Naofumi Iwatani, an uncharismatic Otaku who spends his days on games and manga, suddenly finds himself
summoned to a parallel universe! He discovers he is one of four heroes equipped with legendary weapons
and tasked with saving the world from its prophesied destruction. As the Shield Hero, the weakest of
the heroes, all is not as it seems. Naofumi is soon alone, penniless, and betrayed. With no one to
turn to, and nowhere to run, he is left with only his shield. Now, Naofumi must rise to become the
legendary Shield Hero and save the world!
Note:
- The first episode was pre-aired on December 27th, 2018. Regular broadcast began on January 9th,
2019.
- The first episode aired with a runtime of ~47 minutes as opposed to the standard 24 minute long
episode.
# ~~~__Sobre Shild hero (Anime) __~~~ Sinceramente eu __estava á espera de muito mais__, não só pela parte da __direção__ e __trilha sonora__ mas também por parte dos __ animadores__ , eu pensei realmente que a animação poderia ser o __ ponto mais alto deste anime__, mas acabei por __me desiludir__. A __parte mais problemática__ deste anime é definitivamente a __trilha sonora__ que é usada __muito mal__, apenas __ 3/4 episódios__ conseguiram entregar uma boa trilha sonora que mesmo assim __não estava 100%__ , mas claramente muito melhor que nos outros episódios onde o uso da trilha sonora __era horrível__. A animação estava __ok__, não há muito a dizer da animação já que foi uma animação normal (Nem muito boa, nem muito má). Eu não consigo ver muitos pontos positivos neste anime, __a historia começa interessante__ mas ao decorrer do anime o impacto da historia vai __diminuindo drasticamente__. # ~~~__Sobre Shild hero (Grupo de Naufumi) __~~~ Os personagens "secundários" são muito bem feitos, temos a waifu __Raphtalia__ que faz bem o seu papel, __ela tem tudo__, um __passado obscuro__, um __objetivo__, uma __espada__ e __3 fazes diferentes__ na vida dela, Raphtalia passa pela fase de __criança__ depois __adolescente__ e no final __adulta__. __Filo__ também é __muito bem colocada__ na historia ela pode não ter um passado, mas tem um __futuro grande__ há espera dela e __ela é o personagem "engraçado"__ do grupo de naufumi. __Melty__ é uma das ultimas a entrar no grupo ela tem o __papel de princesa__ sendo assim o personagem que ajuda naufumi a __estabelecer a ordem com o reino__ e também ajuda com os poderes de contra ataque dela que __ realmente ajudam__. # ~~~__Sobre Shild hero (Manga) __~~~ Já no __manga__ as coisas mudam um pouco e a __historia mantém-se firme até o final__ deixando também o personagem __mais fixo há vingança__, e claro __não tem aquela trilha sonora__ a chatear o leitor. >_Recomendações :_ >- __Vale apena assistir ? __R: Não. - __Vale apena ler o manga ?__ R: Sim. ~~~img220(https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/450/049/370.jpg)~~~ ~~Aviso : Eu não sou um expert em animes e etc, mas já vejo animes a algum tempo e gosto principalmente dos de ação e horror, a minha Review sobre qualquer anime é 100% sincera, mas claro esta é a minha opinião, tu é que escolhes o que fazes na tua vida, portanto é escolha tua seguir ou não seguir a minha review.~~
Modern anime seems to be cursed with Isekai after Isekai. From Sword Art Online to Knights and Magic, it has had more than its share of controversial ( Especially SAO) or just downright terrible anime. Innovation is often left to very basic changes in the structure of the show that cause it to stand out. Konosuba, for example, is a comedy anime first and an Isekai second, it stars a deadpan, dry, and despondent protagonist with a cast of female characters with such clear comedic and ridiculous flaws that any sort of generic, unnuanced harem forming is entirely out of the question. Overlord and Youjo Senki both follow an evil or at least amoral protagonist. Re:Zero brings interesting and formulated mechanics to the world it takes place in. No Game No Life at least gives the watcher and interesting concept and fun visuals to take in. Shield Hero attempts all of these in the most lazy, half-hearted ways possible and accomplishes nothing at all. Firstly, the show is technically poor. The use of badly made CGI rivals the early episodes of romance anime Tsuki ga Kirei, and otherwise the art and animation is just uninteresting or downright unappealing. The world's visuals lack and flair and character, instead being conformed to the most boring, uninviting and generic fantasy setting that it can possibly be. Of course, what's a modern anime without cute girls? Shield hero has them, and has plenty of them, but clearly all of the attention in character design was set of them, as basically every male save for a disgusting fat nobleman that wouldn't be out of place in a gross hentai and a shopkeep with darker skin has the exact same facial design and proportions. The fight animation is serviceable but suffers from Light Novel syndrome, or way too many times where everyone stands around and does absolutely nothing for so long that it causes the viewer's mind to wander from the boring and often needless dialogue. Monogatari this is not. Show, don't tell. But technical inspiration and quality is the least of Shield Hero's concerns. The plot is rife with ass-pulls, jolly conveniences and lack of actually giving a shit on the creator's part. The amount of times a character pulls through impossible odds due to sheer willpower is staggering, and rivals the absolutely ridiculous times it happened in SAO. At least in SAO it made a certain degree of sense, especially with the implications that are brought forth in Alicization (Which absolutely does not excuse the decisions made in SAO's embarrassingly bad direction). Shield Hero makes no attempt to atone for its lazy and embarrassingly trope-laiden writing. The most unfortunate part of the anime's poor performance is that it had a very strong start. A young man who seems to have it made as a hero in a fantasy world is thrown to the dogs with nothing. He finds companionship in an unlikely place, and starts to move forward. Everything goes downhill from the moment Filo is introduced. Shield Hero goes from an intense, suspenseful story to a waifubait harem anime with a basic, poor plot coming along for the trip, populated by characters with the depth of a kiddie pool. Shield Hero is a great representation of what not to do when creating an anime.
You know honestly i was thinking that this would be another isekai series, and just be average, but I was far mistaken. Unfortunately, I'm not like other reviewers, and shit on every aspect, because "I only accept the finest of anime"(because in the end there is no such thing) The series was great to watch, and the only problem I had was Naofumi's Framing(but the writers wanted you to hate it, and they did a good job of doing so) So what is this damn show about? (well for the people who didn't even watch the show and are looking at reviews I pity you) So the story takes place in a fantasy world, where this world is under attack by waves waves are actually a state of when the area starts getting populated by monsters and, the 4 cardinal heroes are responsible for taking them out. the cardinal heroes are Naofumi the shield hero Motoyosu the spear hero... Ren the sword hero Itsuki the bow hero Naofumi is summoned with 4 other heroes, to then they get summoned by the king, where they receive money, and at first the king clearly tries to ignore naofumi The king starts having the heroes receive party members, and naofumi is left with no-one then he becomes confused and upset, then a girl by the named of malty decides to join him and she is a bitch, later on, they go shopping, then get a drink, then once naofumi goes to bed he gets framed by malty for raping her, she also stole all his money and has to deal with hell most of the time because of it, he later then goes to get party members of his own, at this point he doesn't trust anyone and avoids unnecessary conversation He goes to a slave trader where he meets ralphtalia and buys her so he can be able to gain exp since he is the shield hero he is unable to gain exp fast so he needs a party member to wield a sword later on, he also buys filo and she turns out to be a rare bird type, where she can turn from a bird to a normal looking human girl with wings May I add the church and kingdom is all against the shield hero, except for the other kingdoms(mostly) the church is called, the church of the three heroes, of course, naofumi not being one of those heroes (End of Summary) The framing of the series played a major part of Naofumi's Adventure. After naofumi was framed he was often subjected to hell, which was always behind her "bitch"/malty, but that isn't her name anymore(you'll see what I mean later) she tries doing multiple things ranging from trying to take away his party members, to trying to kill her sister, other than her family issues her father the king, is trying to do the same thing, and their goal is just to get the shield hero to disappear, but the hero's "can only die being a hero" or something like that, so since they can't kill him, they just make his life terrible As the viewer, I think I can say for a lot of people who watch this series is that this was super painful to see unless you like seeing you mc, in pain, then maybe not... But literally having to be damned framed every 2 episodes and making your life miserable when the kingdom was given a chance to do so. this is why corruption sucks. (Framing Ends Here) The Relationship Bonds! even tho, naofumi was put through hell with the viewer, throughout the series, there are those bonds that are developed between naofumi, ralphtalia, and filo until malty comes along and tries fucking burning those moments along with a fucking forest there was also melty who isn't a bitch but is the bitches sister, and she was a cool character to see around there were those heartwarming moments that made the viewer feel better along with naofumi, showing how life is a rollercoaster and there is always those good moments but you know naofumi x ralphtalia ho ho ho! (THERE PRACTICALLY THE SAME AGE, it's NOT MY FAULT THAT RALPHTALIA GETS OLDER AS SHE LEVELS UP!) Now the floofing combat! throughout the series we see naofumi use a bunch of different shield skills, ranging from grass shield to the amazing holy hell fire/demon shield I mean so what if it made him go insane, at least it looked cool but really seeing him using all of his different skills, was cool to see amongst the battles there was. Naofumi's Revenge! Hehe, my favorite. This was huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge part of the series, this is the time when naofumi's name gets cleared and he doesn't have to deal with the king and the princess tormenting him anymore. Meltys mom, the queen of the other kingdom as well, did a trial for the king and malty, she subjected them to death but one they started undergoing with that, the king and the princess were freaking out, and he didn't feel like it was right, so he stopped it and was saying how this punishment is too easy, since they are getting out and not having to deal with anything more, so instead naofumi named malty/bitch and the king trash, there was more, but I don't really care about the other things (Don't blame me this review is already 5000 characters) at this point, I was super satisfied, because naofumi got the justice that he wanted, well mostly anyway. but to be honest, the way Kinema Citrus, made their execution look if they decided to go through with the execution, I don't think anyone would feel right after all the drama and trauma that we just saw displayed by malty and the king. (mostly malty) My Favorite Scenes! Now it's probably time for my most favorite part of the video, the most favorite scenes, that I think we're great anyways To start off, I think the first time he uses iron maiden, was really cool seeing this mammoth of death just come out of no-where and give his enemy the gruesome death they deserve The next one is the 4 hero's vs the church, that was one of my most favorite battles that I have seen from the show, not only was it intense, but we actually see the hero's work together for once So now the ending! So after the battle with the 3 heroes from the other world, the queen asks for naofumi's reward, and that being him becoming the lord of Ralphtalia's old village. Naofumi reveals his intentions to Ralphtalia( he wants to make an army, get fishing together, etc...) Ralphtalia realizes that this is all for when Naofumi leaves. But finally, Nanofumi decides that he is staying in this world, and ends of the series beautifully! Ah man, this series has been an amazing adventure! And I truly loved this series all the way through! Of course, there are going to be those reviewers who think that this post is a waste of time because("I only accept the finest of anime") but unfortunately, not a rich high-class dude, so I enjoy the little things... (Damn this review is 1,230 words) Well I rate this anime a 100/100 It was truly an enjoyable show to watch!
img(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/609987956727480321/653554497418690570/anilist_burn.jpg)
Nowadays, there is not a single season in which isekai is not present in some way shape or form. It's
an over saturated, repetitive and cliche medium that we all laugh at, and yet somehow find ourselves
coming back to. However, despite the over saturation of the isekai genre, there are series that have
overcome this as very well written and executed stories, such as
[Konosuba](https://anilist.co/anime/21202/Kono-Subarashii-Sekai-ni-Shukufuku-wo/). Tate no Yuusha no
Nariagari (Shield Hero), on the other hand, is not. Out of all the anime that have aired in recent
times, it is without a doubt one of, if not the most, __garbage and overrated show to have aired.__
---
``
# ~~~__1. The World__~~~
~~~
img550(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/393351631342927874/585080676341252096/World_Map.octet-stream.jpg)~~~
# ~~~___1.1 World Building___~~~
The world in Shield Hero was never the main focus of the story and little information is given on the
geography and the surrounding areas of this world. We did get some moments where we saw maps and
characters where discussing future locations they would to travel to, however, the information never
actually built on anything or added anything to the series. I want to point out how this is not an
issue applicable to all other series which do not focus on the world, as a simple world can sometimes
be beneficial to the story. It can allow writers to quickly make the audience know about the world, in
this case a fantasy world, and focus their attention on the other more important aspects of the story
such as the characters or themes. However, in Shield Hero this is a problem, as the story mainly
follows Naofumi and his party _travelling_ around this world visiting villages and cities. Having the
protagonist travel through a simple world who’s races, landscape and structure are very simple and
have been repeated several times in other series, is ineffective and gets quite boring. Apart from the
main plot point in an arc of the story, for example, when they go cure the disease caused by the
corpse of the dragon slayed by the Sword Hero, there is not much else to delve into or care about.
This consequently makes the audience not care for the characters in those arcs, in this case the
villagers in trouble.
Furthermore, the story doesn't even do a decent job of actually world building. For example, remember
the reason as to why Naofumi was the only one out of the 3 heroes who came into this world without any
knowledge of how the hero mechanics work or information about the world? Yeah, me neither, and neither
does the series, because this is clearly just a cheap excuse for the series to easily dump a whole lot
of exposition onto the viewers with the excuse that Naofumi also needed it. Since I was curious and
wanted to know if this plot point actually lead to anything, I consulted some of my friends who have
read ahead in both the light novel and the manga about it, but from what they told me, it has yet to
be explained; and taking into account where the story heads to after the anime I doubt it ever will
be.
~~~
img550(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/393351631342927874/580867248709959691/tumblr_osheoajJfU1tnk2buo9_500.gif)~~~
# ~~~___1.2 The power system in Shield Hero___~~~
The power system in Shield Hero's world seems to revolve around simple usage of basic elements like
fire, water, earth, ice, thunder, etc., with the exception of the heroes and other powerful creatures
like Fitoria or the giant dinosaur. This I have to clarify is not a flaw in my eyes, it is its
execution and its link with the story as a whole that makes simple magic great, or bad in this case.
For example, in Black Clover the power system consists in casting spells with a grimoire, these spells
range from simple ones such as powerful gusts of wind to more complex ones like Yami's dark magic.
However, the way it links with the characters and the story is what makes its simplicity great. For
example, the magic one has in the Black Clover universe depends heavily on their personality and how
you approach situations regardless of your birth and magic type, case and point Langris’ and Finral’s
spatial magic. Even though Langris and Finral are brothers and where brought up in the same household,
the way their spatial magic took form differs quite heavily. Finral can open human sized portals, sort
of like space fissures, connecting different points in space. On the other hand, Langris has a more
offensive type of spatial magic, being able to erase matter from existence by simply swiping his hand.
We can see how there is a huge difference in their application of their spatial magic. This is due to
their personality, Finral is a calmer and more passive person while Langris is a very determined
person facing any obstacle in front of him.
Going back to Shield Hero, in the story, the power system makes no sense at all. From the heroes,
Naofumi is the only one that has a unique way of acquiring new powers that differs greatly from one
another, of course they all at the end of the day have the purpose of serving as a shield but that is
not the point. The other 3 heroes literally have the same attacks but for their respective weapons,
case and point _'Thunder -'_ or _'Meteor -'_. Unlike Naofumi, they don't develop any new special
skills that differentiates the heroes from one another, and we don't even know how their powers
functions. This makes all the fights in which they participate repetitive and boring. What’s even
worse is that even the heroes from other worlds don't have unique attacks, case and point Therese in
episode 24 using:
>"Bejeweled Meteor Shower!"
Oh, would you look at that another meteor attack so creative.
For people who are not heroes like Malty or regular adventurers, the power system consists of casting
spells which range from simple spells like fire attacks to casting a spell which boosts the target's
attack. This is normally shown in the series as simple castings with the prefix _'Zweit'_ before the
type of spell. This isn’t a very creative and unique magic system, but it did its job at establishing
its capabilities for the reader to understand. However, in later episodes, out of nowhere they started
chanting new spells without the use of the ‘Zweit’ that were considerably more powerful than the
latter. For example, in episode 20 when Filo and Naofumi are charging at the pope who used _'Phoenix
Blade'_ to attack them, in a combination spell (which in and of itself is a plot hole because it was
established that they couldn't use combination spells until they had the class upgrade, __which they
didn't__) without any previous explanation of how or where they learnt the spell, starts casting the
following spell:
>"As source of thy power, the Shield Hero I order thee! Decipher the laws of creation, consume the
flame and give me power! Wrath Fire!"
The one who says _"As source of thy power, the Shield Hero I order thee!"_ is Filo, not Naofumi which
shows that Filo had some part in the spell. The use of this new chanting system makes two huge
mistakes. Firstly, it disregards the whole purpose of the ‘Zweit’ spells, for example, why use _'Zweit
Aqua Shield'_ if you can just decipher the laws of creation and use the enemies spell against them.
Furthermore, it was never shown in the series how the use of these ‘law decipherments’ had any
drawbacks or costs that the ‘Zweit’ spells had, making the latter basically useless. Secondly, these
new types of spells have no range of capabilities at all, basically this would categorize as a type of
soft magic. Soft magic in writing is a term to categorize magic systems which have very vague rules
and give the characters in the story a wider range of possibilities in terms of manipulating their
magic. For example, the magic system in Harry Potter would be considered a type of soft magic. Soft
magic in a story is not bad, however, it is considerably harder to pull off as this type of system if
executed badly will remove all the tension in a scene as the reader will not be satisfied with the
characters solving a problem with a new out of nowhere spell. Shield hero is a perfect example of how
__not__ to write a soft magic system, having characters pull magic out of nowhere for the convenience
of the plot. For example, in episode 23, Naofumi just starts chanting yet another unknown spell that
in and of itself doesn’t make sense:
>“As a source of thy power, the Shield hero orders thee. Decipher this message and energize my
target.”
First of all, Naofumi and his party were trying to see what the message meant, so how did Naofumi know
that it would _“energize my target”_ and suddenly made Filo be able to jump higher. Even worse, this
scene is useless, literally filler. Filo being able to jump higher is not referenced at all in the
future episodes, and since she can already jump pretty high it didn’t make Filo stronger, or faster.
Having the characters use attacks that no one’s heard of might be acceptable for side characters or
villains who we don’t know much about, however when the protagonist of the series, who’s growth we’re
supposed to be following, suddenly pulls like ten attacks out of his ass, it just comes off as
bullshit and unplanned.
~~~
img550(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/393351631342927874/580870479976333312/Tate_no_Yuusha_no_Nariagari_-_01_-_Large_06.jpg)
~~~
# ~~~___1.3 The hypocritical purpose of the heroes___~~~
The Four Cardinal Heroes were summoned into the Shield Hero universe due to The Waves of Calamity
threat to the world. However, seeing the performance of the four heroes in the waves as well as some
other over powered characters like Fitoria in the series, makes you wonder if they’re actually needed
in the world.
