Seiichirō Yamashita, Kana Hanazawa, Yōko Hikasa Star in Eminence in Shadow Anime

The official website for the television anime adaptation of Daisuke Aizawa's The Eminence in Shadow (Kage no Jitsuryokusha ni Naritakute!) light novel series revealed the show's three main cast members on Wednesday.

Seiichirō Yamashita as Cid Kagenou / Shadow

Kana Hanazawa as Alexia Midgar

Yōko Hikasa as Iris Midgar

The anime will premiere in 2022.

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.

Yen Press licensed both the light novels and the manga adaptation, and it describes the first volume:

Even in his past life, Cid's dream wasn't to become a protagonist or a final boss. He'd rather lie low as a minor character until it's prime time to reveal he's a mastermind...or at least, do the next best thing-pretend to be one! And now that he's been reborn into another world, he's ready to set the perfect conditions to live out his dreams to the fullest. Armed with his overactive imagination, Cid jokingly recruits members to his organization and makes up a whole backstory about an evil cult that they need to take down. Well, as luck would have it, these imaginary adversaries turn out to be the real deal-and everyone knows the truth but him!

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.

Sources: The Eminence in Shadow anime's website, Comic Natalie