Literature / The Eminence in Shadow

Shadow: We are Shadow Garden. We lurk in the shadows, and hunt the shadows. That is all we live for..."

"I don't want to be the last boss. I wanna be the one in the stories who operates from the shadows... The Eminence in Shadow!"

— Cid Kagenou

The Eminence in Shadow (Kage no Jitsuryokusha ni Naritakute!, literally "I Wanna be the Power in the Shadows!") is a 2018 Japanese Web Serial Novel by Daisuke Aizawa.

Ever since when he was a child, a young man had a dream. He neither wanted to be the Hero, nor did he wanted to be the Villain. No, what he wanted was to be a power that was hidden within the shadows. Then, that dream seemingly came to an end when he got ran over by a truck and lost his life.

Fortunately for the young man, his life began anew when he reincarnated into a new, fantasy world and being given the ability to use magic. Now, as Cid Kagenou, he might be able to achieve his dream. Unbeknownst to him however, he accidentally stumbled upon an actual conspiracy.

While initially starting as a web novel it has spun off in multiple forms of media:

• A light novel adaptation published by Kadokawa with the first volume released on November 5th, 2018, and an English translation by Yen Press starting August 11th, 2020. While initially adapting and changing some parts of the web novel from volume 4 onwards the story started to diverge.
• Manga:
  • A Denser and Wackier manga adaptation illustrated by Sakano Anri, which started on December 26th, 2018.
  • A spin-off 4koma manga called Shadow Gaiden with a total of six volumes from June 25th, 2020 to October 26th 2023.
  • A spin-off manga, "Eminence in Shadow - Shadow Side Story" has been announced.
• Anime:
  • The first season has aired on October 5th, 2022 to February 15th, 2023 for 20 episodes.
  • A second season that has aired from October 4th, 2023 to December 20th, 2023 and ran for 12 episodes.
  • A movie called "The Eminence in Shadow: Lost Echoes" has been announced.
  • There is also a spin-off ONA series called Kagejitsu! which has the characters in chibi form and airs concurrently with the anime.
  • For Halloween 2023 it had a crossover with Overlord (2012)'s Ple-Ple-Pleiades~!.
• A free-to-play videogame adaptation called Master of Garden in which you can recruit various characters in the series to play with along with seeing other sides of them in certain events. There is also an ongoing interquel called Seven Chronicles, which showcases what the Seven Shadows were doing between the time after they rescued Claire and before Cid enrolled in the academy.

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Provides examples of:

• A Little Something We Call "Rock and Roll": Done by Cid mostly unintentionally, simply by conversing with his Shadows about various aspects of his life back on Earth. While Cid's own knowledge on how exactly any of the things he mentioned actually work or are made is very incomplete, the much more talented Shadows were able to fill in the gaps of his "Wisdom of the Shadows", resulting in the creation of Mitsugoshi, an incongruous store that sells modern luxuries in a world that had never seen anything like them before.
• Abusive Parents: The sole outcome after a child is exposed as being infected with Demonic Possession is that her own family turns against her, killing her or selling her to the Church who will do the dirty work. The only exception was Zeta's family who tried to cure her condition, only to wind up being wiped out by the Cult.
• Accidental Truth: Cid does this repeatedly. Pretty much any time he comes up with some random idea of what's going on, it somehow turns out to be true, or he is vague enough on said topic that it looks like he was aware of it.
  • Cid spent years and went through tens of thousands of iterations making up the most believable cover story possible for justifying his Chuunibyou dreams: that the Cult of Diablos is persecuting all descendants of the legendary heroes. Just one problem... his research into a believable excuse stumbled on evidence of an actual cult, and it's all true.
  • When his sister is kidnapped and Beta tries to figure out where she is, Cid throws a dagger at a random spot on a map and declares she's actually being held in the opposite direction Beta had thought. In truth, he had already considered her a lost cause and was just humoring Beta. Turns out that direction was actually the location of the Cult of Diablos base where Claire was held captive.
• Adaptational Attractiveness: In the light novel and anime, possession is shown to be incredibly grotesque in its later stages as by that point the possessed are little more than rotting lumps of misshapen flesh as seen with Cid's first meeting with Alpha before he cures her possession. In the manga, this is toned down as Alpha's physical body is unchanged, but much of her body is discolored and rotting.
• Affectionate Gesture to the Head: After Epsilon convinces Shadow to allow her to look after Emilia, she receives a head pat from her master.
• Alternate Continuity: Initially the web novel and light novel had identical stories with the exception of the latter having revised or additional scenes added, which the author lampshaded in the afterword of Volume 3. As a result, the story between the two novels starts diverging from the events that transpire in the Oriana Kingdom.
  • In the web novel, Cid intentionally allows himself to get captured and helps the Royalist faction against Doem's with Rose also helping from behind the scenes.
  • In the Light Novel, Rose is forced to marry Doem in exchange for her mother's safety with Cid planning on stirring the plot.
• Amplifier Artifact:
  • The antagonist of the second arc uses one in combination with a Red Pill during his fight with Shadow, not that it does him much good in the end.
  • Several characters mistake Shadow's incredible power to be due to an artifact since they couldn't fathom the idea of someone being that strong naturally until they face him personally and it is clear that it is just his power.
• And Show It to You: In volume 4, after Cid is away from Marie, a then prostitute turned tavern lady whom he saved in the Lawless Town as Shadow, follows the two muggers and murders them like this. He then returned Marie's money to her, earning more affection from her.
• Apocalypse How: The "Red Moon" is the event in which the Vampires became more powerful. Long ago when the "Red Moon" occurred, the vampire progenitor, the Queen of Bloods, and her followers were able to wipe out several countries. It was because of this that in the present day, many swordsmen gathered to plan in assaulting the Red Tower, where the Queen of Blood resides to ensure that it never happens again.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: How Rose knew that the Shadow Garden were framed for the crime was because of three things. The swordsmanship, the prowess, and the real Shadow Garden members aside from Shadow were composed of women. She went on to warn and prevent the Midgar Kingdom from making an enemy out of such a powerful group but was promptly ignored.
• Artificial Human: Cid and Aurora discover a dimension where there are hundreds of pods containing lifeforms looking exactly like Olivie, Freya, and even Aurora herself. This further confirms that the Cult of Diablos has a hand in the demon's creation.
• Asian Fox Spirit: The fox therianthrope clan are known for their intelligence and wit. Their power is measured by their number of tails with 9 being the strongest as evidenced by Yukime, who is the sole ruler of the Lawless City after Shadow defeated Elizabeth and ordered Delta to kill Juggernaut.
• Asshole Victim:
  • Cid spent much of his childhood killing bandits in secret. Since these criminals have done nothing but pillage homes and murder innocents, no one will miss them.
  • In Volume 6, the Thirteen Night Swords are Midgar nobility that bullies commoners and lesser nobles and uses their wealth and connections to get away scott-free of their multiple crimes. Many people, especially Christina Hope, a recent victim of the Night Swords, can't help but cheer at their deaths at the hands of Jack the Ripper.
  • Delta's biological brothers were complete assholes to Delta, back when she was Sara, constantly bullying her for being weaker than them. After losing her mother, Delta lost any reason to bear anymore of her brothers' abuse and she kills them.