There are many strong existences in the world of Shield Hero that could easily wipe the floor with the
four heroes and be much more useful in fighting the waves that the heroes. Fitoria, for instance, is
so strong that she could kill the four heroes all by herself. This is shown at the end of Raphtalia’s
arc where the noble in his last breaths releases a gigantic dinosaur that Naofumi and his party could
do nothing but run when they saw it. Fitoria comes into the scene and wipes the floor with the
dinosaur showing her gigantic size and immense power. If the world of Shield Hero has existences with
that sort of power, then there should not be a reason to summon the heroes. Moreover, it can also be
argued how someone as strong or stronger than the dinosaur had to seal it in the statue, as it
couldn’t be Fitoria as we saw how she instantly killed it meaning that before it was sealed, Fitoria
would have killed it instead of sealing it, confirming the existence of other powerful beings in the
world of Shield Hero. Furthermore, in episode 24-25 Melty remarks how it's the responsibility of the
royal army to fight against the waves. The excuse given in the series as to why the royal army wasn’t
present in the first two waves was because the Queen had to deal with the consequences of the King of
Melomarc summoning the four heroes. However, there was no indication that the Queen was fighting the
Kingdoms that were infuriated for the King’s actions, but instead, it was implied that she was having
a very hard discussion and negotiation with them. So, there shouldn’t be any reason as to why the
royal army couldn’t have been in Melomarc helping with the waves. The Queen already had her secret
squad that could protect her, so there was no need for the entire army to be there. And if Melty’s
statement regarding the responsibility of the royal guard is correct, then that would mean the army
would be strong enough to fight waves which would add further questioning as the reason why the heroes
are even summoned.
In addition, the four heroes don’t even help much as not only do they have to start from zero, but
they also can’t work together to level up as they will receive less exp the closer they are to one
another. Their performance the first wave was quite decent, and it actually played into the theme of
Naofumi being weaker and less knowledgeable about the world than the others. The Second wave, however,
is where we see the four heroes being completely useless against the increased strength of the wave.
Ignoring Glass since she was revealed to be a hero from another world, the only reason they managed to
clear the wave was due to Naofumi using the rage shield which boosted his strength enough so that he
could beat the boss. The three heroes do absolutely nothing in the fight apart from landing in a trap
and constantly killing the same enemies. It’s in the third wave where the four heroes apparently get
stronger due to the boost in exp gain on Cal Maria, however, the four heroes do absolutely nothing in
the fighting of the wave, and when I say nothing, it is not fighting weak enemies and not helping out
in the overall picture, its them literally standing on the boats. Naofumi is no exception, as all he
did in the fight was serve as bait for the big boss so that the heroes from another world could
actually kill it. In these three waves we can see how the only reason the heroes are able to clear the
waves is because Naofumi got a very over powered new skill that makes him as strong or stronger than
the wave’s boss, and outside help.
Furthermore, in the fight against the pope we saw how a mere clone of the four cardinal heroes’ weapon
was enough for him to be stronger than the four heroes working together and wipe the floor with them.
So, why summon the four heroes and waste resources on them instead of producing these cloned weapons
and giving them to trained fighters for when the waves appear. This shows that the only reason why the
heroes are even in the story is to serve as cheap, two-dimensional antagonists to make Naofumi suffer.
Another major plot hole in series is the fact that it makes no sense that the shield hero was even
summoned by Melromarc in the first place. Think about it, the church and king, both hate the Shield
Hero and clearly see him as useless compared to the other heroes. Plus, it was revealed that the
nations can actually choose which heroes to summon, as the original plan was that each nation would
summon their own hero. Taking this into account, it makes no sense that Melromarc would choose to
summon the Shield Hero. It could be argued that they summoned him in order to keep him in check and
prevent another nation from getting hold of him as they saw him as a threat, however this argument
falls apart quite quickly as despite taking his money and removing his reputation, they do nothing to
keep him in check and pretty much let him roam free.
---
``
# ~~~__2. The Characters__~~~
~~~
img550(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/267992518120046594/593817973874098206/d7073a5.jpg) ~~~
# ~~~___2.1 Character development___~~~
Apart from Naofumi and Raphtalia, the series has zero-character development not only for the
supporting cast like the other 3 heroes and the royalty, but also the main cast like Filo. The only
characteristics Filo has as a character is that she loves her master, Naofumi, and will help him with
his journey. That’s it. She doesn't have any further character development in the rest of the series.
In what can be considered Filo’s character arc, there was ironically no change at all in Filo’s
character whatsoever. The only reason why this arc even existed was to hammer in an excuse for Naofumi
to be nice to the other three heroes. Filo in this arc became the Filolial Queen, which was then
totally ignored for the rest of the series; it made no impact to her character at all. Also, the one
thing she learns from the previous Filolial Queen, Fitoria, is a new claw technique. But, oh wow,
totally unexpectedly she doesn’t use it for the rest of the series. Hm, I wonder if that’s happened
before. That fact that she receives no development past _“Goshujin-sama daisuki!”_ and yet continues
to play a prevalent role in the story makes her one of the most annoying characters, as she constantly
repeats the same generic lines.
Raphtalia was a great character at the beginning since she acted as a great representation of
Naofumi's lack of morality when buying her as a slave; but as the story progressed, everything that
made her a great character was just tossed out and she ended up becoming annoying. For example, the
first time she addressed herself as being Naofumi's sword was a nice symbolic representation of how
she was Naofumi's way to attack enemies since he could not wield any other weapon other than his
shield. It was even a wholesome way to contrast the previous scene and prove to him that she will
never leave him. However, repeating it during every fighting situation just made it lose its impact
and made it annoying. The phrase becomes even more pointless as the series goes on and Naofumi’s
shield gains the ability to essentially function as an offensive weapon, removing the need for him to
wield a shield in the first place. Furthermore, in what can be considered her arc, where they
encounter the noble that tortured her and her village friends, why, WHY, did you not kill the noble.
It would have made the series a lot better and would have brought back the unique tone from the
beginning that had died out by this point. But no, we had to go with the stereotypical _"I'm not going
to kill you because it would make me the same as you"._ cliché. One of the appeals of Shield Hero that
brought it many fans, myself included, was how it broke and twisted around isekai cliché’s that are
always present in all other regular boring isekai anime. This coupled with the appeal of Naofumi as a
character at the beginning, Raphtalia being a super cute loli, the Malty plot twist, etc., made the
series unique and set it apart from the rest. However, now the series does the opposite of what made
it unique, making it a huge disappointment and another boring cliché isekai. It’s also worth
mentioning that this scene completely goes against Naofumi’s established character as he is supposed
to be amoral and yet is shown to be opposed to her killing the noble. Furthermore, Raphtalia and
Naofumi’s father-daughter-like relationship at the start was actually sort of unique and interesting
to watch. This relationship even worked when Raphtalia grew up a little in episodes 3 and 4. After
that however, they completely threw that relationship out of the window and Raphtalia became another
generic love interest. Filo was probably meant to be her replacement however I’ve already talked about
why she’s a terrible character in her own right.
The only thing we know about the Sword and Bow Hero is that they look at this world from a gamer's
perspective which makes them not care about the actions they take, possibly leading them to view the
worlds monsters and citizens as NPCs. But that’s basically it, apart from that they are cliché and
annoying characters. The Spear Hero is a bit more developed than the sword and bow heroes, however
this doesn't extend very far. Apart from what was mentioned above, which applies to the Spear Hero, we
know that he is a womanizer since his party is only compromised of woman; and that he likes Filo. We
did get some Motoyasu screen time in the execution when he wasn’t convinced that Malty lied about
faking her abuse by part of Naofumi. His character does develop a bit as we see the desperation in his
face and voice when the slave crest electrifies Malty, signifying that she lied. This was a golden
opportunity to start developing Motoyasu by having him see how all his actions had been manipulated by
Malty washed over him. However, as the author does very well in his story, let’s just completely
forget about all of that and in the last scenes of episode 25 make him appear again relaxing on a sofa
with Malty as if nothing happened. Oh, and also make him keep being an asshole to Naofumi for no
reason at all. And these are supposed to be three of the most important supporting cast characters,
that at the beginning were set up as Naofumi's friends but were twisted to become his enemies. But
nothing, they are just there. Their characters are completely ignored the entire way through the
series, only appearing when the plot needs Naofumi to do something or move to another place.
What's even worse is the insane inconsistency of their only characteristic, that being their hatred
for Naofumi. In the fight against the pope they team up, TEAM UP. Keep in mind that from the
perspective of the 3 heroes, Naofumi did rape Malty, furthermore, as Fitoria pointed out, Naofumi did
not try to defend himself which only made the situation worse for him. Even worse, once the pope
appears and the heroes have to fight against him, they are suddenly able to make a coherent combo
attack against him (not combo attack like combining spells). You can argue that the three other heroes
could have trained sometime together for some reason, but that's nothing more than head-canon which
cannot be confirmed. Moreover, it was stated that the heroes would receive less experience when
farming together so it doesn't even make sense that they know how to fight together, even less with
Naofumi. This is clearly showed in episode 23 where Naofumi is literally forced to move to a different
farming location because the other three heroes were farming in the same place, thus, making the gain
of exp so low that they started getting nothing. Also, the relationship between the heroes, excluding
Naofumi, isn't that great either as they are blinded by their huge ego about being heroes. This is
seen clearly in the second wave when they are fighting in the flying ship and are arguing who did more
damage or who killed the most monsters. Ultimately, they almost lost the wave due to that reason alone
making it even less likely that they would suddenly work together so well. Furthermore, in episode 22
when Naofumi, the three heroes and the Queen are in a table discussing, the three heroes start arguing
about what makes weapons strong to the point that Motoyasu picks up Ren by the neck and Ren provokes
Motoyasu to a fight. This just shows how their relationship is not to a level where they could
corporately work together to defeat a single opponent. In addition, it makes no sense how in the span
of one episode they can go from acting friendly with each other to hating each other without any sort
of trigger. In the fight with the pope, all they spoke about was the power of friendship and the
importance of working together and even in episode 21, they acted nice to Naofumi after the execution
scene. And yet for some reason, they all apparently hate each other in the next episode, as shown by
the meeting with the queen. It’s as if the series has an undo button that it presses every few
episodes to undo any bits of character development.
~~~
img550(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/267992518120046594/593562413660504094/ezgif.com-gif-maker.gif)
~~~
# ~~~___2.2 The fall of Naofumi's character___~~~
Since the start of the series it was established how the Shield Hero was hated by everyone for some
reason that had relation with the royal family. This all culminated in Malty falsely accusing Naofumi
of raping her in episode 1, putting everyone against him. This was one of the best plot twists in
recent anime and broke the normal isekai cliché of the protagonist and his first love interest. This
set a beautifully dark tone for the story and made it unique, thus, making it one of the most popular
series of winter 2019. Naofumi’s development as a result of this event was massive, he became someone
new in contrast with his first appearance in the series. He became an amoral anti-hero who didn’t care
about the world or the people around, essentially the polar opposite of the typical isekai
protagonist. This as I stated before is one of the many reasons why the series was appealing to many
people. He didn’t go as far as killing everything that moved and leave innocent civilians for dead, he
did have some compassion but only for those that did not instantly disregard him just because he was
the Shield Hero.
However, unfortunately, apart from the development of the relationship between he and Raphtalia, his
development as a character has only gone downhill. Now he has become a boring and flat character that
has no motivation or the same thrill as the beginning. For example, one of the worst parts about
Naofumi now is his current relationship with Melty. Coming from Naofumi’s and the viewer’s
perspective, the royalty that summoned the 4 heroes, are total garbage. Malty set up Naofumi and
turned everyone against him, even better, the King of Melomarc spread false propaganda about the
Shield Hero all over the country preventing anyone from even wanting to look at the Shield Hero. And
then, when Naofumi meets Melty he just distrusts her for a bit until she cries. Honestly, regardless
if Melty is lying or not she is still family with the 2 people who made his life hell. There was
nothing preventing Melty from acting and gaining the trust of Naofumi just to set him up again, or
potentially kill him. This is all hypothetical situation since we as the audience knew that this
wasn’t going to happen, but still, from Naofumi’s perspective she could have. Why trust the sister of
the horrible human being that ruined your life, this is just bad writing and cherry picking who to
trust; because you know if they cry, they are showing their true emotions, just like Malty. It was
actually quite nice when he essentially told Melty to fuck off after finding out she was a royal
however the next time he saw her, it was like he completely lost his balls. When he saw her for the
second time after learning she was a royal, he just stood there with an awkward smile as she insulted
him for not cooperating with the king. He even went as far as helping her out when there was no
benefit to him, completely contradicting his established character.
Even worse, the series ruins the only part of the story that might have given the series a decent
ending. In episode 21 both the characters of Naofumi and the Queen, as well as Malty’s and the King’s
punishment were thrown out the window. Now, despite this only being an anime review, I will reference
the manga only in this case because it will it show how the episode could have been done a lot better,
as at the very least the manga handled this scene as well the Queen and Naofumi’s characters a lot
better.
Towards the start of the episode, Naofumi has a dream about Malty and the King being executed, and for
some reason they portray it as if he’s having a _nightmare_ about it. He keeps repeating to himself
that they deserve it as if he was doubting his hatred of them. __Why__. There is no reason for Naofumi
not to hate them enough to want them dead, taking into account all the rage he showed at the beginning
of the series. This just creates plot holes in Naofumi’s character and makes him seem weak and bland
compared to his character at the beginning of the series. The episode continues and we see the whole
confession from Malty about the true series of events. We then move on to their execution, only to be
interrupted by Naofumi, who proposes to change their sentence to call _‘Bitch’_ and _‘Trash’_ to Malty
and the King respectively, ruining their social status and reputation. The Queen throughout the
episode also showed hints that she actually cared for her husband and daughter and didn’t actually
want them dead. This behavior was completely out of character and the anime’s fault. In the manga the
Queen is more objective, and not even once does she doubt her actions. She follows all the way through
her mentality of being a Queen before a mother and setting up the example of how there are no
exceptions for crimes committed. Furthermore, Naofumi was the one that proposed that the King and
Malty should be put to death rather than the Queen, and the Queen was the one that wanted them to
receive a punishment worse than death at which point Naofumi then proposed the names. She proposed
this instead because the death of a King and a princess by the hand of the Queen would have caused a
huge political problem and would have negatively impacted the image of Melomarc’s royalty. But no,
instead of having an actual good reason to not kill the King and princess let’s just ruin the Queen’s
and Naofumi’s characters. Moreover, there are various instances in the manga where Naofumi acts like
he did in the beginning by showing his rage to Malty and the King. This was perfect and made the
overall revenge feel more deserved and better. But in the anime, they cut out every instance of that,
every single one, making the revenge feel hollow and meaningless.
---
``
# ~~~__3. The Animation__~~~
~~~
webm(https://dump.video/i/U16hFH.mp4) ~~~
# ~~~___3.1 The hidden master tool for animation: PowerPoint___~~~
There is not much that I want to say about the animation and art of the series as I think that
overall, it’s decent. However, there are times in the series were you really wonder if you are
watching an animated series or a PowerPoint presentation. I sarcastically compare the animation to a
PowerPoint presentation because the cuts and movements of the characters are stiff as a rock, and they
appear and disappear from the screen like images in a PowerPoint presentation. For example, as seen in
the video above, Naofumi calls Filo to help him deal with the Spear Hero, so she simply just… appears.
Filo then proceeds to turn around and "kicks" (there is actually no kick animation, as only a literal
black screen and kick effect appear) the Spear Hero which in the next frame is floating in the air
while the camera pans outwards. Another example is when Raphtalia swings her sword and slashes Malty,
where her reaction to getting slashed is pulling her head up with her mouth open. To culminate and
where the whole PowerPoint comparison comes from, Naofumi calls Melty and Filo who _literally_ slide
in from outside the screen. Moments like these really downgrade the animation of Shield Hero and cover
up the other good animation moments. Even some of the fights have slow and clunky animation, making
them boring and underwhelming. Furthermore, there are also way too many times in the series,
particularly towards the end, where the character designs, specially the facial expressions, go
completely off model making the series look and feel stupid.
---
``
# ~~~__4. Conclusion__~~~
In conclusion, Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari started off with an immense potential by twisting all
established isekai clichés and completely subverting the viewers expectations with a massive
plot-twist and a genuinely good main character. However, all this hype turned out to be for nothing as
the bland and inconsistent characters as well as the terrible writing and world-building lead to one
of the greatest disappointments in anime on par with Sword Art Online.
---
``
# ~~~__5. Score__~~~
__Story & Execution: 1/10__
__Characters: 1/10__
__Animation & Art: 4/10__
__World Building: 1/10__
__Overall:__ __1/10__
.
.
.
Special thanks to __[Kumori](https://anilist.co/user/Kumori/)__ for helping me add some great points
to the review!
And thank you very much to __you__ for reading this _pretty long_ review! Have a nice day, afternoon
or night wherever you are! :)
Review by: @Reoken
Proofread by: @Kumori
___FEW SPOILERS AHEAD!___ __The Rising of The Shield Hero__ starts off as any other anime in the _Isekai_ genre: A character not doing much in his life is summoned to another world and forced to start an adventure. However, in this show Naofumi is pit against all odds when he is falsely charged with sexual assault by the daughter of the king who summoned him and 3 other people from another world to serve as heroes and fight off monsters from a different world. The setting that the show starts off with is definitely engaging and had me rooting for the main character while despising the antagonists as well the useless idiots of heroes Naofumi was forced to collaborate with. Naofumi's journey was immensely fun to watch and had me invested in his character development. His relationship with Raphtalia, a slave bought by him, was also pretty heartwarming. and cute. Speaking of which Raphtalia's story arc was being handled well until a certain point on, but her transformation from a helpless and frightened demi-human to a strong and reliable teammate was interesting. The whole level-up aspect of the story was handled well for the first few damn good episodes. The show was going great! well that's until Filo was introduced and the anime's shortcomings were beginning reveal themselves which i fully realized by the end. It didn't know where to take it's intriguing dilemma that the main character found himself to be in, unwillingly and undeservedly. The anime gives itself up to formulas and cliche tropes thought by, I assume, people who are looking for shortcuts to try and attract different groups of desperate and horny teenagers. For example: Filo is a loli who clings on to Naofumi (her master since she is a pet literally) and wants to be cuddled and paid attention to while showing no depth in her character and masquerading her idiocy as innocence. Fitoria is another loli who is supposed to be this all magical, mystical and over powered being but it's hard to take her seriously when she looks like she hasn't hit puberty yet. The queen of Melromarc has certain scenes only meant to intrigue the fantasy of virgins which completely goes against her character. Though it wasn't meant to be funny, the scene where she blushed when she put on her breastplate before going to battle gave me a laugh though. Fan service is fine, but it shouldn't come at the cost of the story. It should either add to it or blend with it. The pacing of the show can be a bit fast paced sometimes with some plot points often being told directly and lazily through dialogue. Conveniences are placed in the story to make it easier to move on from a situation, power scales are all over the place as the show goes on and characters such as the king and the princess are treated as the main antagonists with arcs that end up as if they were side characters. The king's hatred towards the shield hero is hinted that it could turn out to be an important plot later in the series only to be pushed aside by the queen who just reinstates the obvious fact: the king hates the shield hero. I finished the show and the reason is still unexplained. The show just didn't know how to incorporate it into the story because they were juggling too many plots and dropped the ones they started with. The animation was fine. Not incredible nor terrible. The CGI was trash. I'd think CGI uses more from the budget so even though in anime it mostly turns out to be horrendous why do they still keep using it? Use the money to make better animation throughout the series. Forget about CGI. It looks awkward, clunky and doesn't fit with the rest of the animation. Some fight scenes were cool but had moments where I could see they used more skilled animators. An anime should look fluid throughout without letting the viewers realize where it dropped in quality or increased it in this case. Overall i think __The Rising of The Shield Hero__ is a fun watch but definitely overrated with people deeming it as the 'savior' of the Isekai genre although it is a decent addition to it in my opinion. Don't go into this show seeking something special because you might think you'll get it from the first few episodes but trust me the writers aren't interested enough to honor your expectations.
Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari NatsumeShido's Anime Review Part of Winter Anime Season 2019 [EN] After a long consideration, i've decided to __not write any review with two languages__. So, please enjoy my review in English Language. [ID] Setelah pertimbangan yang cukup lama, saya memutuskan untuk __tidak menulis review dengan dua bahasa__. Jadi, silahkan nikmati review saya dalam bahasa Inggris. ================================================================== We saw it all, we feel it all, and after much-much hate for __isekai__ genre. Starting from zero is a bad option. How about __starting it from minus__? That is what [Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari](http://anilist.co/anime/99263) offers. We also know that, there was too much anime with _isekai_ genre that starts from zero like [Re:Zero Kara hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu](http://anilist.co/anime/21355), [Hai to Gensou no Grimgar](http://anilist.co/anime/21428), [Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo!](http://anilist.co/anime/21202), [Youjo Senki](http://anilist.co/anime/21613), and many more. But, it's much-much appreciated that __starting from minus__ is really too much plus point, and how the story driven is very-very good. Also, some scene in this anime (i think it's between Eps 16~18) was used by Indonesian as a meme to refer condition at Indonesian's Presidential Election. This anime is really recommended to you who has watched one of four anime that i've mentioned above, already bored that main character always carrying a sword to slain an enemy, main character that fully supports party member, this anime is for you to watch. My first impression is, this anime is going to be really-really OP. 'cause it's title ofcourse and decided to not watch it until this anime's meme appears on my timeline. So, i decided to watch it further, and found 1st episode is really-really makes me start to think that "_this anime will be 2019's best anime in this year_". # Story Development: 8.9/10 Starting from minus, is really overwhelming idea. Really, that was awesome. But, that's became real after __Naofumi__ himself gone to library (or bookstore? please CMIIW) and took a book that tells a history of four heroes with four legendary weapons: Sword, Spear, Bow, and Shield. After he flips a few pages, he saw some princess that he also said that "she looks like a _bitch_". Yea, that was instant karma lol. When the day that Naofumi and other heroes gathering to form a party with Melromarc's warriors, there was an issue or i should say _fake news_ regarding Naofumi that he's not knowing any single idea about the situation. And the only one who wants form a party with Naofumi is the princess itself __Melty Melromarc__. After ending the first night, she claims that __Melty__ has been raped by Shield Hero and leave starter reward to start it from minus. The story is going on so progressive and more like gave Naofumi a lesson of life. The sadness, distrust, rage, and everything. They really makes me feels bad about it, and still going on with this minus position. This story really-really ends if Naofumi didn't recruit __Raphtalia__ from slave market. # Character: 8.7/10 I must say that, every characters in this anime is really-really very developed. It's backstory, behaviour, and design is awesome. First, i really hate Naofumi's behaviour at 1st Episode, he's really annoying, after false judgement he has, he's turning 180 degrees from what i hate until i love him. He's fighting for himself until the end of 1st Season, he's fighting for __Raphtalia__'s hometown. Second, we have __Raphtalia__ that makes me to question _the anime's timeline_. When Naofumi recruits Raphtalia from slave market, she's looks like a child. After reaching lvl 15 (again, CMIIW), she's aged and looks like a teenager, and became an young women at lvl 40. After some story progression, __Raphtalia__ is racoon-type demi human race, this race's appearance is developed as same as the level goes up. Third, is __Filo__. I often call this Filolial race creature like __Chocobo__ in Final Fantasy lol. She's just like normal Filolial, until she's grown-up as a Queen and met Fitoria to claim Filo is the real Successor of Filolial Queen. Fourth, is the antagonist __Glass__. She's the true girl of justice here, it's design is really awesome, her body, her eyes, and behavior. Sadly, she worn an Iron Fan and has a Fan Hero position as same as Naofumi who wield a Shield and became a Shield Hero. She's truly at the same level as Raphtalia if we talking about _a girl who talks and acts as a true warriors_. # Graphic/Effect/Visual: 8.5/10 Visual shown to us as a viewer and how they animate it looks awesome. The magic battle, Naofumi who sets up a barrier to protect four heroes from three heroes church, and ofcourse it's perfect too to animate visual battle and effect when Naofumi faces Glass for first and second time. I cannot say more, but this is too good for my eyes. Such as an awesome animation. # Background Music: 7.7/10 But sadly, this anime's BGM doesn't gave up much fear and hype. But, better than other anime that i've watch this season. Question about match or not? It's nearly match, but the hype doesn't as great as i hoped. # Summary: 8.7/10 Actually, this anime isn't really finished yet. Even it's [Light Novel](http://anilist.co/manga/85743) and [Manga](http://anilist.co/manga/85442) is also haven't finished yet. 2nd Season isn't confirmed yet, and we need to wait a bit longer for 2nd season as it's enough to adapt it into TV Anime or Movie.
To describe Shield Hero in a word is simple: obtuse. The Shield Hero himself is a socially inept, dour, doormat who _constantly_ allows people to get the wrong idea about him. His conversation modes are A) silently brooding and B) getting loud and physical, like an abusive partner or some raging NEET. Unsurprisingly, having the tact of a semi-conscious, territorial, house cat gets him into dumb situations. Through the story, he climbs his way from being the cynical personification of angst to a vindictive, petty, borderline sociopath, to finally a mellowed out Deus Ex Machina user. Somehow, his character is actually somewhat enjoyable in the rare moments he acts like a human being, ironically because of the non-human characters with him. The real _obtuseness_ comes in with the Spear, Sword, and Bow "heroes." If these three were told that the Shield Hero is actually mecha-Hitler bent on killing everyone in the world by some drunk peasant on the side of the road, they'd fucking believe it without a second thought. "Of course! I knew he was mecha-Hitler all along!" Even when it's absolutely proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Shield Hero was being framed and conspired against, their little pea-brains are one excuse away from ostracizing his ass. ~!It doesn't improve at all in the light novel, either. If anything, the other Heroes become _less_ competent in the chapters after the anime ends!!~ If the world needed to be saved by these four "heroes," I'd have to make and complete a bucket list in record time before everyone died. At this point in the review, you are wondering, rightly, why on earth I've rated this anime as an 85, given how awful I think the supposed protagonists are. That's because every other character in the anime is well-written with fleshed out motivations. In other words, they're people. Raphtalia. If this character didn't exist in the pure and innocent form she does, I don't write this review, because I drop this shit like it's hot and forget about it. I am so glad she isn't some over-sexualized, ditzy, princess-in-a-tower, type female protagonist. All of the good moments in the show are between Raphtalia and the Shield Hero, because she's the only one who came make that moron be normal. She's like Asuna in SAO before they neutered her and made her into a glorified ornament. The King and Princess Malty, though indescribably annoying and immensely unlikable, make for convincing antagonists. The jealousy of Princess Malty is especially juicy, serving as a flashpoint several times in the story. The King's blatant racism and inferiority complex make it very satisfying every time he's made a fool of. They remind me of Team Rocket in Pokemon, a consistent thorn in the side, yet ultimately too stupid to do anything properly. The mysterious nature of the Waves is something that is teased at, slowly being revealed, and still far from understood. It's clear that whatever ultimate conclusion the story reaches, it will be related to the Waves origin. Though the idea that the Four Heroes in their current state could do anything about it is laughable. ~!In my opinion, the next arc in the story, the Spirit Turtle, is the height of the series. After that, it gets super muddled and enters very stereotypical "shounen-bullshit" filler territory. If the next season is 25 episodes like this one, they're likely to reach the subpar stuff by the end, I hope it's better in anime form.!~ In conclusion, Shield Hero is a diamond in the rough with _plenty_ of rough. It's probably not going down as a classic, but it may be the best isekai anime of 2019.
The phrase, _“That which does not kill us makes us stronger”_, is one that's been made popular over the last century through various means. Originally coined by ‘entry-level’ philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, paraphrased later by the likes of award-winning artist Kanye West and only last year, happened to be used by me: one random person on the internet, in reference to the anime community and its initial reaction to the 2018 anime, Goblin Slayer. With it I pleaded to the community, fans and haters alike, to learn from the controversy it garnered off a single implied rape scene lasting no more than 15 seconds. To not cast people aside with shoddy labels that only commit more harm, and maybe, just maybe, grow stronger as a community from all this. It’s six months later, and I’m upset. In no more than two weeks since Goblin Slayer finished airing, we all got ourselves up in arms again. For another popular anime series had started that deserved all the vitriol received, well deserving of the titles thrown towards it. Disgusting. Outrageous. Repugnant. A dozen other adjectives synonymous with the terms aforementioned. And a complete abomination in the eyes of the community. But it was not due to using horrendous-looking cell shading CG that could have possibly caused eye-cancer, nor did it feature explicit and gratuitous fanservice to sexualise numerous female characters, or even repeat the sin of its predecessor with another rape scene. No, instead the thing that really got underneath everyone’s skin was simply the use of a false rape allegation… I apologize for having to bring this up, but this is important to mention. Community discussions of seasonal anime deemed controversial, whether on Reddit, Twitter, internet forums, etc. seem to now become the focal point of how the average joe is likely to judge the show’s quality. How much does this piece of media adhere to our beliefs and who are the people this series offends are questions becoming more apparent as time goes on. While I believe there’s value in viewing a fictional work through this sort of lens, there’s something we need to understand. We can ignore the fact that we’re applying these notions upon Asian cartoons, made primarily for an Asian audience, probably speaking to the social issues and politics of Asian countries if anything. Because just as these aspects have been disregarded by the vocal side of the community, so too were attempts to critique the series for quality. Does the use of a false rape allegation intrinsically equate to bad writing? In my opinion, no. I find it difficult to say any mere concept or premise is of inherent poor quality, instead being determined through the presentation and execution of such. But Lord Almighty, with a series like this, it certainly tests the extent of that view. Make no mistake, I am not a fan of Rising of the Shield Hero, nor was I a fan of Goblin Slayer, but these two series were bad to me for more… defensible reasons. Reasons that relate back to the core elements of the show and will be further explained in my review. So sit back, relax, have a cool beverage beside you and let the catharsis commence. Might as well call this ‘Late Registration’, _cuz you know I’m takin motherf***ers back to school._ __*THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS*__ Rising of the Shield Hero initially seemed to be the most typical of isekai light-novel adaptations in the last decade. Naofumi Iwatani, the protagonist is introduced as a completely run-of-the-mill otaku, who through reading a generic-looking light novel is transported to a standard RPG-themed fantasy world alongside three other ordinary otaku who must become heroes of the land. Sounds like a typical isekai, right? It even goes so far as to provide some of the shallowest reasoning for why people dislike Naofumi: out of the four who wield legendary weapons, he is burdened with a shield – the “weakest” of the four weapons that only bad MMORPG players would use. Because what kind of elite gamer would ever play a support role? Omegalul. Regardless, the series appears as though it’ll follow the standard formula of many isekai stories that came before, forming a fantastical adventure centring around a main character who may lack in personality, but has generally good upstanding morals we can all appreciate. Right? Well fellow gamers, it ain’t that simple. One of the most common tropes of isekai stories in recent memory is how circumstances are created largely to garner as much sympathy onto the protagonist as sincerely possible. But here, forget the last three words of the previous sentence. In one day since arriving to this new world, Naofumi’s world is turned upside-down in a way only conceivable through the power of isekai. He’s falsely accused of rape in a matriarchy by Princess Myne, one of the most powerful women of the land, for motives implied as a way for her to gain the affection of another hero. This is not the first instance where rape has been used in fiction, but it might be one of the densest examples, even in the anime medium. It was explained in the same episode how the four heroes were prophesized to save the world from total destruction, only for her to risk that just for attention. What kind of self-centred egomaniac would one have to be, to do this when already being a princess and potential heir to the throne? It doesn’t do the show any favours to demonstrate how obvious of a false accusation it is, from explaining how no trial or investigation can be made, to the princess rubbing this fact in the protagonist’s face. Tactfulness on such topics can go a long way to evoking genuine emotion from an audience, and here they’re simply treated to outline the most disastrous sequence of events that could have occurred to dear Naofumi. It’s no secret the show paints its protagonist as the picture-perfect example of an innocent victim. His situation is as unfair as one can imagine; literally everything goes wrong for him in the span of one episode, with almost no one wishing to lend a helping hand. The royal family hate him, the other heroes are disgusted with him, regular civilians see him as less than human and on top of that, he is exiled from the Kingdom. It’s probably the show’s biggest strength with how easy it is to root for someone in Naofumi’s position no matter how contrived and exaggerated the events that led him there were, akin to rooting for a clear underdog. But there’s a limit where the show goes out of its way to demonstrate how much garbage is piled onto Naofumi’s shoulders, that it becomes hard to take seriously. And the rubbish is constantly brought up throughout the series progression. As soon as someone is considerate for his troubles, you can bet money on the chances that a villain is right around the corner, specially to remind the audience about his victimisation. As a result, Naofumi is no longer receiving as much sympathy as intended; instead the emotions evoked are more along the lines of anger and frustration towards the series and its direction. To the show’s credit, it does play around with the limitations placed upon Naofumi. While he is reduced to a supporting role on the battlefield at first, the story utilizes clever ways to him to still act in a valuable way by making the shield the most versatile of all weapons. Possessing what appears to be an unlimited skill tree for abilities that coincidentally factor in to how he is able to survive after being outcast, that simultaneously explores the internal mechanics and lore of the series noticeably. But he still cannot attack effectively, and thus is reliant on using companions to fight for him, the first of which being a sickly demi-human girl named Raphtalia as a slave. In all honestly, I found this to be interesting setup; bringing some of the lowest of the low in society together and grow stronger, co-operating in a relentless struggle to overcome all the obstacles thrown their way, and maybe have something to say on the nature of slavery. And while most of these do happen, we have to remember: this is anime, and adapted from a light novel at that. Even these expectations aren’t met with satisfaction. What showed promise as a character drama that slowly builds a respectful relationship between the two is also exiled from the conversation. There are potent moments worth commendation, like Raphtalia confronting her fears and regret, as well as the pair declaring their loyalty to one another. But these moments are few and far between the amount of times Naofumi treats her as beneath him – an almost exact parallel to how everyone else views him, and this continues past these scenes of reaffirmation. Whenever Naofumi has shining moments of noble morale, he always reverts back to his brooding nature and clear disdain of women. It’s not like one could miss the latter fact about him either, with the series continuously portraying him as a self-insert main character who just so happens to have multiple monologues detailing on how terrible everyone other than him must be, especially women. Because why else could he have such intense hatred towards everyone around him? They all must be guilty of this. This would have been much easier for viewers to digest if it had shown Naofumi significantly learn from this and find trust again in others, except that his development (if at all) is so drawn out, inconsistent and the fact that we are never shown what the character was like previously besides Mr. Generic 101. The show never views Naofumi in the wrong, with anyone allied alongside him being good and everyone pitted against him being bad. Classic black and white dynamic with Naofumi hailed as the arbiter of morality, regardless of how questionable his ethics really are. Let’s not forget that our protagonist and epitome of goodness justifies his “tough love” towards Raphtalia with the reason that at least he gives her basic necessities such as food and water. Kanye may not have been great at articulating his thoughts on slavery, but they come off as truly profound compared to the protagonist’s morally-bankrupt mindset. Not once does the series condemn his views or actions towards others, and it’s this kind of favouritism toward the most important character that no longer makes him the underdog of his own story. If you haven’t realised it yet, the protagonist is also a clear-cut Gary Stu, even with being hated by the majority of characters. Not only is Naofumi the owner of truth and knowledge, he happens to have the most overpowered weapon in the world, overcomes nearly every obstacle set in front of him with little to no sweat and, by pure accident (of course), is surrounded by a harem of attractive women. Seriously, even with all the unfair disdain put on him, this seems like a dream scenario for otakus around the globe. Even with a defensive weapon, he is still shown to be the most powerful of the four heroes, even overwhelming one on several occasions. The shield is versatile, so much so, that it almost nullifies the initial limitation put on Naofumi. This shield can: - Heal injuries. - Attract monsters. - Grow plants. - Burn enemies. - Enhance the abilities of potions. - Drain an opponent’s magical energy. - Cast a cage of shields to trap enemies. - Transform into a rope, megaphone and two dog heads that bite. - Materialize the Berserker cursed armor. - And cook. At what point here can we call the shield broken like a mother****er? Of course, he has to always get a sudden power up from “pure hatred” when it’s convenient. But Naofumi’s overpowered abilities aren’t just restricted to battles; he doesn’t even have to fight someone, just put Naofumi in a race with a 2-day old bird against cheaters and he’ll still find the ways to win fair and square. There's no excuse. How can one man have all this power? This is the type of lazy writing you can find in more episodes than not. It’s concerning when your self-insert protagonist has incel-like tendencies, and the story panders like this to the wish-fulfillment part of the fanbase. When you constantly push one character up on the highest pedestal, other characters are unintentionally going to be pushed down, which leads me to every other character in the show. Because while everyone might hate Naofumi in the world, it’s everyone else in the show that actually suffer. Naofumi’s harem is comprised of a few distinct characters. Raphtalia, the demi-human that went from loli to “maybe” legal over the course of a couple episodes. Filo, a Filorial loli who hatched from an egg and openly calls Naofumi her master ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡ °). And Princess Melty, a good-natured woman whose main service to the plot is acting as opposition to the woman that accused Naofumi in the first place. Out of the three, Raphtalia is the only one to receive any focus from the narrative, but even then her arc is scattershot. Wanting to fight for Naofumi and essentially falling for him in the first few episodes, to subtly vying with Filo over his attention. She is given an interesting moral dilemma in multiple episodes about whether or not she should kill a slave master. Only for her to not have to decide as the man falls from the windowwwwwwwww, to the floor! That is the general overview for Raphtalia over this season. It may not seem like much, but that is still more than either her companions had. The most development Filo had was how she reached “adulthood” in just two days. As it stands, Filo is only there to fight and look cute. As for Melty, her motives are simply to restore whatever relationship there was between Naofumi and the King, and wherever Melty goes, her sister is always close by, waiting to give more reasons to pity the Shield Hero. If you thought the characters above sounded bad, you do not want to know about the villains in this show. Thankfully, there isn’t much to tell, since they can all be summarised by “everyone hates Naofumi”. This is the extent for everyone that is not helping Naofumi on his quest. The other heroes aren’t exempt; they turn out either oblivious, stubborn, delusional, or a combination of the three nearly all the time. Ever since the first episode aired, fans of the source material promised that the arc where both Princess Myne and the King got their just desserts was all worth it. I cannot comment on how accurate the arc was adapted, but here, in the anime world, this arc proved just how insufferable these characters can be. It took this show over 20 episodes to get to this point, and finally – after months of build and anticipation – FINALLY, the heroes take off their invisible blindfolds, remove their imaginary earplugs, and finally stop acting so mentally challenged towards Naofumi. The sad part here, is that you could feel this was meant to be the show’s climax, regardless of how juvenile it was. And they could have gotten any with it too, if it weren’t for all these characters being forced into a position, where they had to go along with everything that was so obviously propagated against the protagonist… It's been six months, and I’m upset. I’m upset because even with the crass use of rape allegations, the contradictory worldbuilding, the lacklustre characterization, the Gary Stu, the inconsistent development, the fact it's another f***ing isekai, etc. I don't hate this show as much as you would expect. For all the issues I’ve described, there was still part of me that kept hoping, yearning and wanting this to turn out alright. It’s easy to want to root for an underdog, and even with being one the most popular shows of the season, it got laid out to dry by the community almost instantly. No concept or premise is inherently bad, at least that’s how I feel. And what better way to prove that, than to see a show take one of the most controversial topics in the current day and turn out something special. I sincerely wanted this show to succeed, but Rising of the Shield Hero was not meant to be. There are still parts I like about it though: the shield’s versatility is still very intriguing, the animation and sound while inconstant and not great is still better than many other past isekai shows, most of the battles that took place were enjoyable, there’s still an insane amount of lore for the series to explore… And I do feel some sympathy for Naofumi’s character. This was not the show for me, but very well could be a show for anyone interested in the isekai genre, MMORPG’s and a story about one man given the worst circumstances, overcoming the hatred of the world and, maybe somewhere down the line, can learn to trust again. If this is a show you enjoy, all the power to you. While it wasn’t my personal cup of tea, we each have our own unique tastes, and I can respect that.
