Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari

[Spoiler Warning]

There are two things I noticed that are problematic with this show: 1.) it shoots its pacing and it ignores good storytelling methods to try to hurry up its narrative to the part it wants to tell and comes off as scared the calibre of its writing is not enough to keep its audience interested so it must rush as hard as it can to immediately show its gimmick; 2.) It’s trying to have its tanuki loli slave cake and eat it too. We’ll naturally go over that over the course of the review.

I want to tackle first its main potential, how it wastes ... it, and what it offers instead in lieu of said wasted potential.

Isekai, at its core, is a fish-out-of-water story taken to the extreme. You have an ordinary person from a decidedly un-magical locale and/or lead drab lives before they are whisked away to a fantastical new world where they live out interesting lives full of adventure and magic.

Most videogame-isekai authors, however, seem more interested in tailoring this brave new world in such a way that it’s the one world where their otaku excels at with his given skillset. They’re not dragging the fish out of water, so to speak. They’re dragging the fish into the water.

Now, to the show's credit, there’s a limitation attached to the main character: he can’t attack effectively. It forces him to pair up with someone who actually can. Then his situation becomes untenable when he’s falsely accused of rape and any chance of him getting a decent companion is out the window. In the end, he has to buy a slave. This is a genuinely nice setup. They now have to learn to work together and grow together if they are to survive, with an added dilemma: this is just some slave he bought. Who knows if she’ll even cooperate with him? And even if she does, is she competent enough when his life is on the line? And then there’s her side. For all she knows, her ownership just simply changed. The guy is nothing to her and he has to earn her trust little by little, as she has to earn his. It has the potential for a character story of both party slowly building the bridge between them brick by brick, replete with setbacks and drawbacks along the way. It’s a setup so rife with possibilities; except that story immediately nukes half of that equation of them having to meet halfway by making the girl basically fall for him. It rids itself of one-half of its character building potential. For what? So it could hurry its shipping along?

Alright, it can still work with just the main character half. Slightly less effective sure, but it’s doable. There’s still a character-building potential of the main character half: where he attempts to find it in him to trust again after the initial betrayal. Except that we have no proper measure of him as a character before the rape accusation so we don’t really know how much of him had changed after that beyond the basic demeanor; by ridding us of the ability to make a more in-depth comparison of the before and after of the main character, it lessens its already reduced impact even more. If we had that, we’d have a better idea of what was lost in him that day and can empathize and sympathize with him.

All we have now is a world dedicated on shitting on the main character and we’re supposed to root for him with full justice boner on just because he’s the main character. And there’s so much bullshit we have to put up with with the contrived way he is being put down. Yes, while I did praise the setup the show arrived at, the way they set that up is contrived. The series as a whole feels contrived.

Thanks to the light novel and web novel readers, I’ve been spoiled to hell and back on the major plot points of how the rape accusation ends and why the main character was singled out (seriously, if you don’t like spoilers, stay away from the episode discussions because a lot of readers there seem incapable of using the BB code for the spoiler tag). And all I can say is that the characters who are not the MC did the absolute stupidest things they can do just to make this plot-point happen. Expect a lot of idiot balls handed to the casts to simply move the story along the lines the author wants it to move without necessarily making logical sense. In fact, the anime seems more intent on telling us what things are and how they work even when things explicitly running counter to what was said runs in the background.

Again, it rushes its narrative to get to what it thinks is the good part: the shipping of the main character and the raccoon girl.

[Insert Street Fighter 1994 M. Bison soundbyte here: “OF COURSE!”]

Sure, why not. Let’s get to the meat of the show then. It’s about a cute raccoon slave loli falling in love with the first guy to ever show her kindness in quite a while. Two words come to mind: Stockholm syndrome. It’s not exactly accurate but you get the idea of how imbalanced the power dynamics in the relationship is. He buys her from an abusive slave owner. He’s kind to her. Boom! Love.

