This episode will take you on a rollercoaster of emotions, from feeling utterly dead inside to laughing your snot out, and then experiencing the most heartwarming emotions you can dream of. All the while, you’ll be learning an important and valuable lesson. This episode solidifies ‘The Eminence in Shadow’ into GOAT territory!

The ability of the The Eminence in Shadow to blend comedy, irony, and meaningful life lessons is a testament to its storytelling prowess. The exploration of interpersonal relationships and the emotional rollercoaster the characters go through adds layers to the narrative, making it a fulfilling experience for the audience. Now, witness the breathe taking narrative that is The Eminence in Shadow!

Recap & Reaction

Coming off an episode where Shadow Garden is on the brink of losing it all, Yukime proceeds to exact her revenge against her ex-lover and Alpha is walloping in her misery from Shadow’s betrayal. This episode completes the story in different twists, delivering the most heartwarming episode of the entire anime up to this point.

Opener

The episode opens up exactly how we would imagine, Alpha and Shadow Garden, completely devastated by John Smith’s true identity. How do you come back as a group of people that’s dedicated a majority of their existence in helping a guy defeat this evil organization? Panic, frustration and rethinking your entire life..

This scene reminds me of those classic sitcom scenes with the music, where something has gone terribly wrong for the characters and they have to make up somehow.

I Ain’t Got Yo’ Money!

After the opening theme, the citizens of the Royal Capital start to panic over being able to redeem their money. Yukime walks away as the citizens are getting close to going into ‘riot’ mode.

Gettan sits on a carriage with Garter, still trying to figure out the source of all of the counterfeit money. While they haven’t found out physically where its located, they figured out that it has been Yukime’s doing, seeing a carriage come from the Snow Fox Corporation of the White Tower.

In the middle of Garter explaining the details of their situation, Gettan senses what seems to be Yukime’s presence and Gettan requests that they stop the carriage. The scene shifts—leaving us to ponder what exactly just happened.

If there was ever a non-fear for westerners, especially US citizens take for granted, it’s our financial system. When you are the main source that makes the world economy go, it’s easy to dismiss an episode like this as fiction. This is the kind of episode where places like Zimbabwe that experienced hyperinflation up to 97.9% in 2019 and Lebanon, who won’t let their citizens withdraw their hard earned money from their banks. Not to get too political, but the social commentary and theme of this episode is chef’s kiss. It’s South Park level social commentary. The theme of a financial crisis and the feeling of the ultimate betrayal that Alpha is experience is real life.

Gamma Reports Their Dire Situation to Alpha

Alpha is left sitting at the fireplace, walloping in her misery as she ponders over her role in life. Gamma comes to report that the Major Corporate Alliance’s collapse is all but certain, leading to the highest unrest of the citizens. Reporting further that they won’t be able to redeem everyone’s money and that liquidating all of their assets won’t be able to cover it either. Gamma tries to give a plan to quell the sense of security of its citizens, but Alpha was not having any of it.

Alpha goes on to tell Gamma that it’s pretty much over for them as Shadow was the one that made them fail. With everything that Shadow has blessed them with, none of them were able to display their worth to him.

The Irony Comes Crashing and Exploding our brains!

Nu comes in rushing to report that Gettan was the true conspirator behind the Major Corporate Alliance causing the financial crash. Noted that from a couple episodes ago, the Cult of Diablos’ whole plan was to do the counterfeiting strategy that Yukime and John Smith is doing right now. Gettan was perplexed by the timing of this strategy because they haven’t removed all of their wealth from the crash just yet. Alpha and Gamma begin to have this sudden realization that Shadow did all of this on purpose to help them.

Of course he didn’t.. That’s comedic irony y’all.. This show does it best!

Beta comes crashing in with her jugga juggas to present to Alpha about Shadow’s coded writing that he gave to Beta in the previous episode. As Alpha scans them for a silent moment, she starts to explain what was actually in those notes. Then, it starts to switch to Cid’s voice, explaining exactly what he was doing the entire time as John Smith. He explains as both Cid and Alpha speak out loud that the money is in the jail cell, where Claire was captured by Viscount Grease.