• Badass Boast: After he and Shadow Garden were made public enemy # 1 by the Cult of Diablos, Shadow could only laugh it off and happily accepts what he considers to be a challenge.
  Shadow: If you can, bring to us all the sins of the world. We will bear it all! But nothing will change. We will still carry on doing what we ought to do.
• Badass in Distress: Most of the major arcs involved Claire, Alexia, and Rose being in danger from the Cult of Diablos. It's revealed the cult wants their blood to create a new hero.
• Battle Harem: An entire following of beautiful girls swear loyalty to Cid after he saves them from near death and offers them the chance to avenge their suffering.
• Beautiful All Along: All of the girls of Shadow Garden are knockouts but the "Curse" turned them into rotten lumps of flesh until Cid found a way to restore them to their true selves.
• Big Damn Heroes: Shadow's entire shtick is that he comes to aid the heroes and overwhelm enemy forces with sheer power.
• Big Good: Arguably, Cid and the Seven Shadows. They founded the organization, Shadow Garden in order to combat the Cult of Diablos and prevent the resurrection of the demon. One of their major objectives is to rescue young girls suffering from Demonic Possession and heal them.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing:
  • Alexia may seem like your traditional Princess archetypes but Cid and possibly Iris, know it's all an act and that the real Alexia is rude, bad-tempered, and generally, a jerk. But when the situation calls for it, Alexia truly shows she's a good person deep down, willing to put her life on the line to protect those she loves.
  • Her would-be suitor, Zenon is worse than her. He plays the perfect gentleman in order to hide the fact that he's a cruel and arrogant agent of the cult and wants to kidnap the princess to achieve wealth and fame.
• Body Horror: When Cid discovered Alpha locked up in that cage, he described her as looking like a lump of meat who was barely able to move at all. The manga shows some of the details. Her body looks severely rotten and there are some abnormal bumps or maybe even blood on some places with her right arm and some parts of her hair are relatively intact. And all she could say or try to is a call for help. The anime showcases her as an outright Blob Monster.
• Broken Masquerade: Shadow Garden's plan is to uncover the truth about the Three Heroes and expose the Cult of Diablos for their crimes.
• Buxom Beauty Standard: At least the members of Shadow Garden certainly think so. Epsilon for instance uses her slime suit to give her bigger Fake Boobs because she thinks Shadow likes big ones.
• Call-Forward:
  • When letting Quinton give Mundane Mann a beatdown in episode 15, Cid mentions if this was a powerful opponent he was actually trying to win against, he would go for their eyes first. Volume 3 introduces Gettan, a strong therianthrope who was blinded by Stylish Bandit Slayer in their first encounter.
  • Claire pins down her opponent to the ground with her sword at his throat during the school's tournament in episode 7, a move she learned from Cid since Mundane Mann would do the same thing to Iris in episode 19.
• Calling Your Bathroom Breaks: This is how he gets out of sticky situations. Unfortunately, a lot of students at Midgar Academy think this is his trait.
• Canon Marches On: When the manga first began, the light novels were only at volume 3 and there were no plans for Cid to return to his original world during that time, which caused the manga authors to exaggerate Cid's obliviousness by making him insanely buff in his previous life, which became a problem when volume 4 showed that he has a physique he could hide with his clothes. So they rectified this by giving him the ability to Hulk Out somehow.
• Can't Catch Up: A recurring element in the series is that Shadow Garden feels they are severely lacking in not just strength but also skill compared to their master. This reaches a breaking point when Shadow seemingly abandons them and Alpha believes that it's due to them not meeting his expectations.
• Cassandra Truth:
  • Due to how well Cid hid his true personality and abilities, many people believe that he is relatively harmless.
  • After seeing Jimina (Cid in disguise) blowing away most of the competition, Annerose thinks he is a powerful warrior. Unfortunately, everyone she talks to refuses to believe this. This behavior is quite understandable due to the number of ridiculous ways Jimina succeeds such as cracking his neck to avoid a slash and merely sneezing to defeat a powerful attack.
• Central Theme: Dreams and ambition. Is it worth it to relentlessly cling to a lofty goal even when it seems entirely unattainable, childishly delusional, and outright ridiculous? What do you sacrifice in the process and how does it affect those around you?
• Chuunibyou: Ironically this is what Cid thinks he is. He came up with the Cult Diablos and the Shadow Garden as an excuse to act cool and dark, and realize his childhood dream of being an eponymous "eminence in the shadows"... except for the years of in-depth research he put into his "cover story" turned out to have uncovered evidence of an actual cult that needed to be stopped. Still to this day, Cid believes that his friends are playing a game and the people they go after are ordinary bandits, unaware that he is leading one side in a Secret War, created an N.G.O. Superpower, with an Amazon Brigade that has pledged their Undying Loyalty towards him. Along with said women believing he is The Chessmaster.
• Civil War:
  • After the king is killed by Rose, the Oriana kingdom is divided into factions. The Royalists who stand by the Oriana Royal Family and the Doem faction who pushes for Doem to take the throne.
  • A civil war broke out in the Elf Country and is set up to become a huge showdown between the cult and Shadow Garden due to many high-ranked Round members being in the country with Alpha immediately calling the Seven Shadows and other Numbers to help along with fighting together with Shadow in a long time.
• Combat, Diplomacy, Stealth: As Yukime states in Master of Garden, the Red Tower represents stealth due to being comprised of vampires, who need to stay hidden and bide their time until the red moon, the Black Tower represents combat due to focusing on raw physical strength, and her White Tower diplomacy due to focussing on financial power.
• Corporate Warfare: The second half of volume 3 is about one between Mitsugoshi and the MCA (Major Corporate Alliance) with the latter company desiring to crush the former due to their growing power. However, a third party formed by Yukime and John Smith plan on stirring the plot to take everything for themselves.
• Cosmopolitan Council: The Knights of Rounds are 12 extremely powerful knights and the true leaders behind the Cult of Diablos.
• Counterfeit Cash: Cid and Yukime's plan to undermine both Mitsugoshi Co and the Great Commerce Alliance is to create counterfeit bills the latter company distributes to both cash in the gold themselves and cause a credit crisis, which would bankrupt both companies.
• Crapsack World: What happens to Cid's old world where monsters roam the land now and humanity is divided into factions who fight one another for survival.
• Crazy Enough to Work: What did Cid come up with to defend himself against a nuke? Become the nuke!
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Out of the battles Shadow has fought in, his battle against both Iris Midgar and Beatrix displays how much of a badass he is. And the whole world now knows it.
• A Day in the Limelight:
  • Claire, when she teams up with Mary in the Lawless City.
  • A chapter focuses on Nishino Akane, a classmate from Cid's former life, Kageno Minoru.
  • In the web novel, there is a short arc focussing on Quinton and Goldoh, revealing what had happened to them after being bought at the Lawless City.
• Darker and Edgier: Light novel volume 6 has a much darker tone than the previous volumes due to Cid's alter ego, Jack the Ripper, being a Serial Killer with a Pay Evil Onto Evil mindset. Especially since all of Jack's scenes are told from the perspective of other characters without any thoughts of Cid being shown. On top of that, this alter ego obtains a Legacy Character in the end.
• Defiant Captive: While being held captive by Viscount Grease, Claire shows strong resistance to him, especially after he threatens to hurt Cid until Grease knocks her out.
