Kage no Jitsuryokusha ni Naritakute! – 29

「鍵」 (Kagi)
“The Key”

New week, new Eminence in Shadow arc, and lots of new funnies to get a right chuckle out of: I dare say all is right with the world. Even if we’re now staring down the fall season’s conclusion in just a few weeks (Winter 2024 preview on the horizon *wink wink*) it’s nice knowing this show isn’t about to let up in its final moments. After all, when you’re dealing with comedy, it usually pays to double down.

Given how Cid’s ascent (descent?) to mastermind puppeteer has gone so far, the only real surprise about this arc is that it’s taken the kid this long to seek a major shakeup. Even for someone of this chuuni calibre boredom is a thing, and while Cid doesn’t openly voice that it’s pretty clear his desire to improve upon things comes in part from a need for new experiences; there’s a whole life to live and world to explore after all, and no reason to stick with doing the same thing in spite of it. Naturally it doesn’t wind up with Cid abandoning the dream, only tweaking it slightly. If being the shadowy organization head is out (for the moment), why not be the true string puller in getting your favourite Manchurian candidate into a position of authority? And so that’s what we get: Cid doing the usual, Shadow Garden advancing said goals without any sense of awareness, and yet more cult villains learning the hard way about true plot armour. I swear I never get tired watching this show.

The true fun of this episode, however, came from how Rose was finally looped back into the picture. This as brought up before was always going to happen in some capacity given her involvement with Cid’s sister and now Shadow Garden, but having her regress fully to veritable damsel in distress? I’d almost dislike the outcome if not for the perfect one-two of Number 559 being a true obsessed fangirl and getting Cid to lose his marbles after inadvertently revealing Rose’s marriage to our old friend Perv Asshat. There’s just something about how this show handles such misunderstandings and partial information sharing which keeps it being such a riot, especially when paired with the knowledge that somehow, someway Shadow Garden will find a way to screw up Cid’s memetic dreams while still defeating the Cult of Diabolos.

I may not know exactly how it’ll play out this time, but I do know I’m going to love every minute of the festivities.