Characters / The Eminence In Shadow - Cid Kagenou

The Eminence in Shadow Character Index
Shadow Garden (Cid Kagenou/Shadow (Cid's Other Identities) | Seven Shadows) | Cult of Diablos | Midgar Kingdom

Cid Kagenou / Shadow

Other Names: Minoru Kageno (Previous life)

Debut: Volume 1 (Light Novel), Chapter 1 (Manga), Episode 1 (Anime)

Voiced by: Seiichirō Yamashita (Japanese), Adam Gibbs (English)^{Other Languages}Alan Aubert (French), Benjamin Mereis (German), Ezio Vivolo (Italian)

^{Click here to see Shadow}

^{Click here to see Cid's past life as Minoru Kageno}

Fascinated by shadowbrokers, a young Japanese boy once trained for years to become a secret powerful individual while playing the role of a mob character in public. Having realized his limits as a human, he eventually came to the conclusion that he needed to attain magic. In his delusion, he ran into a truck and died, only to be reincarnated as Cid Kagenou, the second child of a noble family.

To train his skills and gain funds for his secret activities, Cid hunted down bandits, where during one of his raids he stumbled upon a "possessed", a lump of meat that was overloaded with magic. Using this opportunity to experiment on it, he accidentally healed what turned out to be a young elven girl. He then told the elf a fabricated story about the Cult of Diablos that changed history and aimed to revive the ancient demon who cursed the heroes that defeated it (not knowing that all of it is true). He named her Alpha and invited her to join his Shadow Garden to fight the cult.