The story even takes care to make sure that there’s no male character that can outshine the male protagonist because then it might be hard to justify her settling for him when there are better options. Other male characters of significant note to the story tend to be written in such a way that they’re usually evil, incompetent, obnoxious, or old enough that the otaku cannot see them viably as a threat. Because when all the otaku has to offer is kindness, a decent respectable male is kinda a step up. Can’t have them buzzing around M’lady.

Oh, and they un-lolify the loli. Not really sure if she is mentally an adult or a child, but you know, she’s not physically loli anymore. Yay~! She's legal. /s

It’s a change I’m guessing was hand-waved in to avoid controversy of having a child-looking humanoid who, we would be given to assume, has underdeveloped mental faculties to make correct decisions fall for her slave owner for the trivial reason that he’s kind to her and no one showed her kindness in a long time (or if ever at all).

*sigh*

If you’re here for the adorable raccoon girl, have at it. If you’re here expecting something better, sorry man. But hey, it has a RACCOON GIRL. And she’s cute. I think. I mean, they keep talking about her in episode discussions.

(Esta reseña también tiene una versión en español más abajo)
This is the typical Isekai of each season that the community says is different but it is the same generic Isekai garbage as always, with an MC that is surrounded by beautiful girls so that people with low self-esteem can self-insert and feel that they are special.
The problems of this Isekai are:

1) The protagonist is the owner of the truth.
Anyone who is against him is the bad guy and everyone who is with him is the good, black and white that simple.
Like any empowerment fantasy, the story makes the protagonist is right in everything he does ... and never puts it as if he was doing something wrong even though he clearly does something wrong.
For example, in episode 1 the protagonist attacks a merchant and the story puts it as if it were fair. THIS IS NOT FAIR, THE PROTAGONIST IS A CRETIN. Put yourself in the merchant's place, you would not treat badly a guy who is said to have raped a girl? Besides, It is a free market, the merchant can put the price he wants, it is perfectly legal but NO, AS HE IS TREATING BAD TO THE PROTAGONIST IS A VILLAIN AND DESERVES TO BE PUNISHED.
Another example in episode 5, When Firo attacks the hero of the spear and puts it as something good when it is not like that. Motoyasu did nothing wrong, why does he deserve to be treated like that? Oh, right, Motoyasu is not on the protagonist's side so it's bad and deserves to be punished. Motoyasu is easy to manipulate and he is fooled by a woman, just like the protagonista in the episode 1 so why is Motoyasu the bad if he is acting the same as the protagonist? This is hypocrisy.
In the battle with Motoyasu, the protagonist cheats and the story does not put this as a bad thing even though the story super-demonizes this action when the princess performs it. I can see hypocrisy. The protagonist deserves to win because he is the protagonist and they treated him badly, typical favoritism of a empowerment fantasy.
The MC buys slaves and forces them to do things they do not want but everything is fine because he is the owner of the truth. You know that slavery is bad, right?
During the first wave of calamity, the MC going to save a town while the other heroes are going to defeat the calamity. Which of these 2 actions is more important? Obviously defeating the calamity is much more important, if the other heroes had not done so, the calamity and its beasts would have dispersed throughout the kingdom and would have attacked more people but No, as the protagonist did not do this then it is wrong and saving villagers is more important than defeating the calamity and preventing it from attacking more villages, or at least that's how the story puts it. (I do not say that saving a village is not important but compared to defeating the villain .....)
No matter what do the protagonist, everything will be put as fair and anyone who opposes him is a villain who deserves to be punished.
If that is not favoritism, I do not know that it is.

