TL;DR - Hilarious. Recommend to everyone.

The isekai genre is known for being a hackneyed and predictable genre that has dominated the manga market in an attempt to be the next big thing, but ended up all being different variations of the same blank slate main character, the same harem with the same harem stereotypes, the same backstory and lore, and a plot so simple that one might think they were all written by the same three year-old.

Kage no Jitsuryokusha ni Naritakute completely disregards all of these notions. In fact, whenever a stereotype shows up in this manga, it intentionally pokes fun at it in various, creative ways. The best instances of this occur when the main character, Cid, responds to a typical scenario in isekai. While most protagonists will say something cool in an attempt to make themselves seem badass, Cid will say something cool and then reminisce on how good he felt when he coined that one-liner and mentally store it so he can use it again.

Cid is a pretty fun character to watch. His only goal is to become a "master of the shadows," one who pretends to be a mob character but is actually extremely powerful and defends justice as a masked anti-hero. Basically, he embodies all of our childhood spirits, back when we would make swords out of dry erase markers and pretend to smoke lollipop sticks in an attempt to roleplay as badass antiheroes. Except Cid is actually blessed with superhuman abilities, effectively making him able to use this new isekai world as his personal playground.

When presented with the opportunity, Cid makes up an organization (the Diablos Cult) and convinces a young elf that her illness comes from this cult. He then proceeds to cure her with his incredible magic ability and recruits her to his side, so that he might have some fun acting like a mafia boss and pretending to attack hideouts that belong to the cult. This grows a little out of hand as his new recruit finds other members and tells them the same story, and the organization begins to branch out rapidly, expanding and accumulating immense influence at an incredible rate.

In an ironic twist of fate, the Diablos Cult ends up being quite real and the Shadow Legion actually becomes a massive force to counter them. Cid convinces himself that he's just playing around, but everything that he says during his made-up roleplays end up being true. Some of the best moments in the manga are when the side characters react to his decisions by overanalyzing everything that he does. This is a bit of an overused cliche in many stories that involve overpowered main characters, but the manga doesn't stop to dwell on anything, and jumps to something else in an instant. It's a clever tactic that prevents any of the gags from becoming stale.

Some more tropes you see in manga a lot are a sad backstory and a rival to catch up to. Cid does share a brief story of his previous life, but it's quite hilarious. And his arch-rival? A nuclear bomb.

The pacing in this manga is so fast that you might be surprised at how much you need to slow down in order to really soak in everything. It packs so many things into one chapter - lore, plot, character introductions, JoJo references, special moves - that if you don't pay close attention, you'll miss something. But even if you do, the manga never loses its charm of being brutally honest and making fun of every cliché it possibly can.

To be quite honest, most of the side characters don't really matter. They simply serve as archetypes to fill out their roles in Cid's world. But the manga never tries to make it seem like they are more than what they are, and makes these boundaries very clear. This parody takes a refreshingly unique approach to a trite genre and completely delivers with every chapter.

I highly recommend this manga. It really makes you feel like a badass shadow leader.