Like most kids, Kagerou wanted to be a hero, but unlike most kids, he never grew out of that phase. He constantly trained his body to achieve it. In modern Japan, he was unable to achieve that goal, understanding that he could never reach enough power to be the type of hero he wanted to be.
However, when he was reborn in a new world, he pretends to be just another character in the world. He recruits people into his organization, Shadow Garden, and decides to target a sinister cult that is lurking in the shadows that he wishes to occupy.
Isekai tends to be either strictly comedy or strictly action, Eminence in Shadow manages to be a bit of both to actually great effect! If you are looking for more anime recommendations like Eminence in Shadow, head on down below.
Anime Like The Eminence in Shadow
For Fans of Trying to Be a Mob Character Living Under the Radar
Trapped in a Dating Sim – The World of Otome Games is Tough for Mobs
After starving himself to beat an otome game for his sister, office worker Leon falls down the stairs and dies. When he awakens, he is a young son of a minor noble that wasn’t featured in the game.
Looking to live quietly as a nobody “mob” character, he is soon saddled with an arranged marriage he is against where he decides to use his knowledge of the game to get out of the match and reach for his own happiness.
Both series are about people reincarnated into new fantasy world.
Trapped in a Dating Sim has the main character gain the edge by having played the game he is reincarnated into instead of just innate physical and mental gifts.
Both series feature the strong and confident main character purposefully trying to not be a main character in their own anime. They, of course, fail at that often.
The Greatest Demon Lord Is Reborn as a Typical Nobody
The Demon Lord Varvatos is a power unrivaled. However, being at the top with no challenges and no one who is unafraid enough to be a friend is lonely, so he decides to reincarnate.
In his new life as a boy named Ard, he aims to have perfectly average powers, except that everyone in this new age has grown so weak.
While he remains overpowered, he has a singular goal of amassing meaningful friendships.
Both series are set in a fantasy world in which a character has reincarnated and actively wants to live a low-key life.
In Eminence in Shadow, it is to indulge his chuunibyou fantasies and be a mastermind that works only in the shadows, in The Greatest Demon Lord Is Reborn as a Typical Nobody, he just wants to make some friends.
Both shows feature a number of women who know their low-key friends’ cool side and play his dutiful companions.
Didn’t I Say to Make My Abilities Average in the Next Life
Because of her exceptional abilities, Misato Kurihara never got to live a normal life. However, after her sudden death, she is offered reincarnation and one wish. Her wish is to have average abilities so that she can live an average life.
Unfortunately, reincarnated as a noble’s daughter, she still has impressive magic ability.
Determined to still have her normal life, she flees to a far away hunter school and attempts to hide her abilities.
In Eminence in Shadows, the main character is powerful and tries to not be noticed.
In Didn’t I Say to May My Abilities Average, the main character is hoping to be reincarnated as normal girl, but still ends up pretty privileged.
However, Didn’t I Say to May My Abilities Average is distinctly a moe isekai series in which it is more just cute girls on comical adventures unlike the more action-oriented Eminence in Shadow.
The Genius Prince’s Guide to Raising a Nation Out of Debt
With his father ailing and the responsibility for his small poor kingdom falling to him, genius prince Wein is ready to commit treason. He desires to auction off his kingdom and retire in luxury.
However, his treasonous schemes always conclude with dire consequences, for him, anyway. His plans to fail instead constantly succeed and his kingdom begins to flourish.
While different in plot, Eminence in Shadow often features Kagerou’s overall goal that he thinks is fictional actually being real and his minions actually successfully thwarting it without his knowledge.
The Genius Prince is of a similar nature where he is actively trying to get the worse outcome in things, but ends up failing upwards to his nation’s success. It is this similar nature that drives the comedy.
Classroom of the Elite
Koudo Ikusei High School seems like a paradise with state-of-the-art facilities and where almost 100 percent of students go to university or find employment. However, while the students appear to have a good amount of freedom, only superior students get favorable treatments.
After being careless on his entrance exams for a particular reason, Ayanokouji Kiyotaka finds himself dumped in D-Class with the other inferior students.
While Classroom of the Elite is not a fantasy isekai series, what it most has in common with Eminence in Shadow is the main character. They both successfully live as mundane characters in the world, but they actually have magnificent talents that allow them to often manipulate situations to the outcomes they desire.
However, Classroom of the Elite has him do it with intellect rather than magic and power.