• Demonic Possession: Demonic Possession... Or so the world has been led to believe, in truth, it's due to the sufferers being a descendant of the Three Heroes, who were each implanted with cells taken from Diablos by the Cult. At a certain stage depending upon the species' lifespan, the cells will begin to take over a female descendant's body and eventually transform them into a monster. Before Cid came along this was incurable.
• Did We Just Have Tea with Cthulhu?: Cid became friendly with a witch named Aurora a.k.a Diablos, the very demon he is hunting for. However, Aurora wasn't actually a villain but a victim.
• Disqualification-Induced Victory: Since Mundane Mann reveals to the world that he is Shadow after he defeats Iris, he is promptly disqualified, making Claire the winner of the Bushin Festival. She is not happy about this.
• Domino Mask: The members of Shadow Garden and Shadow himself hide their identities with black masquerade masks. Subverted in the anime where the masks are removed and instead replaced with hooded cloaks to hide their faces. The change is justified as the animators didn't want to increase production costs to further hide their eyes and complex tangled bangs, getting permission from Daisuke himself to do so.
• Dramatic Irony: So much so that The Eminence in Shadow could be called Dramatic Irony the series.
  • This all started when Cid made up the Cult of Diabolos as a backdrop to his "Eminence in Shadow" LARPing and roped Alpha into playing along. Unbeknownst to him, the cult turns out to be very much real as he accidentally stumbled upon its existence when researching ancient literary texts for reference to make his roleplaying more authentic. To this very day, Shadow Garden is fighting the evil forces of the Cult of Diabolos without Cid ever knowing.
  • Iris vehemently believes that Shadow is merely using an artifact to enhance his powers. However, after being beaten by a disguised Shadow, Iris uses an artifact sword to have even a sliver of a chance to match him. To add more salt to the wound, Shadow chides Iris for using an artifact as a clutch.
  • Rose cries in despair that joining Shadow Garden has cost her the chance to be in a relationship with Cid, not knowing that she's far closer to him since Shadow Garden was founded by him.
• Dramatic Unmask: In the Holy Ground arc, Alpha unveils her true identity to Alexia, Rose, and Nelson, showing them that she is the hero, Olivier's, descendant.
• Dying Curse: After being killed by the legendary heroes, Diablos placed a curse on them so that they and their descendants would suffer painful deaths. Or so the Cult's propaganda goes, in reality they implanted the Three Heroes with cells taken from Diablos.
• Entertainingly Wrong: The Shadow Garden members are time and time again impressed by how Cid is seemingly able to see through the Cult's plans and come up with countermeasures quickly. They all don't know it's a coincidence and Cid is just really lucky.
  • Gamma personally believes that her intelligence pales in comparison to Shadow's. This is false as the true genius is Gamma and Shadow is just the Idiot Hero.
  • In Volume 1, Gamma thinks that Shadow's disappointment over her and Mitsugoshi, Ltd. is due to the company not meeting his expectations, but he is actually just jealous of them, believing that they are profiting from the knowledge he gave them and not giving him his cut which is not true at all as the company in fact belongs to him.
  • Gamma's ashamed that she had to bring personnel to locate the Shadow Garden impostors while her master has already figured it out except he's thinking about someone (Alexia) who is completely innocent.
• Evolving Credits:
  • The ED prominently features every Seven Shadows starting with Alpha in episode 2.
  • The rendezvous point of Shadow and the Seven Shadows in the opening differs depending on the arc.
    • Episodes 1-5: Sunrise at◊ Midgar Clocktower.◊
    • Episode 6-9: Burning◊ Midgar Academy◊
    • Episodes 10-14: Night at◊ Lindwurm◊
    • Episodes 15-19: Rain at◊ Midgar Arena.◊
• Explosive Leash: In volume 5, the students of the Midgar Academy are strapped with a mana collar bomb by the Cult of Diablos in order to suck the mana needed for the activation of Diablos right arm inside the school sanctuary. Once one's mana is depleted, it kills said person by detonating.
• Facial Markings: Several therianthropes have these located near their eyes such as Delta having red markings and Yukime having blue ones.
• Fake Relationship: Alexia blackmails Cid into it so that Zenon would stop making advances toward her.
• Fantasy Gun Control: The anime occasionally depicts guns, but only used by criminals. Justified as the guns are still relatively primitive and dark knights, the primary military force, can shrug off non-magical attacks if they have their guard up. If someone attempted to infuse magic into a bullet it would dissipate by the time it reached its target. The only time when firearms were shown to be effective was against targets who were unable to use their magic. Swords are preferred as they can simply keep channeling their magic into it and are outright necessary for dealing with certain monsters.
• Flipping the Bird: After Alexia starts to feel attached to Cid, she asks him to continue the Fake Relationship they had with each other a little longer. Cid, having gone through a lot of trouble thanks to her, naturally ends the relationship but does it by flipping her. Alexia didn't take it too kindly.
• Forced into Evil: Some of the members of the Cult of Diabolos had no choice but to join due to their families being held hostage or hitting the Despair Event Horizon:
  • Viscount Grease and his daughter, Millia went through this after the Cult of Diablos kidnapped the latter to make her father become their pawn. Millia was then used to become their weapon on two separate occasions until she was cured by Shadow and taken into Shadow Garden.
  • In volume 5, The Head Librarian faced Fenrir during one of his investigations as a knight years ago. He was disarmed by him and held his wife hostage in order for him to comply with the Cult's demands.
• Foreshadowing:
  • In episode 10, there's a scene where Cid briefly glances at Rose's chest with noticeable red eyes before she puts her hand over it. It may look like Cid is taking in a Male Gaze but in truth, is actually activating his Magic Eyes to detect the growing magic anomaly in Rose. Sure enough, four episodes later, she begins developing Demonic Possession with the infection spreading around the chest area first.
  • In volume 2, Cid kills Olivier by biting down and ripping out her throat akin to how a vampire feeds on their victim. Vampires play a major antagonistic role in the first half of volume 3.
  • In volume 4, Cid boasts about being able to take down a god with just a single finger. This later comes into play when he promptly defeats and kills Ragnarok, the god and ruler of the Fourth Realm, using Razor Wire which only requires the use of his fingers.
  • In Yukime's event in Master of Garden, when talking over the fact her company is copying Mitsugoshi products, she states that "If Mitsugoshi is the light, then Snow Fox Corporation is its Shadow...", by the end of volume 3 her company does become partners with Mitsugoshi/Shadow Garden and performs acts for them in Lawless City thus truly becoming its shadow.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus:
  • Combined with Five-Second Foreshadowing. In episode 6, a keen-eyed viewer can spot a statue of Shadow◊ and the Seven Shadows when Cid enters the Mitsugoshi store, hinting the fact that Mitsugoshi is Shadow Garden's front.
  • Although Sherry debuts in episode 5, she actually first appears in episode 3 during Alexia and Cid's time at the library◊. This was revealed in episode 7.
  • When Shadow rescues Rose in episode 9, her prior flashback◊ looks suspiciously similar to Cid's in episode 4◊, hinting the fact that it was him who rescued Rose when they were young.
  • While Annerose debuted in episode 15, she's actually mentioned by Cid and also appeared◊ in episode 11.
  • As seen above in Evolving Credits, the rendezvous locations of Shadow and the Seven Shadows differ every arc.
