The first light novel volume of The Eminence in Shadow was released in 2018. To celebrate the 5th anniversary of the book series, The Eminence in Shadow’s X account (formerly Twitter) released an image of the character Shadow drawn by anime character designer, Makoto Iino.
See illustration below:
Ⓒ逢沢大介・KADOKAWA刊/シャドウガーデン
The Eminence in Shadow light novel series currently has six volumes as of October 30, 2023. Daisuke Aizawa writes the isekai series, published under KADOKAWA’s Enterbrain label, with illustrations from Azunishi. The first part of the anime by Nexus production premiered on October 5, 2022 and ran for 20 episodes, while the 12-episode second season began airing on October 4 of this year.
Yen Press describes the novels as follows:
Even in his previous life, Cid’s dream was not to become the main character or the final boss. He would rather stay hidden as a supporting character until it is revealed that he is the mastermind…or at least, do the next best thing–pretend to be a mastermind! And now that he has been reincarnated in another world, he is ready to set the perfect conditions to realize his dream to the fullest. Armed with his overactive imagination, Cid jokingly recruits members into his organization and invents an entire backstory about an evil cult they need to destroy. Well, as luck would have it, these imaginary opponents turned out to be real—and everyone knew the truth except him!
The Eminence in Shadow was first serialized on Shousetsuka ni Narou as a web novel in January 2018. The light novels have inspired manga adaptations and spin-offs.
Source: @Shadowgarden_PR