I'm sure by now most people that pay attention to modern anime are familiar with the sub-genre of isekai. Well The Rising of the Shield Hero is one of those. With the industry as flooded as it is, to the point that most titles feel like a meta jab at the sub-genre and consequently those very same titles, most isekai have to stand out a decent amount for me to really care about. Going into the start of this airing there was a decent amount of buzz and with the first episode started off with a 40 minutes run time I was sure something was gonna piqued my interest. Well I was right in that area but I was mostly let down with Shield Hero. ___~~~Much like Naofumi I was happier before these events started.~~~___ It's a shame Shield Hero took such a nose dive for me cause it started off really strong. The premise is really strong. We have a happy-go-lucky character in Naofumi getting sucked into another world via a magic book and then immediately get everything stripped away from him with this apparent long standing hatred of the shield hero. Now our happy fun having MC turns super cynic and hates 99% of the world he was forced into. This sets him up more as an anti-hero where he's mainly looking to try and rise up from where he got knocked down. He's willing to do whatever he can to try and carve out his own foothold is this world that has forsaken him because the shield is "the devil". This kind of storytelling works for the most part and is a good way to tell a power fantasy isekai. We want to see Naofumi succeed, we want him to prove everyone wrong and every incremental step he takes is massive for him because it's all because of him not because of some handout. For the most part Naofumi sticks to his ideals and doesn't really trust people. Those he does trust however really have to prove themselves to earn his trust. ~~~ __Naofumi's La Squadra, except they aren't nearly as cool as La Squadra.__ ~~~ Filo and Raphtalia are the first people in this new world that Naofumi is able to fully put his trust in. Not to say it was right out of the gate he trusted them but because they essentially needed him and vice versa. Raphtalia probably would've died a captured slave or worse and Filo wouldn't even exist if it weren't for Naofumi. Because of the rules that govern the 4 cardinal heroes none of them can wield or use any other weapon besides their divine weapons. So being the tank class, Naofumi needs others around him to be able to fight back, at least initially. This forces Naofumi to have at least some basic degree of trust and selflessness needing to rely on others and is a lot of the groundwork for his character. Raphtalia in particular plays a pretty crucial part in this aspect being his anchor essentially, centering him when he starts to go off the deep end. Multiple times when Naofumi starts to go sicko mode Raphtalia was always there for him whenever anything went wrong. Also Raphtalia has one of my favorite character designs ive seen in awhile. With each "age" she went through featuring her slave shackles as a part of her outfit as kind of a throughline for her character as she aged up and became more of a cohesive part of her design rather than something that sticks out. Apart from those things she exists purely as waifu bait. Sweet, illegal waifu bait. She's 10 guys regardless of physical appearance stop being gross. Filo on the other hand felt relatively useless in comparison. I mean sure she pulled the cart and was a great fighter but for the group she served a similar purpose to Raphtalia but worse. She just was kinda there for most of the story until close to the endgame of the show when she was given a bit more of a higher purpose. But even then those developments really didn't matter cause everything moved past it and all of the cast forgot about it. So really the only conclusion I could come to for why this character exists beyond practical reasoning is just to round out the harem by adding another archetype. Which is a shame because Filo as a concept could really work out as another "foreigner" to the land acting as a weird gray morality character. Being able to question Naofumi's actions as a sort of naïve innocent child furthering Naofumi as a character while carving space for Filo to be more than another archetype to check boxes. __~~~These characters make me think my bathtub and a toaster have better chemistry.~~~ __ This leads me into one of the biggest issues i have with Shield Hero, it's characters outside of a small handful. The majority of the cast really only serves to annoy you and jerk around Naofumi as a way to perpetuate his anger at the world. In turn I got really frustrated. Not because Myne is a rightful bitch, but because that's her only trait. She only serves to be this cartoonish villain for Naofumi, doing the pettiest things possible in an effort to try and prove the Shield Hero is truly the devil. The other 3 cardinal heroes are actually worse in this regard than Myne ever was. With Myne there was at least an attempt to try and justify her actions by making it more than herself. The other heroes however are a special breed of stupid when it comes to characters. Got a big ole' spoiler here ~! Close to the end of the story it's revealed that a lot of the problems that were caused by Myne and a few outliers were actually all orchestrated by the church of the 3 heroes. Now the bow and sword heroes made the mistake of thinking for a second and got suspicious of the church and started snooping around. There they uncovered the conspiracies surrounding Naofumi's torment and a lot of conflict arose. After these conflicts arose, a big trial was held against Myne and the King. At this trial the spear hero was forced to acknowledge that Myne was in on everything. So the logical choice is to have these characters grow with this information and try to repair these things they were obviously wrong about OR choose to hate Naofumi for personal petty reasons. Both of these would've been fine options because they make sense at least a little bit. But for some god forsaken reason the decision that was made was to basically have these characters FORGET THEY EVEN KNEW THIS INFORMATION. I mean come on. Right after the trial the 3 stooges still remain adamant that the shield hero is the second coming of Satan and that he will actually eat a fetus if it is readily available. Or if hes just in the mood for it. !~ The main crux of a lot of these antagonistic roles these characters play is that none of them were written with the ability to keep very critical information that has been CONFIRMED WITHOUT A SHADOW OF A DOUBT TO BE TRUE but proceed to act like they are still correct. This hinders every ability to have believable and semi intelligent characters. Or maybe that's the point of it. Somewhere around the middle of the show a thought popped into my head. Maybe all of this was deliberate in an attempt to get you the viewer to sympathize harder with Naofumi as he navigates through the social and literal nightmare of a world? If that's the case then kudos to the writing staff for making boring, bland characters extremely easy to hate. That's where a lot of my issues lie. It's so easy to have a character like Myne in a story to purely cause anguish for the main protagonist. We literally have multiple examples of that throughout the entire story. But what's difficult is having a character that's relatable in that same role. Hell even if we got an understanding of why everyone hates the shield hero from a historical standpoint would've gone so far to making these characters function better in their role. Personally I do know the reason as I have delved into some spoilers of the source material and it does makes sense in the lore. The issue that comes from withholding this kind of crucial information is it makes the world and characters a less cohesive unit rather than something that is always getting shelved. ~~~___The world is full of spoilers.___~~~ Speaking of withholding crucial information I wanna talk about the biggest revelation in the show and how it is completely undeserving of it. Episode 18 we get the pleasure of knowing the grand conspiracy of harassing the shield hero. Sure it makes sense but only because there were only a few prime suspects capable of a large scale conspiracy like this and the one that it ends up being has zero case built up for it. Literally spoiling the primary plot of the show ~! It's the church by the way. Why? Good question, you're not gonna find out now despite it being a perfectly good time to explain why the shield is so hated. Not to mention there was seemingly no real amount of foreshadowing done for this. These kind of things never really need a lot of foreshadowing but some goes a long way. The only thing that I noticed that could've foreshadow the reveal was, they denied Naofumi access to the hourglass to do his class upgrades and that the church is called "The 3 heroes church". Granted I'm dumb and crazy so this point can easily be blown up in my face just putting that out there. Shit thing is though about these possible bits of foreshadowing is that it's completely moot because every facet of society in the country of Melromarc already hates the shield hero. They tried to set it up with having Mr. level 99 ranging and Kirito_clone.exe (although casting Kirito's actual VA for this role is kinda money IMO) investigate the church right before the revelation. This doesn't really work cause there's 0 time for these things to naturally come up and develop a real case for your big bad group of bad big baddies. it also hit me kinda out of left field because of the lack of build up. The more I thought of it the more it made sense that of course it would have to be the church. The royal family has already screwed with him and the church is the only organization that could do these things to Naofumi and co. !~ __~~~Dimension High School had better production value. Don’t @ me.~~~__ Well besides me shitting all over most of the characters and narratively issues what else we got? Animation for the most part was sparse and occasionally we would get a few episodes some critical some not, where there was so little animation done I had wondered why I was watching a powerpoint with voice acting. Hell the best animated episodes happened either early in the show and literally the last episode. Those episodes however were pretty damn good. Just is a shame that none of the other critical moments were executed as good as the first wave. Although some effort was used occasionally to make the CG bearable, there were moments that looked like they weren't even touched up and pulled me right out of the experience. Direction was largely passable with some events that could've used a bit more storyboarding but mainly there was such an overuse of cliffhangers that I was getting legitimately frustrated. Not that cliffhangers are bad, but it felt like such a weak effort to keep a more casual viewer coming back for more and shot a lot of the pacing down. __~~~All good things must come to an end. This wasn’t good and I need to stop writing now.~~~__ Ironically my score dropped from when I first started watching shield hero and when it ended. Definitely no rising there. The beginning few episodes sucked me in and I think the show has a legitimately good premise of a true self-made man in a world that really just want him to die a gruesome death. The lengths that Naofumi and his group take to try and carve out a space for themselves I think is a really solid and good premise. But these elements are gate kept so hard by the supporting cast and underdeveloped world that Rising of the Shield Hero never reaches the highs I was hoping it would reach. I learned a lot about what makes a story cohesive and how much supporting and antagonistic roles can affect a story so dramatically and for that I'm grateful. Just because something is bad and irritating doesn't mean that its useless as a story and I hope I was able to give some insight into my thought process with this review. I like to have a bit more fun with my reviews but with this one I had nothing but cold hard "critical" thoughts that I needed to get out of my system. but I mean really, how often do we see a seasonal isekai start off with a 40 minute special. If you need some generic isekai to get your garbage fix, this is some premium, high quality shit. If you want anything else I can't say I recommend Shield Hero or that it was overall an enjoyable experience.
__\*\*\*\*Warning: Potential Spoilers ahead\*\*\*\*__ Let me preface this by saying that I'm not what one would call a "strict" reviewer. I have very lax expectations when it comes to anime so my review may not be over analytical and may seem very forgiving. I will also try and be as vague as possible if you've decided to read this review before watching the anime. I believe anime can be "deep" and move hearts and it can also be intellectually stimulating but _most_ isn't. The Rising of the Shield Hero is an example of such an anime. On the surface there are mature themes; racism, slavery, rape and torture, but these are not presented in such a way that one can compare them to the real world. This is fine. Not all media we consume has to be some sort of commentary on society, in fact, when I delve into anime I generally do so with the intention of _not_ being reminded of what the world is actually like. The Rising of the Shield Hero was unrealistic enough with these themes that it's obvious that they were used as plot devices more than anything else. If you feel betrayed or misled by such things then you're not approaching this media with the right mindset but I digress. I haven't read the Light Novel so I cannot comment on the source material but it seems to me that this falls into the typical "isekai with dark themes" category. This is in line with something like Sword Art Online where there's a tone of seriousness but there's no actual evident danger to the protagonists of the story. Maybe that's not your cup of tea, maybe it is, but you've been forewarned either way. The weakest element of this anime is the plot. There are a lot of inconsistencies and oversights that are difficult to look past or swallow because they fall apart when viewed through a lens of what one might call common sense. This is perhaps one of the reasons that are so many negative reviews. Maybe some were expecting a masterpiece and instead were served with the usual anime tropes that don't make sense when we apply our logic to them. If you're the kind of person that's majorly bothered by the MC-tripped-and-accidentally-grabbed-a-boob sort of logic then steer clear of The Rising of the Shield Hero. That's not to say that there are moments like that in the anime, but a lot of the plot is advanced by similar logic masquerading as something more profound. Character development is probably the second weakest aspect of it. Some might say the MC is bland so the viewer can project onto him but I didn't see it that way. Maybe there are a lot of otakus in Japan that lead a similar lifestyle but I personally believe that the average Western anime fan is a far cry from the typical portrayal of the isekai protagonist. The MC isn't terribly original(but at this point, what MC is?) but he wasn't unlikable. Some things happen that transform him from a mild mannered young adult to a bitter, angry creature and the anime follows his mostly cold "hateful" persona. He does grow, however, and in his anger and hatred he finds that there are still things worth caring for in this new world(this is what I meant by not original). The supporting cast, however, is largely unchanging. The only person that seems to change with the MC is Raphtafilia, his first companion and even then it's a predictable change. These aren't bad things, however, depending on why you watch anime. I find comfort in "waifus" and MCs attempting to redeem themselves not so much because I can place myself in his shoes but because who doesn't love an underdog? (Apparently some of the other reviewers) The MCs main traveling companions are drawn to him by circumstantial events(just being at the right place at the right time) and care for him because he's a decent(albeit not open about it) human being. The motivations behind the actions of the supporting cast are also largely unexplored and the people who are vile seem to be so for the sole purpose of being assholes and the people who are contradictory do so for the sake of forced conflict. This falls in line with that "anime logic" I addressed in the previous paragraph. Art wise, I don't have much an opinion. There is CG occasionally that may appear distracting but at this point in time, there are very few animes that don't make use of it. It'll get better as time goes on. For the moment, I just accept it as it comes. I actually was impressed with the character design because, while some of it _is_ a little over the top, there is no blatant fan service in the characters' armor and clothing choices. This isn't a novel concept but it's rare enough for me to give a nod to it. Overall, The Rising of the Shield Hero will not go down as one of the greats but if you're just looking for something to sink time into, it's not a bad choice. If you can look past the anime logic you'll find an entertaining story about an underdog that doesn't give up.