  • At the end of the anime(in the original Japanese broadcast), there a shot of the red moon◊ at Midgar. A few days later, season 2 is announced by the VAs themselves in the Kadokawa stream.
• Fugitive Arc: While Cid was having the time of his life going through the Tournament Arc as Mundane Mann, Rose Oriana was on the run after stabbing her fiance Perv Asshat for drugging her father the king, and had to hide in secluded areas such as the burned-down school under renovations and Midgar's underground sewer system. This is further cemented when she snuck into the arena where the Bushin Festival is taking place and mercy-killed her father.
• Get into Jail Free: In the web novel, the first chapter of the Oriana Civil War Arc has Cid allowing himself to get captured by the guards.
• Ghost Town: Shadow Garden's initial base was a destroyed town in the middle of a forest until they were forced to find another base once it became too overcrowded. This causes them to move to Alexandria after Shadow defeats the Mist Dragon and earns his servitude.
• Giving Radio to the Romans: Zig-Zagged. Due to Cid's previous memories from his prior life in modern day Japan, he "grants" his knowledgeable staff quite a few tips in improving Shadow Garden's tech in what he describes as knowledge from the "shadows" when it's merely his previous life's memories. They already have an established network of goods that incorporate designs and flair from the modern day and even have a working Morse Code machine station◊ to boot.
• Girl of the Week: There are several girls, whose interaction with Cid or one of his alter egos becomes part of the focus of the volume:
  • Volume 1 has Sherry, who gains a crush on Cid and is central to stopping the terrorist attack on Midgar Academy.
  • Volume 2 has Annerose, who searches for a Worthy Opponent. She finds one in Mundane Mann and is the only one able to see through his tricks. However, this is downplayed compared to the others since her focus is more secondary and minor to the plot.
  • Volume 3's second half is about Yukime's partnership with John Smith and revenge on a former lover.
  • Volume 6 is about Christina's interest in Jack the Ripper's murders and her admiration towards the Serial Killer and Shadow.
• Godzilla Threshold: There are multiple examples in this series:
  • During the Red Moon Arc, the Dark Knight Association had to break their no-intervention rule in the Lawless Town, both Yukime and Juggernaut team up and invade the Red Tower just to stop Queen Elizabeth the Blood Queen from reviving and annihilate everything again.
  • In Volume 4 Mordred reveals that the Oriana Kingdom had to resort to summoning the Black Rose or face annihilation when they were invaded by Velgalta. Even after annihilating the invading troops, it still continued to summon the Stygian Beasts that they also resorted for someone (implied to be Aurora) to stop it. Due to this, the Cult was able to enslave the Oriana Kingdom as repayment until King Oriana came along.
  • In Volume 5, The Cult of Diablos has to resort to putting mana collar bombs on the students of Midgar Academy to activate the Diabolos Arm due to their desperation to produce more Tears of Diabolos and the various lozenges. The actions of Cid^note by meeting Aurora, the latter finally resists the Cult's demands and, as John Smith, crippled their economy so bad they can only afford to send 2nd to 3rd children to guard against the Shadow Garden threat and his Shadow Garden^note The Cult has been incurring massive attrition of personnel once the Shadow Garden debuted into the scene, forcing the various factions to unite have definitely taken their toll against the Cult.
  • In Volume 6, The Cult has been pressuring nations to burn Oriana down to the ground as discussed by the King of Midgar towards Alexia as the Shadow Garden has been reducing their influence throughout their world. Even the King hopes that Shadow Garden will contact them as it was with Rose Oriana in order to combat them.
• The Good, the Bad, and the Evil: Between everyone, the Shadow Garden and the Cult of Diablos. In volume 5, the head librarian himself warns Alexia that the Shadow Garden may become a bigger threat than them (Cult of Diablos) and to not fully trust & rely on them on his dying breath after being severely wounded against Shadow. In volume 6, the various entities including the King of Midgar even worry about this as he can clearly see that the Cult itself is in its last legs though they also held hope that Shadow Garden will finally wipe out the Cult's influence in the world.
• Guardian Entity:
  • In volume 2 and in the game, The Mist Dragon acknowledges Cid and wishes death by his own hands that he protects Alexandria, the former capital and Shadow Garden's main base of operations, with his mist breath that can poison even the most powerful beings.
  • From volume 3 onwards, Aurora protects Cid's sister Claire from harm as thanks for him. She even admits to Claire about being a little envious of her for being always protected by a very powerful warrior like Cid.
• Halfway Plot Switch: The first four volumes have a first plot that would lead into a different plot once the first one is resolved:
  • Volume 1 starts with Minoru dying and being reincarnated into another world, which leads to the founding of Shadow Garden. It then follows his life as a student with him acting as Alexia's fake boyfriend. Once that plot is resolved, it starts being about a terrorist attack on the school.
  • Volume 2 starts with Shadow Garden's investigation of the holy grounds, which then shifts to the Godwar tournament in Midgar.
  • Volume 3 starts with a possible vampire invasion in Lawless City with the second half being a corporate warfare arc.
  • Volume 4 starts with Rose's return to Oriano with the second half being about Cid returning to his previous world with Beta.
  • Volume 6 downplays this since while the majority of the volume is about Jack the Ripper killing the Thirteen Night Swords, the last three chapters follow different characters with one serving as a partial epilogue showing how Millia and Akane are doing and two being Whole Episode Flashbacks for Delta and Alpha.
• Heroic BSoD: After Alpha believes Shadow has betrayed her and Shadow Garden, she loses the will to continue with the cause. She regains her senses after learning that her master is actually a mole.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Cid and his Shadow Garden were deemed suspicious by the Midgar Kingdom following Alexia's kidnapping. This gets worse when the Cult of Diablos manages to frame them for the attack on the academy.
• Hidden in Plain Sight:
  • Anime only but a damning hint of Mitsugoshi being Shadow Garden's front is found at the store's statue◊ but due to their mysterious existence, no one has been able to pick up on it.
  • Lindwurm being the sanctuary of Diabolos arm is hinted due to one of the trinkets they sell, which is an arm.
• Hold the Line: In Volume 3, Beta chooses to stay and fight Elisabeth until Shadow arrives to atone for letting Claire be severely injured by the Blood Queen.
• Hostage Situation:
  • Terrorists, impersonating Shadow Garden, attack Midgar Academy in Volume 1 and hold the teachers and students hostage. This is a scheme by the Cult of Diablos to frame them for the crime and make them enemies of the Midgar Kingdom and potentially the world.
  • In Volume 2, Beta stages one by herself and Shadow Garden. She lets herself be captured so that no one will suspect her to be involved with her comrades' actions.
  • In volume 5, the Head Librarian is forced to comply into the Cult's demands because they held his wife hostage.
• Hot Witch: The Witch of Calamity, Aurora is a peerless beauty with long, black hair and vivid violet eyes. Her alternate identity is Diablos.
• Humiliation Conga:
  • Both Goldoh and Quinton lost against Jimina/Shadow. Later, they foolishly challenge the denizens of the Crimson Tower which results in their defeats and enslavement. The next day after that, they got sold. The anime changes it so that while they manage to escape, they lose all their belongings and leave empty-handed.
  • Iris gets a taste of what a real defeat is like. After confronting Jimina, she gets defeated in one stroke. She later tries again but this time, allying with Beatrix but once again, Jimina/Shadow came out on top. After that incident, her reputation was soured, she lost the respect of the citizens of Midgar, and the Royal Bushin Style lost a considerable amount of their credibility.