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A-F

• Accidental Hero: Cid made an entire organization of beautiful assassins from a lie. Ironically, that lie turns out to be true and he and his Shadow Garden are actually saving the world, but he's so wrapped up in acting out his Chuunibyou delusions that he thinks it's all just roleplaying.
• Accidental Truth:
  • The "Cult of Diablos" that "Shadow Garden" is battling is something Cid made up on the spot, basing it on a fairy tale. Except it isn't, the cult is 100% real and a major threat to the world, with Cid being the only one who has no idea that it's anything more than a fabrication.
  • He is able to get Delta to ignore Alpha's orders and follow his instead by stating that a rule in Shadow Garden is that his orders as The Leader have priority over everything else. While Cid still believes Shadow Garden to be an elaborate roleplay the others go along with, this is actually how Shadow Garden works due to them revering him as a god, which causes them to follow his orders regardless of their own opinions about it with 664, 665 and Lambda resigning themselves once Shadow is going to deal with 666 himself after her betrayal with them believing he will execute her despite her motivations.
• Acquired Poison Immunity: Cid is immune to almost every type of poison due to his training. In volume 2, he wasn't affected by the Mist Dragon's breath which was said to have exterminated several continents overnight and in volume 5, he only notes the slightly bitter aftertaste in his coffee when Eta tried poisoning Cid with enough drugs to knock out the Mist Dragon itself in order to study his brain.
• Adaptational Badass: The anime version of Cid displays a greater range of abilities toward the end of season 1, and all of season 2.
  • During his fight with Beatrix and Iris at the climax of Season 1, Cid displays the ability to cleanly imitate Aurora's Blood Magic attack with water, the same abilities that vampires use though he notes it is less effective due to mundane water being a poor magic conduit. While it is conceivable Cid can also do it in other versions, it is never explicitly shown he could.
  • In the battle with Elizabeth early in Season 2, it is shown Cid's "I Am Recovery Atomic" can at least interfere with the magical wavelength which strengthens vampires coming from the Blood Moon, turning the abnormal moon in the sky at least temporarily back to normal in the wake of his casting. In the novels and manga, it did not manage to affect the Blood Moon and in the former, it was explicitly described the sky remained crimson after his duel with Elizabeth.
  • The battle with Mordred at the climax of Season 2 then takes this to a whole new level, where it is shown both he (and his opponent, Mordred and Ragnarok's Fusion Dance) can easily escape the planet's gravity well and into space, can survive without breathing, and even communicate despite the lack of air. Cid then proceeds to annihilate the demon with a single I Am Atomic whose blast nearly dwarfs the entire planet, visible across its entire solar system, showing Cid can casually destroy the entire world if he is inclined to. In the novels and the manga, although incredibly powerful, Cid has no display remotely comparable, with the most destructive act he ever pulled was briefly parting the ocean from the beach until the horizon with a Sword Beam in the Gaiden manga.
• Adaptational Dumbass: Somehow the manga made him dumber than the light novel and anime. While he kept training his body to peak physical condition before dying in all versions of the story, he at least kept his training in a way his body build still looks normal in the anime and light novel. But in the manga, he kept training to the point he has the frame of a bodybuilder and yet still believes that somehow no one must know about his "hidden" strength. Chapter 47 of the manga later shows that he can hide his muscular build and could bring it forth on command.
• Adaptational Name Change:
  • His signature I Am Atomic used to be called "I Am Taepodong" (Referencing the North Korean ICBM of the same name) in the web novel before it was changed due to copyright.
  • The golden retriever he once owned pre-reincarnation was named "John" in all iterations of the series except for the manga where he was called "Requiem" to fit in with Cid's Chuunibyou aesthetics.
• Adaptational Personality Change: Although Cid's Chuunibyou traits and insane dedication to his craft remain more or less intact, it's the extent to which that changes depending on the iteration:
  • The manga, which focuses on the comedic and absurdist aspects of the light novel, depicts Cid as hammier and even more psychopathic which the Lemony Narrator often lampshaded by emphasising the Air Quotes on "Protagonist". Examples include going into excruciating detail about executing his mob-fu techniques, doing exaggerated dramatic poses and crazy faces (Particularly of the Slasher Smile variant) when no one's looking and his battles being unnecessarily gruesome and Bloody Hilarious/Horrific to satisfy his needs. Another thing is that he tends to be incredibly blunt about his feelings towards others, especially his hatred for Alexia, instead of hiding it with apathetic sycophancy, stealth insults or sarcastic dry-wit.
  • In contrast, the anime, whose tone is Darker and Edgier, has Cid become less emotive when role-playing and more sociopathic given his Lack of Empathy and Hope Crusher tendencies were noticeably dialed up^note Take his battle with Beatrix and Iris and confrontation with Alpha and Gettan as John Smith as examples while his Big Brother Instinct for Claire is downplayed^note Unlike other adaptations, Cid didn't realise he had saved his sister from Juggernaut until way later and thought she can take care of herself, meaning he only kicked Juggernaut off the Crimson Tower just to look cool, in addition to Claire's recollection of him protecting her when they were little kids being entirely omitted out. Also due to the anime's show-not-tell approach, Cid is less likely to Inner Monologue but a bit more prone to slipping in-character.
• Adaptational Skill: His water-based abilities such as water walking and water bending are exclusive only to the anime.
• Adaptational Superpower Change:
  • In terms of median differences, the light and web novels portrayed Cid's atomic magic as an empowered sword strike that triggers an explosion from impact whereas the anime and manga adaptations suggest internal magical explosions. The anime goes further to depict it as Tron Lines and a forcefield to indicate its blast radius.
  • His "I Am Recovery Atomic" still had the same Healing Shiv properties in the anime but not the way it was executed. The atomic blast not only cured possession and vampirism but also reverted all the ghouls to their original human states which wasn't explicitly stated in the light novel. Also, instead of completely obliterating the Crimson Tower and surrounding area like Shadow's usual attack, it is rendered as a monochromatic flashbang that encompasses the entirety of Lawless City and doesn't leave any collateral damage.
  • When stealing the wedding ring (Aka the key to the Black Rose) from Perv Asshat, the anime changes how Cid knows the ring’s location in his pocket from sensing its magic signature to straight-up X-Ray Vision with his pupils turning purple instead of red to differentiate the ability from his usual magic detection.
  • Two variants of the Atomic Series, "I Am Atomic Rain" and "I Am Atomic Radar", as well as "Shadow Marionette" were left out in the light novel and subsequent adaptations due to only being showcased in web-novel exclusive arcs, namely the Prison and Ojisan arcs, when the light novel diverges from those events.
• Adaptational Villainy: For the anime version of the Tournament of War Arc, Shadow gave Iris and Beatrix a much bigger and harsher beatdown which includes kicking Iris multiple times in the face, snarking over how she's using an artifact as a crutch and still losing horribly, ignoring her for most of the fight in favor of Beatrix and stomping on them so hard it left a crater. This culminates into faking an "I Am Atomic" encasing the entire Midgar Kingdom to both troll and flex on them then leaving without saying his iconic line "Don't lose sight of the true enemy" which would have ended the whole fight on a more hopeful note and made Shadow less of a villain. The change was done to be more in line with Iris' Start of Darkness and her vendetta against Shadow Garden in Volume 5.
• Age Lift: A minor case as the light novel stated that Cid was seventeen when he died as Minoru but the news broadcast in the anime listed his age as eighteen.
• Agony of the Feet: Due to how flexible and versatile the slime bodysuit is as long as you inject mana, Cid's one favorite tactic is to unsuspectingly attack his opponent's leg using his own combined with the slime bodysuit to throw them off-balance.
• All of the Other Reindeer: Almost Cid's entire goal: To become the World's Strongest Man while pretending to be a nobody that is barely noticed at all. He succeeds though it starts to crumble bit by bit when Cid starts helping people and more "Named Characters" getting involved with his mob life.
• Almighty Janitor: In his identity as Cid, he strives to stand out as little as possible, to the point of describing himself as a background character, so no one suspects that he is Shadow. This act works in his favor for his other personas as he can mysteriously disappear for long periods of time to change disguises and no one would be the wiser.
• Aloof Big Brother: Not to his actual sister Claire but to his surrogate Annoying Younger Sibling/pet dog Delta whom he makes no effort to put on an act for due to her simple-minded nature. Their dynamic involves Cid indifferently letting Delta cling onto him for piggyback rides and head pets, entertaining her demands a little before sending her off on long miscellaneous quests in the promise of a reward so he can continue roleplaying uninterrupted.
• Amnesiac Hero: In the fittingly titled "Amnesia" anniversary event for the mobile game, Cid suffers amnesia after an overly-excited Delta runs him over and he hits his head on a rock^note The only reason Delta hit him at all is because Delta's charge made him recall how he died as Minoru and felt nostalgic. In order to prevent an information leak and protect Cid, the Seven Shadows purposefully keeps him Locked Out of the Loop (while also taking advantage of his amnesia and getting closer to him romantically). While Cid has lost his memories, it does not weaken or hamper him whatsoever as he becomes observant and analytical, even noticing how Epsilon is using magic to enhance her figure. It's also shown that despite his lack of memories Cid is still deft with a sword and even mimics Goldoh's "Special technique" with little trouble.
• Anti-Hero: Cid is a selfish, delusional Chuunibyou asshole who has admitted himself that he discards everything that could hinder him from becoming what he wants and he does not understand well the family ties and friendship of others, and of those who surround them. That said, Cid is still Big Good (Arguably) and the Lesser of Two Evils when compared to the Cult Of Diabolos and every other villainous character in the series as his actions unintentionally saved the lives of many and gradually rescued the world from the clutches of said evil forces.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: He is the founder of the Shadow Garden, as well as its most powerful warrior.
• Atrocious Alias: Due to his Chuunibyou tendencies, he usually names himself in ways that incite laughter like "Stylish Bandit Slayer" which Akane thinks is lame, and "Fallen Angel of Rebellion" which was mocked at an online forum due to its cringy nature while receiving death threats from Beta.
• Awesome by Analysis: While he is a rather thick-headed and oblivious person, he can still be analytical if he wants to be:
  • When inspecting the real MCA bill and counterfeit bill Yukime created, he can notice the few differences between the bills and their quality with the counterfeit bill ironically winning out against the real deal.
  • When inspecting corpses, he can identify how a person died with him able to realize that Saejima was shot to death rather than slashed and that the students, who died from their Bomb Collar, were experimented on, which causes him to conclude that Eliza is the culprit due to her abnormally high mana and lack of reaction when he shared his mana.
• Ax-Crazy: A rare non-villainous protagonist example. To put it simply, Cid is completely insane, going to very unhealthy extremes just to live out his chunni fantasies. The fact that he ran into the path of a truck just to get reincarnated is just the tip of the iceberg.
• Badass Longcoat: Wears one in his Shadow guise made from slime, slick black and tattered at the helm with a pop collar for days^note The anime also gives it an iridescent shimmer. He can even magic into it to let him glide around and dramatically billow in the non-existent wind.
• Bandaged Face: Cid's head is thoroughly wrapped like a mummy after becoming "seriously injured" in his school tournament with Rose. Somehow he can drink tea through the bandages without getting them stained though nobody comments on it.
• Bare-Handed Blade Block: Due to how powerful and skilled Cid is, he's able to do this with no problems on his end. Viscount Grease and the two knights who kidnapped Alexia have fallen victim to this.
• Baritone of Strength: Speaks with a deeper voice in his guise as Shadow, who he makes sure is known as both The Dreaded and World's Strongest Man.
• Battle Aura: His is a royal purple which sounds like a revved-up rocket when charged and later refined into a Tron Lines forcefield large enough to encompass the entire kingdom of Midgar and more.
• Becoming the Mask: Played with in that only he believes it’s a mask at all and doesn’t realize otherwise.
• Beneath the Mask: As a full-time method actor, Cid puts a facade up all the time around everyone, letting others believe he's a mob, the stoic, most badass vigilante feared by all, or whatever else he wants to be perceived as, with his true insane chunni self showing up only when he's alone. The only people he shows his real self to are Alexia (whom he makes no effort to entertain because of her distasteful personality), Delta (who is too stupid to realize it), and Aurora (whom he respects as an equal for being a Worthy Opponent) but even then it's only partially genuine.
• Berserk Button:
  • There are three things that would put you on Cid's hit list: Do not claim that he's running away. Don't ever get in the way of his dream. Don't even think about stealing his money.
  • As someone who trains himself day and night to become stronger, Cid despises anyone who relies on "borrowed strength" as a means to power, calling it a cheap shortcut. This includes drug enhancement, magic artifacts, or mind-controlled minions. For similar reasons, Cid has no mercy for bandits because they steal from innocent, hardworking people and returns the favour.
• Big Brother Instinct: Inverted, as he is Claire's younger brother by two years. Cid has always been there to protect Claire which is why she hates anyone who belittles her little brother. In volume 3 alone, Shadow prevents Juggernaut from killing her and Mary by knocking him off the Crimson Tower, ditching a flashy entrance for her safety, and while Claire's memories are fuzzy, she reminisces over several flashbacks how Cid always saved her from danger in their childhood. This includes pulling her away from a pot of boiling water, catching her after falling out a window, and protecting her from stray, ravenous dogs (It should also be noted that Claire was three and Cid was one when he did all this).
• Big Damn Heroes: Cid always makes sure that he makes the most dramatic entrances possible, sometimes even planning ahead of time whenever a big event will happen or is happening. It's sometimes telling how lucky he is when events that give him the opportunity to do this somehow occur.
  • Shadow lampshades at one point how he's always the one swooping in out of nowhere for the final boss battle. Hence, during the Red Moon Arc, he wants to subvert it for a change by fighting Elizabeth first before everyone else arrives so they would stand in awe over witnessing such a crazy battle such that they can't intervene. Alas, he couldn't find Elizabeth anywhere in her coffin after killing Crimson and dejectedly went back to the treasure room, unaware that she rose from within the human sacrifice moments later and attacked Claire and co. This causes Shadow to play the trope straight once more and rescue the cast from the vicious Vampire Queen.
• Big Good: How he or rather Shadow is seen by Shadow Garden and other characters due to his sheer power and supposedly leading the opposition against the Cult of Diabolos. This is especially apparent in the "Seven Chronicles" event in Master of Garden, which focuses on the Seven Shadows and other members of Shadow Garden. The only time he fought himself was against the Mist Dragon and he overwhelmed the beast when even the Seven Shadows together had problems with it. They and other members also usually go to him in need of advice with him succeeding despite his actual obliviousness to the whole picture and his personality making him more of a "Big Chaotic-Neutral".
• Birthday Hater: A mild case when he turned sixteen in volume 5, it's not that he hates celebrating it but the date serves as a reminder that it's been another year and he's not any closer to achieving his dreams of becoming "The Eminence in Shadow"^note Even though he already is one but his delusions keep him blissfully unaware. According to him, he can live as long as six hundred years with his mana but this is simply not enough time to do everything he wants, and is finding ways to gain immortality.
• Blood Knight: He loves fighting worthy opponents as he craves a good battle to test out how far his training has gotten him and treats it like a "conversation" over the course of which both participants can learn a lot about each other. You can tell whether Cid is enjoying himself or not by either the outright bored expression as well as minimal movement and effort against swordsmen not worth his time such as Zenon and Lutheran or the ecstatic high from giving his all against Aurora and Elizabeth but still laments how he wasn't able to face them at full strength. Stylish Bandit Slayer and Jack the Ripper are more extreme embodiments of the trope as a result of Cid giving into his pent-up bloodlust and killing baddies en masse.
• Blown Across the Room: His "Bloody Spinning Tornado" mob-fu technique has Cid deliberately throwing himself backwards upon contact with the opponent's sword or fist and pretending the force of the latter was so strong, it gives off this effect. He performed this twice on Rose Oriana, who admired his resilience when he got back up right after, and Dekuno Bow, who smugly believed he had overwhelming strength from punching a puny mob away.
• Book Dumb: Since he's only going to school for the sake of his civilian identity, Cid purposely doesn't study or pay attention to his lessons and keeps his grades average to avoid any attention as a mob. However, this caused him problems in volume 5 when he slacked off too much from excessively roleplaying for the past two volumes and resorted to cheating on all his exams to maintain that average.
• Born Lucky: Everything Cid says or does is complete and utter bullshit but by some sheer coincidence, it turned out to be true and always has been. Some prime examples would be making up The Cult of Diabolos on the spot, unaware it's an actual secret conspiracy, and correctly pinpointing the cult's hideout where her kidnapped sister was from a missed knife throw. Some had even theorized Cid was reincarnated with a cheat ability in which reality would bend to his whims or delusions and correct itself so his lies will be the truth without him ever knowing because there is no way this is all a coincidence.
• Borrowed Catchphrase: After hearing Mary's epic (and memetic) monologue on the ghoul attack on Lawless City^note "Run, if you value your life. The frenzy has begun. The moon is red. We are out of time.", Shadow proceeded to repeat these lines and only these lines for three episodes straight. It gets parodied to ridiculous levels when the animators use the same dramatic pose for him every time he gives the monologue to including Mary herself, making Shadow sound more of an NPC than mob Cid ever could.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Several hints suggest that Cid is arguably one of the smartest people in the series but he only applies his intelligence whenever he has to fulfill his childhood desires. Volume 6 shows the brilliance part of Cid in terrifying levels as he single-handedly wiped out a group of corrupt nobles and their entire army in just 4 DAYS.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Cid is, putting it mildly, insane. Everything he does is to invoke the Rule of Cool; his dream is to be the World's Strongest Man while pretending to be a Mook for no other reason than that it sounds cool to him, believes if he trains hard enough he can overcome Nuclear Weapons and continues to believe the world-spanning Benevolent Conspiracy/MegaCorp he has inadvertently formed is just his friends messing with him. However, he also is the World's Strongest Man through his endless amounts of hard work and enough of a Genius Ditz to identify people's true intentions and even actual evil conspiracies even when he thinks he's just making things up and is managing to destroy an evil, world-spanning cult most people didn't even realize exist in his madness. Volume 6 especially shows how terrifying he is when sets his mind to it with him slaughtering the Thirteen Night Swords and all their hired men in a mere four days.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: He cannot recall any isolated event during his bandit-hunting exploits as Stylish Bandit Slayer due to the sheer number of times he did this on a nightly basis in addition to having a really bad habit of forgetting people he just met if they are not important enough to be "named characters" in his eyes.