~~~__This review contains major spoilers for The Rising of the Shield Hero__~~~ A bit of context is needed to understand my feelings towards *The Rising of the Shield Hero*. If you’re an anime fan, the genre of *isekai* almost assuredly needs no introduction. You’re likely aware of how *contentious* isekai can be. This is arguably due to an explosively popular anime being a [critically-panned isekai](https://anilist.co/anime/11757/Sword-Art-Online). So, without so much as looking at an eyecatch for a modern isekai, I had a low opinion of them. I thought that it was a genre riddled with unrealistic, wish-fulfilment fantasies and overpowered protagonists. I acknowledge how stupid and snobbish it is to dismiss an entire genre without experiencing it firsthand. However, to be fair, a genre where the entire draw is being able to escape to another world in a medium where many watchers partake in escapism naturally raises some eyebrows when thinking of quality. So, imagine my excitement when I saw the first episodes of two unorthodox isekai: [ The Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime](https://anilist.co/anime/101280/That-Time-I-Got-Reincarnated-as-a-Slime/) and *Rising of Shield Hero*, the former playing on the comedic aspect of isekai (via entering the new world as an unassuming, dopey monster), the latter playing to drama. The first episode blew me away by turning everything I thought I knew about isekai on its head. The main character was weak, unliked, and had the odds stacked against him. The setup for the story was grim to be sure, but I thought it could go in interesting ways and continue to emotionally grip me. img520(https://img1.ak.crunchyroll.com/i/spire2-tmb/b4fd0b882a4b0ada1f88b417476779881550666387_main.jpg) The genesis to a lot of the story’s conflict is main character, Naofumi Iwatani being falsely accused of rape. This is obviously a hot-button issue and as such, the show drew in a fair number of detractors from the first episode. When I first began watching the series, I imagined I’d write about how the show isn’t inherently sexist for showing a false rape accusation. I imagined arguing that while not all rape accusations are false, some are and they shouldn’t be ignored. I imagined that I’d defend the show by saying the false rape accusation doesn’t play into an escapist fantasy, instead serving to ground the story by showing how cruel the world can be. But after watching the series, I don’t care enough to defend *The Rising of the Shield Hero* because, unfortunately, it really doesn’t deserve my defense. I’m sure this sensitive subject is handled in other, better works. If I die on the hill of this subject being fair game to depict in art, I’d at least want the work that led me to said hill being…well, good. I actually cannot say that *Rising of the Shield Hero* is truly a bad show. It’s certainly a bit of a bland one that seemed to confirm all my misgivings regarding isekai. And it’s a damn shame because I genuinely enjoyed the show at first. My feelings about Shield Hero are similar to that of a father after finding out his son stayed up late watching TV instead of studying. I’m not angry, just disappointed. img520(https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/444253710818738176/573058906079756298/Screen_Shot_2019-05-01_at_2.14.14_AM.png?width=800&height=450) Naofumi Iwatani is a somewhat bland, twenty-year-old university student who gets sucked into a fantasy world that appears to be based off of a game from his world. He has been summoned to become one of the four cardinal heroes, alone with three young men from other worlds. They’ve been brought to the kingdom of Melromarc to defend against the Waves. As the name suggests, the Waves are a highly-destructive wave of monsters that can only be stopped by the power of the cardinal heroes. Things quickly take a turn for the worse for Naofumi once he’s betrayed and falsely accused by his sole party member. Alone, hated, penniless, and armed with a weapon that’s seen as a joke, Naofumi must be shrewd and crafty if he wants to survive in an alien, merciless world. And as I said, that first episode blew me away. Sure, it could possibly be seen as “edgy” – i.e. dark for the sake of being dark because it’s seen as “cool,” but what can I say, darkness, if used right, is a good way of creating tension. And a story that has the odds stacked against the main character in the most nebulous ways can lead to morally-gray decisions. These decisions will give viewers pause. They’ll want to discuss the show with one another because said decisions will resonate differently for different viewers. Case in point: episode two of *Shield Hero.* img520(https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/451/740/6a0.jpg) An explanation might not even help, but as I briefly alluded to, the shield is a seemingly ineffectual weapon because unless upgraded, it can only defend. His only party member having betrayed him, Naofumi is left with no way to get stronger since he can’t easily kill monsters himself. He decides to enlist the help of someone who can. By buying her. This needn’t be said, but slavery is bad. I prickled at this decision of Naofumi’s and even though he was given the absolute worst of hands, I questioned how truly good of a person he was. Towards the end, it was hard to see what I saw in the show, but writing this review jogged my memory. This show can be extremely visceral. I felt it in my gut whenever Myne (the woman who accused Naofumi) spewed lies, or the other three heroes were ineffectual and rude, or just seeing how Naofumi never got the credit he deserved. This was one of the works where I was willing to say that it was written so well it stopped being enjoyable at times due to the anxiety and anger it caused me. But something shifted. Towards the beginning of the show, I was angry at certain characters *in* the story, but towards the end, I was angry at the story itself. I first had my misgivings during episode seven, *Savior of the Heavenly Fowl,* a lighthearted, slower paced episode where the group visits a hot spring. I wasn’t too keen on how nothing really happened in the episode. What bothered me more was Raphtalia’s jealousy towards Filo. Let’s ignore the fact that Filo is mentally a child, thus not posing a romantic threat to Raphtalia’s relationship to Naofumi. What made me roll my eyes was that this jealousy of anyone-who-so-much-as-says-the-name-of-my-love-interest is a tired, stereotypical trope. I simply brushed it aside, sure the strong Raphtalia would return to form next episode. If I paid a bit more attention, I’d notice just how dire this warning knell was. The jealousy as well as the women fighting over Naofumi were indicative of a harem. And what power fantasy could you have without a harem!? img520(https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/5WWuEzmYMaCKtVFqIlm97GSTEyY.jpg) Hindsight is twenty-twenty and now that I’m viewing the show from my rear-views, I can see that cracks began to show much earlier. Remember the entire slave debacle? Remember how it made Naofumi a morally gray character, at best? *Remember how slavery is bad*? Well, after events in the show lead to Raphtalia getting her slave seal removed, she asks Naofumi for it to be given back, painting this instance of slavery as “good because Naofumi is such an outstanding owner.” Logically, Raphtalia is suffering hard from Stockholm Syndrome, but the anime glosses over this and paints it just as her being loyal. In an instant, the show abandoned complex questions for a simple, idiotic view of slavery. Adding insult to injury, Naofumi is a hypocrite, criticizing slavery for existing in the kingdom while he continues to be a participant of the system. img520(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DyxrdHYV4AAk0i4.jpg) But I’m giving the show too much thought; *Shield Hero* itself doesn’t care about the question it raises, so why should I? The episode where Raphtalia’s slave crest is renewed is coincidentally the same one where Filo, a glorified horse, is introduced. Methinks the slavery renewal is simply so Naofumi could have two women calling him “master.” This would serve as wish-fulfilment for a lot of viewers. Then there’s the three other heroes. In the show, they’ve always been assholes, and somewhat ineffectual, causing problems throughout the world due to them perceiving their actions as lacking consequence. Despite this, they’re loved by the populace, contrasting with their distrust of Naofumi. At first, I saw this as just another way to make the setting of *Shield Hero* interesting and unique. The more the series dragged on, the more I realized it actually made being Naofumi appealing. As the show goes on, the other three heroes continue to be weak, immature, and somewhat shortsighted. As Naofumi continues to grow stronger, their relative uselessness becomes more and more pronounced. By the end of the show, the three other heroes were annoying and trite because, despite being shown time and time again how their actions affect the world, they never improved. They were static to the point of mind-numbingness. This screenshot is their *entire fucking collective character*. img520(https://i.imgur.com/UxMKbhH.jpg) I say this makes Naofumi appealing because he allows viewers to imagine themselves in a world where they are unquestionably better than others. Where they’d be willing to work with others but “oh no, see, *they’re* the problem, not me.” A world where they’re geniuses and useful, even if only comparatively. I could talk about how Raphtalia pushes the clichéd, unnuanced view of “if you hurt this villain, you’re as bad as them.” I could talk about how laughably and ironically, Raphtalia later tries to beat the snot out of someone who insults her master. I could talk about how the four heroes are apparently so petulant they’d rather argue than stop the villain from charging his attack. But talking about Myne is a much simpler way to talk about all that went wrong with *Shield Hero*. Myne was always meant to be a hatesink; whenever she arrived, you’d be sure that lying and cheating were afoot. She was a surefire way to get me fired up and support Naofumi…until it went on and on, getting more and more ridiculous. For one, she made up something called the “mind control shield,” in which she claimed that anyone that supported Naofumi was being hypnotized by him. The onus of proving himself innocent is on him, instead of the onus being on her to prove Naofumi guilty, making it a situation that he truly cannot win. Making matters worse is the fact that Myne at this point is a known liar to the other three heroes, yet she essentially goes unquestioned. The ridiculous of Myne comes to a head once she’s finally put to trial. img520(https://66.media.tumblr.com/158766d49f2509fccad612f13be6dab4/tumblr_psa69u48Su1vqgkxmo7_500.gif) (But not before making sure an episode that's supposed to be tense and serious is filled with cleavege shots and shots of Myne's breasts jiggling. Because tantalizing people is your top priority, right, *The Rising of the Shield Hero*?) She and her father are found guilty of framing the Shield Hero, gross negligence, endangering the lives of countless citizens, etc. They are sentenced to death. Naofumi decides to spare their lives because killing and retribution isn’t the answer. Liking this decision or not hinges on what you think of the death penalty (for what it’s worth, regardless of my feelings, given other events in the show, I couldn’t help but find this view as somewhat simple). But the show goes a step further than this. The King and Myne aren’t even imprisoned. What’s their punishment you ask? As per Naofumi, they will now be referred to Trash and Bitch (with her adventuring name being Whore), respectively. The punishment for their heinous crimes is having their names be changed into *Trash* and *Bitch*. **Trash and Bitch.** Will I talk about this being possibly problematic, will I further discuss the use of the justice system in the show? No, I won’t because, quite frankly, I don’t give a shit at this point. What jumps out at me immediately is just how fucking stupid this is. This makes me think the manga was written by a goddamn twelve-year-old. The show doesn’t treat itself goddamn seriously, so why the hell should I? **Trash and Bitch**, for chrissakes! img520(https://i.imgur.com/2NBOHTK.jpg) Oh, and Myne is allowed to continue adventuring with Motoyasu, one of the four heroes. She’s later caught trying to poison Naofumi and the queen’s reaction is facepalming like she just caught her daughter stealing a cookie past her bedtime. Does Myne ever get a reason for her vile behavior? No, unless you count a short acknowledgement that she’s a pathological liar. But why would she? It’s easier to hate someone if they don’t have a reason for being putrid. A motivation might cause viewers to think and heavens, why in the world would someone want to think in their fantasy!? img520(https://www.gamerevolution.com/assets/uploads/2019/06/Shield-Hero-2-e1561482305710.jpg) I could go on and on, but this review is already starting to get kind of long. The bottom line is, despite a strong opening, the show quickly devolved into everything I fear isekai to be. And let me make myself clear, there’s nothing wrong with wish-fulfilment fantasies. I’m sure it can be therapeutic to engage in a work where you, the viewer, are invincible and everything goes right. However, that isn’t what I watched *The Rising of The Shield Hero* for. I think that’s reason enough to be upset. The show tricked me into watching by dangling mature, thoughtful themes and a bleak situation in front of me. Once it reeled me in, it showed its true hand: a dull, unrealistic, and quite frankly immature story. *Shield Hero’s* wish-fulfillment fantasy only functioned by having all its characters act in the most unrealistic way possible. So, at the end of the day, despite the defense fans mobilized during the early episodes of the show, Shield Hero did end up being little more than a revenge fantasy. Is the world getting you down? Then I suppose *Shield Hero* might make you feel better. There, you’re one of the smartest, strongest guys in the world. There, you have a harem full of women that will never abandon you. There, your enemies are either ineffectual, cartoonishly evil, or both. Don’t worry, though, you’ll be able to get everyone to call them *trash and bitch*. img520(https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/the-rising-of-the-shield-hero/images/2/29/Episode_4.png/revision/latest?cb=20190309043413) I’ll admit that Rising of the Shield Hero probably isn’t that bad, but given how engaged I was when watching the first few episodes, it certainly *feels* that bad. At least the art/animation is nice. ~~~img200(https://i.imgur.com/E0NY9pp.png)~~~ Oh right, I *have* seen a modern isekai before. It’s called Gate. It’s one of my least favorite anime.
# __Recenzja Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari__ img220(https://fwcdn.pl/fpo/55/69/815569/7877234.3.jpg) # __Ten tytuł zasługuje na uznanie__ Rozpocznę od fabuły, ponieważ nareszcie trafiłem na anime z gatunku isekai, które okazuje się być obłędnie dobre! Postaram się omijać spoilery jak tylko się da, a jeżeli będzie już konieczne wspominanie o treści fabuły, postaram się nie wyjawiać zbyt dużo lub będę zakrywać te fragmenty w spoilerach. Pierwsze odcinki wzbudzają ogromną ilość uczuć. Od dezorientacji, zachwytu, ciekawości, aż po nienawiść i współczucie. Takiego zawirowania emocjonalnego nie miałem już kupę czasu. Tate no Yuusha to opowieść o bohaterze, który podróżując napotyka co rusz nowe przygody. Razem z bohaterem w podróż wyrusza jego drużyna, a razem z nimi my, widzowie. A co to za przygoda, gdy wiesz co cię na niej czeka? Zalecam omijać spoilery tym, którzy zamierzają zabrać się za ten tytuł. Nie warto psuć sobie tak dobrego anime! Tate no Yuusha wrzuca nas na głęboką wodę i wgniata w fotel już chwilę po rozpoczęciu. Anime zaczyna się bardzo niewinnie, wręcz klasycznie. Ot, otrzymujemy kilka minut z dnia głównego bohatera Naofumiego Iwataniego, który opowiada o sobie i swoich zainteresowaniach. Nic szczególnego, tym bardziej iż nie uświadczymy wielu scen z pierwotnego wymiaru głównego bohatera. ~! Chciałbym pochwalić za sposób przeniesienia Naofumiego do innego wymiaru. Co prawda nie jest to coś bardzo niezwykłego, lub szczególnie oryginalnego, natomiast sądzę iż motyw przeniesienia za sprawą książki w księgarni wypada dobrze na tle innych sztampowych rozwiązań w gatunku isekai. !~ A szkoda, gdyż chętnie zobaczyłbym więcej scen i momentów z życia Naofumiego przed przyzwaniem. Sądzę, iż istnieje spory potencjał w początkowym rozwoju bohaterów przed wrzuceniem ich na nowy ląd. To mogłoby być ciekawe! Tym bardziej, iż główny bohater niejednokrotnie będzie odnosił się do tego, że chce powrócić do swojego starego świata, co momentami mam wrażenie, jest lekko niezrozumiałe, głównie w późniejszej fazie tego anime. Przez szybki początek zabrakło mi scen przywiązania Naofumiego do jego pierwotnego wymiaru. To co dzieje się w pierwszym, aż 40-sto minutowym odcinku to istna karuzela bez trzymanki. Tak jak wspomniałem, wrzucają nas na głęboką wodę, po czym próbują nas ratować podtapiając nas! To jak łatwo, acz efektownie twórcy wzbudzają w nas sympatię do Naofumiego, głównego bohatera powinno zostać oprawione w złotą oprawkę, po czym należałoby ją wyciągać za każdym razem, gdy wychodzi kolejny zapychacz antenowy z kategorii isekai, aby pokazywać jak powinno się robić dobre anime. _Shoukan patrzę na ciebie..._ Głowny bohater wbrew własnej woli zostaje przyzwany do zupełnie mu obcego świata, po czym zostaje uznany za bezużytecznego. Niedługo po tym dostaje nadzieje na to, że uda mu się coś osiągnąć, tylko po to, aby następnie zostać okradzionym, oszkalowanym oraz zdradzonym. Jak nie współczuć Naofumiemu? Empatia wylewa się z ekranu niczym fala gorącego powietrza z nagrzanego piekarnika. ~! Jestem zdumiony tym w jak niesamowicie skuteczny sposób udało się twórcom sprawić, aby widz mógł utożsamić się z Naofumim. Oskarżenie go o zbrodnie, których nie popełnił, dodanie wielu odgórnie negatywnie nastawionych do niego postaci oraz spiskowanie przeciwko niemu nadaje specyficzny efekt osaczenia, który trwa przez ponad połowę serii i jest w gruncie rzeczy jednym z najbardziej udanych elementów w tym anime. !~ img220(https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/452/800/4f4.gif) Chyba dla nikogo wielką tajemnicą nie jest to, iż Naofumi spotka na swojej drodze nowych towarzyszy. Wszak ci widnieją na okładce tegoż anime... Okoliczności w jakich Bohater Tarczy ich zdobywa - _wszak jest to najlepsze określenie_ - potrafi wzbudzić spore zaskoczenie, a do tego skutecznie oddala nas od sztampowości. Do opisu postaci jeszcze sobie wrócimy. Zwykle w tytułach, które trwają około 24 odcinki bywa tak, iż w samej połowie spada tępo, jakość oraz maleje budżet. Tutaj tego nie uświadczymy aż tak bardzo. Wiadomo, tępo anime musi oscylować raz na wyższym poziomie, raz na niższym. Wszak Tate no Yuusha stał by się okropnie nudny, gdyby to anime polegało jedynie na walce. Spadki jakości możemy uświadczyć tak naprawdę dopiero po 21-wszym odcinku, gdzie tępo ponownie zaczyna wzrastać, aby szybciej dopiąć wątki. Tam też poznamy dwójkę nowych bohaterów, którzy z początku wydają się być postaciami typowo fillerowymi, aby następnie mieć większe znaczenie dla całości fabuły. Tego typu motywy, gdzie jakaś mniej istotna postać potrafi zacząć mieć istotne znaczenie znajdzie się przynajmniej kilka. Jest to dobrze wykorzystane, ponieważ buduje to gładki, acz przyjemny efekt zaskoczenia oraz motywuje naszą ciekawość, aby dowiedzieć się co wydarzy się dalej. # __Postacie__ Tate no Yuusha to nie tylko ciekawa opowieść, ale i również ciekawe osobowości. Konstrukcja bohaterów została wykonana z sporą uwagą, co wymaga dużej pochwały. Twarze, mimika, głos, ubrania, ekspozycja, status czy nawet klasa postaci wpływa lub jest odpowiednim odzwierciedleniem tego, jak postrzegamy postacie. Oczywiście ich czyny również mówią za siebie, a to jest swojego rodzaju wisienką na torcie. Wszak co powiecie na poszukiwaczkę przygód, która jest miła, uprzejma, pomaga w walce, a do tego jest zabójczo piękna? Prawdopodobnie każdy polubi taką postać już na samym wstępie, po czym tak samo szybko jak ją polubił będzie chciał widzieć jej ciało z odciętą głową po tym, jak okazuje się być spiskującą zdrajczynią, która na dodatek para się magią żywiołu ognia. Poprzez tekst pisany nie jestem w stanie w pełni oddać tego, jak te wszystkie elementy świetnie do siebie pasują. Odnoszę wrażenie, że nawet fryzury danych postaci potrafią nam sporo o nich powiedzieć, a gdy o tym myślę to znów mam ochotę obejrzeć ponownie tą serię, aby nasycić swoje oczy! Chylę czoła przed projektami postaci, gdyż są one niesamowite. Ubiór jest doskonale dopasowany do charakteru danej osoby, a do tego są pełne różnych szczegółów. Tutaj zadrapanie, tutaj klejnot, a tam kawałek zbroi. Miodzio! Skoro to świat fantasy na wzór RPG, to nie może zabraknąć magicznych przedmiotów czy adekwatnie wyglądających pancerzy. Wszystko to, a nawet i więcej znajdziemy właśnie w Tate no Yuusha. img220(https://data.whicdn.com/images/326662984/original.gif) Oczywiście, nie można zapomnieć o charakterach. Każda postać posiada własną osobowość, nawet jeżeli pojawia się tylko w dwóch odcinkach, stojąc gdzieś tam w tle i nie mówiąc zbyt wiele, dzięki wcześniej wymienionym aspektom możemy łatwo wywnioskować podstawowe rzeczy na temat tej postaci. Dobrym przykładem jest tutaj pomocnik króla, który zdaje się, że nie został nawet nigdy przedstawiony, więc nawet nie znamy jego imienia. A mimo to po posturze, twarzy oraz sposobie wypowiedzi możemy uzyskać negatywne nastawienie do tej mało znaczącej postaci. # __Uczta dla zmysłów__ Muzyka pozwala doskonale wczuć się w oglądane na ekranie sytuacje. Odpowiednio buduje grozę, podkreśla radosne sytuacje czy po prostu umila przepiękne widoki. Openingi oraz endingi jak to się mówi; "Robią robotę". Pierwsza czołówka brzmi iście rewelacyjnie. Natychmiastowo wczuwa nas w ten świat oraz przedstawia najważniejsze postacie i ich kompanów. Urzekło mnie to, jak sceny przedstawione w openingu są kanonicznie odzwierciedlone. Jeżeli jakaś postać używa danego ataku w trakcie Fali, to faktycznie w jednym z odcinków ona stosuje ten atak w tych samych okolicznościach. Dzięki temu działa to niczym zapowiedź; "Będzie się działo!", aby później przemienić się w "A pamiętacie ten epicki moment?" ~! Scena w której Naofumi aktywuje po raz pierwszy Rage Shield jest jeszcze lepsza po tym, jak widzimy to wydarzenie w openingu. Jest to moja ulubiona umiejętność w tej serii, __wygląda kozacko!!__ !