English Dub Review: The Eminence in Shadow “The Hour of Awakening”

Overview

The moon is red. The frenzy has begun. Shadow is introduced to power players in Lawless City. Meanwhile, Mary and Claire run into Juggernaut.



Our Take

As Claire and Mary proceed to their quest to see if Cid is okay despite not knowing if he’s been kidnapped or not. Claire is attacked by the awakening Elizabeth, at least until Cid’s Shadow Garden swoops in to rescue their asses once more. But it’s clear that even when half asleep, Elizabeth can still comparatively hold her own even during the arrival of Yukime and Juggernaut not slowing her down. Elizabeth then takes control of the demon blood dormant in all Shadow Garden. But with Claire, possessing higher amounts of demon blood and awakens in a dream world where Aurora the Calamity Witch explains some major revelations about her powers. but in a series of unexpected twists, Aurora decides to take the wheel in Claire’s body and attempts to use Cid’s Atomic spell against Elizabeth, but not without consequences.

Of course, Aurora disappears just as Cid appears as “Shadow” and battles Elizabeth. Beta is overjoyed Cid protects them, not realizing that Cid’s true intentions are less than noble during his dramatic arrival. Impressed, Elizabeth asks his name. Rather than answer, Cid detonates his Recovery Atomic, returning the ghouls in the city to humans, healing the injured, and knocking Elizabeth unconscious. The crisis is over, and everyone returns home. Claire is determined to master her magical bloodline and Cid promises always to support her, for which she is grateful. She also can’t help feeling she knows Shadow from somewhere. However, Cid’s only disappointed he only recovered 500 gold coins but reasons if he ever needs more he can just return to Lawless City to steal more. Later, Cid meets an unexpected face in secret…

Overall, this was a decent setup for a new arc involving Cid’s quest for power. The vampire queen may have been strong but Aurora and Shadow turned out to be stronger than she anticipated. Heck, Shadow even went the extra mile and saved everyone involved. Also, I’m pretty sure Claire possibly knows that Cid is Shadow unless they wanna stretch out this big reveal further. But with how the episode ended with that cliffhanger, I’m curious what direction it’ll take as we’ve yet to know the reason behind Cid’s meeting.