  • A rare heroic example with Rose and Yukime forever remembering Shadow as their savior for rescuing them in their youth but it was a Forgotten First Meeting at best since these rescue missions are a dime in a dozen to him considering how many possessed and kidnapped children he came across beforehand. The anime makes this worse when Cid inflates these two isolated incidents since they are vaguely similar to what little Cid barely heard from their recollection.
  • After defeating Viscount Grease, a gold locket drops out of his dead body indicating he joined the cult to save his demon-possessed daughter. The look on Cid's face makes it clear he doesn't give a damn about his tragic backstory or daughter since he's just another bandit and silently pockets the locket as he walks away. Since we never see the locket again, it's assumed he pawned it off without remorse.
  • Gettan can never forget his burning hatred for the fiend who had permanently blinded him and wiped out his entire tribe in a single night and was enraged to find out the same guy (Now John Smith) collapsing his trade empire and presumably romancing his once-betrothed Yukime years later. Of course, this being Cid, he doesn't put two-and-two together and only knows Gettan as the blind guy who stole his money since he can't be expected to remember a run-of-the-mill bandit out of the hundreds if not thousands he had slain at the time.
• Bystander Syndrome: The quintessential trait of being a mob as Cid has mastered the art of watching from the sidelines and running away when it becomes too dangerous. This also applies to his moral code where he would not interfere with other people's business, even when it can lead to severe collateral damage and bloodshed, since it's not his responsibility and the problem should be resolved on its own. One prominent example would be in volume 5 where Cid does absolutely nothing while Delta and Zeta have their usual terrain-destroying catfights at the Midgar Academy and when the former busts out her "Iron Slab":
  Cid: I, meanwhile, was praying for the poor dormitory and school building. At this rate, they're really going to blow up the whole school. Although I wouldn't want to stop a serious fight either, that would make them angry and unfortunately, my code prevents me from doing something I wouldn't want to be done. So, goodbye Midgar Academy, it was a pleasure. Farewell Skel and Po, I will pray for your souls.
• Calling Your Attacks: Due to his Chuunibyou tendencies, he likes naming his attacks with his favorite one being "I Am Atomic".
• Calling Your Bathroom Breaks: His go-to excuse so he can switch out into Shadow or his other alter egos and get out of sticky situations. Unfortunately, a majority of students in Midgar Academy think this is his main character trait and in Skel and Po's case, playfully tease him about it.
• Came Back Strong: Cid was already a Badass Normal as Minoru, picking fights with biker gangs for fun. However, he acknowledged the limits of the human body. After getting hit by Truck-Kun he was reincarnated in a world of magic, allowing him to break his limits. Comes full circle when he returns to Japan temporarily and uses the name Minoru again, coming across Akane.
• Cast as a Mask: Cid is so dedicated and skillful in acting that he can switch out his voice actor on the fly when impersonating someone other than Shadow. The creative decision was made because the director wanted to give "new" characters new voices even if they are technically the same person:
  • Mundane Mann is voiced by Hikaru Midorikawa whom the director picks for voicing weakling nobodies and delivered his iconic listless mumble.
  • John Smith gets Jun Fukuyama whose exuberant cockiness is in direct contrast to the Light Novel's description of his voice being "devoid of all emotion".
  • This even applies to the English dub where Joe Daniels takes over from Adam Gibbs for Mundane.
  • However, their Inner Monologue is still provided by Cid's regular voice actor Seiichirō Yamashita.
• Catchphrase: Cid has three prevalent lines used as Shadow.
  • "My name is Shadow. I lurk in the shadows and hunt the shadows." - Either when he introduces himself or when people ask for Cid's name and/or objective.
  • "That was my afterimage." - Used when Cid's opponents think they hit him (This also extends to his other personas).
  • "Playtime's over." - Used when Cid is done toying with his opponents.
• Ceiling Cling:
  • Pulls this maneuver twice to evade his sister's clutches then later Rose's advances in episode 10, the latter of which forced him to sleep in this position.
  • He later uses it again in episode 31 since it's handy for sneaking around the Oriana royal palace and evading security. This led to some funny moments where Cid walked away from Perv and Reina's affectionate affair in disgust while upside down and then took a casual stroll sideways around the building.
• Celibate Hero: Calling him a hero might be a stretch but Cid makes it clear that his only desire in life is to be "The Eminence in Shadow", harboring absolutely zero romantic or sexual attraction towards anyone^note Even noting in the light novel how he isn't attracted to women on a physical level due to the Seven Shadows all being gorgeous women he's known since he was ten to the point he may be incapable of love altogether. Even for times when he seems interested, he's just putting on an act and couldn't care less.
  • In the two weeks he pretend-dated Alexia, Cid makes it no secret that he hates the romantic-comedy cliche he finds himself in. Especially when spending those weeks horribly mistreated as a pet manservant to a two-faced princess then tortured for five days straight when he's falsely accused of her kidnapping. When Alexia asks to continue the charade, Cid understandably flips her off and tries forgetting their relationship ever happened. It's also noted she's the only exception to Cid's rule of being socially nice to princesses as evidenced by giving the cold shoulder or avoiding her altogether from his opinion of her becoming lower than it already is.
  • Sherry misinterpreted Cid giving her chocolates as confessing his love when there is nothing more to the gesture than getting rid of chocolates he didn't want. Cid thought the homemade cookies she made in return it was for losing in the tournament, forgetting his "romantic" gesture from before. Generally, he sees Sherry as a naive Idiot Hero who almost got herself killed in the Terrorist Arc if he wasn't there.
  • He only performed a Heroic Sacrifice for Rose Oriana on the basis that mob characters should die first in terrorist attacks, not "named characters" and doesn't didn't think much of her other than another annoying, attention-grabbing princess (*cough* Alexia *cough*). However, he's still supportive of her Goal in Life in becoming the ruling monarch of the Oriana Kingdom, having a similar ambition-driven mindset himself, while completely unaware of her actual desire for his hand in marriage due to the aforementioned incident which he would very much disapprove if he had known.
  • Cid unintentionally encounters Alexia again during a Public Bathhouse Scene but in a twist of the "boy and girl accidentally seeing each other in the nude" cliche, the boy is completely calm and unbothered by the situation, points out that this is a mixed bath when the girl complains and doesn't look so much as a glance at her as it's rude to stare like what she's doing to him. That's not all, Alexia tries to insinuate Cid has a Teeny Weenie when he suddenly stands up and shows off his massive Excaliber in defiance before leaving as if nothing happened and her humiliated instead. No "Kyaaaa!" followed by a slap, just pure and utter disbelief.
  • Aurora caresses his lips and leans in for a kiss before fading away while Cid has the same despondent face throughout. There was a brief moment of silence then Cid got up and brushed it off, completely unfazed.
  • Epsilon pads her chest with slime in hopes Cid notices her impressive rack but he already knew all about the padding but was only interested in how she managed to control and maintain it for so long than for any sex appeal, wanting to refine his magic technique himself.
  • Around Delta, Cid treats her like a hyper-active Annoying Younger Sibling and/or puppy as she reminds him of his golden retriever Requiem pre-reincarnation. As such, he immediately turns down Delta's offer to mate and have hundreds of kin with her in addition to his usual reasons.
  • He coldly rejects Yukime's advances on the spot as both Shadow and John Smith for a Strictly Professional Relationship despite her growing attraction to him.
  • He is completely repulsed by Perv Asshat and Reina Oriana's affair and the nauseating display of affection that follows. Upon witnessing their French kiss and titillating sex scene, all he could do was walk away upside-down in disgust commenting on how his "isekai fantasy has changed to a daytime soap opera" and immediately plans to "correct course to its usual 6 pm time slot".
  • Every time he looks at any girl's assets, it's for purely non-sexual, non-romantic reasons. Examples include Rose (When detecting the demonic possession growing from her chest), Epsilon (To calculate the slime percentage that makes up her breasts at 99.99%) and Margaret (Same reason as Epsilon at 0.00%).
  • He immediately becomes disinterested and irritated at his friends Skel and Po the moment they bring up hitting on girls, either quickly changing the subject or shutting them up by punching them in the gut.
• Challenge Seeker: Subtly implied by Cid that he wants a Worthy Opponent he can have a "decent conversation" with and is overjoyed in finding one in Aurora. So far, in the series, only Aurora and Elizabeth had this from Cid.
• Character Signature Song: What he deems to be his theme song is Ludwig van Beethoven's The Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor, otherwise known as "Moonlight Sonata", since it has the elegance and triumphant overtones befitting for an Eminence in Shadow.
• The Charmer: Unintentional on Cid's part. Aside from Rescue Romance, he does actions that make women fall for him even more.
  • For Beta, telling her bedtime stories every night actually helped relieve her nightmares and qualms about killing people.
  • For Gamma, introducing a new path for her, specifically the business side. He usually tells this when Gamma gets bullied by Delta, introducing literally out-of-this-world products and innovations. Cid also complimented her new hairstyle during the God Of War Arc.
  • For Alexia, telling her that he likes her swordsmanship and not mincing his words around her.
  • For Sherry, giving the girl chocolates and helping her during the Terrorist Arc.
  • For Aurora, being a Knight in Shining Armor for her.
• Chekhov's Skill:
  • After getting fatally struck down by a Shadow Garden impersonator, he attributes his survival to weaving his magic into threads surrounding his heart in order to restart it. Said magic threads allow him to move his vital organs out of place when Olivier stabs right through him where they should be and avoid serious damage.
  • He is talented at playing the piano and demonstrated his expert pickpocketing skills on ten or so pickpocketers in the Crimson Tower arc. This proved instrumental to Perv's defeat as being entranced by Cid's rendition of Moonlight Sonata gave him the opportunity to stealthily snatch his wedding ring, completely unaware that it was actually the key to the Black Rose, so he can pawn it off later.
  • During the "White Mist" arc, Cid unveils a new Mob-Fu technique called "The 49th: Ultimate Phantom Skill", which he explains as concentrating his mana into going so fast whilst maintaining constant speed that not only nobody can detect him but also leave a delayed magical afterimage, so he can cheat off from Christina on a pop quiz but didn't had the chance to execute it on account of Claire suddenly appearing in his classroom. The 49th Mob-Fu technique was finally used in his battle with Fenrir where he tricked him into finishing off a hyper-realistic Shadow afterimage with his signature "Bloodfang Utsusemi" before copying it and combining their moves together for an even faster, superior finishing move "Utsusemi no Atomic" that completely annihilated Fenrir.
• Chick Magnet: For a guy with zero interest in romance, he has extraordinary luck with women without even realizing they're attracted to him. The Seven Shadows and several other members of Shadow Garden all fell in love with him via Rescue Romance, Alexia grew to like him despite having only dated him to drive of Zenon, Sherry likes him after a misunderstanding involving Mitsugoshi chocolates^note Chocolates are a very rare and new item that was recently introduced in this world and sell like hotcakes. Sherry's stepfather believes Cid must have waited in line for hours to buy them for her, making her believe Cid has a crush on her. Rose falls in love with him for his "unyielding resolve" and how he nearly "died" protecting her, and Yukime quickly becomes attracted to him after seeing what he can do, with said attraction growing stronger during the brief time he serves as her bodyguard in Volume 3. Even Aurora, also known as Diabolos, falls for Cid, viewing him as her Knight in Shining Armor.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: Zigzagged. Cid is by no means a hero and frankly doesn't care who over the countless lives he had taken to further his "Eminence in Shadow" agenda but would still go out of his way to save and even Take The Bullet for any "named character"^note Who Cid calls protagonists and very important people crucial to advancing the plot no matter how annoying, obstructive or pain in the ass they are to his daily mob life. Outside of that, however, Cid would resume avoiding and not interacting with them whenever possible, especially Alexia and his sister Claire, since he hates the attention they draw.
• Chuunibyou: Cid suffers from an extreme case of this, dreaming of being "the true power in the shadows", wanting to be strong enough to destroy a nuke, and spending his evenings running around in a Badass Longcoat while acting like a giant edgy Large Ham. As the story goes on, he really does end up becoming a power in the shadows with his own army but he's too wrapped up in acting out his wildest fantasies to even realize it's actually real.
• Clark Kent Outfit: His clothes do an excellent job at hiding his absolutely jacked physique as shown when dipping into the hot springs chiseled like a Roman statue with his 8-pack and "Excaliber" package to Alexia's shock and Epsilon's delight.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Insanely strong, insanely skilled, insanely fast, and simply just insane which is expected when Cid has been a die-hard Chuunibyou nearly his whole life and previous life.
• Clueless Chick-Magnet: Almost every woman (including his Shadow Garden members who practically worship him) he encounters falls for him but his only interest is becoming the nonexistent Eminence in Shadow.
• The Cowl: Natch. A hooded, black-clad superhero named "Shadow" plays the part of an average person by day, and delivers brutal punishment to evildoers by night. As usual for the trope, he is a ruthless Anti-Hero who mercilessly slaughters those he believes deserve it and can be quite a fearsome sight to behold with his slime blades. Unusually for this trope, though, Cid has no Dark and Troubled Past, he is just a slightly deranged guy with a terminal case of Chuunibyou who thinks being a shadowy figure that hunts down bad people in the shadows is cool as hell. Even before being reincarnated in another world, he was already hunting criminals by night, armed with his trusty crowbar, wearing a ski mask and assuming names such as "Stylish Bandit Slayer" or "Balaclava Berserker".
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Part of Cid's goal is to appear like an inconspicuous and average student. Despite how insane he is, Cid is actually one of the strongest, most competent fighters in the series.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype:
  • To the Chuunibyou with Cid exhibiting traits associated with the typical eight-grader syndrome and enacts accordingly as a full-time edge lord cosplayer in order to become the "Eminence in Shadows". However, the reasons why Cid acts this way is a lot more darker than expected since the insight into his past life heavily implied that he was genuinely mentally ill^note There were numerous warning signs from Cid as Minoru and factors exacerbating his issues such as isolating himself from family and peers alike, constant sleep deprivation, impulsiveness, obsessive behaviour leading to violent, homicidal tendencies, intense hyperfixation on trivial matters, refusal to grow up, incapable of forming emotional bonds and Japan's negative view on mental illness preventing Cid from being properly diagnosed and receiving the necessary help and him dying in his early teens with severe head trauma leaving him even more emotionally stunted and detached. As a result, Cid ends up the ultimate Chunnibyou by being both a high-functioning psychopath and sociopath who thinks the reincarnated world is nothing but a huge roleplaying game made worse when he’s somewhat aware of his own madness but doubles-down thinking he has gone too far for rational thinking and common sense.
  • On the meta-side, Cid is also one to the Audience Surrogate and Escapist Character as many viewers have pointed out that they too used to have the same power fantasies as Cid like saving the school from a terrorist attack and winning tournaments as the seemingly weak underdog. The key word is "used to" since Cid will never outgrow his childish dreams and even undergo extreme lengths and intensive Training from Hell in order to fulfil them that no sane person could ever want or realistically achieve in their lifetime.
• Determinator: This man went through insane amounts of training and even ran into a truck to his death to fulfill his dream.
• Didn't Think This Through:
  • Before facing the Vampire Queen (Or the final boss as he puts it) in the anime, Shadow decides to spice up his performance by making a flashy entrance. However, said flashy entrance was a low-grade version of "I Am Atomic"^note Given it only blew up the Crimson Tower's top floor in a big explosion instead of its characteristic blindingly-bright, terrain-destroying radius blast but Cid performed the same motion to execute it but didn't take into account if the boss can survive such an attack or that he had actually finished summoning the actual boss. As such he accidentally ended the fight before it even began by incinerating Crimson and the Vampire Queen's host to a crisp and had to make do with going back to the treasure room for more gold coins.
  • In order to make a cool exit, he decides to go inside the collapsing Black Rose despite not knowing what would happen inside of it or where he could end up. It wasn't until he found himself back in Japan with Beta in tow that it occurred to him that he made the mistake of not planning an exit strategy, especially when Beta was dangerously close to figuring out his origins.
• Diegetic Soundtrack Usage: In the penultimate episode of season two, Cid masquerades as the organ player for Rose’s wedding and plays his theme song "Moonlight Sonata" as she walks down the aisle. Later as Mordred is villain-monologing about the Black Rose’s true power, Cid goes into an organ rendition of one of his grandiose battle music from the soundtrack ("Severe Blow") which briefly confuses Mordred before rolling with it as he summons the demon lord of the fourth realm Ragnarök. Only for Cid to abruptly stop the music and immediately cut off Ragnarök’s arm, showing who’s the real final boss here.
• Do Well, But Not Perfect: When the cult pretends to be Shadow Garden when attacking the school, he heals himself with his magic but keeps himself wounded enough to still be reasonably injured and justify his survival to avoid suspicion once the incident is over.
• The Dog Was the Mastermind: Inverted. He makes it a point to look like a weak and average student so that no one realizes he is an all-powerful fighter running an N.G.O. Superpower that fights evil.
• Dope Slap: Whenever Po or Skel gets a hair-brained scheme to acquire girlfriends and/or more money, Cid swiftly punches them in the gut to make them think they got a stomach ache all of a sudden. Another time was when he smacked an annoying stereotypical Redditor upside the head with enough force to knock him unconscious.
• Dramatic Dislocation: A shadowbroker like Cid himself must be capable of being flexible, both situationally and physically. With a sickening crack, he is able to dislocate and relocate his joints in order to elongate his body structure and change posture for more realistic disguises or slip out of restraints by himself.