~ Drugi opening jest również niczego sobie. Jest on bardziej artystyczny niż jego poprzednik, choć nie obyło się bez scen odnoszących się do wydarzeń w fabule. Oba są świetne i do obu będę na pewno wracać jeszcze nie raz! Tate no Yuusha przypomniał mi, dlaczego uwielbiam oglądać japońską animację. Nawet jeżeli nie jest to najdroższy rarytas spośród obejrzanych przeze mnie anime, to wciąż świetnie się to ogląda. Animacja stoi na wysokim poziomie, postacie są bardzo szczegółowe, a do tego anime może pochwalić się oryginalną kreską oraz dobrą tonacją kolorów. Wszystko to sprawia, że błyskawicznie zanurzamy się w średniowiecznym świecie RPG z elementami magii. Poza wcześniej omawianymi postaciami uraczymy tutaj również pół-ludzi oraz rozmaite bestie. Spodziewałem się uraczyć tutaj elfów, orków czy innych krasnoludów, lecz takowych ras tutaj po prostu nie ma. I szczerze mówiąc sądzę, iż wychodzi to na plus, gdyż świat Tate no Yuusha potrafi się obronić przy pomocy raptem trzech ras. Ludzi oraz dwóch typów pół-ludzi. Co prawda zabrakło czasu na ukazanie tej dzikiej odmiany pół-ludzi, jednak mimo to tytuł ten nadal oferuje masę rozmaitych charakterów. Koniecznie chciałbym pochwalić sposób przedstawienia magii. I nie, nie będę jednym z tych recenzentów, którzy będą narzekać na to, iż sposób inkantacji jest podobny do innych anime. To oczywiste, że skoro postacie korzystają z czarów, to przedstawienie magii musi posiadać pewne znane elementy, abyśmy my, widzowie nie pomylili jej z czymś innym. Czary przedstawiane są w klasyczny oraz charakterystyczny już sposób. Krąg magii oraz inkantacja poprzez wypowiadanie formuły zaklęcia. Jednak nie to mnie uraczyło, tylko ilość oraz typy zaklęć. Czary są bardzo dobrze zanimowane, to też nawet jeżeli oglądamy ten sam czar któryś raz z rzędu, patrzy się na to bardzo przyjemnie. Umiejętności Bohatera Tarczy wypadają rewelacyjnie. Doskonale łączy się to z systemem HUD-u, który posiada bohater na wzór gier RPG. Jego tarcza potrafi ewoluować, zmieniać się czy nawet wytwarzać inne, statyczne tarcze, które mogą posłużyć jako obrona albo platforma, by móc zwiększyć zasięg dystansu, który trzeba pokonać. Pomysłowość wykorzystania umiejętności bohaterów napawa ogromnym zadowoleniem. Szczególnie w chwilach stresowych, gdzie postacie stają przeciwko zagrożeniom. img220(https://trustthegaijinhome.files.wordpress.com/2019/07/naofumi-and-the-curse-shield.gif?w=640) Chciałbym również wspomnieć o elementach żywcem wciągniętych z gier. Pasek zdrowia, menu umiejętności, poziomy postaci oraz inne atrybuty znane z gier wideo. Podejrzewam, iż może to być element, który może skutecznie zniechęcić niektórych do obejrzenia tego tytułu. Z drugiej strony, dla niektórych będzie to motor napędowy, w zależności od gustu. Chciałbym jednak uspokoić tych, którzy czują się zniechęceni właśnie przez ten zabieg. Wszak jest on najlepiej wykonanym systemem HUD-u jaki miałem do tej pory okazję uświadczyć. Jest on zdecydowanie lepszy, bardziej rozbudowany oraz realistyczniejszy niż ten, który możecie kojarzyć z Sword Art Online. Realistyczniejszy? Tak. W grze RPG zwykliśmy widzieć status naszej drużyny, pasek zdobytego XP oraz dropów, punkty zdrowia czy inne elementy typowe dla menu postaci. Autorzy porządnie usiedli nawet do tego systemu i wykonali go w sposób rewelacyjny. Wygląda on wiarygodnie i przynosi na myśl współczesne gry MMORPG. Szacun! A skoro już przy realizmie jesteśmy, to nie mogę ominąć tak tego tematu wspominając o nim jedynie w systemie HUD-u. Tate na Yuusha to zaskakująco szczegółowe anime również pod względem oddziaływania elementów świata na siebie. Przykład: Zabicie potwora nie sprawi, że ten samoistnie wyparuje. Może to zrobić jedynie częściowo, jeżeli jest on magiczną istotą. Jednak organizmy żywe muszą zostać zabite jak normalnie żyjące stworzenia, aby paść trupem. Właśnie tutaj możemy uświadczyć rewelacyjnego połączenia realizmu z elementami RPG. Zabicie potwora dostarcza bohaterom XP oraz loot, ale mimo to ciało stworzenia nadal zachowuje się zgodnie z działaniem praw świata; to znaczy, jeżeli ciało zostanie pozostawione na pastwę losu, to zacznie gnić, a następnie się rozkładać po odpowiednim czasie. Także z ubitego potwora, jeżeli jego trzewia są jadalne, można urządzić posiłek nad ogniskiem. Innym przykładem może być tutaj sposób działania many, wytrzymałość oręży lub rodzaje obrażeń zadawanych przez magię oraz broń. img220(https://thumbs.gfycat.com/SpeedyDaringHerculesbeetle-size_restricted.gif) #__Błędy zdarzają się również najlepszym__ Pokochałem to anime od pierwszego wejrzenia. Nie mogę się doczekać następnych, już zapowiedzianych sezonów. Mimo to nie mogę przymknąć mojego obiektywnego oka na pewne zgrzyty, które miały miejsce po drodze. Pierwszym lekkim niedopatrzeniem, przynajmniej z mojego subiektywnego odczucia jest sam wstęp. Tak jak wspomniałem, bohaterzy są świetnie napisani oraz posiadają gigantyczny potencjał, aby opowiedzieć coś o ich życiu przed trafieniem do nowego świata. Chciałbym dowiedzieć się czegoś więcej w tej materii w kontynuacji serii. Inną drobniejszą niedoskonałością może być dla niektórych spadek tempa w końcowej fazie anime. Choć dla mnie zakończenie było całkiem w porządku, tak warto zaznaczyć, że nie każdy musi być tego samego zdania. Tak samo niektórych może boleć fakt, że zabrakło tutaj właściwego wątku miłosnego. Lecz warto pamiętać o tym, że nie jest to anime z gatunku romansu. W mojej opinii bywały delikatnie gorsze momenty, gdzie hype z walk bywał znacząco niższy. ~! Dobrym przykładem może być tutaj walka z Papieżem, gdzie umiejętności wykorzystywane przez Naofumiego były nam dobrze znane, przez co początkowa faza walki była zwyczajnie nudna. Rozpoczęła się zdumiewająco, gdyż była nagła i niespodziewana, aby następnie się zatrzymać i żółwim tempem rozkręcić się ponownie. Ostatecznie starcie okazało się być dobrze wykonane, ale mimo to potknięcia były i nie da się tego ukryć. !~ img220(https://data.whicdn.com/images/324850441/original.gif) #__Podsumowanie__ Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari to kawał świetnego anime, które potrafi pobudzić emocje już od pierwszych chwil. Okazjonalny humor pozwala skutecznie rozbawić widza, co staje się przyjemną odskocznią od głównych meandrów fabuły. Przywiązuje nas do bohaterów, zachwyca stroną audiowizualną, wciąga świetną fabułą. Ba! Przyłapałem sam siebie na tym, że byłem tak pochłonięty oglądaniem, iż przez dwa odcinki nie przełykałem śliny i tym samym wysuszyłem sobie całą jamę ustną. Tak bardzo mnie pochłonęło że nie zwracałem na to uwagi w trakcie oglądania... Dobrze, że przynajmniej mrugałem! Tytuł zachwyca pod każdym względem. Jest to w mojej opinii udana ewolucja dla gatunku isekai, choć nie wydaje mi się, aby udało się dzięki niej coś zmienić na rynku. Chwasty pokroju Shoukan będą dalej powstawać i nic na to nie poradzimy. Natomiast jeżeli jesteś osobą, która szuka dobrego anime, z niegłupią fabułą, świetnymi postaciami, ciekawym światem oraz wyśmienitą stroną audiowizualną, w takim razie Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari staje się dla ciebie pozycją obowiązkową. __Cześć i chwała Bohaterowi Tarczy!__
# __~~~MiNiSoTaN's The Rising of the Shield Hero Review~~~__ ~~~img220(https://i.imgur.com/yMorNLu.jpg)~~~ ~~~__Introduction:__~~~Hello. My name is Neill or "MiNi." This will be my in depth review of The Rising of the Shield Hero, the 2019 anime adaption of Aneko Yusagi's web novel series. With all my reviews I will score the anime discussed based upon 5 categories that include: Story, Characters, Art, Music, and Personal Enjoyment. Each category will be given a score between 0 and 10. The ending score will be what I determine the show deserves overall. Keep in mind I will be talking about spoilers that occurred during the anime . Now, without further ado, let's get into this. ~~~__Story (4/10)__~~~ ~~~img220(https://i.imgur.com/4mxC2nK.jpg)~~~ Where Shield Hero fails to drive forward most is with its story. The show did begin on the right foot however. The first few episodes did a good job at setting up the plot along with more lore and world building. It was once we reached the conclusion of the first wave that things began to deteriorate. After the introduction of Melty, the show began a downward spiral that it never really recovered from. The story became boring and uninteresting. We never saw an actual set goal in mind for Naofumi and his party. For half of the season they are just wandering around Melromarc with no clear objective in mind. Every event they come across happens by mere chance and it was more divine intervention that they ended up there rather than them actually setting out for the location in the first place. One of my biggest grievances with this show comes with the faithfulness of the adaptation, or rather the lack there of. After watching the Shield Hero I read through the Manga, Light Novel and Web Novel. I was encouraged to by people on the r/ShieldBro subreddit to do so, so I figured why not. I was astounded to read how well the story is actually written and was wondering if I watched the correct show. Each physical version of Shield Hero is much more gritty with adult themes. The dialogue they use doesn't sound like it is coming from, the school playground. People _actually_ die. Gruesomely. I am by no means advocating that the anime has to be a direct 1:1 adaptation of the Web Novel, or Manga. That isn't a realistic expectation. But what I am trying to get at, is that if they want to _truly_ adapt a good story they have to make the correct decision as to stays faithful and what doesn't. The anime does a very poor job at keeping the monumental moments faithful to the source material. Whether this is because they thought they could do better, or because they believed toning down the brutality of the story would concede a bigger audience, we'll never know. I guess my main take away from the story is that it is unorganized with no clear direction, and it doesn't keep its core tenets faithful to its source material. img220(https://i.imgur.com/lar5wck.png) img220(https://i.imgur.com/4LFDRUY.png) img220(https://i.imgur.com/4onjmeY.png) img220(https://i.imgur.com/YtAvdWf.png) img220(https://i.imgur.com/z59NAL7.png) img220(https://i.imgur.com/DTn6Lph.png) img220(https://i.imgur.com/qWoqzSL.png) One of the most disgusting and unfaithful parts of the show comes from the adaptation of this scene above. This is about halfway through the show at this point, and Melty gets captured by Idol who turns out to be Raphtalia's previous slave owner who tortured her and killed her friends. In the manga we get this beautiful scene of poetic justice where the slave becomes the master. Raphtalia has grown and is stronger than Idol now. He begs for mercy, but Raphtalia has none to give. She ends up killing Idol by stabbing him and pushing him out a window. One of if the not the largest character development moments for Raphtalia throughout the entire series. It shows her finally overcoming her fears and putting her past behind her. Once a lost scared little girl is now a brave and courageous soldier. Now guess what happens in the anime. NOT FUCKING THIS. In the anime Raphtalia _literally_ is too scared to kill Idol. She cries to Naofumi how she can't do it. What I loved about Naofumi in the manga is that he doesn't intervene. He let's Raphtalia do what she wants, because he know's she'll make the right choice. He knows she isn't a little girl anymore. He looks at her with approval and satisfaction that she was finally able to do something so brave on her own. In the anime Naofumi does the whole bullshit speech of "Will killing him give you closure?" She ends up sparing Idol's life because of the whole cliche "If I kill you, I'm not better that you." What a fucking dumb cop out. Actually made me angry when I read the manga and saw what we missed out on. Anyways Idol still falls out the window but it was an accident because he tripped. But PSYCH! He doesn't actually die. He revives a dinosaur that ends up stepping on him. Keep in mind this is one _one_ of the many difference scenes Shield Hero took their own liberties in terms of changing the story. It doesn't pay off. The only reason I'm giving the story the score it has now is because I know it can be better and I hope that changes with the coming of Seasons 2 and 3. If you do want to know a little more about some of the other aspects of the story I was unsatisfied with because they portrayed the source material in a poor manner, check out my [YouTube Video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0n7gTrWeA_g&) where I go a bit more in depth. ~~~__Characters (7/10)__~~~ ~~~img220(https://i.imgur.com/civR0Hz.jpg)~~~ __Naofumi__ For all the story does wrong, it does do right with _most_ of its characters. Naofumi is exceptionally well written. From day 1 he is given absolutely nothing and treated like shit by everyone in the entire country. After the false rape accusation by Malty, he has no one to turn to and no one to trust. I absolutely LOVE this. Far too many times now we get MC's that get beaten up or struggle, but they can turn to their friends for help. Not this time. Naofumi has to build his friends up before he can turn to them. His relationships with Raphtalia, Filo, and Melty flow so smooth together. He goes throughout the entire season always checking his back and being cautious and kind of an ass with everyone he meets. He doesn't want to take any chances with the risk being what happened before. Naofumi is an a great protagonist and I hope to see him further develop through the rest of the rest of the series. __Raphtalia__ She is arguable the character that changes the most throughout the season. I already explained a lot of it in the 'Story' section of this review so I won't go too much more in depth. I like her as a character. She compliments Naofumi well. She almost acts as his foil where they balance each other well. Naofumi is the bruiting tough act that just wants to get the job done. Raphtalia is the one with compassion and wants to help people because she remembers that is what Naofumi did for her. Although I wish the anime did a better job at adapting some of her more important scenes from the source material, she still remains as a highlight of the show. __Melty__ Introduced about a quarter into the series, Melty makes her way into Naofumi's party after having the soldiers falsely accuse him of kidnapping her. She is a nice addition to the Shield party. She is much more cautious and headstrong when it comes to decision making, but ultimately trusts Naofumi which is something I admire and respect. __Filo__ This Sesame Street ripoff of a bootleg big bird was pretty neat throughout the show. We learn that she is the heir to being the queen of her bird race which is pretty cool. Really not too much to add besides that. She's a nice edition. __Characters (cont.)__ Every other character in the show is pretty minor, and the new major ones are introduced so late into the series they not even worth mentioning in the show because they play so little of a role. What I wish the anime did better was focus a little more on the other heroes. Yes I know the title is "Rising of the Shield Hero" it suppose to focus on the Shield Hero. I'm not saying we need dedicated 24 minute episodes to the spear, bow, and sword heroes. What I wish we got to see what a little more interaction between all four of them. We did get to see them all talking together a few times but it always ended with Naofumi saving everyone or him just leaving because he got annoyed. I'm hoping season 2 delivers more with the side characters. ~~~__Art (7/10)__~~~ ~~~img220(https://i.imgur.com/mDMRa6x.png)~~~ The art and animation the show was actually pretty good. One of the few aspects I was impressed by. For a show being about fighting waves of hundreds of enemies, it does a great job at showing the action scenes. There is a lot of screen time dedicated to fight scenes and they are all (for the most part) very well done, I didn't have too many complaints about the art department as well. Nothing super special, Shield Hero isn't reinventing the wheel here. It goes by the book and does a good job of it. I would be very surprised to find someone who thinks that the art and animation within this show is lacking much less bad. I only give out close to or near perfect scores to areas where I believe the category is done exceptionally well or innovates with something never seen. Shield Hero doesn't do this, but it's not a bash against the show. It follows the formula and it comes out clean. No complaints. ~~~__Music (6/10)__~~~ ~~~img220(https://i.imgur.com/Nb85S1D.jpg)~~~ It is very difficult for me to actually be moved by a piece of music. The main ending, "Kimi No Namae" moves me. It's a beautiful song that I loved listening to whenever an episode ended. It starts off with a quite but defining chord progression introduced in part by some soft vocals only to explode into a frenzy of instruments backing up the main chorus. The Main ending gets a standing ovation from me. Music in my opinion is the hardest area for an anime to do well in. Shield Hero unfortunately falls in the same pit of "I don't really care" music. No music during any of the battle scenes or dialogue was particularly memorable to me. Again, I'm not saying the music was bad, it just wasn't memorable, there's a difference. Listening to one piece and enjoying it in them moment is way different than listening to a piece remembering it, and wanting to listen to it again. I didn't want to listen to any of the Shield Hero music again, besides the ending. And I'm sorry but what is up with the Japanese rapping in the OP. Dear god I thought I was listening to a leaked track off an old Evanescence album form 2009. For everything the Ending OP did right, the main OP did wrong. ~~~__Personal Enjoyment (5/10)__~~~ ~~~img220(https://i.imgur.com/o5U3o44.jpg)~~~ For the most part I didn't particularly enjoy the show. The times where I did enjoy it however, were very good. All that was really memorable were the battle scenes and introduction to the show. That's about all the fond memories I have of watching this show. If you were disappointed, or wished there was more, READ THE SOURCE MATERIAL. It is 100% better. I'm surprised how poorly you can mess up animating the story when it's given right to you. I hope season 2 and 3 do better. ~~~__Final Thoughts and Score__~~~ Although Shield Hero didn't particularly impress me, I am hopeful for its future. There's already been a season 2 and 3 announced, so I hope that they can learn from some of the community feed back as to what needs to be changed for the future. Thank all for reading. I hope you enjoyed yourself. I will spitting out some more reviews in the near future. Make sure to follow my page for updates. __Favorite Episdoes__ Ep. 1 _The Shield Hero_ Ep. 2 _The Slave Girl_ Ep. 20 _Battle of Good and Evil_ Ep. 22 _The Four Heroes Council_ __Official Scores__ Story: (4/10) Characters: (7/10) Art: (7/10) Music: (6/10) Personal Enjoyment: (5/10) # __~~~FINAL SCORE: (5/10) MEDIOCRE~~~__ @MiNiSoTaN ~~~Did you really read the review, or are you just looking at the score?~~~
This review contains minor plot spoilers for Rising of the Shield Hero The Rising of the Shield Hero tells the story of Naofumi Iwatami, an otaku from modern day Japan, who is summoned into a fantasy world in need of his help. Literally every isekai ever, right? But as he arrives, he realizes that he was not the only hero summoned- there were three more, each from a _different_ world. They were each in command of a legendary weapon, with Naofumi getting the shield, and the other three heroes recieving the bow, spear, and sword. Then some stuff happens, next thing you know Naofumi, or "The Shield Hero" as he is commonly known, is falsely accused of rape by a woman named Myne (remember her, she shows up _way_ too much in this show). After having everything taken from him, he needs to find a companion so he can, you know, actually fight (his shield doesn't do much yet), and this is where much of my problems start with the show. He purchases a slave from a shady store, and as an audience you figure, I'm sure he is just doing this so he can take it down or something, but no, this is the set up for him being an antihero, a morally ambiguous character whose actions cannot be called good. My problem with this aspect is that as the story devolves into a revenge fantasy, the part of his character that acts in this way is completely forgotten, and in its place remains a character who can do no wrong, and oh by the way _still owns_ _slaves_. The justification for this comes about halfway through the series, when The Shield Hero is actually put on trial for his crimes. His slave actually wishes to stay in that slave role, even after being freed from his control, and while you might make the case that she is suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, that complicated aspect of their relationship is neglected so that they could add in a fan service heavy love triangle. By the end of the show, any sort of moral gray areas that have resulted from his actions are seemingly forgotten so that he could be the good guy, so that he could get revenge on Myne for falsely accusing him of rape (and a ton of other shit), and on the other heroes, whose only crimes were being idiots (and the spear hero was also a pedophile, but again, the writers only put this in to make us mad, and then promptly forgot). I guess my main problem with these aspects of the series is that it forgets about the morally ambiguous characters they wrote, just to make the ending a great battle of good vs evil. My other major problem with the series, which comes more from the delivery and less from the actual content of the show, was how bad the pacing was throughout much of the series. The first arcs were actually pretty interesting, but from around episode __5__ to episode __15__, the show was about as boring as your average SAT reading article. It dragged on and on, and never made you feel as though the next episode was something you really needed to watch. The ending wasn't so much boring as it was aggravating, because of the moral righteousness with which Naofumi is portrayed, as well just how stupid the other heroes were. Now, because it's a review of the anime, and not the light novel, I should add that the music was decent, but not memorable in any way, and the animation was mostly good, although there were a few entire episodes that were noticeably under animated and the characters were mostly off model My final rating of this show is: 65%. While it's not as despicable as most of the other isekai on the market, it's definitely not consistent in its characters and writing, and does not deserve a lot of the praise that it receives on places like reddit.