2) The protagonist is a GARY STU.
Apart from the fact that he is the owner of the truth, he is surrounded by beautiful woman, has a broken power and does impossible things to do because he is the protagonist.
The protagonist is so perfect that the only way he loses is cheating against him, but even that does not work.
In the race with Motoyasu, the protagonist is able to win with a 2 day old bird against a dragon even though they cheated against him several times. How is that possible? BECAUSE IT IS A GARY STU, no, seriously, there is no other explanation. (Even if they use the excuse of levels, skill or whatever, it is still very convenient and also proves that it is a Gary stu that history favors) If that is not favoritism, I do not know that it is.
The protagonist uses a shield, that is to say that he is not good in combat and he specializes more in the defense but since he is a Gary, this does not matter and it is better fighting melee than the hero of the spear and it is much more useful than other heroes.
"The other 3 heroes do not take that world seriously, Naofumi does take it seriously, that's why it's better than them even though they should know more about the world than him because they've played the game before" ... .. I do not think I have to explain why this excuse is delayed, what kind of person would not take such a situation seriously? This is a forced scenario.
Also, what are the chances of getting a super rare bird in a box of dubious origin on your first attempt? Wow It's as if the protagonist was favored by history or something like that.
The story has a double standard of making the antagonists treat him for the worst but the story itself gives him the best things and treats him as the Gary stu who is.
ALSO HIS POWER IS BROKEN, the shield is capable of doing whatever the plot requires, heal, nullify enemy attacks, grow plants, learn, assimilate, attack, etc. and not to mention the edgy power up of hatred that appears out of nowhere just to make the plot more convenient.

3) Nobody matters apart from the protagonist and his group.
There is a difference between the main focus of the story is the protagonist and that the story not give a shit for the other characters by pure favoritism towards the MC.
History does not try that you care about antagonists or at least the other heroes. The other 3 heroes are just flat archetypes that would not matter if any of them died. The most insulting in how later Raphtalia seems to be stronger and more useful than these heroes although the role of the other 3 heroes "in the story" is hundreds of times more important than hers, because the role of the heroes is SAVING THE FUCKING WORLD, but perhaps you Would you trust them to save it even though they have exactly the same role as the protagonist?
Of course not!
The story does not try to make you see them as the heroes they are or try to make you empathize with they neither with their actions.
History puts them like incompetent idiots just so that the protagonist is better in comparison. It's like putting half-eaten bread next to three pieces of poop in a dump, it's not that the MC is cool or a good character, it's that all the other options that are not him are garbage. This is one of the most pathetic acts I have seen a story do, besides that counts as manipulation.
History makes the spectator DELIBERATELY hate them and support the protagonist.
Everything the protagonist does is correct and anyone who does not have his same point of view is wrong.
If that is not favoritism, I do not know that it is.
AND YES, FAVORITISM IS BAD BECAUSE IT IS DISHONEST, CONVENIENT AND MANIPULATIVE IN TERMS OF SCRIPT.

4) The characterization of the main characters is inconsistent.
The personality of the protagonist is completely rewritten in episode 1, it becomes someone completely different that is anything but an Otaku. That's not development, it's bad writing. If all the characterization of your character is due to a tragic event, then your character is trash. Also, it seems that the protagonist lost masculinity or something like that because he does not pay attention to the 2 beautiful waifus that he has in front. You could say that it is because "he sees them as daughters" but that does not justify such a level of indifference. And even more so when he is an otaku and he has no experience with a woman, they are his slaves and the two are constantly fighting for his affection.)
Similar case with Raphtalia whose personality is also rewritten. Raphtalia, apparently, is able to overcome a TRAUMA only with pretty words and the power of love. Her character is the typical girl without individuality whose world revolves around the MC and she wants it unconditionally so that when the otakus feel that someone wants them when they self-insert in him.
And finally, firo, which is presented as a bird but becomes a loli, sincerely this change in its characterization would not be bad if it had not become a loli just a few days old, this counts as pedophilia, you know? aside it is completely unnecessary and does not add anything to the plot, the change is only to please the fetishes of the audience.

5) Story victimizes the prota.
The story forces you to feel sorry for the protagonist, no matter what the protagonist does, everything will be excused with "he deserves it". The story uses pity to justify every bad action the protagonist does. BAD WRITING.
The story treats the protagonist as a poor puppy who is a victim of circumstances but at the same time is a Gary stu who is surrounded by beautiful waifus. DOUBLE STANDARD.
It is not setting a fair and realistic scenario, it is setting a forced and favoritism scenario.
Not even the reason for victimization makes sense.