• Dramatic Wind: His Badass Longcoat always seems to be billowing in the wind, even when it's impossible for wind to be present in the first place like the sewers or secret underground tunnels. It's implied he uses magic in order to achieve the effect given in some shots where his clothing and hair get ruffled but not anyone else's.
• The Dreaded:
  • The general public knows him as the Shadow Demon: a being from the depths of Hell who commands an army of beautiful temptresses to commit acts of terrorism such as attacking colosseums, government institutions, and religious centers.
  • The Diablos Cult knows him as Shadow, the master of Shadow Garden, and the male leader of an otherwise all-female secret society that seeks to overthrow their control over the world.
  • Back in his old world, he hunted down and brutalized biker gangs, earning the name, Ski Mask Berserker. When he returned to Earth via the Black Rose, many of his fellow Earthlings feared his monstrous strength with him becoming known as the "Black Knight" capable of annihilating any beast that crosses his path.
  • The anime shows that Shadow Garden members outside of the Seven Shadows see him as a being, who has rendered merciless judgment against those who stand against them as shown by the total annihilation he brings with his "I am Atomic" move. Because of this, they resign themselves once he declares that he will take care of the traitor, Rose/666, himself despite their objections to it.
• Drink-Based Characterization: He "appreciates" vintage red wine, despite admitting not knowing jack-shit about aroma or flavor, and drinks bitter coffee for show when his actual favorite drink is apple juice and takes his coffee with loads of sugar and milk. This reflects how Cid appears to everyone as this serious, highly complex being but in truth, he's just a childish Chuunibyou who can expertly bullshit and gaslight his way through life.
• Eating the Eye Candy: As the hot springs show, Cid hides his muscular and well-built body underneath his plain clothing which Epsilon gladly savors while Alexia can't handle all that Excalibur.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Cid may be delusional and selfish but even he is slightly disgusted that Lutheran killed Sherry's mother and graphically described how he did so. It's telling that he makes a point of killing him in the exact same manner, and decides Sherry's better off not knowing about it.
  • He is also taken somewhat aback at how casually Delta kills her brothers with him even asking for her to remember or give them a proper burial. However, this is downplayed since he believes that Deliberate Values Dissonance is in play due to the therianthrope's rule of Might Makes Right and Delta stating she has hundreds of siblings.
  • While he has no problem slaughtering bandits and other people he considers villains, he states that he usually avoids killing those he considers pitiful, which in his killing spree as Jack the Ripper seemingly includes regular servants of households he intrudes and ordinary civilians, who are not his target to kill.
• Evil Laugh: Shadow would occasionally do this as part of his Eminence In Shadow Stint. In volume 2, he laughs at the concept of him fleeing when Iris claims he'll have nowhere to run, and in volume 4 he laughs at Mordred for even considering eating Ragnarok's flesh to power himself up.
• Evil Virtues: Cid, while not a straight-up villain, doesn't qualify as the classic hero either with his psychopathic chunniness which is why he exhibits such virtues:
  • Chastity: He's one of the rare isekai protagonists to be straight-up aromantic-asexual as evidenced by his utter lack of interest in romance, sex and girls^note Or guys for that matter since Cid never had any opinion on them that borders on dislike as well as acknowledging the concept of love but is incapable of receiving or giving it. For example, Cid can find people attractive but in a similar sense of admiring a painting or a scenic view, remains indifferent towards his ever-growing harem wearing revealing outfits or in the nude, gets annoyed when they don't respect his boundaries by pressing their boobs against him and/or holding his hand and is completely oblivious to their blatant advances. This is due to his sociopathic nature obsessing over his one true desire of becoming "The Eminence In Shadow" and acquiring the funds to do so to the point that every single one of his relationships, whether family, friend or acquaintance, is built on nothing but parataxic distortion.
  • Creativity: Cid dominates in battle intelligence by mix-and-matching every conceivable fighting and weapon technique from both worlds into his own unstoppable style, whereas individual kingdoms stick to one rudimentary fighting style and never diverge any secret techniques to become stronger, as well as combat adaptability from being able to copy and improve upon his opponents’ moves after seeing it in action just once and can counter anything in an instance. For theatrics, he loves making up surprisingly well-thought-out personas complete with different combat specialisations, motives and even voices in addition to teaching himself the unorthodox ways of Mob-Fu, like stopping his heartbeat, throwing himself full speed against a wall or moving his vital organs out of harm’s reach, to really sell the illusion of losing/dying. Can't say the same for his naming scheme though.
  • Equality: Doesn't care whom he slaughters, screws over, steals, or manipulates in order to further his goals which include his childhood friends and loyal subordinates The Seven Shadows, mob friends and even his own sister. The Cult of Diabolos, Knights of Rounds and other plot-significant villains get the same treatment of being physically overwhelmed and psychologically broken by Shadow's eclipsing might since to him, they are all just run-of-the-mill bandits and criminals. This is especially true for the former two since Cid doesn't know the cult actually exists which does not help when they claim to be the strongest and very important, only for Shadow to easily trample and kill them without finding their "fights" memorable or distinct.
• Eye Color Change:
  • His eyes turn from a dull grey to blood red whenever he inputs mana to detect magic signatures and abnormalities like Demonic Possession. This also provides a distinction between his mob and Shadow form and, more importantly, ups the intimidation and/or coolness factor for the latter.
  • The anime adds a deep purple to the mix when activating his X-Ray Vision to steal the wedding ring from Perv Asshat.
• Faking the Dead: Three of Cid's mob-fu techniques centered around this concept if he thinks the situation calls for him to be dead to later sneak around undetected and get the jump on enemies.
  • Ten-Minute Heartbreak: Cid lets himself get sliced in the chest by the terrorist's sword to draw blood then stops his heart but still circulates blood to his brain for up to ten minutes through mana threads. It's a move so extreme that Cid needs to restart it within the time period otherwise "it's hello afterlife".
  • Swiss-Cheese Dance: Bloody Marionette: The assassins who sneak into his room to kill Minoru in his sleep give him the opportunity for an impromptu death scene worthy of an Oscar. This move is named after what his body would be after being riddled with bullets, as good as Swiss cheese, in addition to the finishing touch of spewing a waterfall of (fake) blood from his mouth he fittingly dubs "Niagara's Howling". Alas, this facade didn't last as long as he wanted since one of the assassins noticed there were no bullet holes on his body upon closer inspection, causing Cid to dispatch them the old-fashioned way.
  • In an unnamed technique, Cid made a show of letting Lutheran cut him down, throw himself out the window and fall three stories below, only to immediately come back as Shadow for the final showdown.
• False Friend: If we were technical, Cid is this to almost all his relationships due to running solely on parataxic distortion from both sides and his general disregard for others but two of these friendships have stood out from the rest:
  • Cid only hangs out with Skel and Po who are more mob-like than him to compliment his roleplay and sell the illusion of being a truer-than-text background character rather than their actual friend. Outside of that, he is majorly disinterested in the two's cockamamie get-rich/laid schemes and is more than happy to drain their bank accounts dry through their poker games, plunging them millions into debt without remorse.
  • It's really saying something that Cid ranks Alexia below Skel and Po in terms of likeability and usefulness in his roleplay since she's one of the very few people he actually cannot stand, especially all the crap she made him go through while pretend-dating. Unfortunately, he still has to continue putting up with her since she's the second princess of the Midgar Kingdom and thus obliged to fake listening and caring about her troubles. Since ignoring Alexia isn't an option, Cid actively avoids crossing paths with her whenever possible which is why we don't see much of her for long periods of time.
• Fantastic Nuke: His insane solution to finding a way to fight something like nukes? Become a nuke. His most powerful attack focuses and condenses his mana into a singularity that unleashes an explosion. He can calibrate the blast radius from the strength of a small tactical nuke, all the way to a city vaporizing (and surrounding countryside) ICBM. He even has a variant that heals instead of destroys.
• Fight Off the Kryptonite: He repeatedly finds himself in areas where magic seemingly cannot be used. However, in addition to being a very good fighter with or without magic, Cid also has such an impressive degree of control over his magic that he just keeps finding ways to use it anyway even in Anti-Magic zones.
• Flash Step: There is a reason why one of his catchphrases is "That was merely my afterimage".
• Flipping the Bird: When Alexia proposes they continue their fake relationship after putting him through the wringer, Cid is more than happy to immediately reject her with the double bird salute and a huge smile on his face. This is Bowdlerise in the anime where Cid did a simple thumbs down.
• Foil: As the series goes on, Cid encounters individuals who seem to share similar motivations and mindsets but have gone down vastly different paths from him:
  • Iris Midgar: Iris prides herself and is regarded as the World's Strongest Woman by the citizens of the Midgar Kingdom and their countless praises but it's clear she never expands her worldview when she gets completely outclassed by Shadow who has proven to be the most powerful and deadliest being alive feared by everyone across the continents. As crown princess and captain of the Crimson Order, Iris wants to prove to her people that she's strong enough to protect her country even though she's overestimating her abilities, humiliates herself during her "fights" with Shadow and putting Midgar in further danger from the cult's manipulation all because she won't put aside her massive ego complex. Shadow, on the other hand, wants to be the strongest for his own self-interest and is oblivious to the world at large but can at least recognize his limitations and strengths and how to improve upon them, unaware that doing so inadvertently made him The Leader of a shadow organization that saves countless lives and eradicates all evil for world peace that Iris would never achieve in her lifetime. In terms of combat, Iris perfected the Royal Bushin style and can expel a Battle Aura from her vast mana reserves that can light up an entire arena which reflects her sheer stubbornness to deviate from the one outdated sword technique as well as never learning to accept defeat and improve upon her mistakes since Iris thought she was untouchable in fights until Shadow burst that bubble. This is in contrast to Shadow mastering and combining not just all types of sword fencing and other weaponary but every conceivable field he could think of from both worlds including martial arts, wrestling, kendo and body strengthening, in addition to refining his mana to a radius blast encompassing the entire kingdom at the very least, as a testament to Cid's creativity and optimization in finding the ultimate form of combat possible. Finally, Iris sees Shadow as her sworn nemesis who must be destroyed by her hands to redeem herself in the kingdom's eyes and obsessively trains while neglecting everything else way more important than her revenge plan whereas Shadow thinks nothing of Iris other than an "amateur" and promptly forgets about her after the Tournament arc for more roleplaying that continues expanding the already huge power gap between them.
  • Gettan: They have the desire to be stronger and would take extreme measures to achieve that goal but are heavily contrasted by their reasons for doing so^note Gettan wanted to protect his loved ones and everything he cherishes from being taken away by evil forces while Cid just does it for the self-fulfilling interest of becoming "The Eminence in Shadow" and the resulting outcomes^note Gettan would soon succumb to his insecurities, seek the Cult of Diabolos and raid Yukime's village when they refused to join, thus turning into the very evil that destroyed everything he had sworn to protect without coming any closer to his goal. Meanwhile, Cid doesn't need any help or shortcuts and not only eventually becomes the World's Strongest Man all by himself but also unintentionally saves the lives of many during his quest who would later dedicate themselves as their savior's closest allies and devotees even though he Thinks Nothing Of It. The two are also poor bosses to their subordinates in their respective organizations although Gettan is outwardly abusive Bad Boss who even murders for perceived slights and finds the Major Corporate Alliance as nothing but disposable while Cid does see the Seven Shadows as his friends, he is still rather apathetic to his followers and mostly leaves them to their own devices yet Shadow Garden never catches on and sees him as Benevolent instead. Both are no strangers to multiple accounts of manslaughter but Cid, at the very least, spares innocents and would not kill his friends whereas Gettan cuts down anyone in his way left, right, and center including his beloved fiance Yukime. Speaking of Yukime, Gettan and Cid (as John Smith)'s dynamic with her reflects their characters^note Gettan has a more proactive approach and immediately goes on the offense as he firmly believes "If you don't want anything robbed from you, you have to rob from others" but all his actions and life choices based on said philosophy only made him lose everything he holds dear and led straight towards his demise. Cid completely ignores the bigger picture and does his own thing unless others have provoked him with everything just falling into place for him as a result of his thoughtless actions. and stance on relationships^note Gettan had a long history with Yukime initially betrothed to her as a loving fiance before going down his Start of Darkness in his pursuit of strength and becoming her mortal enemy from giving her physical and mental scars of slaying her mother and everyone in her village then striking her down. In the end, Gettan dies in regret as he still and always loved Yukime but can't do anything about it when he was killed by her new "lover". In contrast, Yukime is completely head over heels for Cid after misinterpreting his actions in gaining more money as doing everything for her such as helping out her vengeance against Gettan and killing him. Alas, this is unfortunately one-sided for her as Cid is completely disinterested in love and on a Strictly Professional Relationship with her as a one-time business partner, meaning she's devoting her life to him without Cid ever knowing or bothering to contact her afterwards.
  • Fenrir: Age-wise, Cid went through two lifetimes but never past his teenage years (Which explains a lot) and seeks immortality to continue roleplaying and chasing his dreams forever whereas Fenrir already lived for millenniums as an old, battle-hardened veteran yet turned disillusioned and directionless over time, wanting to put it all to an end. Ideology-wise, the two have a hyperfixation on their Goal in Life involving becoming the strongest. Fenrir interprets his goal as "reaching the peak of martial prowess" before giving up believing he will never see the peak himself despite his many, many years of experience and bloodshed then tries compensating by dying at the hands of someone who can in glorious battle as the next best thing. Cid, however, is incredibly disappointed upon finding this out on Fenrir's deathbed and immediately disproves his mentality through a "Reason You Suck" Speech about such a predetermined "peak" shouldn't exist since it stunts your growth for the true goal of surpassing your limits and keeping at it no matter how much time has passed which is why Cid is the most powerful being alive who still has the capacity to grow even stronger while Fenrir is not.
  • Kanade: She's a lower-class noble who is nothing special, has secret Chuunibyou tendencies, not-so-secret greediness as shown by pricing everything she sees at Christina's villa and shamelessly mooching off all amenities there and being a Brutally Honest Large Ham in nature. In other words, she's a direct Distaff Counterpart to Cid and a testament to his master class acting as a mob but without the double life, insanity, and most importantly limitless powers hidden within.
  • Seven Shades: Being heavily influenced by Cid rescuing and personally training them as kids and their incredibly warped perception of him, each girl takes after a different aspect of Cid's personality and traits:
    • Epsilon – They use their immense power and talents for ridiculously mundane means. Cid uses every skill in his arsenal to perfect and enhance his roleplaying to the point nobody realises everything he does as Shadow is all an elaborate act while Epsilon’s reason is even more flimsy since she has the highest magic control of all of Shadow Garden besides Shadow just to make her chest size bigger and get her Lord’s attention, only for Cid and everyone else to see through her padded slime right away. Like Beta, Epsilon is madly in love with Shadow and thus her huge "breasts" but Cid begs to differ as he would think of this as a piss-poor goal since love either romantically or sexually, is so beneath him. Not only that, Cid and Epsilon get easily jealous of what others naturally have that they don't or work incredibly hard for but while Epsilon amounts to cat fights with other potential threats to Shadow’s love such as Margaret, Cid reaches homicidal Green-Eyed Monster levels since he seriously believes There Can Be Only One "Eminence in Shadow" which is going to be him once he gets there (Unaware that he already has) and anyone who is or claims as such are met with gruesome deaths (Take Jack the Ripper’s whole agenda against the Thirteen Night Swords for example).
    • Eta - Both share a severe case of laziness and apathy distinctly shown by their complete lack of drive anywhere other than their field of interest^note Scientific experimentation, architecture and gadgeteering for Eta and hardcore roleplaying for Cid and how they don't treat people, even their closest associates, as actual human beings^note Eta sees them as her potential test subjects while Shadow views everyone as characters or plot devices in a D&D-styled campaign story. However, Eta's laziness comes from the typical Sleepyheadedness and acts accordingly, constantly nodding off and working sluggishly in the very few hours she's awake with little to no emotion, whereas Cid's laziness is derived from purposedly getting average grades and putting no effort into anything unrelated to his goals but is so full of energy when training his ass off and roleplaying his heart out while still being an eccentrically hammy Chuunibyou. They are also seen as Brilliant, but Lazy Bunny Ears Lawyers but Eta stays true to her character and everyone in Shadow Garden knows it while Cid hides his quirkiness better as the enigmatic, serious Shadow which fools all his subordinates and enemies with only the audience seeing Cid for who he actually is. Eta is naturally gifted as a super genius, as seen from her proficiency in architecture, magic research, technological advancements and linguistics, whereas Cid excels in combat and theatrics but the rest of his intelligence comes from generalised knowledge of his previous life and mostly sheer coincidences although he pretends to be the smartest person alive in front of his organisation.
  • Additionally, the Seven Shades embody one of the Seven Deadly Sins^note Alpha (Pride), Beta (Lust), Gamma (Greed), Delta (Gluttony), Epsilon (Envy), Zeta (Wrath) and Eta (Sloth) whereas Cid embodies all the sins.
• Family Theme Naming: His sisters's name is Claire while his name is Cid.
• Forgotten First Meeting: He never pays attention to people he deems unimportant in addition to his many counts of But for Me, It Was Tuesday. Examples include completely forgetting about Sherry the first and second time they met when he helped her up and absent-mindedly gave her chocolates respectively and then as Mundane Mann, he failed to recognise Quinton in their matchup despite letting him beat him to a bloody pulp just three days prior.