Did you guys get those heartwarming, goose bumpy feels? I sure did. Even though the expectations were that the irony in the story will somehow make it work out in the end, this scene executed the full extent of the emotional rollercoaster ride. From an emotional wreck to feeling absolutely ecstatic for the characters that you became most fond of, there is no other happier emotion than this one.

As Alpha and the other Shadow Garden members explains how genius Shadow was for figuring out the Cult’s plot before anyone else, I couldn’t help but laugh.. The previous episode made us laugh and sad at the same time. This episode has made us feel warm and fuzzy with a strong dose of ironic laughter.

With Shadow Garden realizing that Shadow had this planned out all along and still speaking in the background, scenes of Gettan and Yukime meeting up for their final bout starts playing. After coming to the conclusion and feeling at peace that Shadow did not forsake them, the question comes up about the loss of Delta. Right on cue, Delta pops her little murderous therianthrope ears above the window sill behind them. With Shadow Garden feeling completely happy about Delta not being dead, she’s totally confused and afraid to really explain what she did in the Lawless City to Jugga Jugga.

This scene was totally like a classic sitcom feel. Like an “awwwe it worked out in the end moment.” What makes it even funnier is that Delta starts to try to explain what she did to Jugga Jugga, but.. let’s just laugh about it.

John Smith’s Precious is Lost..

Turns out that John Smith is just continuously murdering every person trying to uncover his money and that Yukime was only in it for the revenge against Gettan. In the end, Shadow gets the keep those gold shiny coins to himself. As he shows up to relish in his wealth, it turns out it’s gone. That is because there is a plot twist. A couple of Yukime’s servants come to warn John Smith that they all lost contact with Yukime. This is where John Smith’s most evil laugh comes bursting out in an inflaming purple aura. As his diabolical laugh ensues, the audience does the same too.

The true plot of this series is that Cid never actually gets to become rich. This is such a hilarious plot twist. Not only does John Smith get one upped by the villain, it sets up for him to go clap some therianthrope cheeks. The comedic irony in this episode just went from one that we can expect to one that ended up being another hilarious plot twist.

To take it one step further, John Smith starts to go berserk with his aura causing chaos, he mentions of “taking something precious to him.” Of course, Yukime’s servants think it’s about Yukime.

Yukime Exacts HER REVENGE!

After a quick scene of citizens rioting, Yukime starts to take pleasure in her revenge against Gettan. Gettan’s entire goal was to be powerful enough to survive. Now, he’s frustrated over the fact that Yukime is the one in power and with that power, they could’ve protected everyone in the village. After not finishing off Gettan when she had the chance, Gettan pulls out what every blue piller fears most, the red pill. With Gettan ingesting the Cult’s red pill, Gettan gets a tremendous power boost and slashes down Yukime the same way he did in the flashback scenes when he killed her mother.

Scratch That.. John Smith Exacts HIS REVENGE!

Gettan goes through his survivalist mantra of killing others before they kill him. He raises his sword to complete what he couldn’t do before by killing Yukime. But before he can give the killing blow, John Smith arrives to kick the roided up therianthrope into the winter forest. The key theme in this scene is that John Smith ambiguously references “taking back what is precious to him.” This gives the impression that this could be about Yukime. Of course, we all know that John Smith is about those gold coins.

Yukime proceeds to talk about the compassion that John Smith has. As he proceeds to lay down Gettan with epic music playing in the background, Gettan does what every Cult villain does before him, pulls out more red pills! Before he can ingest them for an epic fight, John Smith heel kicks his mouth in. John Smith proceeds to make him talk, alluding to the gold coins, but Gettan has nothing to say. The scene goes on a comedic run of John Smith making Gettan talk, but Gettan constantly saying that “he has nothing to say.”

John Smith arriving to this scene is like every other epic arrival of a hero saving the day. Not once will I ever NOT feel incredibly satisfied from scenes like this. Cliche scenes like these will always work and that epic music will never get old.