• Identical Grandson: It's revealed that Alpha is exactly the mirror image of her ancestor, Olivier. This also applies to Alpha's alleged aunt, Beatrix.
• If I Wanted You Dead...: During the God Of War Tournament, Iris is forced to admit that Shadow can actually kill them if he wanted to after seeing his might when she questioned him about fleeing after defeating her and Beatrix.
• I Fight for the Strongest Side!: Delta was born and raised under her race's belief that the strongest must be served and those that are considered weak must be dealt with. It's because of this mindset that she submits to Cid and Alpha. She later proposes to Cid that he should defeat her tribe's current leader and become chieftain, that and she wants to bear his child. He immediately declines.
• I Have Boobs, You Must Obey!: During the Trial of the Goddess, Beta (as Natsume) waves to the people causing massive applause. It's implied they were reacting toward her large bosom much to Alexia's dismay and jealousy.
• I Have No Daughter!: Shadow Garden's members suffered from the possession which caused their families to disown them.
• I Meant to Do That: Just as an assassin is about to strike, Gamma trips and her sword flies out of her hands and heads towards the assassin, killing him instantly. Once she realizes this, she tells her subordinates that it is part of her strategy.
• Instant Armor: The slime bodysuit is this, as long as you channel mana into it.
• Indecisive Parody: The story stars a chuunibyou as its main character who invents a ridiculous Ancient Conspiracy to try to fool his dim-witted companions, and the series certainly doesn't hesitate to point out how cringeworthy his act is and how stupid the girls in his harem are for falling for it—the twist of the story is that the evil secret society he thought of on the spot is actually real, and he remains clueless the whole time. That said, he is still an incredibly powerful hero who always saves the day (which fits the typical Wish-Fulfillment of many isekai works) and the parts of the story that don't involve him play out exactly like they would in any other dark isekai—so a character that's intended to mock over-the-top, hammy isekai ends up as no less over-the-top than the world he inhabits.
• Irony: Epsilon tries to hide the secret from everyone, particularly Cid, that she pads her chest with slimes to make herself look like she has large breasts. Unfortunately, Cid already knows this but chooses not to say it, believing that Epsilon is developing her abilities.
• It's All My Fault: At the start of the Red Moon arc, Claire drags her brother to the Lawless City. While Claire is busy talking to the Knight Order, the city is attacked by ghouls and vampires. When Claire tries to find her brother, she finds a decapitated body and assumes it's Cid. She then starts blaming herself for bringing her brother to the city, but Mary shortly after appears and tells her that the vampires kidnapped her brother.
• Jobber: Anticipating that he'll one day participate in a massive tournament, Cid has prepared 48 different moves in... losing. He calls it Mob-Fu ("Normie Technique"). When the time came however, Cid was so into his first success that he cycles through 14 other moves, completely defeating the purpose of becoming a mob character, and he had to be dragged out of the bout because everyone became worried that he might die from his wounds. Not only that, he unintentionally attracts the attention of Sherry Barnett and Princess Rose Oriana.
• Last Stand: During the Red Moon Arc, Claudia, the leader of the Anti-Blood Queen task force, orders a full retreat when they get overwhelmed by the Blood Queen's ghouls and holds the line for the retreat of her fellow Dark Knights. She almost succumbs to death until she is saved by Shadow.
• Latex Perfection: In volume 2, Cid requests Gamma to make a face in order to enter the God of War Festival, in which the latter uses a variant of slime in order to change the face according to Cid's preferred appearance via Nu. Later, Cid notes in volume 4, that this was implemented by Mitsugoshi salons as part of their cosmetic surgery package.
• Lemony Narrator: The manga has one and while they are of few words, it's always dripping with snark. A Running Gag has them sarcastically reminding the viewers time and again that Cid is the "Protagonist" (Air Quotes included) when he does something immoral, crazy, disturbing, or all of the above.
• Let's You and Him Fight: At the Corporate Warfare arc, Alpha battles a mysterious assailant named, John Smith (Cid in disguise).
• Long-Lived: Elves have a longer lifespan than humans or therianthropes and can live up to hundreds of years. This is also why most victims of Demonic Possession are elves due to their thicker bloodline purity.
• Look Both Ways: Cid has spent the night in a forest banging his head against a great tree while stripped of all clothing. By the time he saw the lights of a nearby truck, Cid was suffering from a massive head concussion and a possible case of hypothermia; making him hallucinate that the lights were the magic he long sought. He runs towards the source before being run over seconds later.
• Love Confession: Played for Laughs. One of Cid's plans to achieve his dreams of becoming 'The Eminence in Shadows' is to confess to a beautiful girl and get dumped. Unfortunately, Alexia intentionally accepts Cid's confession much to the latter's confusion and dismay.
• Mass "Oh, Crap!": Everyone realizes that Shadow can kill them all at any time if he wants to. He unleashes his Battle Aura which is so strong that it causes weather manipulation.
• MegaCorp: Mitsugoshi, Ltd. is a trading company, well-famed for its top-of-the-line consumer goods and innovative ventures. It's secretly run by Shadow Garden who were inspired by the knowledge given to them by Shadow. They use the company to not only amass vast wealth and power but also as a front for their war against the Cult of Diablos.
• Men Are the Expendable Gender: Justified since Demonic Possession only inflicts girls, which is why the cult is dominantly male. The anime events of volume 3 start averting this with the vampires under Crimson's command being shown to be comprised of both genders. Volume 4 onwards also starts averting this with Reina Oriana, Rose's mother, who sold out her country, and Eliza, a haughty noble whose father is part of the Night Swords, both being killed.
• Mercy Kill: In Volume 1, Alpha properly kills the monster (Grease's daughter) to spare her from further Painful Transformation. It's also implied that she has done this many times before.
• Mistaken for Romance: Several female characters are led to believe that Cid has feelings for them:
  • Cid gave Sherry chocolates simply because she was the person closest to him, but since chocolate is a premium product, she believes that he went through a great deal of effort to get it for her.
  • Rose thinks that Cid likes her due to the "determination" he showed in their battle in the tournament and him Taking the Bullet for her when the cult attacks the academy. For extra measure, Cid's actions are interpreted as Devoted to You by her, which isn't helped by the fact that from her perspective he went to her home country by himself, became the apprentice of a famous pianist, tries to convince her to stop her wedding with Perv, and finally continuing to support and believe her despite her having killed her father.
  • Yukime thinks John Smith has fallen for her when he saves her from Gettan due to how pissed off he was in their fight.
• Mook Horror Show: Shadow Garden, specifically Shadow and Delta, do this a lot to their enemies.
  • The anime likes to play up this aspect of the series. Nothing says "protagonist" like beating a guy with a crowbar until the screaming for mercy stops.
• Morph Weapon: The slime suits Cid invented and which all of Shadow Garden use are this. While slimes are normally very fragile, they are also excellent conductors of mana — a user with excellent control over their mana can channel their mana through the slime suit and create just about anything from swords to armor to fake breasts to wings. It does take a lot of control to pull this off since the mana pathways of slimes and humans are radically different.