G-L

• Gaslighting: If he's not bullshitting to get his way, Cid gaslights which is just as effective. When others such as Shadow Garden members and Yukime question his reasoning, he either pulls the old "you dare defy me?" line or says it's confidential in order to make them look like the fool instead and/or outright fear him for not living up to his standards.
• Genius Ditz: Delusions of grandeur aside, Cid is actually smart considering he has acting skills good enough to fool even the sharpest spellsword, is able to discover the secret method in curing Demonic Possession, creating the slime bodysuit, and so on. However, he has no real drive for anything other than just doing cool stuff for its own sake. And because he is so completely focused on living in his own little world without really considering everything that's going on around him, despite being a genius for all intents and purposes, in many respects he is denser than a black hole.
• Genre Savvy: He's simultaneously this and Wrong Genre Savvy as Cid is so well-versed in tropes that he can cobble together a cliche fantasy story that actually matches the real history of the cliche fantasy world he's in without ever realizing it as anything other than a backdrop for his roleplay to scratch off his Troperiffic bucket list. Using this savviness, Cid can subtly manipulate others he considers important to his power fantasy as both the director and actor into getting the desired reactions and outcomes he wants with the unintended side effect of influencing the entire narrative.
• The Gift: Subverted. People believe his abilities are based on some kind of Artifact of Doom or Amplifier Artifact but in truth, he just used knowledge from his past life as well as trained incredibly hard in secret.
• Giver of Lame Names: Cid is creative in a lot of aspects but coming up with names isn't one of them. For starters, he named his top subordinates after the Greek alphabet letters without an actual reason or meaning behind it other than it sounds cool in English and his personas aren't any better, either being from the public domain (John Smith and Jack the Ripper), from a pre-existing dead person (Mundane Mann, Minoru and Suzuki Hope) or just plain ridiculous (Stylish Bandit/Ruffian Slayer and Fallen Angel of the Rebellion).
• Goal in Life: Becoming The Eminence in Shadow of course, hence the title, to the point where he dedicates two entire lifetimes training and perfecting his craft. He also encourages others to do the same with their personal goals (Such as Rose becoming the ruling monarch of their kingdom, at least that's what he thought) unless it's too small or narrow-minded (Cid highly disapproves of Fenrir just reaching the peak of martial prowess when such a peak shouldn't exist and should strive to keep going indefinitely as he has).
• Gone Horribly Wrong: He wanted to be coldly rejected on the spot by the hottest girl in school and spent several nights crafting the most pathetic Love Confession just to cross it off his mob bucket list. Unfortunately for Cid after what he called one heck of a performance, Alexia accepts the confession, finding him to be a perfect pawn for her scheme, and has to go through with being her boyfriend/pet for a hellish two weeks.
• Good Old Fisticuffs: Despite using the sword in both his civilian and Shadow persona, Cid is actually more proficient in hand-to-hand combat. The anime makes this clear when Shadow overwhelms a One-Winged Angel Zenon with just punches and kicks. He also defeats Gettan as John Smith this way, pummeling him to death to the point it bypasses his rapid Healing Factor, despite being a therianthrope that's even recognized by Delta's clan and powered up by the red lozenges.
• Gratuitous English: As a huge Chuunibyou, Cid peppers his speech with English phrases to sound cool and mysterious such as his iconic "I. Am. Atomic." and its variations.
• Greed: Second only to his Goal in Life of becoming "The Eminence in Shadow" is amassing enough gold coins and funds to keep the goal running which includes hunting down bandits, being Alexia's pet manservant (Sorry, "boyfriend"), looting the Crimson Tower blind like it was a bonus event and cheating his friends at poker which cause them massive debt of millions from betting loans. This also led to the creation of John Smith who, in an ambitious effort to secure enough funds until retirement, attempted to collapse Midgar's entire economy including dragging Mitsugoshi under the bus.
• Grievous Bottley Harm: Tries going up against two corrupt guards who were bullying Marie through The Power of Love in the manga, only to be unceremoniously taken out with the trope. This was intentional since he always wanted a bottle broken over his head in a bar fight and was pleased to cross the experience off his bucket list while bleeding profusely on the floor.
• Hand Blast: Cid can magically detach and fire pieces of slime from his suit as high-velocity projectiles at targets. He uses this in full effect when sniping and mowing down dozens of fake Shadow Garden members.
• Hanging Around: Puts down several Shadow Garden impersonators trying to kill Sherry by yanking them away with slime nooses around their necks and hanging them outside the school to slowly choke to death, all without her noticing.
• Healing Factor: By volume 4, Cid had advanced his healing magic to instantly restore and rejuvenate one to perfect fighting condition including regenerating severed limbs and alleviating fatigue from three straight days of non-stop battling.
• Healing Hands: Cid possesses powerful healing magic as a consequence of his experiments with mana control. The same power that can cure mana corruption also has rejuvenating effects. His most powerful healing ability is essentially a healing nuke that can even cure vampirism.
• Healing Shiv: Or rather, a healing nuke. One of his ultimate abilities has him focusing healing magic into such density it achieves a form of magical fission and explodes in every direction for blocks... healing anyone caught in the blast radius. However, this doesn't apply to collateral damage.
• Hero of Another Story: Episode 29 has Cid offhandedly mentioned spending the past three days landing himself in prison, breaking out of it, joining a makeshift army and propagating the legend and Order of the Black Rose where three brothers got all the credit for while Victoria was fighting Raging Gale, tying the web-novel’s events to the main story.
• Heroes Love Dogs: Morally grey Anti-Hero but still. He used to own a golden retriever named John^note Requiem in the manga before reincarnating whom he still remembers fondly, took care of a stray puppy in The Eminence of Shadow Gaiden 4koma, and is more of himself around Delta, a dog-like therianthrope, out of the Seven Shadows since she reminds him of John.
• Heroic Comedic Sociopath: He doesn't care at all about killing criminals, looting their bodies, using them as Unwitting Test Subjects for weapons, magic, and any other insane things he can think of in pursuit of his chuuni dreams. Although to be fair, they were vile scum whom no one would miss.
• Heroic Sacrifice: When the fake Shadow Garden invaded the school, he jumped in front of the terrorist's sword to prevent Rose Oriana from being struck. He only did this because, in this sort of scenario, the first kill shouldn't belong to the protagonist but the mob character, even momentarily stopping his heart to sell the effect, and not because he cares for her. This event causes Rose to hopelessly fall in love with Cid.
• Hidden Depths: Besides the fact that he's hiding his true powers and personality behind his mob persona, he also is talented at playing the piano. Apparently his parents made him learn it, and he hated it at first (since it distracted him from his training) but eventually came to appreciate it because Classical Music Is Cool, and because it helps him deliberately invoke this very trope.
• Hired to Hunt Yourself: While he isn't actually hired to do so, he still helps Christina with figuring out Jack the Ripper's clues and sharing them with the guard knights, while being the Serial Killer himself.
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • Fully confident over how the Corporate Warfare is going just as planned, Cid writes and hands Beta an encrypted message explaining his agenda as John Smith, but more importantly where he hid the gold coins, as he expected her to be unable to decipher it until Mitigoshi collapses and they can start anew. What he didn't expect was Eta decoding it in time before the credit crisis could come full swing, stealing the gold coins to overcome it and essentially undoing all his progress for financial security.
  • This later came back to bite him again after Cid and Beta were transported to Japan and the latter noticed a newspaper article containing the same Japanese kanjis he had written for the message. Putting the former in a tight spot of returning to their homeworld ASAP before Beta discovers he came from Japan and was passing off knowledge from his past life as his own the whole time.
• Honorable Warrior's Death: He invokes this onto many of the strongest but death seeking enemies^note Mist Dragon, Aurora, Elisabeth, Akane, Head Librarian, and Fenrir who wish to die by his hands upon experiencing his incredible might and prowess.
• Hope Bringer: What he is to Shadow Garden especially the Seven Shadows due to his sheer strength and supposed intelligence. This is best shown in Seven Chronicles episode 27 in which the Seven Shadows are disheartened by the trouble the Malak swarm Sergey summoned gave them, but once they realize that Shadow is there, their morale quickly improves much to the shock of No. 111 and 122. This also causes them to fall into despair if they are under the belief that he has abandoned them as shown in his stint as John Smith.
• Hope Crusher: He loves seeing the sheer despair in his opponents' faces from witnessing his almighty power as a testament to his training and acting skills. He even specifically tailored each of their defeats for maximum emotional and mental damage that basically straight up told them everything they believed in and accomplished amounts to absolutely nothing in the likes of him. Some noticeable examples are listed below:
  • Zenon claimed to be important and powerful as the future Twelfth Round of Knights but Shadow made sure he knew his place as a lowly Elite Mook who barked up the wrong tree. His One-Winged Angel did jackshit against Shadow's fists and once his sword shattered upon impact with his body, Zenon collapsed to his knees in pants-wetting fear as he could do nothing but be vaporized asunder by "I Am Atomic".
  • Rex had a smackdown straight up from a horror movie with Cid as the swift and silent killer picking his men off one by one while overpowering him without being seen. Despite profusely bleeding out, Rex still thought he had a fighting chance until he saw the mangled corpses of first-named children in a huge pile (or propped up in desks in the anime) which completely broke him and his ego before Cid graphically eviscerated him head-to-toe.
  • Iris was more than determined to win the Bushin Festival to improve her public image and restore the kingdom's faith in being protected by her Crimson Order, only for some nobody swordsman literally named Mundane Mann to effortlessly wipe the floor with her just by staring intensely. After being humiliated in front of the tournament's mass audience and her father, she proceeds to further embarrass herself by fighting Shadow who initially holds back to make her believe she has a fighting chance before giving her the biggest slap (or rather kick) across her face that she's just a Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond, and an insignificant one in the larger grand of schemes. This dawning realization thoroughly broke Iris into a screaming, crying mess of a Sore Loser she is.
  • Fenrir wanted to seek the pinnacle of martial prowess and lived many millennials finding a such a person who will defeat him in a glorious battle. However, Shadow doesn't give him the satisfaction of an Honorable Warrior's Death by dryly noting the peak of martial prowess should not exist because you must always strive beyond the limits to truly be all-powerful. Thus, Shadow ensured Fenrir's last moments were spent regretting everything to achieve such a small-minded goal and then just giving up when it got too hard, ending his life before it could even begin.
• Hyper-Competent Sidekick: Plays the much-needed "helpful side character" to Sherry Barnett's "useless protagonist" who otherwise would be dead multiple times over from the many terrorists she had failed to hide from if it were not for him dispatching them first.
• Hypocritical Humor: When Claire discovers her newfound powers at the end of the Red Moon Arc, he monologues on her being a Chuunibyou and later going out of control from her "delusions" in Volume 5. Calling the kettle black there, Cid?
• I Always Wanted to Say That: Whenever an audience is present, he is always eager to check off his extensive list of Stock Phrases, one-liners (Both pre-mortem and post-mortem) and whatever cool zinger that pops to his mind. Either striking fear in his enemies or inspiring the Shadow Garden masses even though he just said that to sound cool.
• Iaijutsu Practitioner: Shadow, considered by everyone as the strongest being, is this. This was shown in effect in volume 4 where Akane and co. can only see the wind before the beasts invading Messiah are killed by him.
• I Am Not Left-Handed: Shadow is not just a master swordsman. He is also an expert in hand-to-hand combat and the world's greatest spellcaster. Trying to disarm or wrestle him will only make things worse.
• I Call Him "Mister Happy": What Alexia calls a "worm", he calls it his "Excaliber" for when "the holy sword is removed from its stealth, its sparkling blade is set free and sets off in a quest for the garden of chaos". Cid then abruptly stands up and makes Alexia quickly eat her words as he struts out of the hot springs.
• I Have Many Names: Cid goes by numerous names to match his numerous identities with Demon Shadow, The Black Knight (Shadow on Earth), and Ski Mask/Balaclava Berserker (Stylish Hoodlum Slayer) being some of the names the public had given him.
• I Just Want to Be Special: Before getting reincarnated, he always wanted to be the puppet master, not the hero or Big Bad, that strikes within the shadows or "The Eminence in the Shadows" as he puts it.
• Idiosyncrazy: Cid is so deadset on becoming "The Eminence in Shadow" that it affected his naming scheme. His main identity is called Shadow, he founded the organization Shadow Garden, his top subordinates are known collectively as "The Seven Shadows" and his main Catchphrase includes the line "I lurk in the shadows and hunt the shadows".
• Idiot Hero: He's a Chuunibyou with huge delusions of being a roleplayer. He made up the entire story of the Cult of Diablos to fit the fantasy he wanted most dearly to live out. The fact that the story he made up happened to actually be true is a complete coinicdence, one which is so ridiculous he can't believe it's reality. Meanwhile, everyone in Shadow Garden is convinced he's actually an Eminence in Shadow, so he manages to live out his dream without even realizing it.
• Immortality Seeker: While he notes he could easily live for several centuries with his magic, but later on he outright wants to live forever feeling that even centuries are too little to accomplish his goals. This desire was shown in contrast to Akane's Death Seeker tendencies during one of their talks in Japan. Zeta wants to help him with this goal so that he can become the god of the new world she wants him to rule over.
• Improbable Weapon User: Anything he wields can and will be turned into a weapon: crowbars as tonfas (Stylish Hoodlum Slayer), Razor Wire (John Smith), fountain pens (Suzuki), playing cards (Jack the Ripper) and whatever absurd thing at his disposal that comes to mind. At one point, he manages to parry a Named Child's sword with only a wooden ice-cream spoon since he caught him while eating.
• In-Series Nickname: All Shadow Garden members address him as "Lord Shadow", Delta affectionately calls him "Boss Man" and Alexia has the less affectionate "Pooch".
• Instant Expert: Cid can copy, perfect, and improve his opponent's signature move with his own techniques immediately after seeing them do it only once in battle. This includes Aurora's blood tendrils, Alpha and Zeta's blood mist, and Fenrir's finishing move (Especially since Fenrir honed the technique for over a thousand years only for Shadow to do it better and surpass him in just a few seconds).
• Invincible Hero: Shadow practically cannot be defeated by anyone. The best some of the strongest beings he fought against could do was force him to put a little more effort into fighting. In Volume 3, the Blood Queen forces him to defend and he can't counterattack, but this only happens because he stuffed his slime suit with gold coins. Once he puts them away, he quickly defeats her.
• Irony:
  • Cid is the only one who thinks the world-spanning conspiracy regarding the Cult of Diablos is something he made up, despite literally being personally involved with various agents and scenarios that prove that it is real. He goes through his life simply thinking that he's living his fantasies as "The Eminence in Shadow", his childhood friends that comprise the inner circle of Shadow Garden are simply humoring him, and any oppositions that get in his way are simply ruffians or crazy criminals.
  • For a guy whose goal is to be an unseen agent that controls the world from the shadows, Cid (as Shadow) goes out of his way to announce to the world who he is and what he does, preferably in the most dramatic way possible. He also doesn't do much of "controlling the world through the shadows" by manipulating world events and just waits for another opportunity for him to make a grand reveal of himself, and his organization's main goal is to eradicate the Ancient Conspiracy.
• It's All About Me: From birth till the present day, any action he takes is solely to satisfy his own self-interest. A good example is how he wants to go through with his plan for Mundane Mann to win the God of War tournament to fulfill his fantasies of being a nobody who turns out to be the World's Strongest Man despite how defeating Princess Iris, his final opponent, will ruin her plans to restore public faith in her kingdom's knights and the royal family and potentially even make things worse due to being defeated by some no-name, a concern he was there to hear her express.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Cid behaves more coldly and avoidant towards Alexia and Claire than his usual apathy whenever possible to the point he even considered letting the latter, his own sister, remain in an indefinite coma if it means she cannot bother him for the time being. However, Cid has very good reasons for acting in that way:
  • The first being how they needlessly put themselves and dragged him into life-threatening danger that would definitely get the former two killed if it weren’t for the latter intervening as Shadow, especially if anything happened to Claire, he would be the next heir to the Kagenou family that comes with loads of responsibilities and attention he doesn’t want and clashes greatly with his Eminence lifestyle.
  • The second and most notably would be how the girls would treat Cid as a person which is equally as poorly since Claire expresses her "sisterly love" (Or rather her dominance) by strangling and being obnoxious around him every waking moment they are together while Alexia is even worst when any sympathy or respect he might have went down the drain once she asked to continue dating despite treating him like crap as a pet-manservant for gold and Cid got wrongfully tortured five days straight then proceeded slashed him down with her sword when he obviously refused, further lowering his opinion of her. In the end, It’s not that Cid doesn’t care for Claire and Alexia, it’s the fact he does but they are so incredibly exhausting and overbearing to deal with that it’s better to not deal with them in the first place.
• Jobber: To increase his reputation as a mob character, Cid intends to take part in the Senbetsu Tournament, fight Rose, and throw the fight. However, he was so focused on using all his techniques that he unintentionally made himself more noticeable to the class and attracted Sherry and Rose for his determination despite the odds against him.
• Just Toying with Them: No opponent has ever broken Cid's stride and the reason they only lasted longer is because Cid is either putting on an act, waiting for them to actually make him take the fight seriously, or both. If he was truly serious, they'd be dead in an instant.
• Kick the Dog: Surprisingly, they are not as frequent as his cruelty towards his enemies but they are noticeable. Shadow mercilessly taunts and deconstructs Iris Midgar's skills as a swordsman. When he was disguised as Mundane, he subjected the poor woman to vicious and completely nightmarish mind games to the point she was on the verge of breakdown.
• Ki Manipulation: Cid has complete control over his body and is thus very proficient in manipulating his mana. The feats he has accomplished are:
  • Rediscovering an ancient magic technique in curing Demonic Possession.
  • Hiding his true prowess to fool even the sharpest of spellswords and mana signature-reading machinations like Goldy's Stat-O-Vision.
  • Bypassing Anti-Magic and Energy Absorption devices due to heavily condensing his magic and can release it all at once into a nuclear-esque explosion.
  • Enhancing his abilities and senses to superhuman degrees in order to keep up with those naturally born with powerful senses like therianthropes, specifically Delta.
  • Transfering mana, healing and even powering-up individuals lucky enough to experience his power.
• Knight Templar Big Brother: Played with. Cid is the little brother and generally doesn't seem to care much about his sister, even avoiding her at times. However, he has a history of killing everyone who kidnaps or threatens Claire, which is a growing list. He even threw off his normal theatrics when she was actively in danger. Also while it may have been on a whim, he did order the death of Juggernaut who attacked her and survived.
• Lack of Empathy: A major trait of Cid's character. By willingly shutting out everything and everyone in his life he deems unimportant in his endeavor to become the "Eminence in Shadow", Cid is unable to form any strong emotional attachments towards his friends, family or anyone else and incapable of recognising and reciprocating love despite acknowledging the concept. However, this is also zig-zagged in that Cid is still somewhat capable of caring for others (At least on a superficial level) which is further explained below:
  • On one hand, Cid can massacre entire groups of people without feeling a thing, even when they beg for their lives, if he considers them criminals like in the anime where he took a locket that had the photo of the guy he just killed with his daughter and nonchalantly pawned it off since he doesn't care if another nameless bandit had a family or not. Later on, Cid seemingly accepts Lutheran's reveal of killing Sherry's mother with his usual apathy but his actions prove otherwise when he executes Lutheran the same way he inflicted upon Sherry's mother while keeping Sherry in the dark about her so-called beloved stepfather's true nature which would suggest that deep, DEEP down he does care.
  • This is best exemplified by the treatment of his older sister Claire as despite how much she annoys or obstructs him and the drastic measures he takes to avoid her entirely, Cid never considers letting Claire die and acts as her guardian angel by always saving her from peril or cheering her up whenever she feels down. That said, Cid has limits on how much he can tolerate her presence since Claire is not doing any favors by being obnoxiously suffocating, both figuratively and literally, every single time she wants to spend quality time and show her "sisterly love" towards him as well as having to deal with her mood swings (Now exacerbated by what he perceives as her chunni phase kicking in full-swing) and tendency to needlessly putting her life in danger. Thus, Cid was more than relieved when Claire was put into an indefinite coma in Volume 6 which he treated like early summer vacation since she cannot cause any trouble or bother him in this state along with joking it's better she won't wake up. Although he does a Verbal Backspace once he realizes that Nina and Mu took his words completely seriously.
  • It should be noted Cid has rescued many people from bandit attacks and kidnappings throughout his training when he could have just easily ignored them and left them to their fates at the hands of the villains to ensure no witnesses. On the flip side, Cid doesn't do it for heroics but rather out of moral obligation and doesn't care what happens to the victims once he rescues them since he leaves them to their own devices, showcasing Cid's detachment from humanity although not to the point that he is without humanity.
• The Leader: Shadow is the founder and ideological "inspiration" of Shadow Garden. The members of the Shadow Garden revere him and view him as the ultimate mastermind, though he is actually clueless about the fact that the Cult of Diablos really exists.
• Leitmotif: His theme music consists of a lot of classical piano, electric rock guitar or both with bangers such as "Moonlight Sonata", "Aoi Senkou" and the second anime opening.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: Usually, Cid likes to play with his opponents until he decides to get serious and wants to finish them off quickly and efficiently. When Cid is in this state, he often uses his I AM ATOMIC.
• Letter Motif: Most of Cid's personas begin with an "S" somewhere in their alias (Shadow, Jimina Seinen, John Smith, Suzuki Hope and Stylish Bandit Slayer), even his given name can be pronounced and have an alternate spelling of "Sid".
• Literal-Minded: In volume 4, Cid wanted to see the Black Rose in action at the Oriana Kingdom because he was thinking of the flower as it is a very rare variant to come by when in fact it's an eclipsing interdimensional void that spawns unstoppable, bloodthirsty beasts. Epsilon reacts in horror and amazement and has communicated with the Shadow Garden members thinking that Shadow plans to destroy the legend.
• Living Forever Is Awesome: His stance on immortality and the driving force towards his goal of being The Eminence in Shadow. If he were to choose between having it or dying, it would be a no-brainer to pick the former every single time while scoffing at people who say otherwise such as Akane and Fenrir.
  Cid: Not once in my life have I thought about wanting to die. If anything, I want to live forever. But I do know there are people who think it's pointless to live a long life but I'll never understand that way of thinking.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Averted as the girls keep him up-to-date on all the details within Shadow Garden and their war with the Cult of Diablos. It's just the fact that he thinks they're making it all up to play into his fantasies that he usually forgets what they told him.
• The Lost Lenore: Inverted. In Cid's previous life, Minoru is the guy Akane Nishino fell in love with after suspecting and putting two and two together that he's the one who rescued her from the kidnappers. When he died, Akane kept his uniform in hopes of seeing him again in which she later does when Cid returns to Japan via the Black Rose and cries Tears of Joy after seeing him wear it again.
• Love Confession: Played for Laughs. One of Cid's plans of enhancing his mob persona and being one step closer to achieving his dreams of becoming "The Eminence in Shadows" is to confess to the most beautiful and popular girl in school Alexia Midgar knowing she would most definitely reject him on the spot. Unfortunately, Alexia intentionally accepts Cid's confession for her own motives much to the latter's confusion and dismay since he never wanted a girlfriend or be in a relationship with anyone in the first place.