The Young bag on the Head Bandit Slayer Reference

The scene proceeds with John Smith punching Gettan in the face saying, “say it.” Gettan getting this beat down, reminds him exactly of how he lost his eye sight—from that boy with the bag on his head. His survivalist ideal of having ultimate power to survive and save his loved ones comes to a head with someone like John Smith, who is significantly more powerful than him. Before Gettan can state what he wants to leave that’s precious to him to John Smith, he passes out, pointing to Yukime.

We went from the satisfaction of a savior in John Smith, to an epic feeling of an incredible show down taking place, to just downright pitying Gettan.

John Smith turns around to say that “his treasure is in good hands.” He hugs Yukime and heals her. Yukime has a flashback and it’s revealed that Cid was the one that saved her then as well. Before the scene flips, he still thinks that Gettan pointed at the snow to reveal where he left the gold.

This is how you get the best of both worlds! An emotional scene that hits the feels without being undercut by the punchline at the end. There was enough time here to let all the emotions sink in before the punchline was delivered.

Yukime’s servants come to Yukime’s aid. They mention of John Smith’s urgency to come save her. Once again, Yukime mentions of John Smith’s compassion as the scene shifts to Cid walking with a shovel to presumably give Gettan a proper burial. In reality, he hopes to get his gold coins back.

Iris Mid Matters

Iris arrives to Garter’s bank to see an empty vault. With this finding, the Royal Knights arrest Garter for his wrongdoings against the market.

The Truth Will Set You Free!

Yukime arrives to the jail cell, where the gold coins should be located to find it empty. Alpha arrives to give Yukime what Shadow Garden recovered before the Royal Knights investigated. She goes on to inform her of the Cult of Diablos—how they used Gettan’s situation against him is how they prey on people like him to help the Cult.

Alpha divulges further that Mitsugoshi is Shadow Garden’s ‘front.’ From the very beginning John Smith a.k.a. Shadow planned all of this from the very beginning. It is revealed here that Shadow Garden was the one that recovered all of the gold, saving them from a total financial collapse. With all of this money, they were able to takeover almost all of Major Corporate Alliance’s market share; essentially making them a monopoly.

In the end, Yukime accomplished what she wanted to achieve by getting her revenge on Gettan. At the same time, this puts John Smith’s heroic deeds on a level where Yukime can respect and continue following him. Eventually, this leads to Alpha inviting Yukime into Shadow Garden, which she gladly accepts to help them fight against the Cult of Diablos.

Closure

The episode winds down and Cid is seen digging over and over to find Gettan’s precious. This was supposed to be the happy ending that Cid was entrusted with. He hilariously has Delta help him dig holes as well. Delta starts to claim what Shadow promised in the prior episode to letting her request whatever she wanted after she did what Shadow asked. Of course, gaslighting begins as Cid says that he never said such a thing. He begins to compromise with Delta over this Santa Claus analogy. “A demon lord who brings people despair over betraying their dreams.” He will grant Delta something, but it has to be something that he can actually accomplish.

Poor Cid. We all want to be rich, but life always finds a way to make it hard..

Cid, feeling that Shadow Garden will have tons of resentment towards him, decides to “let time heal.” By the end of winter, he’s just going to resurface and pretend like everything was all fine and dandy. This wraps up the important life lesson that this entire arc completely accomplished. “Do NOT forsake your interpersonal relationships.”

How can a satirical parody feel so damn good in the end, while teaching an incredible life lesson?!

To cap it all off, Delta digging eventually strikes what sounds like metal, leaving us with a great cliffhanger.

Last Thoughts

The Emotional RollerCoaster that a Story Needs!

What this arc has displayed is how incredibly basic an isekai with an overpowered protagonist that’s based on its comedy can seem, can still create an incredible amount of emotions from every extent possible. Creating tension from a plot and making you feel something for the characters is incredibly important to the writing of a good story. The Eminence in Shadow is my GOATed anime!

This is by far the best episode in terms of teaching the audience a valuable lesson. It perfectly encapsulates everything the previous episodes sets up. It’s about valuing your relationships! We can now see that Gettan and Yukime’s relationship is a representation of that failed relationship that could have happened between Shadow and Shadow Garden. Please do not underestimate the incredible comedic irony of the story, while at the same time delivering a heartwarming life lesson. Once again, this is a GOATed anime!

Another perfect episode in the books!