Kage no Jitsuryokusha ni Naritakute! – 15

「最強最弱の男」 (Saikyou Saijaku no Otoko)
“The Strongest Weakest Man”

Every week I come back to Eminence in Shadow I swear it’s going to be the one where I finally have a problem. Cheesiness, boredom, repetitiveness, what have you, something will happen to take the sheen away and bring things back to ground level. Well if that’s to happen it’s not this week, because if anything I wound up laughing harder than before. I swear this show gets me through and through.

Although largely an episode about laying the groundwork for next week’s festivities, as always Eminence in Shadow knows how to perfectly leverage Cid’s personal fantasies – and delusions – into choice comedy. Fun fact is the first tournament he participated in I thought would play out like this one is set up to. Middling background character shocking the audience with hidden power and abilities? Oh that’s right up this kid’s alley. In a way having that trope come up now makes some sense though since it allows one to see just how far Cid has thought his fantasy through. When you’re walking the path of the inconspicuous nobody it pays to check all the boxes off and ensure you’ve got the complementary cast necessary to fill in the blanks, whether that be the loyal (and hilariously clumsy) assistants or the dumb friends and even dumber opposition. Just take Annerose, I don’t know if Eminence in Shadow’s author knew exactly what he was getting up to when naming her, but her last name Nichtsehen? Mm *chef’s kiss*. Unable to see indeed.

Such determined powerplays, however, do bely where the Cult is likely to factor back into things courtesy of Rose and her aggressive spousal meet and greet. Given how last episode went with its last minute teaser I doubt few are missing the potential that Rose probably didn’t wind up killing anyone through free will; someone somewhere is looking to coerce a reluctant princess into doing naughty things for obviously naughty reasons. Remains to be seen what exactly said reasons are, but safe to say it’s nothing good and more than likely has to do with the heroes and the Cult’s obsession with their progeny.

We all know how this is going to turn out in the end though. When you’re making plays in the midst of Mr. Atomic and his motley collection of pointy eared cutie pies, rest assured things are guaranteed to get a little explosive.