M-R

• Mad Scientist: He likes to experiment with his magical abilities which is how he created the slime bodysuit and managed to find out how to cure demonic possession. In the web novel, he also experiments with curing brain damage by using Perv as his unwilling test subject.
• Magic Enhancement: Though Cid doesn't often need it, he can enhance himself via magic to keep up with others with powerful natural senses. In volume 3, he easily deduces the Counterfeit Cash Yukime made despite being near-perfect copies by enhancing his eyesight to the extreme. He then confidently declares that only a few can even notice the discrepancies between both real and fake.
• Magic Eye: In addition to his eyes turning blood red as Shadow, his right eye would have extra special effects to make himself look intimidating and/or cool including purple flame wisp, ominous twinkle underneath his hood, and sclera Tron Lines.
• Major Injury Underreaction: It doesn't matter whether he has literally been stabbed all the way through because as long as it didn't hit any vital organs, he's fine.
• Making a Splash: By copying Aurora's Blood Magic technique, Shadow can channel his magic into a river to essentially water bend, creating a powerful jet stream to ride on that splits itself into multiple hydro cannons in episode 20. However, he notes the magic conductivity of ordinary water is on the low side to be used effectively or practically as an attack.
• The Man Behind the Man: Cid is the all-powerful lord of a world-dominating organization that secretly controls nations and decides who becomes their "main heroes," as he wages a hidden war with apocalyptic cults that summon world-ending threats. Even among enemies, Shadow's identity is only known to a select few and most mistakenly believe Alpha is the true leader of Shadow Garden until he reveals himself.
• Master Actor: The living definition of "Fake it till you make it". To achieve his goal of being "The Eminence in Shadow" (And also indulge in his personal fantasies), he adopts and devotedly commits to multiple personas complete with different fighting styles but are all varying degrees of his usual insane self. However, this still fools everybody who isn't aware of the act. Over the course of the series, he has taken on seven identities as listed below:
  • Cid is his civilian identity which he spent all his life honing and perfecting into becoming the most unremarkable mob character there is. He deliberately acts weak and pathetic by performing the self-acclaimed 48 ultimate forms of "Mob-Fu" in losing and playing dead. He protects his mob identity more than Shadow and only reveals himself as the latter if he's in another disguise on the belief that he cannot be an "Eminence in Shadow" without an inconspicuous cover.
  • His first secret identity was the bloodthirsty vigilante Stylish Bandit/Hoodlum Slayer he started back on earth where he beat up hundreds of biker gangs with his trusty crowbars then later massacred bandits for their loot until Cid encountered Alpha when he was ten. Out of his personas, SBS is easily the most psychopathic, bombastic and the one where he outwardly acts like a chunni overall (and that's saying something).
• Master of Delusion: No matter how much evidence there is to the contrary, he remains convinced that the Cult of Diablos is something he made up and that the world-threatening enemies he keeps facing are just random villains and bandits.
• Master of Disguise: Cid might be the ultimate (and only) cosplayer the world has ever seen, using cosmetic slime techniques, impeccable acting and improvisational skills and even changing his voice to flawlessly impersonate anyone or become an entirely different character of his own making.
• Master of Threads: Cid can stretch his mana into fine strands so he can perform feats like stitching up wounds, restarting his heart, and Organ Dodging. He would later refine this technique by imbuing it onto Razor Wire for John Smith's weapon and his finishing move "Nocturnal Birdcage" which thoroughly mutilated Ragnarok.
• Master Swordsman: There's a reason why many people viewed Shadow's swordsmanship as the pinnacle. Alexia described his swordsmanship as a skill not built from talent, strength, or speed but built from honing the basic fundamentals.
• Meaningful Name: Cid means "Lord" in Spanish and Arabic while Kagenou sounds like "Of The Shadows" in Japanese, meaning he didn't have to think hard of a cool alias for his secret identity since his name literally translates to "Lord Of The Shadows".
• Mistaken for Badass: Downplayed. He is highly skilled in fighting and magic but he is far from being the strategic mastermind the Shadow Garden thinks of him as.
• Mistaken for Romance: Most girls he interacts with would completely misconstrue his actions as romantic when a relationship is the last thing Cid wants but remains none the wiser to their feelings as his one and only true love is becoming "The Eminence in Shadow".
  • Sherry was given chocolates because Cid didn't want them and gave them to the first person he saw which happened to be her. Since chocolates are a highly sought-after and expensive confectionary used to express love, Sherry misunderstands the gesture as Cid confessing his feelings for her and becomes bashful of him.
  • Rose is hit with the biggest case out of his self-proclaimed "suitors" when she comes to the conclusion Cid is in love with her from his resolve to get back up and continue their match (He just wanted to try out his mob-fu techniques) and jumping in front of a fatal sword attack meant for her (As he believed background characters should die first not protagonists). As the hopeless romantic she is, she deluded herself into thinking she and Cid are Star-Crossed Lovers which is not helped later after Cid convinces her to follow and stay true to her dreams as he has, thinking he meant her hand in marriage (It's actually killing Perv and becoming Oriana's monarch).
  • Yukime thought John Smith went personally out of his way to find and rescue her from Gettan a second time, melting her cold heart. The truth could not be any further since he was extremely pissed at Gettan for allegedly stealing his money and leaving her all alone once he healed her to dig this supposed treasure and losing contact with her due to Yukime being busy negotiating with Alpha.
• Mood Whiplash: As Cid, he switches between Mob mode and regular mode almost instantaneously if the situation calls for theatrics. An example would be his "interrogation" of Alexia's kidnapping where one moment he's bawling his eyes out and screaming in excruciating pain from the torture and the next, he has the most bored expression on his face wondering when his torturers would be finished.
• Mook Horror Show: Cid's entire Curb-Stomp Battle with Rex which was framed as a scene from a horror movie. Rex was completely helpless to prevent him from eradicating his minions one by one while also No-Selling all Rex's attacks before killing him last. It's even accompanied by Ominous Latin Chanting.
• Motive Misidentification: He normally doesn't question who goes after him, low-life bandits, criminals or other Villain of the Week, but the few times he does, it's completely yet Entertainingly Wrong. The obvious conclusion that it's the Cult of Diabolos never crosses his mind because, according to him, it never existed in the first place.
  • Gettan was under the presumption John Smith was romancing his ex-fiance Yukime and battled him to the death thinking he wasn't worthy, knowing deep inside he still deeply loved Yukime but was too stubborn to admit it. However, John couldn't care less for Yukime in that regard and cares more about Gettan stealing all his hard-earn money for his "Eminence in Shadow" roleplay (The actual culprit being Shadow Garden) in which Gettan's insistent denial of his feelings was misinterpreted as unwilling to give up the location of his precious funds. This angered John to the point where Cid emerges out of persona and gave Gettan an even worse beatdown than his usual bad-guy fare.
  • The Head Librarian was the one responsible for the disappearance of students in Midgar Academy as their magic signatures are compatible with awakening Diabolos' right arm hidden in the school. Alas, Cid never catches on and thought he was a twisted pervert kidnapping underage girls for his sick pleasure when he first met the librarian attempting to put his latest victims Alexia and Claire into eternal sleep, not helped that he's an old man saying cryptic shit. The manga hilariously adds to the misunderstanding by having Cid think the Librarian is also into BDSM (Specifically rope and domination play) judging by his comments.
  Cid: [Thinking] Whoa there Mister Librarian. I don't know what kinda hobbies you're into but getting involved with my sister who ties me up whenever she can and Alexia who treats me like a dog...
  Shadow: What disgusting interests.
• Multilayer Façade: Always puts his disguises on top of his Shadow guise because as someone who commits to his craft, Cid doesn't want to throw away the civilian identity he spent sixteen years cultivating as the perfect mob essential to his plans of becoming "The Eminence in Shadow" and thus kept it entirely separate from his other personas.
• Mysterious Watcher: A hobby of his is spying on the rooftops which he mentions in the Terrorist Arc as one of the must-dos on his bucket list. He also likes to watch the city life from the view while practicing one-liners for his next roleplay.
• My Suit Is Also Super: Shadow's slime suit has to be in order to keep up with all of his insane power. It's made of state-of-the-art, revolutionary black slime that can shapeshift into the perfect battle armor, disguise or weapon on the go when magic is channeled through. Its magic conductivity of 99% allows for maximum potential that iron (10%) or Mythril (50%) cannot do, not to mention how the durability and impenetrableness have been thoroughly tested when a mutated Zenon's sword swung at full force instantly shatters the moment it touches the sleeve without so much as leaving a single scratch.
• Neck Snap:
  • A gorier version with Olivier when he resorted to biting and ripping out her throat vampire-style with a sickening snap as he hit her carotid arteries.
  • In volume 4, Cid (as Minoru) performed a two-handed Neck Lift on the assassins meant to take his life who were begging not to die before he nonchalantly and simultaneously snapped their necks for more pressing matters.
• Never Hurt an Innocent: Cid claims that he tries to prevent killing pitiful people as proven by Jack the Ripper, a notoriously ruthless and unstoppable Serial Killer, who still spares the servants, civilians and non-combatants during his rampage inside the Night Blades' homes. In the web novel, Cid was so miffed by Perv for sending out Millia, an unwitting test subject, to fight him and almost break this code that he lobotomizes him as an "experiment to cure the brain-dead".
• No Endor Holocaust: I Am Atomic is Exactly What It Says on the Tin - Magic that duplicates a thermonuclear weapon - but while it inflicts incredible collateral property damage, mass casualties are never mentioned. Given Cid is able to regulate the energy blast into a Healing Shiv and avoids injuring innocent bystanders as a general rule, this might be an intentional occurrence^note The first time it was used, Alexia was barely a dozen meters away from the origination point and was completely fine afterward. Apparently, I Am Atomic is Friendly Fireproof. There's also not even a hint of leftover radiation one would expect from an actual nuke.
• No Kill like Overkill: Cid wants his opponents to go out in style whether they want to or not:
  • This is best exemplified by his Signature Move "I Am Atomic" which is basically a Fantastic Nuke that vapourises its targets asunder and has so far used it on what he thinks is the Villain of the Week^note Lower-ranking and candidate Knights of Round Zenon, Nelson and Modred, as well as Crimson (Anime-only), have fallen victim to the nuke while also obliterating everything else in its surrounding radius^note The Midgar Kingdom now has an irreversible crater where a huge city block should be, Lindwurm had their enormous dam blew up sky high which change the Holy City to the City of Venice and the Crimson Tower was entirely annihilated from the face of the world (Ironic considering the nuke used was of the healing variant) collateral damage be damn.
  • Under the assumption of "stealing" his gold coins, Gettan gets an even more brutal beatdown than Cid's usual fare when John Smith ruthlessly Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs him to death. This was made worse since Gettan also had rapid regeneration from the red lozenges which drew out the one-sided fight until sunrise and left his face a swollen unrecognisable mess.
  • Fenrir became the unwitting test subject of Cid's newest finishing move^note More specifically the move Cid stole and drastically improved from him "Utsusemi no Atomic" where his sword slash splitters off into nine mana-formed dragons, each tearing off all his limbs, pierced his heart, beheaded, bisected and crushing down on his head. This is necessary since Fenrir is somehow still alive to blurt out some last dying words and listen to Shadow's "Reason You Suck" Speech before his head explodes like a rubber-banded watermelon.
• Nominal Hero: Cid has no heroic motivations nor is the Final Boss everyone has to face. His only dream is to become the "Eminence In Shadow" and hunt in the darkness. What this basically means is that all he wants is to enact his chuunibyou fantasies, damn everyone and everything else. While he seems to hold some affection towards his friends in Shadow Garden, he is still terribly selfish, often greedy, and much more interested in doing the cool thing than the right thing. He is also a completely merciless Unscrupulous Hero and Terror Hero, though thankfully, he keeps the violence to bandits and other lowlifes that (mostly) deserve it.
• Non-Indicative Name: He claims to have "48 Mob-Fu Techniques" but only used 15 in his battle with Rose and "Ten-Minute Heartbreak" so far. Additionally, he also uses hidden techniques such as Swiss Cheese Dance: Bloody Marionette and "The 49th: Ultimate Phantom Skill" that are not part of the original move set.
• Not Distracted by the Sexy: Cid acknowledges attractiveness in others but he detachedly critiques physical beauty as if admiring a sculpture or painting.
  • While sharing a hot springs bath with Princess Alexia, Cid is more focused on the sunrise and completely ignores the nude Alexia.
  • He has seen a nude Yukime from behind and Beta in various sexy outfits (A Swimsuit, Playboy Bunny cosplay and dominatrix outfit to be precise) with absolutely zero libido response.
  • He has also seen Alpha nude after curing her possession which transformed her into a rotting meat monster but also didn't respond to that.
• Nothing Personal: Cid lampshades this when he orders the assassination of Juggernaut in Lawless City to Delta to avoid her foiling his plans as John Smith during the Corporate Warfare arc.
• Not Quite Flight: Shadow can leap and channel magic into his slime suit to act as a paraglider, allowing him to indefinitely stay in the air as if he were flying.
• Oblivious to His Own Description: Twice in volume 4 due to Cid being Cid.
  • Marie, while talking to Cid in her tavern, describes the man who had saved her and fell in love with in the Lawless Town. Cid was entirely unaware that she was talking about him as Shadow the entire time.
  • During one of his talks with Akane in Japan arc, she reminisces about a guy who is precious to her. Being Cid, he's entirely unaware of him being the source of Akane's affection.
• Odd Name Out: Minoru Kageno, his original identity and later amnesiac persona, and Jack the Ripper are the only names not to follow the "S" Letter Motif like the rest of his other identities do (Not counting the English translation of Jimina Seinen to Mundane Mann).
• Offscreen Teleportation: Potrayed in the anime as an after-effect of his Flash Step. The moment the camera pans away from Shadow, he's always ready to strike behind Beatrix who is understandably completely off-guard since she was just standing right in front of him.
• Once a Season:
  • Cid never fails to create and roleplay as a different character from Shadow and Mob Cid specifically for their respective volume/season.^note Stylish Bandit Slayer (Volume 1 & Season 1), Mundane Mann (Volume 2 & Season 1), Mysterious Youngman and John Smith (Volume 3 & Season 2), Minoru/The Black Knight and Fallen Angel of the Rebellion (Volume 4), "Suzuki Hope" (Season 5), Jack the Ripper (Volume 6)
  • He also drops an "I Am Atomic" or its variations on an unsuspecting baddie regardless of their power or importance in every volume minus the sixth one.
• One Dialogue, Two Conversations: Most of his interactions with anybody else end up this way as they will say one thing and he completely misinterprets it with his chunni logic which in turn gets always misinterpreted into something serious and important that only Lord Shadow would come up. This is why Cid is constantly Locked Out of the Loop and never sees the secret ongoing war between Shadow Garden and The Cult of Diabolos as anything but a background for his roleplay.
• The One Guy: He is so far the only male member of Shadow Garden, despite no attempt on his part to make it that way. Somewhat justified by the fact the "demon-possessed" Cult of Diablos targets and Shadow Garden saves from them and then recruits are exclusively female as both Diablos herself and the Three Heroes were also female.
• One-Hit Kill: His special attack is the I Am Atomic^note originally in the web novel it was I Am Taepodong, a North Korean ICBM in which he lives up to his dream of becoming the nuke and unleashes an annihilating powerful blast of magical energy.
• One-Man Army: Even as a kid, Cid hunted down large bands of bandits singlehanded. When the Cult of Diablos or the vampires of the Lawless City sends their armies to wreak chaos, Shadow dispatches them with ease.
• One-Man Industrial Revolution: Accidentally. While hanging out with the rest of Shadow Garden as a child, he'd tell them half-remembered bits from documentaries he watched in his past life that covered economics, steam engines, and other things. The girls latched on to his every word and used them as inspiration to bring them to life in this world. Cid is rather disturbed that they were able to pull this off. It was thanks to this that Gamma was able to create Mitsugoshi, Ltd., selling chocolate and coffee as its top products.
• One Note Chef: In spite of being a talented pianist, he's only ever seen playing the third movement of Moonlight Sonata as he believes it to be the most superior theme song for "The Eminence in Shadow" he aspires to be.
• Organ Dodge: Cid can weave the mana inside his body into magic threads encompassing his heart and other vital organs which allows him to survive the impalement of vital areas that would be fatal if he hadn't physically moved the organs from harm's reach.
• Out of Focus: The Hot Springs/Pool Episode, fittingly titled "A Day Without the Eminence in Shadow", marks the first and only time Cid is absent from the main story. As the anime original takes place in between the Corporate Warfare and Black Rose arcs, Cid gets personally invited to the grand opening of the Mitsugoshi Resort Spa but immediately bails for the Oriana Kingdom thinking it's a trick from Shadow Garden into confronting him about the credit collapse, leaving Skel and Po to "find" (steal) the tickets in his room instead. Thus, the Seven Shadows get A Day in the Limelight with them figuring out the mystery of the Golden Dragon Tears while avoiding the Skel and Po as much as possible.
• Outside-Context Problem: This is essentially what Cid is to any enemy he comes across since it isn't much of an exaggeration to call him a madman who just so happened to pass by and then completely derails their evil scheme.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: This is how Cid usually deals with his targets, who are usually if not always comprised of bandits and criminals. The best example is when he kills Lutheran Barnett the same way the man killed Sherry's mother.
  Shadow: Cut from your extremities inward and twist my blade in your heart, I believe?
• People Puppets: Cid develops a skill called "Shadow Marionette" in the web novel. After reinforcing the abilities of the Vow of Black Rose, he takes control of their bodies. He helps direct the people he controls and improve their fighting skills when they are facing off against Ratja Count's forces.
• Percussive Pickpocket: Cid's abilities as a pickpocket are top-notch, he claims that only the likes of Alpha and Delta can even notice it. Several pickpockets and Perv have fallen victim to it.
• Perpetual Poverty: Justified. One of the reasons Cid is always hunting bandits is that he needs money to fund his secret lifestyle as a shadowbroker. Alexia baits him into becoming her fake boyfriend by offering him money, he pickpockets several people in the Lawless City, and he intends to create a credit crisis that would affect both the Major Corporate Alliance and Mitsugoshi to get money for when he eventually retires. The last point especially is ironic because he is not aware that Mitsugoshi is a front for Shadow Garden and as its leader, it actually belongs to him.
  • The comedic factor is Cid continues to open new avenues for wealth if he just paid a little more attention to those around him. Thanks to his actions, Yukime eventually becomes the undisputed master of Lawless City. This means through Yukime, all the resources of that city-state and its continent-spanning criminal network are also his to command. He has a pathway to access the riches of the Oriana Kingdom, one of the world's superpower nations, when Rose becomes its queen. Even Alexia, his former pretend girlfriend who had developed feelings for him, is second in line for the throne of the Midgar Kingdom.
  • It's even mentioned in the novel that those possessing even a fraction of his prowess can acquire riches and fame. Zenon Griffey calls him out for it and even calls him insane for hiding his identity.
• Person of Mass Destruction: In response to a threat that the armies of Midgar Kingdom would seek to apprehend him, Shadow demonstrates I Am Atomic has the range to completely annihilate the entire capital city of Midgar Kingdom in a single blast. The military power of a nation is nothing Shadow has to fear.
• Pet the Dog: Despite being a complete nut with severe signs of psychopathy and sociopathy, Cid is actually capable of empathy on occasion or at the very least can perform selfless deeds without any ulterior motives.
  • Volume 1 has him sincerely tell Alexia that he likes her swordsmanship despite her poor treatment of him in their fake relationship.
  • In Volume 2, even though Aurora manipulated him, Cid is not bothered by this and he still helps free her of his own volition.
  • In Volume 3:
    • He personally uses his magic to heal two of the Three Towers' lords. In the past, he healed Yukime's wounds following the attack on her village then in the present, he uses his "I Am The Recovery Atomic" on Elizabeth and cures her of her vampirism.
    • Following their fight, Cid is genuinely proud of Alpha and compliments her to be strong which is no easy feat, considering how many times Cid has left his opponents with hope crushing The Reason You Suck Speeches.
  • In Volume 4, Cid, after butchering the corrupt soldiers who were harassing Marie, returns the stolen money back to the young woman, an act uncommon for someone who loves taking money for himself.
  • In Volume 6, Cid as Shadow holds back against Millia and uses his magic to gradually heal her to remove the experiments the cult performed on her. He then leaves the girl to Alpha so she can start her life anew.
• Phrase Catcher: The Lemony Narrator of the manga often quips that yes, Cid is our "Protagonist" so deal with it.
• Poor Communication Kills: Because Cid seems to exist on a wavelength of his own that only rarely intersects with actual reality, this happens a ton. He seems to be mostly unaware that the Cult of Diablos is real rather than something he made up, or that he is the genuine leader of a shadowy world-spanning secret organization, as opposed to just some dork with superpowers roleplaying with his friends and occasionally killing some random bandits. He exists in Perpetual Poverty, unaware that he is probably one of the richest people in the world because all of the funds of Shadow Garden and its wildly successful front company Mitsugoshi actually belong to him, the founder and leader of Shadow Garden. Poor communication ends up literally killing Gettan after Cid assumes he stole the money he had made spreading counterfeit banknotes with Yukihime, when in reality that money had been recovered safely by Shadow Garden, with (what they believed was) their leader's full knowledge and approval.
• Power Copying: Shadow is able to replicate any technique he's seen. He copied Aurora's Blood Magic using water as a substitute with such precision, that Beatrix wondered if Shadow was a vampire. He also mimics Epsilon's advanced slime techniques to improve his own disguise abilities and defeats Fenrir by copying his ultimate technique after just seeing it once, much to his amazement.
• Psychological Projection: Cid frequently believes all other kids had the same Chuunibyou desires growing up. This has caused him to mistake the rest of Shadow Garden for his LARP group and ignore Claire's very real worries and issues, mistaking her for just another chuuni doing the same stuff he did when he was younger.
• Psychopathic Manchild: His mind is basically that of an eighth-grader despite being technically 33 years old^note He died when he was 17 before being reincarnated and is 16 as of volume 5 and with his near-god-like strength, you'll have a dangerous combo. This is justified as he hadn't reached adulthood both times so he never had the chance to actually grow up.
• Public Secret Message: Zig-Zagged. Cid is often fond of giving Beta coded messages he challenges her to decipher, usually doing so with what knowledge she gleans from spending time with him whenever the moment arises. This is how Beta and Eta discover that Shadow never truly betrayed them with his "John Smith" persona and meant exactly what he said toward Alpha, in regards to both Delta missing-in-action: "sent her to a far-off place" and the reason for his John Smith-guise: "Once it's all over, then you'll understand".
• Punny Name:
  • His family name is カゲノー (Kagenou) which when read in Japanese name order, his name becomes "Kage no Cid" as in "Cid of the Shadow". Taking a step further, his first name directly translates to "Lord" in Arabic or Spanish, making him "Lord of the Shadow" or simply "Lord Shadow" (What Shadow Garden calls him).
  • His name on Earth was 影野実 (Kageno Minoru). 野 could be just ateji to substitute の, so his name is the beginning of the series' title "陰の実力者になりたくて" (Kage no Jitsuryokusha ni naritakute) with 実 being read as "Minoru"; alternatively 影野 read together means "shadow field", as in Shadow Garden.
  • His chosen identity during the Bushin Festival is called Mundane Mann.
• Purple Is Powerful: Shadow's magic is violet in colour (Described as bluish-purple in the light novel), wears dark purple as one of his predominant colours next to black and gold, and is known to be the most powerful being alive in multiple worlds, only rivaling Aurora the Witch of Calamity herself at her peak form as Diabolos. He can also give a fraction of his powers to others which gradually turns their magic into a bright blue.
• Radio Voice: The anime adds a static, distortion filter overlapping his voice whenever he decides to sound more menacing than his usual booming deep voice.
• Razor Wind: Shadow can release his magic in a controlled manner as a jet-black, omnidirectional whirlwind he calls "Ebony Swirl" that violently cuts apart enemies in seconds like paper going through a shredder. This was used in volume 3 to instantly and effortlessly eradicate all the ghouls attacking Lawless City then later the entire stampede of magical beasts in the following volume, the latter of which gave Shadow the chance to use his "The Wind is Weeping" one-liner.
• Razor Wire: Pulling a page out of John Smith's book, Shadow delivers the final blow to Ragnarok by wrapping around magic razor-sharp garrotte wire and eviscerating it head-to-toe in a single move he calls "Nocturnal Birdcage".
• Readings Are Off the Scale: During the White Mist arc, Cid accidentally broke his mana collar bomb due to causing an integer overflow error exceeding 9999 but adjusted his mana output to 600 in order to investigate and avoid suspicion as Suzuki. In comparison, Alexia, who has been subjecting herself to Training from Hell, was rated in the 1300s while Claire, who is ranked among the strongest in her generation and unlocking new abilities, was rated in the 1900s.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Cid/Shadow has a habit of giving these to his opponents, especially those who are under the delusion that they are invincible.
  • Shadow calls Zenon a weakling for using, and thinking, his red lozenges is actual power. Shadow shows what true power is by unleashing his "I Am Atomic". The anime adds more by having Shadow beat Zenon down with punches and kicks before stomping on the rest of Zenon's lozenges to prove a point.
  • Iris gets an earful of this by Shadow who mocks her use of an artifact sword as a complete attempt to compensate for her weakness.
  • Shadow then deconstructs Fenrir, tearing down his Death Seeker goals to be nothing more than a fool who wanted to reach the peak of power but then gave up when it got too hard. Fenrir is left in utter despair before he died.
• Red Baron: Shadow has many names and alias but to the official public's knowledge, he's known as "The Shadow Demon" who terrorize the Midgar Kingdom and commits too many akin to the demon king Diabolos. Minoru also has a couple back on earth with the first being "Ski Mask/Balaclava Berserker", known in the criminal world as a notorious vigilante who razed down hundreds of biker gangs, and later "The Black Knight" who singlehandedly wiped out an entire cityblock of magical beasts in one fell swoop. It's no wonder many had cowered at the mere mention of his name.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Cid is described as sporting red eyes under a mask when he's under his Shadow persona.
• The Resenter: Anytime he sees one of his friends making a ton of money off of something he told them about from his previous life, especially since he doesn't have that much money himself. He is completely unaware that they are making that money for Shadow Garden and he has full access to the funds.
• Ridiculously Average Guy: In order to play as the "Eminence in Shadow", Cid intentionally acts like a mob character, even befriending two other mobs and letting himself be beaten by everyone including his sister to sell the illusion.
• Rule of Cool: What drives the majority of his actions. If he finds the opportunity to act out a trope you can be sure he will do it. Gloating atop a roof? Check, Playing the piano in the dark illuminated by a single strand of light? Double check. Not only that but most of his "orders" are actually just him spouting out one-liners in an effort to sound dark and intimidating, it’s only through sheer luck that his actions and words end up being beneficial to his "organization".