6) (SPOILERS) The reason for the betrayal does not make sense.
The reason they are bad with the protagonist is because they hate the hero of the shield (BAD WRITING) and because it can be a threat.
Are you telling me you are making a guy suffer who invoked against his will to save the world for something he did not do? The betrayal is unnecessary, they could manipulate him and make believe that they are their ally to then betray and kill him on the spot, they could see his intentions or have him as an ally and use him as much as possible, but NO, instead they treat him horrible, they gain hatred and they become enemies of the most dangerous hero for stupid and very sadistic reasons. In fact, the reason why the shield hero becomes a threat to the kingdom and the antagonists is because the kingdom was bad with him.

Oh, if I did not talk about the positive points it's because I just could not find any.
THIS ANIME IS TRASH.

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Este es el típico Isekai de cada temporada que la comunidad dice que es diferente pero es la misma basura genérica Isekai de siempre, con un prota sin personalidad que está rodeado de hermosas chicas para que las personas con baja autoestima puedan insertarse en él y sentir que son especiales
Los problemas de este Isekai son:

1) El protagonista es el dueño de la verdad.
Cualquiera que esté en contra de él es el malo y todo aquel que este con él es el bueno, blanco y negro así de simple.
Como toda fantasía de empoderamiento, La historia hace que el protagonista esté en lo correcto en todo lo que hace y nunca lo hace ver como si estuviera haciendo algo incorrecto a pesar de que claramente hace algo malo.
Por ejemplo, en el episodio 1, el protagonista ataca a un comerciante y la historia lo pone como si fuera justo. ESTO NO ES JUSTO, EL PROTAGONISTA ES UN CRETINO. Pónganse en el lugar del comerciante, ¿No trataría mal a un tipo del que se dice violó a una chica? Además, es un mercado libre, el comerciante puede poner el precio que quiera, es perfectamente legal pero NO, COMO TRATA MAL A NUESTRO PROTAGONISTA ES UN VILLANO Y MERECE SER CASTIGADO.
Otro ejemplo, esta vez en el episodio 5, cuando Firo ataca al héroe de la lanza y lo pone como algo bueno o gracioso cuando no es así. Motoyasu no hizo nada malo, ¿Por qué merece ser tratado así? Oh, cierto, Motoyasu no está del lado del protagonista, así que es malo y merece ser castigado. Motoyasu es fácil de manipular y es engañado por una mujer, al igual que el protagonista en el episodio 1, ¿Por qué Motoyasu es el malo si está actuando igual que el protagonista? Esto es hipocresía.
En la batalla con Motoyasu, el protagonista hace trampa y no ponen esto como malo a pesar de que súper-demonizan a la princesa cuando hace la misma acción. Puedo ver la hipocresía. El protagonista merece ganar porque es el protagonista y lo trataron mal, puro favoritismo típico de una fantasía de empoderamiento.
Nuestro protagonista compra esclavas y las obliga a hacer cosas que no quieren, pero todo está bien porque él es el dueño de la verdad. Sabes que la esclavitud es mala, Verdad?
Durante la primera ola de la calamidade, la prota va a salvar una ciudad, mientras que los otros héroes van a derrotar la calamidad ¿Cuál de estas 2 acciones es más importante? Obviamente derrotar la calamidad es mucho más importante, si los otros héroes no lo hubieran hecho, la calamidad y sus bestias se habrían dispersado por todo el reino y habrían atacado a más personas, pero No, como el protagonista no hizo esto, entonces está mal y salvar a los aldeanos es más importante que derrotar la calamidad e impedir que ataque más aldeas, o al menos así es como historia lo pone (No digo que salvar una aldea no es importante, pero comparado con derrotar al villano ...)
No importa lo que haga el protagonista, todo será considerado correcto y justo, cualquiera que se oponga a él será un villano que merece ser castigado.
Si eso no es favoritismo, no sé lo que es.

