Review of The Eminence in Shadow Season 2

Mundane by day, mysterious by night - the protagonist of this series continues to inadvertently prophesize worldly events while stealing others' lines and phrases simply because they sound cool. Surely a menace to society, won't someone stop him? In a cast of serious characters that would not feel out-of-place in any other average fantasy adventure series, the main character Cid alone continues to take nothing seriously and continues his unplanned trajectory through a fantasy world with sci-fi elements as though he is tourist experiencing a foreign culture despite now living in the setting he has been whisked away to for the past 16 or so years.The writing of this show manages to remain balanced in its themes of dramatization, overthinking, and the protagonist faking his way through everything with bouts of competency along the way.

The animation is also much the same as the first season. Narratively, there is continuity from season 1 into season 2 (and if you are interested in this show, start from season 1); however, there is a bit of jumbling that occurs throughout the narratives that makes them messier. There seem to be more scenes without context this season than in the first that occur from time to time, such as the opening scene in the eleventh episode of this season, which inspire mild wonderment at what is going on and do not seem wholly relevant to the story arcs at-large were they excluded. Simply put: time-waster scenes that serve no purpose, or filler.

Overall, it was another captivating season of entertainment but never quite achieved the same highs that were experienced when viewing the first season. It is a solid second installment to an entertaining show and the ending does leave room for a lot of speculation to anyone presumably not reading the source material of the anime.

I recommend this anime as it did a fine job retaining what made it amusing to watch in the first place; do not start with the second season - start with the first.