S-Z

• Sacrificed Basic Skill for Awesome Training: The basic skill in his case being just... plain common sense, considering how many things he seems to miss that are clear as day to everyone else. Despite this, he is the World's Strongest Man.
• Satellite Love Interest: In-universe example. In his fake relationship with Alexia, he notes that he is seen as the "unimportant random guy who is Alexia's boyfriend" which allows him to keep a low profile.
• The Scapegoat: Cid was supposed to be the fall guy for Zenon Griffey when the latter kidnaps Alexia. Due to this action, Zenon and the Fenrir faction faced the might of the Shadow Garden as they debuted themselves to the world.
• Secret Identity: Other than his Shadow persona, Cid has adopted several disguises to further benefit in his dream of becoming the Eminence in Shadow such as the pitifully weak-looking but actually all-powerful swordsman Mundane Mann and the mysterious elite agent John Smith.
• Secret Identity Vocal Shift: Whenever he switches personas, Cid provides a different tone and inflection to each of his characters. Shadow has a deep, booming voice, Mundane drops his to a sinister whisper, John Smith has a Creepy Monotone^note Or in case of the anime, a hammy cockiness alongside a British accent in the dub, Suzuki sounds exactly like his real-life counterpart only more matter-of-factly and authoritative, Stylish Hoodlum Slayer imposes heroic confidence contrasting Stylish Bandit Slayer's manic, child-like voice and Jack the Ripper doesn't speak at all apart from demonic laughter and the occasional ominous threat. Even Cid himself tends to sound overly theatrical if he is in mob mode.
• Seven Deadly Sins: Oddly for an otherwise non-Villain Protagonist, Cid embodies all the seven sins in one way or another due to his nature as an abnormal, psychotic Chuunibyou:
  • Greed: Cid's most prominent flaw given his penchant (and borderline obsession) to gather as much funds as he can through any legal or illicit means necessary, including but not limited to murdering and ransacking bandits, degrading himself as Alexia's pet (boyfriend), pickpocketing pickpockets, plundering the Crimson Tower of all its treasure like a bonus event, swiping antiques from nobles and cheating at poker while simultaneously putting his mob friends millions in debt, in order to fuel his dreams of becoming "The Eminence in Shadow" and continue roleplaying for the foreseeable future. The biggest stunt he pulled with this in mind was creating John Smith who planned to use counterfeit notes and eliminate any obstacles in the way to cause a credit collapse he fully knew would not only ruin Mitsugoshi and by extension Shadow Garden but also the entire economy of the Midgar Kingdom, all for a little pocket change and retirement funds, and when it gets "stolen", John breaks to give Gettan one of the brutalist beatdowns in his roleplaying career.
  • Wrath: As an insatiable battle-junkie, he makes his fights unnecessarily violent, visceral and both emotionally and mentally traumatizing so it's all the more exciting for him. Not only that, Cid ensures his opponents fully realise just how hopelessly one-sided their chances are when facing Shadow or his other personas from start to finish and how this is nothing special to him in his ever-growing body count. His finishing move is an outright magical nuke that he doesn't reserve for the Big Bad but casually drops onto the Villain of the Week without any regard for causing massive devastation to the surrounding area upon doing so. While he rarely gets truly angry, push one of Cid's Berserk Buttons and the Cruel and Unusual Death he usually dishes out is a comparatively sweet mercy as to what he's about to do.
  • Envy: Is shown to be incredibly jealous of how the Seven Shadows used the knowledge from his past life to become rich and famous without a single credit or royalty check to his name (As far as he knows). This includes his disappointment in Gamma running Mitsugoshi comprised entirely of modern-era products and inventions and in turn earning billions in revenue until she unveils his own personal throne room and Beta and Epsilon respectively becoming a world-renowned writer and pianist by blatantly plagiarising the stories and songs they learned from him to pass off as their own which Cid especially disapproves of. It also extends to his dream of becoming "The Eminence in Shadow" with Jack the Ripper solely created to go on a non-stop killing spree against the Thirteen Night Swords because they were already controlling the Midgar Kingdom behind the scenes and There Can Be Only One.
  • Gluttony: He lives and breathes for self-gratification and indulgences the world has to offer as evidenced by him slaying and robbing bandits and/or frivolously spending exorbitant amounts of money on his extensive "Conspicuous Consumption shadowbroker collection", comprised of the finest antiques, paintings, furniture and vintage wine, solely for aesthetic purposes and without ever truly appreciating their value or historical significance. The man even shamelessly mooches off Mitsugoshi^note Unaware he actually owns the company and his rich acquaintances whenever he can and gladly takes any freebies despite cluttering up his room. Most importantly, Cid is never satisfied with his current power which easily puts him as the strongest being in existence next to the Demon Diabolos herself and strives to be even more powerful.
  • Sloth: In mob mode, Cid deliberately neglects his studies for average grades (Even resorting to cheating to achieve this result) and portrays himself as the blandest, most unrememberable background character possible which infuriates Claire to no end since she can sense his full potential if he applies himself. In general, Cid has no drive for anything unrelated to his shadowbroker roleplaying, barely pays attention to anyone or his surroundings and avoids named characters (Including his own sister) and the plot like the plague.
  • Pride: Cid is immensely proud of his combat and acting capabilities and knows he must continuously train and improve in order to be the utmost best but refuses to use this power for anything but his own self-serving amusement. Additionally, he inadvertently allows the entire world to be at the mercy of a genocidal shadow war between the cult and Shadow Garden so he can indefinitely have a backdrop for his roleplaying. In a different sense, Cid treats everyone as characters in a story rather than actual people with feelings, ambitions and plights and either never bothers to remember or is completely apathetic towards them unless it's directly beneficial to him.
  • Lust: Although not for any sexual or romantic reasons (If he even noticed or cared for the girls in his life), the burning desire to become the "Eminence in Shadow" is the only thing that will ever matter to Cid. He obsesses over this goal to such unhealthy degrees that he's willing to discard everything else without caring how his often life-altering actions would affect his closest associates and the whole world at large.
• Sherlock Scan:
  • Usually Played for Laughs. He uses a range of minor details like the nature of the "possessed" disease and fairy tales about a historical Evil Overlord to construct a convincing cover story for why he has to be such a Chuunibyou... that is in fact evidence pointing to an actual conspiracy that actually exists. Despite this, Cid continues to think he just made it all up and treats any additional evidence of its veracity as just attempts by other people to justify their own desires to be Chuuni.
  • Cid can also play it straight surprisingly enough. In volume 4, he defends Akane this way by immediately pointing out that a knight of Akane's caliber shouldn't be able to generate dull cuts on Saejima's body and in volume 5, he solves the mystery of the White Mist this way under his Suzuki identity.
• Shockwave Stomp: In the anime, Shadow ends his smackdown of Beatrix and Iris by stepping on them which he then enhances with magic to create a seismic earthquake that leaves a crater underneath the overwhelming force.
• Signature Move: I. Am. Atomic.
• Slasher Smile: He sometimes sports an unsettling grin on his face as he dominates and slaughters his victims.
• The Sleepless: He makes use of meditation techniques and magic to reduce his sleeping time to a fraction of the standard 8 hours most people rest to give himself more time to train, with some implication it may be exacerbating his Cloudcuckoolander lunacy even worse.
• Spanner in the Works: He unwittingly foils an Ancient Conspiracy cult on a lie because of his dream to become the "Eminence in Shadows".
• Stealing from Thieves: Thinking he's flat-out broke but can't be bothered to toil away at a real job without taking precious time away from training, Cid resorts to this for a quick buck to point that being a kleptomaniac is second nature to him:
  • As Stylish Bandit Slayer, he exploits all the bandits in the surrounding Kagenou terrority as his main form of revenue by systematically slaughtering them, pillaging everything worth value and taking their corpses in for the bounty without a shred of mercy since the bandits stole the goods and lives of well-earned merchants so it’s only fair SBS returns the favour. SBS, true to his name, racked up such a high body count this way that he singlehanded culled the entire population of bandits, criminals and cultists caught in the crossfire.
  • Cid manages to out-pickpocket the pickpockets in Lawless City on his little stroll downtown, swiping ten or so wallets as practice while retrieving his own from them.
  • At his piano recital masquerading as Epsilon’s apprentice, Cid entrances the nobles with Moonlight Sonata and simultaneously steals all their expensive jewelry using his slime tentacles under the justification of them acquiring it from the taxpayers’ dollars and the poor of the suffering Oriana Kingdom. He didn’t stop there as he went to swipe Perv’s wedding ring, unaware it’s a priceless artifact and key to the Black Rose which will summon hundreds of devastating magical beasts and the fourth-realm ruler Ragnarök upon activation, under his nose to pawn off like the rest of the stolen jewelry.
  • He even killed Dark Spider, a high-rank First Named Child whom he mistook for a "stylish thief", for his elusive Black Spider silk cloak even though Mitsugoshi later proved they could tailor garments for him of the same yet higher quality material. Cid proudly displays his newly acquired robe in his room without caring the former owner got impaled on a statue’s sword because he was too busy saving the robe when Dark Spider's corpse had fallen off the roof.
• Stealth Mentor:
  • Before Claire entered the Midgar Academy, she used to spar with Cid often. She notes that while she beat Cid every time (because he let her), she learned more from his techniques than the other way around.
  • Cid doesn't even realize that he's the reason Alexia Midgar grew stronger after she witnessed his "fight" with Zenon Griffey.
• Stealth Expert: Once Cid goes into his Shadow persona and hides his presence, only individuals at the level or above of the Seven Shadows can even notice him.
• Stealth Pun: Cid's alter ego named Shadow can create realistic afterimages, meaning he has mastered the art of Shadow clone jiu-jitsu.
• Still Believes in Santa: Even in his teens (With a combined age of 33 in both lifetimes), Cid wholeheartedly believes Santa Claus does exist and has been holding out on him every year when expressing his bitterness about Saint Nick not giving him the thing he most wanted, being The Eminence in Shadow. As such, he portrays the jolly old man in an unflattering light to Delta as "An evil, fiendish demon lord clad in red who descends upon the world of shadows" and that "his suit is a deep blood red because he betrays people's dreams, grants them despair and uses that blood to dye his robes" (In other words, basically himself except he dresses up in black). This also implies one of the reasons why Cid is so driven towards his Goal in Life and not relying on others is that non-existent Santa Claus didn't just outright hand it to him.
• Stock Phrases: Cid usually has boatloads of stock one-liner phrases and during his monologue, gets excited when he finally uses them around people.
  Black Knight (Cid's Earth Persona): The Wind is Weeping (after saving Akane from harm)
  Minoru: [After getting back at the base after saving Akane] I finally did it. I got to use my "The Wind is Weeping" line.
• The Stoic: While he is usually a Large Ham of the highest caliber, it's worth noting exactly how nonchalant he is in the face of danger and extreme pain. Even when he's being tortured, or with a sword driven through his torso, Cid never loses his cool (unless he's intentionally pretending to be a weak loser).
• Stronger Than They Look: Cid loves playing this as part of his shtick as the "Eminence in Shadow". Special mention goes to his Mundane Mann disguise, where only Annerose knows that he's dangerous.
• Stronger with Age: Subjecting himself to continuous Training from Hell for the last sixteen years and ongoing allows Cid to exponentially grow in all aspects of strength, magic, and overall power. This is displayed through Cid's estimation of his life expectancy which depends on his mana reserves:
  • He projects a total of 300 years during the Red Moon incident in Volume 3 which happened during the summer break at 15 years old.
  • The Master of Shadow mobile game later reveals during a conversation with young Alpha that when they were 12 years old, his expected lifespan is only about 200 years old before Alpha wished for Cid to live longer (around 300 years old, the average lifespan of elves), retroactively explaining why Cid was planning to secure retirement funds and establishing Cid grows more powerful over time.
  • During the events of volume 5, four months after the events of the Red Moon arc during winter break, Cid reveals his current expected lifespan is now 600 years old, a whopping double of his previous projection. Exactly why or how this explosive growth happened has not been explained or revealed, but it motivates him to now pursue immortality for real.
• Suddenly Shouting: In the anime, Cid has this in response to Iris furiously declaring he'll have nowhere to run after making an enemy of the kingdom.
  Shadow: (After laughing) ...Run?... Who's Running?... Where?... AND WHY?!?!!! [Suddenly activates "I Am Atomic" encompassing the entire kingdom]
  English Dub: ...Run away? ...Who's running? ...Running where?... WHY WOULD I RUN!?!?!
• Super-Empowering: Cid has the ability to imbue a fragment of his own magic into others. Doing so unlocks or amplifies the recipient's inherent abilities at an incredible order of magnitude, while simultaneously curing Possession. Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, Zeta, Eta, Victoria, and Rose Oriana are noted by name as nine individuals who have received this blessing. There are subtle indications Claire was treated in this manner as well, though Claire remains ignorant of the fact, and Victoria does not consider it necessary for Claire to prove "worthy" of it.
• Super-Speed: Cid never skips leg day which is shown in three known modes of speed:
  • Serious Dash allows him as he self-described to sprint at 1,200 kilometers per hour with enough momentum to run over and kill a bear.
  • Putting more effort and a little boost of magic crosses into Flash Step and even Teleportation territory that leaves after-images.
• Super Window Jump: One of his favorite way of making an entrance, reigning terror (and broken glass) onto his enemies before kicking their ass. In the first season alone, he has dynamically broken into three different windows (Two skylights and an observatory deck) as three different people (Stylish Hoodlum Slayer, Shadow and Mundane Mann) across two different lifetimes.
• Sword Beam: Cid uses this in great effect during the magical beast rampage before rescuing Akane in Japan arc by infusing his I Am Atomic's magical energy towards his sword, cutting everything in its path.