• Mugging the Monster: Most of the time, the villains suffer their defeats after picking a fight against Cid/Shadow. One example is when a minion of the vampires wisely backs away from confronting two of the Monarchs of the Lawless City but when he sets his sights upon Shadow, he immediately attacks him (thinking he was weak) not knowing that Shadow is the bigger threat and paying the price for it.
• Naked People Are Funny: Cid made a lengthy description of his training and his nudity while carrying them out.
• Mythology Gag: Episode 9 of season 2 in the anime makes several references to the web novel events in Oriana, which were Adapted Out when the light novel's story started to diverge. Cid mentions in the passing that he let himself get captured as a prisoner and caused a breakout, and joining a volunteer army led by Quinton and Goldoh.
• The Nose Knows: Therianthropes mark their desired mates so other therianthropes are aware the individual already belongs to them. For this reason, Delta, Zeta, and Yukime constantly rub their bodies or tails on Cid. Often commenting he smells like a dog, cat, or fox depending on the last therianthrope he encountered.
• Nuke 'em: One of Shadow's main goals is to find a solution to avoid this. His answer is to become a nuke, ultimately resulting in the birth of his Finishing Move, "I Am Atomic".
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Zig-Zagged with Cid. He does hide his true nature as a skilled fighter but most of his actions that help further the Shadow Garden's goals are just pure luck on his part.
• Offing the Offspring:
  • Delta was the offspring in that situation. After being ousted for having the possession, she was hunted by her own father, but she was able to hide from him and escape.
  • Christina's father gave the assassins of the Thirteen Night Swords permission to assassinate his daughter due to not wanting his household to fall due to Christina's actions, which angered the Night Swords.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: In Volume 3, Delta takes on the task, given to her by Cid, of assassinating Juggernaut the Tyrant. The battle was never shown but it's perfectly clear that she won considering the fact she's still alive, the web novel in particular has Alpha later confirming that Yukime is the last remaining pillar of the Lawless City.
• Once a Season:
  • Each volume focuses on Cid disguising as a secondary persona other than Shadow^note Mob Cid (Volume 1), Mundane Mann (Volume 2), John Smith (Volume 3), Minoru (Volume 4), Suzuki Hope (Volume 5), and Jack the Ripper (Volume 6) as well as casually dropping "I Am Atomic" or its variations on the Villain of the Week.
  • Every light novel volume includes this at the end:
    • A summary of the events that transpire through the volume told from the perspective of one of the Seven Shadows along with events that transpire outside the main story and a hint for the plot of the next volume. Volumes 1 to 4 are summarized through Beta's personal novel called the "Chronicles of Master Shadow", Volume 5 is told through Eta's Research Journal, and Volume 6 is told through Alpha's Organization Management Diary.
    • An appendix of four pages telling the information and characteristics of certain characters, who usually are the ones that are the main focus of the volume.
• One Dialogue, Two Conversations: Anytime Cid talks with the members of the Shadow Garden. He fully believes that they are playing a game and due to him saving their lives, they are playing into it to make him happy. The girls on the other hand know full well that the Cult of Diablos is real and they are taking the Shadow Garden extremely seriously, believing everything he says is to further their goals of destroying the Cult.
• Only Six Faces: The manga suffers from this problem since almost all the characters have little to no variation in faces in contrast to the Light Novel's illustrations.
• Our Vampires Are Different: Vampires can grow more powerful if under a Red Moon and can live as humans if they stave off blood for a long period of time. Vampire Lords aren't able to do that and if they swore not to drink blood, they would still have a craving for it with the Red Moon causing it to intensify.
• Out-of-Genre Experience: Volume 6's story takes more after horror stories than the usual mix of comedy and action the previous volumes have.
• Papa Wolf:
  • A tragic example. Viscount Grease aids the Cult of Diabolos in the kidnapping of Claire in desperation to save his daughter from possession. Unfortunately, this brought about his death at the hands of the girl's brother.
  • King Oriana did everything in his power to protect Rose from the cult even if it results in his own death.
  • Zeta's father did everything he could to save her from possession, a sharp contrast to what most people do when their daughter starts showing signs. Unfortunately, he didn't live to see her cured, as his attempts brought his downfall.
• Perspective Reversal: The anime previews come in pairs for each episode, the normal version from one of the Seven Shadows which portrays the show as serious, and the special version told by Cid, making it way more humourous due to how deluded and insane he is.
• Please, Don't Leave Me: Alpha begs Shadow not to abandon her even after he beats her to unconsciousness.
• Pointy Ears: Most of Cid's allies in Shadow Garden are elves, so naturally they have pointy ears to indicate this.
• Poor Communication Kills: Because Cid seems to exist on a wavelength of his own that only rarely intersects with actual reality, this happens a ton. He seems to be mostly unaware that the Cult of Diablos is real rather than something he made up, or that he is the genuine leader of a shadowy world-spanning secret organization, as opposed to just some dork with superpowers roleplaying with his friends and occasionally killing some random bandits. He exists in Perpetual Poverty, unaware that he is probably one of the richest people in the world because all of the funds of Shadow Garden and its wildly successful front company Mitsugoshi actually belong to him, the founder and leader of Shadow Garden. Poor communication ends up literally killing Gettan after Cid assumes he stole the money he had made spreading counterfeit banknotes with Yukihime, when in reality that money had been recovered safely by Shadow Garden, with (what they believed was) their leader's full knowledge and approval.
• Power Degeneration: The curse of "possession" is actually this — people with high mana are at risk of losing control of it, which mutates them. Cid figured out how to reverse the transformation by experimenting on the mutated Alpha, which not only restored Alpha but also granted her control over her increased mana. During the experiments, Cid also figured out how to replicate the effects in himself, increasing his own power in the process. Every member of Shadow Garden is a girl who succumbed to the "curse" and was subsequently healed.
• Power Limiter:
  • The Cult of Diablos uses several artifacts and devices to deprive their opponents of their power. However, one can bypass this and retain almost all of their magic if he or she can turn it so dense that it's impossible for it to be taken.
  • More hilariously, as part of his overall scheme as Mundane Mann (acting the role of someone who's seen as a complete weakling who is secretly the World's Strongest Man), Cid dresses himself in weighted armor to limit his speed (which even still does very little since very few people can see his light-speed movements). When he takes them off in front of Annerose and drops them, they crack the ground where they land.
• Proxy War: Foreshadowed in Volume 5. Due to the events in volume 4,the Cult loses their foothold in the Oriana Kingdom towards Rose Oriana and the Shadow Garden. Because of this and their hold on the religion, the Oriana Kingdom has been declared as a heretic state by the church. Various nations have been mobilized and preparing for war against them at the instigation of the Cult. The Shadow Garden has also been preparing and assisting the Oriana Kingdom on the upcoming conflict.
• Psycho Serum: The red pills the Cult engineered from Diablos' blood increase mana power but come with the risk of destroying one's body and mind if they aren't already strong. They seem to be an inferior version of Cid and the rest of Shadow Garden's natural power.
• Public Secret Message: Zig-Zagged. Cid is often fond of giving Beta coded messages he challenges her to decipher, usually doing so with what knowledge she gleans from spending time with him whenever the moment arises. This is how Beta and Eta discover that Shadow never truly betrayed them with his "John Smith" persona and meant exactly what he said toward Alpha, in regards to both Delta missing-in-action: "sent her to a far-off place" and the reason for his John Smith-guise: "Once it's all over, then you'll understand".