2) El protagonista es un Gary stu.
Aparte del hecho de que él es el dueño de la verdad, está rodeado de una mujer hermosa, tiene un poder roto y hace cosas imposibles de hacer porque es el protagonista.
El protagonista es tan perfecto que la única forma de que pierda es haciendo trampa contra él, pero incluso eso no funciona.
En la carrera con Motoyasu, el protagonista puede ganar con un ave de 2 días contra un dragón a pesar de que hicieron trampa contra él varias veces. ¿Cómo es eso posible? PORQUE ES UN GARY STU, no, en serio, no hay otra explicación. (Incluso si usan la excusa de niveles, habilidad o lo que sea, sigue siendo muy conveniente y también prueba que es una historia de Gary que favorece la historia). Si eso no es favoritismo, no sé si lo es.
"Los otros 3 héroes no se toman en serio ese mundo, Naofumi sí se lo toma en serio, es por eso que es mejor que ellos a pesar de que deberían saber más del mundo que él porque ya jugaron el juego antes"..... No creo tener que explicar el porqué esta excusa es retardada, ¿Qué clase de persona no se tomaría una situación así en serio? Este es un escenario forzado.
El protagonista utiliza un escudo, es decir, que no es bueno en combate cuerpo a cuerpo y se especializa más en la defensa, pero como es un Gary, esto no importa y es mejor luchar cuerpo a cuerpo que el héroe de la lanza y es Mucho más útil que otros héroes.
Además, ¿cuáles son las posibilidades de obtener un ave súper rara en una caja de dudoso origen en su primer intento? Wow Es como si el protagonista fuera favorecido por la historia o algo así.
La historia tiene un doble estándar de hacer que los antagonistas lo traten de lo peor, pero la historia misma le da las mejores cosas y lo trata como el Gary Stu que es.
TAMBIÉN SU PODER ESTÁ ROTO, el escudo es capaz de hacer cualquier cosa que requiera la trama, sanar, anular ataques enemigos, cultivar plantas, aprender, asimilarse, atacar, etc. y sin mencionar el poder EDGY del odio, el cual también está roto y es conveniente .

3) Nadie importa aparte del protagonista y su grupo.
Hay una diferencia entre que el foco principal de una historia sea el protagonista y que la historia no de un carajo por los otros personajes por puro favoritismo hacia el prota.
La historia no trata de hacer que te interesen los antagonistas o al menos los otros héroes. Los otros 3 héroes son solo arquetipos planos que no importaría si alguno de ellos muriese. Lo más insultante es cómo Raphtalia más tarde parece ser más fuerte y más útil que estos héroes, a pesar de que el papel de los otros 3 héroes "en la historia" es cientos de veces más importante que el de ella, porque el papel de los héroes es SALVAR AL FUCKING MUNDO, ¿Pero acaso tú confiarías en que ellos lo salvarán a pesar de que tienen exactamente el mismo rol que el protagonista?
¡Por supuesto no!
La historia no trata de hacer que los veas como los héroes que son, ni trata de hacer que te identifiques con ellos ni con sus acciones.
La historia los pone como idiotas incompetentes solo para que el prota quede mejor en comparación. Es como poner un pan a medio comer junto a tres pedazos de caca en un basurero, no es que el prota sea cool o un buen personaje, es que todas las otras opciones que no son él, son basura. Esto es uno de los actos más patéticos que he visto a una historia hacer, además de que cuenta como manipulación.
La historia hace que el espectador los odie DELIBERADAMENTE y apoye al protagonista.
Todo lo que hace el protagonista es correcto y cualquiera que no tenga su mismo punto de vista está equivocado.
Si eso no es favoritismo, no sé que lo sea.
Y SÍ, EL FAVORITISMO ES MALO PORQUE ES DESHONESTO, CONVENIENTE Y MANIPULATIVO EN TÉRMINOS DE ESCRITURA.