• Taking a Third Option: After Rose signs him up for the Goddess Trial behind his back, Cid sees two obvious yet undesirable outcomes: Either step into the arena and summon a powerful warrior which would definitely expose the mob cover he took years to cultivate or run away and face the wrath of his sister after getting kicked out of the academy. Thus, the only viable course of action is to distract everyone by appearing out of the blue as Shadow and having an epic fight with Aurora so nobody would remember that mob Cid or him being a no-show.
• Talented, but Trained: Cid comes from a family that has always produced strong dark knights. While he has far from the largest mana pool in the story, he has the technology and technique to far outstrip the abilities of those with higher "specs". One illustration of this is his explanation of his slime sword vs. normal swords. A standard iron sword only has 10% mana usage efficiency, a high-end mithril sword used by a normal expert has 50%, but the slime sword he invented has 99% efficiency. In other words, even his sword alone makes him capable of taking on a well-equipped expert with twice his magic power.
  Cid: I mean, if I was forced to choose between strength and technique, I'd take strength in a heartbeat, since advanced tactics without the power to back them up are useless. That said, I absolutely despise half-baked strategies that solely depend on physical abilities— like power, speed, or reaction time alone. They overlook and disregard the subtleties of battle. You see, strength is natural, but mastery requires effort. Shadowbrokers never lose when it comes to skill and expertise. And I want to be the same. My techniques will bolster my strength.
• Teeny Weenie: Zig-Zagged. When he and Alexia are sharing a hot spring, he asks that she stop staring at his Excalibur due to finding it to be bad manners to be Distracted by the Sexy in mixed baths. She responds by smirking and questioning why he'd call it Excalibur, saying "worm" would be more fitting. His response is to stand up and bare it with complete confidence, claiming it was merely "sheathed", and she appears to be shocked by what she sees. Though obviously, since we don't actually see it, it's hard to tell how worthy the title of Excalibur is.
• Thicker Than Water: In his own detached way, Cid cares for his older sister and will even pull O.O.C. Is Serious Business to protect her. He just wishes she was not so meddling and overbearing.
• Think Nothing of It: Despite having saved the Seven Shadows (and indirectly all other members from Shadow Garden) from an existence of everlasting despair until death, he only wants them to join in on his shadowbroker roleplay and does not believe they owe him anything since it wasn't his intention to save them with him outright telling Alpha she can go wherever she wants after accidentally curing her.
• Too Dumb to Live: Quite literally before his reincarnation. In his obsession to learn magic in a world where it seemingly didn't exist, he ended up beating his head against a tree until he saw a light that he believed was magic and ran towards it. Said light was the headlights of a massive truck on the freeway that he ran directly into.
• Too Kinky to Torture: Played with. While not feeling any sexual pleasure from it, Cid allows himself to be tortured by investigators for nearly a week because he feels it adds to his image as a mob character even though he could have easily killed his torturers or simply used his knowledge of healing magic to recover from all the damage they did to him instantly. In fact, as long as he believes it makes him more "mob-like", Cid will happily allow himself to be beaten black and blue, stabbed and one time even stopped his own heart for ten whole minutes for the sake of what he called a "mob saves a main character event".
• Too Many Belts: Wears three belts as Shadow, two of which slung loosely to form an X-shape, along with an additional belt lining the popped collar of his Badass Longcoat.
• Trademark Favorite Drink: While Shadow and John Smith would "enjoy" a glass of expensive vintage wine, he'll take apple juice, preferably freshly made and chilled, over it on any given day.
• Troll: Cid takes a level of joy messing with his opponents as he intentionally lets them think they have a chance before turning the tables on them. The anime makes this especially notable:
  • Cid feigns having been cut down by a bandit leader, only to smile and say "Just kidding", before ripping the man to shreds.
  • Cid's fight with Rex basically involves him using the Facepalm Of Doom on the cultist. Cid lets Rex think he's safe after erecting a barrier to protect himself, not knowing he's already inside and proceeds to send him flying.
  • The fight between Shadow and Iris involves Shadow pressing all of Iris's Berserk Buttons to get her to attack him, right before he uses various methods to beat her down.
• Tron Lines: The incantation for Cid's ultimate spell, I Am Atomic, expands across a room and his body with runes with this appearance. It is so alien to comprehend that an experienced Magic Knight versed in lost forbidden arts, is so confused about how magic could be controlled this way due to Cid specifically experimenting on his ability to control mana, allowing him to achieve heights in magical skill untouched by anyone else prior. The greatest spellcaster who ever lived, Aurora, was able to comprehend Cid's Tron Lines, but never thought a single person could control so much magic at once.
• Tsundere: Of the double rare non-romantic male variety to his older sister:
  • Though Cid acts with distant emotion in Claire's presence and is often annoyed by her brother complex, he never wants to see her in distress. He immediately cured her of the Curse of Possession when it began to manifest. If she's in trouble, he will rescue her. If she's sad, he will find a way to change her mood. If she feels lonely, he will stumble into the room. During the assault of the Crimson Tower, he was not certain if he had time to stop an attack from harming Claire, so he abandoned an opportunity for a flashy entrance. Cid's comments and body language around Claire are dismissive, but his actions are that of a little brother who shows care.
  • When Cid crashed the God of War Festival as Mundane Mann, his original plan was to defeat the major competition until Claire was the only top-tier combatant then depart in a dramatic manner so she would be the champion. Given that scenario ultimately happened, it never crossed his mind to crush Claire in the arena as he did with everyone else.
• Two Aliases, One Character: Thanks to his multiple personas, Cid has several aliases^note Shadow, Jimina Seinen, John Smith, Suzuki Hope, Minoru, Stylish Bandit Slayer, Stylish Hoodlum Slayer, Fallen Angel of the Rebellion, and Jack the Ripper as of volume 6, not including the times he was named by the public^note Demon Shadow, The Black Knight and Ski Mask/Balaclava Berserker.
• The Unchosen One: Cid deliberately and actively takes measures to not be a main character, choosing to be a mob over a flashy hero or Big Bad, as that would greatly clash with the mysterious, third-party puppetmaster image he's going for. Case in point, the anime has a Freeze-Frame Bonus where upon encountering Olivier's sword in episode 13 that only can be wielded by her descendants, he isn't pulling out the sword but pushing it down◊ just to not take any chances until what he thinks the real hero has arrived.
  Cid: "Not as the protagonist nor as the ultimate villain. I want to be the one who only meddles in the story and exhibits his power from the shadow. The Eminence in Shadow."
• Underestimating Badassery: During the Corporate Warfare arc, he gave Beta an encrypted message using five different languages from Earth. However, he did not expect that Eta would be able to translate it before the credit collapse rather than after, which caused Shadow Garden to take all the gold under the belief he was giving it to them.
• Unknown Rival: Shadow has made mortal enemies left and right but it's always one-sided on their end due to his oblivious, tunnel-vision self being completely unaware that he has any at all:
  • The Cult of Diablos considered Shadow as their number one enemy and do everything in their power to slander him as a malicious terrorist and the next Diabolos (Which to be fair, isn’t far off with all the immense power he has). Shadow, in contrast, doesn't even know they exist in the first place and takes all the bad reputation in stride since it further deepens in his roleplaying.
  • Sherry Barnett swears deep vengeance on the guy who had murdered her stepfather and mother in cold blood (Unaware the latter was actually killed by the former) whereas Cid only saw her as the designated protagonist during the terrorist attack, unaware of her affection towards him and burning hatred of Shadow, and wasn’t particularly close to her especially since she then transferred to a new school in a different country without ever keeping in contact.
  • After her humiliating defeat, Iris declares Shadow her mortal nemesis and proceeds to devote all her time to training even harder to have the slightest chance at killing him while neglecting the kingdom and her own sister in her single-minded pursuit. However, Shadow only humors her and doesn't take her seriously at all during their battle as he promptly forgets her once that arc ends and never mentions her again for the rest of the series.
• Unlimited Wardrobe: While he is usually only illustrated with his school uniform, he has more than enough clothing due to always receiving Mitsugoshi goods from Gamma.
• Unreliable Narrator: Cid lives in his own world with his own delusions. He is thus utterly unreliable to give the reader actual accurate details of what is going on which is why the narration frequently switches to other characters.
• Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: In all honesty, Cid's an oblivious idiot whose entire goal is based on self-interest; he would kill and manipulate others to get what he wants. The reasons he's not entirely considered a villain are because: 1) he's just a stupid kid who doesn't know what he's doing; 2) the people he kills are even more unsympathetic than him; 3) anytime he does something wrong to good people it will always backfire on him; and 4) he will intervene to reverse excessive abuse upon innocent, powerless people if he can do so without drawing overt attention.
• Unwanted Harem: A harem protagonist would be his worst nightmare, being the exact opposite of his life-long goal as "The Eminence in Shadow", and avoids it at all costs because more unwanted affection from girls means more attention, and more attention seriously dampers his mob act. However, this didn't stop him from unknowingly amassing one that's ever-expanding with the "romantic" stunts he pulled and the more alter-egos put into the mix. There is also the fact that he unwittingly founded a covert organization whose members are all female, some of whom harbor romantic feelings or admiration towards him.
• Verbal Backspace: Had an entire back-and-forth conversation full of this at the beginning of volume 3 when Claire was looking for sympathy and words of encouragement from her brother after her hollow victory in the God of War Festival.
  Claire: "Annerose lost, Princess Iris dropped out and that Mundane Mann guy got disqualified. I guess I only won because I got lucky."
  Cid: "Yeah, basically."
  Claire: "Take that back."
  Cid: "I meant to say 'No way! You won 'cause you're the best!'"
  Claire: "Of course I did. But that's not how society will see it."
  Cid: "Eh, you can hardly blame them."
  Claire: [Threatening] "Why don't you try that again?"
  Cid: "If the world can't see that you're the best, there must be something wrong with their eyes!"
  Claire: "Well, that's just how things are. The masses are blind. But I'm not the kind of woman who'll just sit quietly as they look down on me."
  Cid: "You'd probably be more likable if you were."
  Claire: "I'm this close to blowing a fuse."
  Cid: "Damn the masses! Go prove them just how strong and pretty you are!"
• Vitriolic Best Buds: He only keeps Skel and Po around for the sake of appearances as a mob and can barely stand them as his "friends" and their Zany Schemes for riches and/or girlfriends. However, he does put a considerable amount of effort into hanging out with them during his spare time as seen in the Shadow Gaiden 4koma and surprisingly cares for the two to some extent, specifically praying for their souls out of the entire academy district including Alexia in volume 5 when Delta charges up her Iron Slab attack. Overall, his friendship with the two is ultimately Can't Live with Them, Can't Live Without Them.
• Walk on Water: Since little, Cid is able to stand and glide on the surface tension of water which requires high magic precision only the most accomplished of knights can perform since Iris and Beatrix are also shown to have this skill. As such, Shadow can ride on Aurora's Blood Magic and tidal waves of his own creation.
• "Wanted!" Poster: He gets one at the end of volume 1 in the Midgar Kingdom after being framed by Lutheran Barnett.
• Weapon-Based Characterization: Crowbars. He describes them as unassuming, lightweight, sturdy, multifunctional, and able to throw off opponents with the unexpected.
• Weirdness Censor: Despite having a growing number of supporters, a large hall where he sits on a throne, a MegaCorp created for him, and the constant new information of the Cult of Diablos, he still thinks that the girls are just his friends playing a game with him and going after mere bandits.
• Welcome to Corneria: Mob Cid gets competition for the best NPC when Shadow can't help but deliver the same monologue^note "Run, if you value your life. The frenzy has begun. The moon is red. We are out of time." to as many people as possible during the entirety of the Red Moon arc since it was too cool not to pass up. The anime parodies the trope even further by using the same animation and pose, making Cid only say these four lines every single time and delivering the speech right in front of Mary who is the one he stole the monologue from in the first place.
• Willfully Weak: Due to the precise control of his magic, Cid can hide his magic power and fool everyone into thinking that he's weak even in his Shadow persona. His martial prowess is questioned as only powered up by an artifact because no one could believe that it's even humanly possible.
• World-Healing Wave: He can make his ability that mimics a nuclear explosion into a large healing spell instead.
• World of Ham: As Cid is naturally a Large Ham and big on theatrics, he manages to do this with himself alone by means of his many secret identities and acting out accordingly.
• World's Strongest Man: He doesn't have a large mana pool, but thanks to a lifetime of practicing martial arts and magic, he is certainly the most powerful Spellsword of the story. Iris Midgar considers him to be the strongest man alive.
• Worthless Yellow Rocks: Due to Gamma, Cid has a surplus of Mitsugoshi goods, which he has no issue giving away since to him they are just knock-offs of products from his previous life, but to the general populace they are very popular and hard to get items with only rich aristocrats and nobles being able to regularly afford them.
• Would Hit a Girl: He respects strength and skill, no matter who wields it. While battling Iris, he strikes her multiple times in the head and stomps on Beatrix's stomach with reinforced magic to keep her down.
• Wrestler in All of Us: Shadow makes use of his pre-reincarnation wrestling training by tackling Beatrix, putting her in an airplane hold before throwing her over the head on top of an earlier-defeated Iris in one clean motion. If that's not enough, he performed his finishing move of stomping on Beatrix's stomach so hard, that it left a sizeable crater beneath her and Iris as the two struggled from the seismic force created by his foot.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Zigzagged. Cid believes he is just a hidden powerful person for his roleplay, which is sorta true as some of the other tropes in Isekai are known by him. However, he doesn't realize that he's actually the main character of the story and the leading figure in a secret war against an evil organization.

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