Not many shows make you wait in excitement every week for a new episode like The Eminence in Shadow does.

It starts a bit slow. From the first 3 episodes, it was beginning to look like just another generic fantasy isekai harem show. But a genius thing about The Eminence in Shadow is how it subverts the viewer's expectations on so many levels. Just when you start to think that all these greek letter named girls were going to be present in every episode onward, the show shifts focus to completely different characters and gets rid of them for most of the show. The star of the show is here, without a doubt, the main character - Cid. He gets isekaied on purpose because he figured he couldn't possibly become anywhere near as powerful as he wants to be in the real world. So he gets reborn and manages to get more powerful than an atomic bomb in just a few years since being reborn as a baby. How exactly he managed to obtain such ungodly power in such a short span of time is never really explained, but it doesn't need to be. Because the show never treats itself seriously, it's got similar vibes to One Punch Man. An insanely OP main character that is the most powerful being on earth and gained such power through means not important for the plot. What Cid does with this power, however, is vastly different from what Saitama does. Cid wants to be a powerful being in the shadows that influences everything that happens in the world with his huge army of girls called the Shadow Garden. Those girls are all indebted to Cid for saving them from their unfortunate circumstances. And he manages to convince them to join his completely imaginary cause while training them to become incredibly powerful as well. The funny thing is, while Cid did in fact imagine all of the things that he told them - all of it is somehow real and for a while, Cid believes everyone around him is just roleplaying. And while he is wreaking havoc in his Shadow persona, his goal as Cid Kagenou is to be the most basic of NPCs that's also a huge loser and in no way should get involved in anything even remotely interesting. There's a particularly funny scene in which he participates in a tournament and gets slashed in 30 different ways that he practiced to look as worthless as possible. Naturally, he still gets involved with too many main characters in this form than he'd want to as it seems trouble always finds him. While this show's characters are almost 90% girls, Cid is never even phased by them and fan service is mostly limited to Shadow Garden girls which I both find commendable. It's also a part of the show's "subverting expectations" narrative. I won't get into the main plot too much as it's composed of many interesting arcs, but it's hard to put into words why they're interesting without knowing the context of the show. The same goes for all the characters, everyone has a role to play but nobody other than Cid is crucial to the plot. I will mention that I quite enjoyed the trio of Beta, Rose, and Alexia teaming up as it was a quite pleasant side plot.

In conclusion, give this show a try. It's unapologetic entertainment at its finest while not being just dumb fun. It's actually a very clever show that doesn't take itself too seriously while still delivering major levels of excitement and humor.