__Spoiler alert!__ I find the isekai genre to be very dull. While I don’t hate any isekai series, As I’ve said in other reviews, I don’t like any particularly either. There’s nothing wrong with the genre really, it’s just that no series has used the potential that the premise has. Most shows seem to just be pandering to its audience by showing a relatable otaku who’s useless in the real world but is transported to a world where you can be useful. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Of course, making your audience feel good about themselves is a good thing. Everyone should feel good about themselves. But if your animated tv-series is just that, making your audience feel good about themselves, then it’s not going to be that interesting. And sadly, this is what most isekai shows are. It’s all the same. But then I started watching Shield hero. I had no plans on watching the series. I was tired of watching isekai series that I would never find interesting. But I saw that people started to talk about the show on Twitter. People were talking about it very positively. So I was curious. Would this be the series that proved me wrong about Isekai? Would this actually be a great series? So I decided to watch the first episode, and I was surprised. While it wasn’t perfect, I was surprised about how much it tried to stray away from the normal Isekai. First, it made it so that Naofumi was the only guy who hadn’t played a game like the world he was in. Then it is revealed that the shield hero, the one that Naofumi was assigned as, is looked down upon, and then he is wrongly accused of raping his only teammate. You can tell that they really made Naofumi as non-OP as you could. And I loved this. It was a dark series, where you could really feel for the Naofumi which was amazing. I have a thread on my twitter account where I post my opinion on every episode of the shows that I watch. And you can tell that I really liked the show. I even said that Naofumi could be my favorite isekai protagonist and that the show could be my favorite isekai show period. It was at episode 4 where it hit its height. Where we see Naofumi being completely humiliated, crying alone, with Raphtalia then coming to comfort him. It was beautiful. But it was also at that point where the great shield hero would fall from its grace. It is in episode 5 where the show really becomes what it is. Naofumi buys a filolial, a bird-like creature, that eventually gets a human-like figure. This was a sign. Cause after this, Naofumis team basically becomes a harem. They are designed to be with Naofumi and aren’t people of their own. That coupled with all them being very young makes the show very uncomfortable to watch. That isn’t to say that I found Naofumi’s character to be awful since he was as interesting to watch as in the first few episodes. At least for now. Cause after a while, Naofumi grows to be exactly the opposite of what made him so great. Now he’s the perfect isekai protagonist that we have seen over and over again. And it certainly didn’t help how terribly the antagonists were written, to show “how much of a good guy Naofumi is”. How they aren’t human at all, but tools for the story to show how good of a person Naofumi is for not being an asshole all the time. And it feels like the opposite of what the series wanted to show with Naofumi before. He was an asshole, he was a human. That’s what was so good with the series, that Naofumi was an actual person. How he isn’t OP, that he needs help. But later Naofumi blocked a fucking meteor with his shield. And it’s the same with every other character in his party. They are just so nice that they aren’t able to be a show a glimpse of humanity. There’s an episode where Raphtalia meets the guy who tortured herself and her friends to the point of murdering one of them. So does she kill him? does she torture him? Does she show how much hatred she has for him? No, cause then she would be as bad. Fuck right off. I don’t want you to be a good person, a good role model. Why would I look up to a fox-waifu? I wanted a scene like Punch-drunk love where Barry shows how much hatred he has for his sisters and those guys who wanted money from him at the beginning. He isn’t a good guy for doing that, but why does that matter? They keep reminding us how much better Naofumi’s gang is in comparison to the rest of the people in this world. And it goes so far that they make the other heroes help Naofumi, and still make fun of them for shit. There’s an episode where the pope attacks the heroes and stuff, and it is probably the worst episode in the show. Long story short, the pope says that he needs to kill the heroes for some shitty reason “in the name of God” (Thanks, I really needed to know that doing shitty things in the name of God is still shitty). The spear guy is obviously pissed, which any reasonable guy should be. So then, Filo and that other bitch say that he is “hollow” and that their team is “annoying“. They later try to team up but Naofumi decides to be a bitch and says that he doesn’t want to do that. They say that they were wrong about Malty being raped and stuff, and Raphtalia comes and says that “you don’t have any right to say that“. This makes me go to the conclusion that the main characters of this show (Naofumi, Raphtalia, Filo, and Melty) are the most annoying characters in any isekai that I have ever seen. I might disagree in a year or so, but right now that’s how I feel. Shield Hero has some of the most annoying characters that I have ever seen This coupled with the stale visuals made it very annoying to watch. Sure, it has some good character designs that I was honestly surprised were in the show. But it sacrificed the animation, which I prefer. The rest of the designs aren’t nearly as creative and detailed, the action mainly revolves around someone doing an attack and Naofumi somehow being able to block it since he’s such a cool dude, which makes for pretty terrible tension. So yeah, I really dislike this show. You know what, I hate it. It has its moments especially in the beginning and the music is pretty good. But my god is it annoying to watch. __Strong 2/10__
Review Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari (NOT SPOILER-FREE) img220(https://s4.anilist.co/file/anilistcdn/media/anime/cover/large/nx99263-SJSk5d6mhQZO.jpg) ~-Enredo-~ A história onde um cara otaku é enviado para outros mundo (isekai, ok) e ao ser mandado esse mundo é revelado que ele seja um dos 4 heróis invocados, mais especificamente o do escudo (Tate). A verdadeira dificuldade de nosso protagonista é ser o herói do escudo que protegeria o mundo das ''ondas'' de monstros, mas a verdade está por trás de seu escudo onde ele não poderá empunhar nenhuma arma que não seja seu escudo, após ser incriminado nosso protagonista passa por dificuldades para achar alguém para ser sua espada. A determinação deles nos mostra como ele passou por todo esse sofrimento e se tornou um verdadeiro herói no final do anime. img220(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/333982878390026240/763961110776774676/Screenshot_49.png) img220(https://cupulatrovao.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Tate-no-Yuusha-no-Nariagari-Naofumi-cortando-o-cabelo-da-Raphtalia.jpg) (o cara adora fazer isso...) ~-Animação-~ CARA, isso é demais, mesmo sendo uma animação de 2019, que arte bonita. Realmente ela retrata como seria o jogo junto da realidade, os cenários são feitos com vários detalhes e os personagens tem um design único e inovador pro anime, gostei dessa arte desdo começo e ela realmente não decepciona. ~-Personagens-~ Aqui temos um elenco bastante grande mas na foto irei mostrar apenas os próximos do protagonista. Começando pelo grupo do herói do escudo, ele acaba desenvolvendo um jeito de achar sua espada Raphtalia (uma waifu apenas...) e sua doce e amada filolial (passarin), há mais pessoas pela frente mas ela serão as primeiras que você irá ver. No grupo do herói da lança temos apenas garotas, e uma traidora, realmente parece que elas só escolheram ele por ele ser bonito. No grupo do herói da espada temos uma menina de olhos verde corajosa porém fraca, um loiro bastante estranho, um mago que usa seu livro e um bárbaro de machado. No grupo do herói do arco e flecha temos um cavaleiro medroso, um cara estranho habilidoso, um mago que usa um cetro mágico e uma loira que usa uma lança. Suas personalidades no começo do anime são de heróis que querem recompensas por salvar o mundo, menos o nosso protagonista que parecia ser bastante inocente, após tantas mudanças neles, alguns se tornam desconfiado, um inocente e nosso protagonista que se torna bondoso mas é frio, quase maldoso. img220(https://filmgoblin.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Shield-Hero-003.jpg) img220(https://i.pinimg.com/564x/5d/df/d8/5ddfd85d2002e4ceefad4208746c3e9c.jpg) img220(https://pa1.narvii.com/7121/72468f10684c34ad19161d4aa0b9ccbb5a58b390r1-540-343_hq.gif) img220(https://i.pinimg.com/564x/6a/8d/6d/6a8d6d107397c2b5c019c0a4e06203d8.jpg) ~-Trilha Sonora-~ As trilhas são fora do padrão, é realmente algo que toca no coração em cada momento épico além de fazerem um belo trabalho em cada escolha de trilha como uma longa viagem e o ambiente de lá ou uma batalha contra um inimigo gigantesco. ~-Opening-~ A abertura 1 e 2 são incríveis, até agora eu fico vendo o OOOOOOOOOOOOH OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH da primeira opening onde há a cena da Raphtalia crescendo e ajudando o protagonista. A segunda opening não fica pra trás, ela trás spoiler difíceis de revelar o que vem por vir no anime, shorei com as opening na ''hora das suas batalhas''. img220(https://1realahora.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/118682159_3303528783023595_3524922922295750174_o-6970037-724x1024.jpg) Isso é uma imagem que sai da temporada 2, eu quero ver! Nota geral: 9,8 Enredo: 9 Animação: 9 Personagens: 10 Trilha Sonora: 9 Opening: 9,5
A young man that lives a pretty normal life gets summoned to another world as a hero everyone should look up to but instead gets shoved into dirt left with nothing. He prevails, finds companions, and sorta moves forward but then it starts going south. With the introduction of new main characters, most of the major choices and turns of events start being easily predictable. As you soon find out, the main character pulls through everything without leaving any space to worry about him or his companions. The same goes for most of the side characters, excluding the evil ones that are used as scapegoats to display what happens to people when they do evil things. But then again, the show leaves no room for viewers to reflect on any of the antagonist's choices or thoughts whatsoever. Although, the show tries to provide that in a couple of pretty good attempts, it still ends up being so blatant and easy to foresee, that it almost loses its whole point. But the story moves forward at a good pace and it doesn't feel like nothing happens in any of the episodes so you kind of fly through it whole. The character development of the main protagonist is rather decent, although in some ways pretty slow. The fact that his companions blindly look up to him and overlook every misstep he makes, is kind of dumb. I believe it's meant to show that most of them are thankful to him for saving their lives but still, they could be a lot less forgiving. The character development of the other companions is non-existent so most of the characters become kind of dull sooner or later. The design of the show is pretty average with unthinkable use of badly made CGI. Some of the scenes looked so low-budget that it was almost painful to watch. It almost seemed as the whole budget for graphics went on cute girls. And believe me or not, the show has plenty of them. But girls and women are pretty much the only things that are well made. Guys on the other hand are either disgusting fat noblemen or uninteresting dudes that you won't remember anyway. Even the fights are not outstanding, more like the opposite. There are way too many times when most of the characters are just standing around doing nothing and after that, exchanging some blows and that's all. I'd wish that they had put more effort into the fight scenes in general. With that being said, the anime was pretty enjoyable. It was decent and it provides you what you should expect from an Isekai. And if you expect something new, I'm sorry but you won't find that here either. They tried to combine things other authors put in their shows but kinda messed it up so it's nothing special. If you can forgive the poor production, it might be a decent experience for you as well.
# __Note: This review will contain absolutely no spoilers.__ Isekai anime have become a very popular trend in this modern day and age, with various Isekais coming out every single season. Each time we see a person living in the modern world die and get reincarnated or else just get teleported to an Isekai world. Many of which end becoming the heroes of that world. With that said some Isekai offer something new, perhaps a new idea, an amazing story, or something similar. Does Rising of the Shield Hero offer a new idea? Well to be honest it doesn't, does it have a completely unique story? Once again it doesn't. __HOWEVER__, while it doesn't introduce any new concept, it does everything right! The main issue with most modern day Isekai, isn't whether or not they introduce something new, but rather how enjoyable it is to watch. I personally am sick and tired of seeing very boring characters end up in an Isekai world with insane super powers, and end up with some harem of people who I have no idea why they fell for the main character. This is where Rising of the Shield Hero differs from most bad Isekais. Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari introduces us to an actual likeable protagonist, with his own personality and character, and while his character isn't anything new, at the very least its a character who I can understand, someone who likes things and dislikes other things. While at the end of the day, just like other Isekais the main character will end up becoming powerful, at least we see the various limitations of his power throughout the anime. Furthermore, we actually see him slowly working himself up to become powerful, and even with all his training, there are still moments where his opponents are too difficult for him and he is forced to retreat. This is all an amazing thing! This Isekai is actually realistic, with this there is also a very interesting story, each kingdom feels like an actual fantasy kingdom, with its many issues as well as wonders. Nothing is perfect, but nothing is horrible either. This amount of realism, make this anime an amazing Isekai, and while I didn't see anything new introduced into the show, I sure as hell enjoyed everything I saw in this show. # ~~~ Story: 8/10~~~ As I have mentioned above, nothing new is introduced, but with that said, the basic story is in itself very interesting, its not too cliché, and it is overall done right, there aren't any moments where nothing of interest occurs, and at the same time, there aren't any moments that feel too rushed, or unbelievable. # ~~~Art: 9/10~~~ When considering Art, I consider both the Aesthetics of the anime (ie how the anime looks like), as well as the animation. With that said: The artstyle is overall amazing, its pretty detailed, all the environments are colorful, or dark when the need arises, and there is a lot of detail put into every scene. Furthermore, the character designs of some characters, both main characters, and a couple of side characters is pretty amazing. The animation is also really well made, I guarantee you that you will enjoy most fights in this anime, as apart from being well animated, they are also pretty strategic and entertaining to watch. # ~~~Sound: 8/10~~~ Overall I liked both openings of this anime, as well as the first ending. Throughout the anime I always felt like the music matched the theme. The only reason I am not giving this a higher score is because there aren't any specific jaw-dropping soundtracks or music which I feel like I would need to pause the anime in order to find out where the music originated from. # ~~~Character: 9/10~~~ As I already explained in my introduction, the characters in this anime, are pretty well written, and overall they feel alive. The main character is his own character, and not a boring emotionless mc most anime tend to use, the other main characters are also pretty entertaining, with their own likes, dislikes and ideologies, which definitely make me interested in learning more about them. Furthermore, this anime tends to also make the side characters a bit detailed as well, obviously unlike the main cast, they aren't insanely detailed. But I always felt like each side character introduced in this anime, was his/her own character living in this world, with their own unique personality. # ~~~Enjoyment: 9/10~~~ While nothing new is added, everything that is in the anime is well made, and enjoyable to watch. I was never bored when watching this anime, and I feel as though anyone watching this anime would also agree that it is entertaining to watch. # ~~~Overall: 8.2/10~~~ As a person who uses the entire rating spectrum, meaning that I give bad anime a rating between 1 - 4, mediocre anime 4 - 6, and so on, a score of 8 from me is a great score, and I believe that this anime is definitely an anime that you as a viewer would enjoy seeing. Best of luck, and enjoy the anime!
"Cute. Simple, but cute." - is what I thought when I started this show. Someone once said that there isn't anything to praise this anime for, but you still can't stop watching. And partially, I agree. Maybe there isn't anything special in it as in a fantasy isekai story. We've seen this done many times before, and it came in a time when people were fed up with isekai shows. However, behind this supposed simplicity, there is surprising depth.
For an isekai, the concept is interesting, a hero who can't do anything but to use a shield? Personally, I felt like it falls apart, however. Here you have a protagonist that is innocent and a common civilian, transported to a world he knows nothing of, and after the events of the second episode he radically changes from day to night, now bitter and resentful, throwing his personality out of the window and adopting a new one. If there had been a time skip between his arrival, his betrayal and its consequences, I'd certainly forgive this, but there isn't (or at least a relevant period of time). There are many plot holes and plot-established rules that are constantly broken and then reinforced again, that goes from how the hourglasses and its countdowns work, what are the Waves the heroes must fight, the memory of filolials, why the protagonist was the only hero who had never experienced an RPG game when all the other heroes had (this may seem like a nitpick at first, but it kinda is the exception to the established rule), and so on. I feel like the story focused so much on making the viewers hate certain characters due to amount of trouble the protagonist has to go through that they forgot to tackle with the actual explanations of why they are in this world and what is going on. By the time the whole conspiracy involving the Church and the Royalty is finally over, there were only 4 or 5 episodes left and they had to rush this explanation to end on a cliffhanger (pretty much expected). The writing also is plagued by amateur mistakes such as pausing an event beyond the character's control or a duel/fight/battle to discuss backstories or wash the laundry of all the stuff they didn't bother to show in the past episodes, all while the villains have to pause and watch the debate as if they were stuck in an unskippable cutscene in a videogame rather than strike them down; not to mention the pathetic morality and lesson-giving that everyone's pretty much tired of already: "We can't kill people, no matter how bad they are". You have rapists, torturers, slavers, murderers, fanatical leaders and politicians ready to murder or destroy the lives of anyone as long as they gain from it (even genocide!), but of course, you can't kill them! You just leave them alive, living in their former positions of power just expecting they won't do all of it again! You'll know this when a certain "Bitch" and a "Trash" gets to stay in their party and living in a castle, respectively, so they can do more bad stuff that wouldn't happen if the protagonist had some balls to end their miserable existence. Another issue is the soundtrack that is one of the worst I've heard (sax on fight scenes? loop of nails against a chalkboard?), which may have to do with the show's editing rather than the actual soundtrack, and the weird use of CGI in some episodes (you'll know when you experience it as I think I've been spouting a lot of negatives). Raphtalia steals the show, pretty much. She's cute, interesting and kicks ass when she has to, but don't expect romance. Filo is your standard cute kid and a somewhat daughter figure for the protagonist. Overall, I haven't read the manga, so I'm assuming it is better than the show, me and my friends were almost dropping it by the end of the Conspiracy "arc" and realizing there were still four episodes left, so I guess (depending on the person) a person watching it alone would've given up much earlier. Could've been much better if they dedicated some more time on the writing.