The Irregular at Magic High School
After magic, once thought to be folklore, was turned into a technical skill, schools to teach it opened all over.
At one such school are siblings Tatsuya and Miyuki Shiba. While Miyuki excels, her brother is placed in a lower class due to his seemingly magical ineptitude. However, he has rather unique abilities that make him quite irregular.
While The Irregular at Magic High School takes place in a more modernized magical world, it, like Eminence in Shadow, takes place at a school for the young elite.
While Kagerou lives under the radar, Tatsuya has unique magic that doesn’t fit the criteria of being “good” by the school, but he uses it to his great advantage. While he is often displayed as overpowered in most situations, the world certainly doesn’t view him as such, not unlike many Kagerou situations.
For Fans of Overzealous Underlings
Overlord
As the final hour approaches in the life cycle of the MMO Yggdrasil, Momonga, a powerful wizard and leader of the dark guild Ainz Ooal Gown, is there to see it off.
However, to his surprise, the servers don’t go down and even stranger is that all the NPC characters have come alive with their own unique personalities.
While Kagerou believes that the cult is just his members of Shadow Garden indulging his fantasy, it is similar to the reoccurring comedy in Overlord where the main character’s underlings often think his actions or lack thereof are just him playing 4D chess with the world.
Essentially, both of these isekai anime series have organizations that work outside the view of the main character to impressive results even though the main characters themselves are also wildly powerful.
The World’s Finest Assassin Gets Reincarnated in Another World as an Aristocrat
The greatest assassin on Earth lived only to be a tool by those that wished to wield his mastery. That is, until they decided that he was no longer needed and ended his life.
By the grace of a goddess, this masterful man was reincarnated into a new world where he is asked to kill a hero that will later bring about the end of that world.
Deciding to finally live for himself, this man, now named Lugh Tuatha De, puts his skills as a killer to the test with foes who wield real magic.
Both series feature a main character who actively tries to stay in the shadows in order to do his work.
While both isekai series have main characters that are powerhouses because of their strengths in their previous lives, they also have a sizable harem of extremely loyal lady helpers.
That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime
After a run in with a robber, the 37-year-old Satoru is suddenly killed. He is reincarnated into a fantasy land, but not as a man. In fact, he is no longer even human!
He is reincarnated as a lowly slime.
After wandering, he comes across a dragon who he befriends and who gives him the new name of Rimuru. Absorbing this dragon into his slime body, promising to eventually break the seal that has bound him, gives Rimuru great magical ability.
He then continues to inadvertently befriend beleaguered fantasy creatures in the forest who are constantly threatened by humanity. Eventually, he decides to found a nation uniting these creatures in order to help them protect themselves.
Aside from both being isekai series, what they have most in common is they are both anime about managing minions.
Both main characters are extremely powerful, but they are also leaders of an organization so they can also frequently divide tasks among their strong underlings rather than just do it all themselves.
For Fans of Indulging Chuunibyou Impulses
Konosuba
On his way back from buying a new game, Kazuma Satou died a pathetic death. However, he awakens before the Goddess Aqua who gives him two choices – go to heaven or reincarnate into an actual fantasy world.
Naturally, the gamer picks the fantasy world. Now Kazuma must deal with defeating an evil demon king, useless party members, and paying living expenses.
Unlike in Eminence in Shadow, the chuunibyou in Konosuba isn’t the main character. It is the mage that acts more campy, but suspiciously similar to Kagerou when doing Shadow Garden missions.
While Kagerou is adored by his underlings, Megumin is tolerated because of her power, but also endures being a silly sort of ridiculed by people who are also comically flawed.
When Supernatural Battles Became Commonplace
On one extraordinary day, the four members of the Literature Club and the faculty advisor’s niece suddenly find themselves with supernatural powers.
Each amazed with their own abilities, they try to solve the mystery of them, but very little else has changed in the day-to-day activities of the Literature Club.
While When Supernatural Battles Became Commonplace is set in our modern world, both series have main characters who have chuunibyou personalities, but also do really have fantasy powers too.
That’s the joke.
Eminence in Shadow, while acknowledging the joke through Kagerou’s inner monologue, actually has plot that it follows.
Also notable is that the chuunibyou characters also attract a harem by being great guys.
Do you have more anime recommendations like The Eminence in Shadow? Let fans know in the comments section below.