• Quality over Quantity: The series makes it clear that it's important to know how magic is used rather than how much magic is used. It's because of this idea that Cid and Shadow Garden are always clearly superior to the Cult of Diabolos since while the cult artificially enhances the Children of Diabolos with drugs from which only a small percentage retain their sanity, Shadow Garden trains the natural talent of those who once suffered from Demonic Possession, which allows their skills to flourish while also retaining their enhanced magical ability.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Shadow tears down Zenon's idea of power before showing the vile man what real power is like.
  Shadow: How terrible. Don’t pretend to be the strongest with that mere level of strength. It is an affront to the truly strong. There is no path towards that title that involves reliance on borrowed power. What true strength really is... burn it into your eyes.
• Reincarnate in Another World: Invoked; in his previous life, Cid was a Chuunibyou who wanted magic powers so badly that in his delusions, he deliberately ran in front of a truck and died in an attempt to get stronger. Naturally, he's reincarnated into another world where he can live out all of his fantasies.
• Religion of Evil: The Cult of Diablos wants to resurrect the demon Diablos in order to gain immortality.
• Reunion Vow: In Volume 2, Beta informs the now fugitive Rose that they will meet again. That came true at the end of the volume since Beta made the arrangements to have Rose inducted into Shadow Garden.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Shadow Garden's main goal is defeating the Cult of Diablos to avenge their suffering and save the world. They mercilessly cut down anyone that belongs to the Cult.
• Romantic Comedy: Cid obviously has a distaste towards that genre. Ironically, he is doing this without even knowing it with the evidence being his Unwanted Harem comprised of his Amazon Brigade, two Princesses, Shy Pink-Haired Girl, Hot Witch, Hooker with a Heart of Gold and the classmate from his previous life.
• Rule of Symbolism:
  • In the anime, Zenon's Break the Haughty phase was completed when his sword(the source of his ego) was completely obliterated by Shadow. All Zenon could do was drop to his knees and face Shadow's "I Am Atomic" attack.
  • Also in the anime, Iris wields an artifact sword belonging to the Three Heroes who were Unwitting Pawns to the Cult of Diabolos. Not only it foretells Iris's future manipulations by the Cult but also shows that like the latter, Iris is rejecting the reality that Shadow is stronger than her and is living in a bubble. Interestingly enough, Shadow shows the full range of his "I Am Atomic" attack by encasing the entire kingdom in a literal bubble.
  • The cover of the sixth light novel volume has Christina wearing a white dress with a rose with a card embedded into it while Jack the Ripper stands behind her and blocks one of her eyes with a poker card. This symbolizes Christina witnessing Jack's killings and finding the clues he leaves behind along with how much she is influenced by him, which causes her to become his Legacy Character.
• The Scapegoat: Since the public didn't know Gettan was the real leader of the MCA, Garter, who acted as public leader, is the one who gets arrested for the credit crisis.
• Secret War: Between Shadow Garden and the Cult of Diablos with several countries aware of them making use of them to ensure their survival with Oriana siding with Shadow Garden once Rose becomes its queen, Velgalta siding with the cult to invade Oriana once more and King Midgar making sure his daughters are on opposite sides so the royal bloodline will survive regardless of the outcome.
• Secret-Keeper: Aside from the Shadow Garden, there are only a handful few people who know that Cid is Shadow, with them being Lutheran Barnett, Aurora, and Elisabeth. Though others like Rose Oriana, Claire Kagenou, and Akane Nishino have been putting two & two together and are already suspecting it.
• Shoddy Knockoff Product: Due to the popularity of Mitsugoshi products, several other companies and merchants try their own hand at replicating them with varying results such as Snow Fox succeeding at making an Effective Knockoff of a lesser quality to the anime showcasing shirts that have printing that easily falls off.
• Shout-Out:
  • In one of Rose's flashbacks to the Stylish Bandit Slayer, Cid is heard saying "Anyone who's running is a bandit, anyone who isn't running is a well-trained bandit!"
  • Delta's Iron Slab BFS is described as "too big to be called a sword. Massive, thick, heavy, and far too rough. Indeed, it was like a slab of raw iron".
  • In Master of Garden, one of the stories Beta has plagiarized from Cid's stories is Spider-Man with her initial draft being the Japanese adaptation with a Humongous Mecha. Funnily enough, her editor suggests removing the giant robot and instead only focusing on the hero while also giving him a dead uncle, who teaches him an important lesson about responsibility.
  • In a few of Season 2's ED scenes, there are various shaped blocks that steadily fall to fill in the otherwise-blank background segments in a manner very similar to Tetris.
• Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: Both Beta and Epsilon hate each other's guts due to both of them vying for Cid's attention.
• Skill Gate Characters: Non-Video Game Example. The memories summoned at the Goddess Trials are based on the challenger's skill level. Cid, knowing this from Alexia, had to resort to transforming as Shadow to avoid blowing his cover when he was unknowingly nominated as a challenger by Rose Oriana. Due to his prowess, he manages to summon the most powerful warrior in the trial, Aurora The Calamity Witch, and wins.
• Slasher Smile: Most of the Cult of Diablos members, but also Shadow Garden members sport this.
  • Shadow frequently smiles like this when he gets to kill someone. He has done so ever since he was a kid.
  • Nu is shown to smile this way when she's about to torture a Shadow Garden impostor.
  • Delta kills very enthusiastically to put it mildly, almost invariably sporting this when she's in a fight.
• The Social Darwinist: The therianthrope species holds this mentality. They value strength and power, with hunting prowess being the most sought-after. Any member of the tribe that shows signs of weakness will be executed immediately. Certain tribes like Yukime's are the exception to the rule.
• Sore Loser: This is practically what all of the Cult's elite members are like, always resorting to Diablos Tears formula whenever Shadow Garden or another better fighter defeats their normal power, which never really helps much anyway except to even further demonstrate their incompetence after being defeated in their altered forms, often defeated by Shadow Garden.
• Spoiler Opening: During the anime intro, Cid switches through TV channels showcasing his multiple identities with the second-to-last one being Mundane Mann who wouldn't debut until the "God of War Tournament" arc in episode 15.
• Springtime for Hitler:
  • Cid, with two of his low-ranking classmates watching in the background, attempts to ask Princess Alexia to be his girlfriend after she turned down an earlier confession flatly, fully expecting her to refuse and thus strengthen his reputation as a worthless nobody. He even improperly spells her name and status, along with loser-like stuttering just to ensure that she'd be even more inclined to turn him down. To his sheer surprise, she accepts his confession, which surprises him a great deal, and gets some unwanted attention on him.
  • This occurs again when he fights Princess Oriana in a tournament, intending to lose to her soundly and pathetically, which he does... but he gets so carried away showing off his "NPC techniques" for getting dramatically and brutally beaten up that he keeps getting up and challenging her again and again, long past the point of reason. This leads her to perceive him as a relentless Determinator and eventually falls for him.
• Strength Equals Worthiness: In Volume 3, Alpha believes if she proves her newfound strength, she could be worthy of her master's respect and able to learn why her master abandoned her and Shadow Garden.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • It doesn't matter if you're a master of martial arts or have become a hulking giant, you're still human; thus you're vulnerable and can be killed. Although Cid acknowledges this, he only focuses on death by conventional weaponry like the Taepodong. He seemingly didn't take into account other factors like blunt force head trauma and the dangers of motor vehicles, two of which were responsible for his death.
