waves. Not to mention Eta's genuine amazement over the fact the legend turned out to be true.

Other Media

Web Novel

• Arriving at the Oriana Kingdom, Cid is trying so hard to get arrested. He had to go through (kill) ten groups of thick-headed soldiers before the eleventh had at least the brain power to decide to just take him to prison.
• Cid using Zack as his assistant and Butt-Monkey.
• Epsilon's being a Large Ham.
• Cid's partner up with Aurora's finger. Because of this, suddenly the Isekai/Comedy series now becomes a Buddy Cop Show with Aurora's finger curbing Cid's chuunibyou tendencies.
• The chapter with an almost brain-dead Doem after Cid Mind Rape him.
• Cid's dismay at realizing that Eta has replicated modern Japanese office buildings. Even worse, Christina's such a fan of the architecture that she refuses to break down the door even while they are in the middle of a Zombie Apocalypse. Even Cid thinks this is nuts.

Season 2

• While in the light novel, only Beta starts wondering whether she smells when Shadow says he smells something, in the anime, everyone in Shadow Garden starts wondering whether they smell with Eta spraying herself.
• In episode 1, Cid gets enamored after Mary, an ancient Vampire Hunter as she calls herself, lays down multiple scintillating one-liners after she "saves" Cid from multiple ghouls (Cid was never in any danger, due to him, you know, having the overwhelming power as Shadow, that he purposefully conceals whilst in his "Cid" guise). Cid gets so astonishingly enamored with her one-liners that he himself repeatedly uses them as he rescues various individuals from the ghoul threat now spreading throughout the Lawless City at his own leisure as Shadow. The result is blatantly hilarious to the audience. He even reuses the quotes during the second episode preview of the season no less.
• Claire is grieving over what she thinks is her dead brother. Then Mary reappears and points out the corpse doesn't have black hair or eyes. The background music immediately cuts off as Claire is left wondering who the hell she's holding.
• Crimson is giving his dramatic speech as he prepares to revive Elizabeth ... only for his speech (and the background music) to cut out as Shadow drops down behind him and unceremoniously unleashes I Am Atomic, destroying the tower and reducing Crimson to a severed head. This is basically the equivalent of killing the final boss mid-cut scene.
  • And Cid's still repeating Mary's quotes!
  • Plenty of viewers have commented that Cid had broken the unspoken rule of letting the villains power up first before attacking them. As such, he brought this anti-climax upon himself despite wanting a final boss fight.
• Episode 4 has Delta literally barking and acting like a dog as he feeds what Cid, at first, thought was just a random dog, but is surprised to see it's none other than the familiar fluffy-eared companion asking for more of the food he gave to her earlier.
• Episode 5 opens with some Cult thugs infiltrating Mitsugoshi. This goes badly for all involved:
  • Gamma tries to insist that she goes to deal with them. Alpha ignores her twice before inviting that two of her aides go with her.
    • Following that, Nu is surprised to hear that Gamma is only 17.
  • When Gamma faces the head goon, he boasts about his strength before trying to attack her from behind. All he gets is Gamma complaining about a minor head injury, and yelling at him for not attacking from the front. This happens again when he pulls out a chainsaw blade.
  • During the fight, Gamma remembers her Lord Shadow's advice on how to start fighting:
  Gamma: Jam some magical energy into it and hack away! And when you slash, make sure to look intimidating!
  • After this, Gamma charges at the attacker with a magical sword attack... only to trip on a piece of debris and fall, blowing a hole in the building. Cut to Alpha massaging her forehead while Nu looks away.
  • After that, Gamma insists that her opponent is a genius who intentionally set her up to trip.
  Leaf 1: Your nose is bleeding.
  • As he tries to escape, Gamma charges up another attack... only to trip on debris again, this time losing her grip on her sword entirely. By sheer happenstance, the sword lands tip-first into the back of the Cultist's neck, killing him in the explosion. After this (and another cut to Alpha and Nu), Gamma tries to write this off as her 'special technique'.
  Aides: Your nose is bleeding.
• John Smith is asked to look over the quality of the faked bills. He's surprised to discover that the bill of lesser quality is the real bill. The counterfeit money is actually of superior quality in comparison to the MCA's official product!
  • Later, even the MCA stooge reporting to Getten can't tell which is fake.
• Episode 8 is rife with funny moments:
  • When the Seven are debating the matter of Cid's friends bringing the hot springs tickets to Mitsugoshi, Alpha concludes the group date must be an elaborate plot from Shadow.
  Alpha: To invite me- (background music cuts off) ...to invite us to join him at Mitsugoshi Hot Springs Land.
  • When Eta is asked to explain it, she just reads the description of the brochure.
  • It turns out that sometime in the past, Shadow and the Seven killed some Cult members speaking of 'golden dragon tears'. Shadow promptly ordered the Seven to start digging for this alleged gold. He ultimately left three days later, and shortly thereafter Eta dug up a hot spring.
  • When trying to decide who gets the three remaining tickets, Nu starts suggesting herself given she was invited. Alpha cuts her off by throwing several knives at her, forcing Nu to dodge.
  • Ultimately, the candle-lit meeting between conspirators comes down to seven girls arguing over which three get to go on a date with Shadow, with several attempting to argue their specific "merits" to the mission... except for Delta, who just bluntly tells everyone she wants to go to the hot spring with the Boss.
  • As everyone else clears the room, the Shades resolve it in the same manner as they have always done... a round of Rock Paper Scissors!
  • Skel and Po try to get a chance with the girls by following the dating tips of a pick-up artist Count Virginboy, who became a wizard at age thirty.
• There's some delicious Dramatic Irony in Episode 10, where Perv monologues about how he will soon become one of the Rounds thanks to the ring in his possession... completely unaware that Shadow already stole it earlier, and he's just holding an empty box.
• Episode 11 has Perv getting ready for the wedding, monologuing about how he'll join the Rounds thanks to the Ring.
  Perv: For now I too will be part of, Rounds! (flips open the box, revealing the missing Ring)
  (deafening silence)
  Perv: (quietly closes the box) Now I too will be part of, Rounds! (flips open the box again, revealing the still-missing Ring)
  Perv: (closes the box again) Part of Rounds! (flips the box open again, revealing the absent Ring)
  Perv: ... shit. Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit, oh what the hell?! (starts looking through his clothes, even tearing them off) wh-wh-Where'd it go? Where, what, how in the?!
  • It's at this time that Sir Mordred calls to congratulate Perv on his incoming ascension. All this accomplishes is making Perv (who's in his underwear by this point) panic even more, before trying to reassure himself that he won't need the ring right away.
• In a Black Comedy sort of way, Perv and Reina's decapitated heads are left back at the altar. As if the anime wanted to give the two a "happy ending" even though their faces are that of despair or terror.
• As Shadow unleashes his I Am Atomic, the now panicked Mordred yells out who Shadow is.
  Shadow: I'm Atomic.
  Mordred: Huh.

Master of Garden

• Due to the staff shortage during Mitsugoshi's Halloween event, Alpha forces Delta and Eta to work the night shift. It goes as well as you can expect.
• Yukime's Insistent Terminology to her employees that they are not copying Mitsugoshi's design, but are simply "referencing" it. Making things funnier is the fact that she later on just admits that her products are just imitations of Mitsugoshi's, but nonetheless manages to achieve success in Lawless City.
• In the Seven Chronicles, No. 111 breaks her cover and reveals herself to Annerose. The latter recognizes her as Karen von Herzorg, but concludes that she became a vengeful spirit with unfinished business. 111 decides to just go along with this and yet despite her Bad "Bad Acting", Annerose believes everything.

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