I enjoyed the show to an extent. It was not my favorite anime or isekai but worth watching none the less. Many of the shows problems could be easily fixed like very easily fixed. It is a well-structured darker take on the isekai fantasy that adds some lesser used aspects that are not commonly seen in the genre. Let's start with the obvious pros. The most important aspect worth noting about Shield Hero is that the characters actions have consequences. Naofumi having faced consequences for crimes he did not commit but more importantly the other characters such as the other heroes causing problems having lingering effects instead of magically disappearing or the antagonists getting being punished for their crimes. The show does have clean and strong animation. The concept surrounding the show is refreshing for the genre. You have four heroes summoned instead of the usual one and as an added bonus they themselves are from different versions of Japan. The main character can't attack and instead must be clever and use the one tool at his disposal and work harder than most isekai protagonists to accomplish the bare minimum. That work eventually pays off. The world is conspiring against him and he earns respect from the people by the end. The world-building is decent. While it really doesn't bring anything new to the fantasy genre, you can tell that more thought and effort went into using the traditional fantasy stables compared to others of the genre. It is sword-and-socercy so there are things that come with the genre. This is especially true in the RPG Isekai genre. This world has instead of the usual malignant demon has "waves" of monsters. While on the surface this is more original than the standard it doesn't leave a lot to the imagination. There is a good amount of tension in the story. With Naofumi you never know what he will do especially when it comes to the other heroes. This character trait was established early in the story and continues onward throughout its entirety. Now the cons. And we'll start with the biggest flaw of the series, the characters. Once again lets start with the biggest one. The one that everyone brings up. Of course i'm talking about Raphtalia. The slave girl turned sword princess and Naofumi's potential love-interest. To put it in blunt terms, the character was wasted potential and another victim of poor character development. Raphtalia could have been a great character and in many aspect still is. The problem stems not from the fact she was a slave when Naofumi met her but the fact that instead of simply having him go "You're free now little girl" instead he decided to keep "enslaving" her which honestly never amount to more than upsetting the viewers. There is a simple rule in writing that you should avoid doing anything that would take the audience out of the story especially if it has nothing to do with the plot. Raphtalia being a slave was never the problem, the problem came from Naofumi never dong anything about it except the short-lived brooding and questioning about the ethics of owning a slave that was ultimately dropped. I mean she had no where else to go so she was stuck with him either way. The enslavement of the demi-humans was actually one of the more interesting darker aspects of the world the show touched on. Then comes the ultimate isekai sin, she fell in love with him without any real effort. Any good romance has some give and take from both sides and takes a decent amount of time to develop. While love at first sight is an idealistic pipe dream it's not practical in story telling. To Naofumi's credit he did "friend-zone" her so the love is basically one-sided for the most part. Unfortantly Raphtalia's potential as a character is limited to her undying devotion to Naofumi instead of coming into her own individual character. She is incapable of doing anything for herself and while episode 15 gave her some much needed emotional depth, it still doesn't change the fact that her life, even before she met Naofumi, was devoted entirely to the Shield Hero. Naofumi is refreshing compared to other isekai protagonists. For starters he wants to go home which is surprising uncommon and older than most being that he's 20. But as a character, he is dull and lackluster. Not a blank-slate but can be summarized in two words: "Angry" and "Bitter." He has every right to be angry at the world and the people who tore him from his home, labeled him a devil, and treated him like crap. Unfortunately being sympathetic doesn't make him likable and makes it hard to root for him. He comes off as appealing as a cactus and treats everyone like dirt whether they deserve it or not. Instead of being more rounded and having some charisma he relies on anger and often indifference to progress through the story. Even at the times he proves his worth as a hero or the only adult in the room, it comes off as a negative because of his overwhelmingly negative disposition. The saddest thing about his character are the moments of positivity that shine through on occasion that make a world of difference not only for his character but the show overall. Filo was/is pointless. There was no need for her to shapeshift and while she does have some use as a tool and animal companion, her own devotion for Naofumi comes off as weird and unhealthy especially in human form especially when Raphtalia already holds that spot. If you took her out and replaced her scenes with Raphtalia or god forbid another character, there would be no difference. There is no problem with her as a bird to pull the wagon or help fight but as a girl and a full party member, she does more harm than good. The Three Heroes started off interesting and engaging but as the show progressed each one devolved into incompetent replicas of one another that lost any individuality they may had once had and any potential they could have gained. This leads to a secondary problem because while the show continuously preaches that the four heroes must work together, Naofumi continuously has to work solo without them because not only his lone-wolf nature but because they are beyond incompetent to the point their inclusion in the show becomes nothing more than decorative. The lack of variety of characters is another problem the show has. While not a real harem it is still harem-esqe. This once again stems from Raphtalia's lack of personality and Filo's unnecessary shapeshifting. Like both those things, sadly this could have been easily avoided by simply having a male party member and Raphtalia being more independent. The story and animation while decent in its own right lacks finesse a lot of the time. Moments where small changes could make a world of difference if scenes were edited differently, shown more, or had the characters express more emotion either through facial expressions or body language. Naofumi's own battles rely heavily on using his own anger which is a common thread of the show, but lacks consequences at this point other than vague foreshadowing and warnings. The concept that there will be consequences for using this power is worth noting, it doesn't matter if we don't see them affect the plot. The times creating and strategy are used, they are quickly brushed aside to let Naofumi use his superpowered shield to win the day despite the fact that it is heavily emphasized the importance of corporation with the other heroes and Raphtalia herself. All in all the show while not great earns its spot in the upper class category of isekai anime.
**Overview:** Shield hero does a decent job at conveying the main character Naofumi’s emotions, although far from great. Raphtalia’s emotions and how they conveyed them I consider good, especially for how the last ep ended with her coming out with all she was bottling up. The arcs covered are transportation to this new world and learning about the world/gathering party members, devil of the shield, hero church, Queen and best girl party and wave arc :gasm: . Throughout the season it shows the conflicts and feelings of the main characters and how unfairly they are being treated due to being affiliated with Naofumi… since he is the shield hero. Naofumi gets to the verge of breaking at times and doesn’t understand why anybody would act the way they have been towards him. Luckily Raphtalia is there to comfort him. Due to the neglection the others have showed towards him, mainly those in royalty, he is forced to go solo and find/fund his own path all while trying to level up and be powerful enough to fend off the incoming waves as this is what he was called to the world for. There is a decent amount overlooked when it comes to internal thoughts of Naofumi but this is due to anime limitations in a way. There are ways they could have incorporated the internal thoughts of his character but chose not to do so. **Visuals/Music:** The visuals for the most part is very good, the animation at times can be a bit funny though. One of the more noticeable moments is about 2/3’s of the way through, in a battle Raphtalia jumps in, swings her sword and I swear it was only about 3 frames in total. Watching it made me laugh. Another moment was a few eps into the show when they had Raphtalia go to the bathroom and just before she was out of sight, they neglected to draw the rest of the frames and poof she g0n. All of these *problems* will more than likely be fixed in bd. The music is very good throughout the entirety of Tate. Both openings and endings are highly enjoyable to listen to with the full songs only improving on a good situation. Both opens are done by MADKID / RISE with both openings having a different feel to them which is a good thing. They did not try to encapture what made the first opening good and decided to make it different which is how I believe it should be. Never liked it much when an anime tries to encapture what made one good and basically rinse repeat as it always ends up in disappointment. The endings were done by Chiai Fujikawa and just like the openings were different and didn’t try to be the same. Both had the ending feeling vibe where it is more chill and makes you sit there and listen through them both as that is what is needed when an intense ep comes up. Simply put the music all around is a very solid point mainly because of the openings and ending. The room for improvement would be the ost’s in the anime itself but even then, what was used is good enough and better than a lot out there. **Final Thoughts:** Tate is a show that is one of the real OG’s when it comes to isekai manga but for some reason was quite late to the party. Even though it was late I would say it delivered a highly enjoyable experience that I would rewatch again with others… even if I just want to see lil Raph again :mrclean: With the last arc, the island one, it is one that should have been cut out entirely and pushed onto a second season since the mass popularity will more than likely give it another one. Even if it doesn’t, I feel the way they rushed through it just to give us more content was not the best of choices. The ending/queen arc concluded as if it was the final ep of the show but there were still a couple episodes left. IT didn’t make much sense since there was content that was skipped over. There would have easily been enough time to flesh it out another couple eps with the missed content and if it wasn’t, then they could have included something to pass the time such as giving more character building moments or cooldown situations that were needed at times. Instead they shoved another entire arc into a couple eps and ended up skipping a more than should have been done. If anything, they should have made it an ova arc. Have seen other series do that with good success. OVA arc would have avoided the pacing issues that popped up a bit here and there. Characters (main) – 5/5 Characters (sub) – 4/5 Enjoyment – 4/5 Visuals – 4/5 Music – 4/5 Story – 4/5 ```Overall Ratings - Rec: 4/5 Raw: 83%```
The show is masked by plot devices, underlying yet common factors that make no sense at all, and the supposed narrative that our MC, Naofumi Iwatani, is looked down upon heavily, due to him being the Shield user/hero, which disappointingly does not progress further than the stated premise. Naofumi's character writing on growth is lackluster at best. As the Shield Hero, he is innately challenged with repetitive backlashes from either the royalty, the Sword/Spear/Bow Heroes, or the public, that as show continues, you start to realize how dumb these accusations with no pure basis are. And personally, the insults became laughable and outwardly I lost pity on Naofumi. Naofumi instead became a slave-owner dude who just lost all personality and turned to a lack-of-substance and zero satisfaction in the whole revenge plot due to the characters that are presented too as plot devices, which may I remind you, is THE WHOLE POINT of the story. Shield Hero's other characters are all underwhelming and again, seemingly used as plot devices to "progress" Naofumi's hatred towards them. Malty or Myne, the first princess and a supposed plot device, falsely accuses Naofumi for absolutely no reason; the King and Pope who very evidently hates and holds a massive grudge the Shield Hero's guts despite who is the actual hero, which has not given any explanation whatsoever; Motoyasu, the Spear Hero - Ren, the Sword Hero - and Itsuki, the Bow Hero, are all complete idiots with Motoyasu and Malty just being Team Rocket from Pokemon; Melty, the second princess, a suddenly lost loli noble who joins Naofumi's party; Filo, a filolial loli creature, who literally just fights for Naofumi; and Raphtalia, a demi-human slave, who I thought was going to be the saving grace of the show yet just ended being a killing machine of a slave-owner with mediocre development. I also couldn't care less about Shield Hero's world-building (which is one of the main highlights of an ISEKAI) at all , because it was non existent ! The UI of the heroes to look at their HP/Stats/Skills, made the world of Shield Hero look like a damn game, which supposedly should NOT be a game made of NPCs, instead they're summoned to ANOTHER WORLD with real beings. A detailed game-looking UI was close to non-necessary at all, and Itsuki and Motoyasu at the end even mentioned if Naofumi even looked at the "Help/Support" options which could have made Naofumi's travels and grinding MUCH easier. There was this one specific plot device which I really can't stress enough how it boggled my mind thinking how this show survived. At the unnecessarily long Episode 1, the anime and the King, respectively, supposedly states to the chosen Four Cardinal Heroes (Shield ,Spear, Sword, Bow) that: 1) "When two more wielders of the legendary weapons operate together, it causes an adverse reaction in the weapons. Working separately is highly advised." 2) "It is said that the legendary weapons repel one another by nature. If you work together, it apparently hinders their development" And here what's crazy, in Episode 19 in the battle of the Pope and even further on, they SUDDENLY needed to work together, completely disregarding said law. . . Even Ren and Itsuki were always together fighting even before Episode 19. Naofumi clearly stated to the other Heroes "Yeah, we can't win if we don't fight together." Now that my friends, actually hurt my intellectual capacity. I don't know if that was just a plot device to force the Heroes to have their own separate parties yet I didn't even felt the presence of Ren and Itsuki's party members. An isekai's purpose is to immerse the viewers in a vast fantasy world that has lore and world-building and utilize the MC's past life memories and experiences of the real world to make way through the transported/summoned world. Shield Hero fails dramatically in portraying the isekai element and seemed like a shallow fantasy revenge plot, that is very underwhelming and unsatisfying, with a stale set of characters.
>There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations. We keep on turning and making new combinations indefinitely; but they are the same old pieces of colored glass that have been in use through all the ages. __Mark Twain__ Anime is just another form of art, a way of expressing beautiful designed characters that many in the world enjoy and found comfort in. There are a lot of genres in the anime industry but most of them are derived from another genre usually with a twist or something additional to it; its called innovation. Now, I'm no anime expert or _animeologists_ but when a studio decides to create a new anime there is no need to reinvent the wheel but to rather 'copy' other successful animes. __Isekai__ being one of the popular anime genres gives a studio reason to make an anime based on that genre. Now, I speak for myself here but I would rather watch a copycat show than a totally new idea that hasn't had any time to mature or hasn't gained any kinda popularity amongst others. __The Rising of the Shield Hero__ is one of those anime's where its innovative enough but also you know what you are expecting. In my opinion, most modern anime in this category are good but almost all of them are a rip off from another anime. Which essentially puts them in that bad category. Now everyone has different tastes, some are more similar to others while others are totally off the scale. Majority influence generally persuades the minority and their opinions/views become the accepted outcome. IMO __The Good and Bad of this Show__ __The Good__ - The first episode is 40+ mins and while this not uncommon it definitely intrigued me as the viewer. - The MC is not OP from the start and was gifted with a wack skill compared to his peers. (Not sure if this is a plus lol) - It has ecchi for the mature viewer but _not_ to a point where it becomes distracting and shifts the focus of the viewer watching. __The Bad__ - It's a generic isekai show (whether that is a good or bad thing) - It has some controversial aspects to it ~!(like slavery, false accusations of rape shown in episode 1)!~ - ~!It is said the MC wins all the battles he fights, however, this untrue. While he does win __most__ of his battles he does face a loss now and then.!~ To wrap this review up, it's definitely a worthwhile anime to watch. It has something for everyone whether you looking for an anime that is similar to this plot or just a new anime to binge, be open-minded and see the good before listing the bad. I'd recommend this to anyone wanting to watch a __typical isekai anime (whether that is a bad or good thing)__. ?
I first watched The Rising of the Shield Hero when it came out in 2019. With the second season coming out sometime in 2021 (Originally set to release in October 2021, but was delayed to April 2022), I wanted to do a review for those of you who have yet to catch up on the series or are questioning whether it's something worth watching or not. And I can see why you might waver, because reviews about this series are polarizing. Much like the characters in this show, people either love or hate The Rising of the Shield Hero; There's hardly any in-between and I personally think that this is oddly enough, an indicator that an anime's going to be good. When critics of a series review an anime a 1 or 2 and people who enjoyed the show review it a 9 or a 10, it's usually one I'll end up enjoying, if not loving. The Rising of the Shield Hero happens to be one of those series. With that said, I've been reading up on the criticisms people have about The Rising of The Shield Hero, and for the most part, the people that don't like it think it's a pretty standard isekai. While it falls into some typical tropes, like being transported into another world and being set in a medieval fantasy, its stereotypical tendencies end there for me. I personally think The Rising of the Shield Hero is the most refreshing isekai to come out in recent years, and in a category of anime where ideas and plots can sometimes come across as stale, I found it single-handedly reinvigorated my interest in the genre. Not that I don't like isekai in general, but The Rising of the Shield Hero gave me a feeling like I was experiencing something completely new, and that made it stand out among the rest. For starters, I really enjoy the fact that the world in The Rising of the Shield Hero feels real, which makes it feel like it is a place with real stakes and consequences. I felt this the most in the heroes' actions, which have real-world implications on the townspeople. Of course, the only one who realizes and is courteous of this fact is Naofumi. He's out fixing the other three's messes, while they're off treating this world and its people no differently than they would in a video game. Ironically, those same fools are seen as saviors, while Naofumi is treated with malice, because he is wrongfully accused very early on of doing something terrible. This in itself makes it feel fresh, because it emotionally connects you to the plot and gives you a main character, who instead of being seen as the story's hero is seen as its devil. This flips the script for me, because from the very beginning, you feel for Naofumi and his struggles. It's rare that I find myself automatically connected to a character, because it usually takes some time for me to emotionally invest in their story. With Naofumi though, I found myself sympathizing for him and rooting for him to succeed, much like Raphtalia. With most series I pick up, I'll watch episodes here and there, but this was one of those series I binged in a few days. Part of the reason I couldn't stop watching was to see Naofumi prove everyone wrong, but it wasn't until Raphtalia enters the season that The Rising of the Shield Hero really transforms from a good anime into an amazing one. Raphtalia has known nothing but abuse, terror, and discrimination her whole life, because she is a demi-human. In this world, demi-humans are discriminated against and sold into slavery. The Rising of the Shield Hero tackles serious issues, and while some people say it glorifies slavery, I don't agree. Those who say this probably didn't watch past the episodes when Naofumi first meets Raphtalia. At first, he comes across as an asshole when he's first getting to know her, and while he's understandably angry from being wronged and discriminated against in this world, this doesn't give him the right to treat her this way. But, this hard exterior of his is worn down quickly by Raphtalia, who shows him that he can trust in others again, and you see just how kind-hearted Naofumi is. Watching their relationship and how it develops over the course of the season is the one of the best parts of The Rising of the Shield Hero. At its core, The Rising of the Shield Hero is about overcoming your rage and not letting it consume you. Naofumi is cast out from society and yet he still helps them, and it's this attitude that makes him such a likable guy. Despite this, you'll see him struggle with this over the course of the first season. Raphtalia has even more valid reasons reasons to harbor hatred towards this society, and yet she still has a kind and gentle heart. These two characters, as well as others like Filo, are ones you'll love, but on the flip side, there are others you'll absolutely hate. There's no gray area here with the characters or anyone you'll think is "just okay", because they are either lovable or utterly despicable. The Rising of the Shield Hero's characters showcase the best and the worst of humanity, so you will have strong feelings about each character in this show. A lot of the time I find myself not liking, but not hating a supporting character, which leaves me feeling like their place in the series is somewhat unneeded. But, not with The Rising of the Shield Hero. I like this, because I know where I stand with each person in the series and it allows me to focus on the ones that I truly care about. The Rising of the Shield Hero is one of my favorite anime that released in 2019, and it has risen to the top to become my favorite isekai of all time. It's one you'll enjoy even if you aren't a fan of isekai, and if you are, I personally think it's a must-see that breathes new life into the genre.