The Eminence in Shadow (2026)
[é°ăźćźćè ă«ăȘăăăăŠ!]
Volume 7
Author: Daisuke Aizawa
Illustrator: Tozai
Publisher: Enterbrain
Synopsis:
When the King of the Elves dies under suspicious circumstances, a battle royale tournament is held to choose the successor. For a bit of amusement, Cid disguises himself as a wandering Elven swordsman to back a dark horse candidate.
Impressions:
With nearly annual releases thus far, I was surprised that this volume took three years to come out. Then again, how long have we been waiting on the movie (of which Aizawa hints at in the afterword without giving any details)? While there are a number of plot threads I'd like to see picked up, we set out in a new direction here to deal with a succession crisis in the Elven kingdom. There is a yet to be determined connection to the Cult of Diablos in the whole thing and we have Shadow Garden running its own op through Mitsugoshi's sponsorship of one of the candidates for the throne. We have a basic deathmatch scenario with a few twists. The idea behind using the tournament to determine the king involves not only personal strength but the ability to draw upon talent, forge alliances and manage resources (via the magical artifacts which are the major determinants of success due to the throttling of individual magic ability to level the playing field). At least this time Cid isn't deliberately trying to thwart his girls out of misdirected saltiness, but he does serve to throw a monkey wrench into their plans.
We get to learn more about Alpha's background and there's the tantalizing possibility of her getting to meet up with Beatrix (who you may recall is her aunt and has been travelling the world in search of her all these years). Speaking of Beatrix, we don't get to see much of her, but I'm glad to have her back and see that she hasn't been nerfed. Speaking of power levels, I like the potential Lalanoa has that Cid is fostering. She has a few moments to shine and isn't just being carried by him the whole time. Yes, it's mostly calculated on his part but she does have genuine promise. The interplay of the different factions is interesting. I'm a bit surprised the author doesn't opt to white-hat the Reformists. There isn't that much delving into the politics of the three factions, however, so take that as you will.
Generally in this series we have plots that get wrapped up by the end of the volume or even two plots per volume, but we only get through the prelims with this one, so I definitely hope we don't have to wait another three years for the followup. There's a lot of good stuff here, and while the story may not be quite as strong or compelling as some of the earlier ones, I still think it's well worth having for fans of the series.
Rating:Own It