  • While making your room look pretty is nice and all, the cost of doing so is pretty high and Cid pretty much used up all the wealth he collected over the years to make it happen. Thus Cid is constantly scraping for coins and treasure due to being unaware that all of Mitsugoshi's funds actually belong to him.
  • Handling a Praetorian Guard is harder than it seems as not only do they require funding to stay afloat but there is also the problem with finding skilled personnel as hardly just anyone is on the level of Iris Midgar. Not to mention those you recruit might be an enemy spy if you don't vet them carefully enough.
  • While Cid is a badass, even he can be slowed down if he carries anything heavy like thousands of coins and treasures.
  • Someone who suffers from Chuunibyou and persistently keeps it up in the real world to the point of extremes is an insanely delusional person, and without help Cid is unlikely to be cured of it. It could be considered a miracle that Cid is as functional as he is.
    • And that one is surprisingly realistic too. Generally speaking, paranoia (including but not limited by persecution mania) is a pounding a square peg of idée fixe into a around hole of reality. But! Since being plot-wise at least for some degree, positive reality checks on a regular basis and (last, but not least) the ignorance of Cid himself that "square" is constantly filed down to match a hole. That's how we can see a rare borderline between Insane Troll Logic and being Properly Paranoid.
• Sustained Misunderstanding: The premise of the series. The rest of Shadow Garden thinks that Cid is their all-knowing, all-powerful leader who has everything in the palm of his hand. Cid thinks he's just engaging in his chuuni fantasies and the rest of Shadow Garden is just his former playmates humoring him.
• Talent vs. Training: A major theme that's occasionally brought up throughout the series is that ultimately, talent can never surpasses training. The reason why Cid became a Master Swordsman is not due to him having natural talent with the sword but him working on and perfecting the fundamentals. His opponents on the other hand are considered prodigies but their hubris is what brings them down, leading them to panic and act in a fit of rage when they are completely overwhelmed.
• Teach Him Anger: Cid convinces Alpha to join in his cause by informing her that Diablos and the cult were responsible for her mutation and the persecution she and others like her went through. After the lie is confirmed to be real, this cements Alpha's Undying Loyalty towards Cid/Shadow and hatred towards the Cult of Diablos.
• Tears of Joy:
  • Gamma enters in a state of bliss, crying in happiness whenever Cid uses his violet magic, reminding her of the time that power saved her from a life as a rotting corpse.
  • In Volume 3, the Seven Shadows members cry out of relief when they realize that Cid didn't betray them, after Beta delivers Cid's decrypted message that tells them where they can find the funds to survive the credit crisis that he brought forth with the help of Yukime.
  • In Volume 4, Akane Nishino has this reaction when Minoru/Cid tried out his own uniform she kept as a memento. She later has this reaction when she realized Minoru/Cid saved her again after waking up in the other world.
• Technicolor Magic: Magic can be in a multitude of colours depending on the user's moral alignment and emotional state:
  • Cult of Diabolos members are dark red with black lightning streaks which just screams they are the villains of the story.
  • Shadow is dark violet (Described as "bluish-purple" in the Light Novel), noting his Grey-and-Gray Morality between Shadow Garden and the cult.
  • Rose's magic is gold, highlighting her status as royalty, which later turns teal after receiving Shadow's power, an indication of it slowly turning blue like Shadow Garden as she joined their ranks.
  • Alexia used to be gold but turned pink once she began training herself to become as strong as Shadow.
  • Iris is a bright red to showcase her strength as the World's Strongest Woman and heroism but later turns darker and gains black streaks similar to the cult members during her meltdown indicating her Start of Darkness.
  • John Smith is gold (Or silver in the anime) to reflect Cid's desire for wealth such that he's willing to collapse the entire economy of the Midgar Kingdom for his pension funds.
• Threat Backfire: After Iris warns Alpha that she'll take her and Shadow Garden down for intervening in the knight order's business, Alpha belittles them for thinking they are worth her and her comrades' time and turns the conversation around by saying that the princess and her men are the ones intervening in their business.
• Tournament Arc: Cid participates in the Festival of the God of War to play out the cliche, Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass.
• Vice City: The Lawless City is regarded as one of the most dangerous cities to be in. There is never a crime nor at least shady activity this place hasn't done, openly supporting prostitution and slavery. They are run by three leaders who are basically crime lords. One of them is a powerful Vampire who can bring about the end of the world.
• Villainous Breakdown: Most members of the Cult of Diablos go through this after encountering Shadow.
  • After being thrown around like a rag doll and taunted by Shadow, Zenon enters into a wild rage. He then completely sweats in terror before Shadow vaporizes him with his Finishing Move.
  • Perv goes through a few of them. The first is when he completely loses it after Rose ruins his master plan. He gets a bigger one when he gets exposed as a traitor to the Oriana Kingdom.
• Wham Episode:
  • Rose Oriana has become a fugitive and hunted by her own kingdom for murdering her mind-controlled father. Alpha meets up with her and invites her to join Shadow Garden.
  • Cid and Beta are transported to Cid's original world and discover that it has been ravaged by monsters. When they returned to their own world, Cid doesn't know that Beta brought his former classmate, Akane Nishino with them.
• Wham Line:
  • "How did you know of [the Cult of Diablos]?" Thus making everything Cid has made up to sound cool turns out to actually be true.
  • "The Witch of Calamity, Aurora also goes by the name Diablos".
• Wins by Doing Absolutely Nothing: Skel and Po with Cid going along try to use their chocolates to get dates:
  • Skel tries to get the attention of a classmate who is always by herself, only to find out it's because she has a jealous fiance when he tries to give her chocolates.
  • Po did everything he could to find out everything about his crush from her likes and dislikes to her three sizes, unaware she noticed he was doing this and calls him a stalker.
  • Cid, who couldn't care less and wasn't interested in the chocolates, just hands his off to Sherry, the first girl he sees. She develops a crush on him.
• Wizards Live Longer: Discussed; One of the raison d'etre of the Cult of Diablos is to gain immortality via magic and are willing to go to any lengths to acquire it. Cid himself mentions that due to how powerful his magic power and reserves are, he estimates he could live up to 300 years at a minimum during the Corporate Warfare arc.
• Worthless Yellow Rocks: A version of it. In this world, Chocolate is a very new and popular item (as Cid was the one who gave Gamma the knowledge of how to make it). To Cid, it's just a common treat, so he gave it away as he just didn't want it at the time. Sherry, the girl he gave it to, after finding out how difficult it would normally be to get chocolate, believes he just gave her a very expensive gift and was confessing his feelings to her. This is also how essentially treats everything he receives from Mitsugoshi since to him everything is just a knockoff from what he had in his previous life.
• Wowing Cthulhu: Alpha is one of the few individuals to ever impress Cid, using her new techniques to engage him to almost equal footing.
• Year Inside, Hour Outside: Cid had lived fifteen years after his reincarnation but it was only three years since Minoru's death when he returned to Earth in volume 4, meaning time passes by five times slower than on Earth.
• You Are Not Alone: Alpha always advises Cid to trust her and Shadow Garden more when situations became too much for him.
• Zombie Apocalypse: When Cid arrives at the capital of the Oriana Kingdom, he learns that it's overrun with Zombies; a ploy made by the Cult of Diablos.

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