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Anime Expo Screens World Premiere of The Eminence in Shadow 2nd Season Anime

HIDIVE announced on Thursday that it is partnering with Kadokawa to screen the world premiere of the second television anime season of Daisuke Aizawa's The Eminence in Shadow (Kage no Jitsuryokusha ni Naritakute!) light novel series at this year's Anime Expo event. The subtitled premiere will take place on July 1 at 12:15 p.m. PDT at the Main Events Hall in the Los Angeles Convention Center. The English-dubbed premiere will be on July 4 at 11:00 a.m. PDT in the convention center's Petree Hall.

Each premiere will include a post-screening Q&A session with Seiichirō Yamashita (Cid/Shadow) at the Japanese version's premiere and Adam Gibbs (Cid/Shadow) and Christina Kelly (Alpha) at the dub screening.

According to HIDIVE, this marks the "first-ever dual world premiere event."

The second season will premiere in October, and it will have 12 episodes. The main staff is returning for the second season at the studio Nexus.

HIDIVE is streaming the anime and plans to stream the second season. The first season of the anime premiered in October 2022, and it ended on February 15.

HIDIVE describes the story:

Some people just aren't suited to playing the part of the flashy, in-your-face hero or the dastardly, mustache-twirling villain with larger-than-life panache. Instead, they operate in the shadows and pull the strings of society through wit and cleverness. That's the role Cid wants to play when he's transported to another world. Cid spins a yarn or three and becomes the unlikely leader of the underground Shadow Garden organization that fights against a menacing cult (which he totally made up). However, there's a catch even his wild imagination didn't see coming: the cult he concocted actually exists, and they're beyond displeased that his power fantasy just got in the way of their evil plans!

Kazuya Nakanishi (chief animation director for Darwin's Game) is directing the anime at Nexus (Darwin's Game, Granbelm). Makoto Iino (Suppose a Kid From the Last Dungeon Boonies Moved to a Starter Town, Demon Lord, Retry!) is adapting Tōzai's original character designs for animation. Kanichi Katou (Black Clover, Those Snow White Notes) is overseeing the series scripts. Kenichiro Suehiro is composing the music.

Yen Press licensed both the light novels and the manga adaptation.

Aizawa began serializing the story on the "Shōsetsuka ni Narō" (Let's Become Novelists) website in May 2018, and Kadokawa began publishing the story in physical volumes with art by Tōzai, beginning with the first volume in November 2018. Anri Sakano launched the manga adaptation in Kadokawa's Comp Ace magazine in December 2018. Seta U launched a spinoff manga titled Kage no Jitsuryokusha ni Naritakute! Shadow Gaiden (The Eminence in Shadow - Shadow Side Story) in Comp Ace in July 2019.

The Eminence in Shadow: Master of Garden game launched for iOS, Android, and PC in November 2022. Crunchyroll Games released the game in English.

This year's Anime Expo will return to Los Angeles on July 1-4. The convention recently discontinued its Premier Fan Badge system.

Source: Press release

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Disclosure: Kadokawa World Entertainment (KWE), a wholly owned subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation, is the majority owner of Anime News Network, LLC. One or more of the companies mentioned in this article are part of the Kadokawa Group of Companies.