4) La caracterización de los personajes principales es inconsistente.
La personalidad del protagonista es completamente re-escrita en el episodio 1, se convierte en alguien que es cualquier cosa menos un Otaku. Eso no es desarrollo, es mala escritura. Si toda la caracterización de tu personaje se debe a un evento trágico, entonces tu personaje es basura. También, parece que el protagonista perdió la masculinidad o algo así porque no le presta atención a 2 hermosas mujeres que tiene delante. Se podría decir que es porque "los ve como hijas", pero eso no justifica tal nivel de indiferencia. Y más aún cuando es un otaku, no tiene experiencia con una mujer, son sus esclavas y las dos luchan constantemente por su afecto.
Caso similar con Raphtalia, cuya personalidad también se reescribe. Raphtalia, al parecer, es capaz de superar un TRAUMA solo con palabras bonitas y el poder del amor. Su personaje es la típica chica sin individualidad cuyo mundo gira en torno al prota y lo quiere incondicionalmente para que cuando los otakus sientan que alguien los quiere cuando se auto-inserten en el prota .
Y finalmente, Firo, que se presenta como un pájaro pero se convierte en una loli, sinceramente este cambió en su caracterización no sería malo si no se hubiera convertido en una loli de tan solo unos días de edad, esto cuenta como pedofilia, ¿Saben? Además, es completamente innecesario y no agrega nada a la trama, el cambio es solo para complacer a los fetiches de la audiencia.

5) La historia victimiza al protagonista.
La historia te obliga a sentir pena por el protagonista, no importa lo que haga el protagonista, todo se excusará con "se lo merece". La historia usa la compasión para justificar cada mala acción que el protagonista hace. MALA ESCRITURA.
La historia trata al protagonista como un pobre cachorrito que es víctima de las circunstancias, pero al mismo tiempo es un tío de Gary que está rodeado de hermosas waifus. DOBLE ESTÁNDAR.
No está estableciendo un escenario justo y realista, está estableciendo un escenario forzado e idealizado.
Ni siquiera la razón para que la victimización se de tiene sentido.

6) (SPOILERS) La razón de la traición no tiene sentido.
La razón por la que son malos con el protagonista es porque odian al héroe del escudo (MAL ESCRITURA) y porque puede ser una amenaza.
¿Me están diciendo que hicieron sufrir a un tipo que INVOCARON EN CONTRA DE SU VOLUNTAD PARA SALVAR EL MUNDO POR ALGO QUE NO HIZO? La traición es innecesaria, podrían haberlo manipularlo y hacerle creer que son su aliado para luego traicionarlo y matarlo en el acto, podrían ver sus intenciones o tenerlo como un aliado y usarlo tanto como sea posible, pero NOP, en cambio lo tratan de una forma horrible, ganan su odio y se convierten en enemigos del héroe más peligroso por razones estúpidas y muy sádicas. De hecho, la razón por la que el héroe del escudo se convierte en una amenaza para el reino y los antagonistas es porque el reino fue malo con él en primer lugar.

Oh, si no hablé de los puntos positivos es porque simplemente no pude encontrar ninguno.
ESTE ANIME ES BASURA.

If someone told me that we need a shield hero in some chaotic world filled with corruption and flaws, I’d be laughing. There’s a saying that not all heroes wear capes but now, we have one that wield a shield. Naofumi Iwatani, the present day otaku fits for a typical protagonist and in our modern times, his transportation to a fantasy world is an overused trope. There’s probably a good dozen shows I can think off from the top of my head with similar gimmicks. Naofumi happens to be the oddball armed with a shield than your RPG crafted sword.

Watching The Rising of the Shield ... Hero actually started out as a pleasant experience. Even with the amount of controversy before the first episode aired, I knew what to expect judging from the trailers and promotional content alone. But if we were to talk about controversy, the subject of betrayal and rape accusations comes to mind. It’s a sensible subject in both real world and fiction. However, this is merely a part of the plot that is necessary to adapt into the story for character progression. Either way, people will have strong opinions about that. Have those opinions.

Let's instead disregard the controversy and focus more on the characters and storytelling instead? The first few episodes spelled out with the introduction of four main heroes – the shield, sword, spear, and bow hero. As a double length special, it made sense to draw out as much as Naofumi’s character as possible. Initially, he is portrayed as a man with a sense of honor, dignity, and in general, level headed man with an open mind. After being betrayed and falsely accused by Myne, he became a mistrustful individual with a desire for revenge. At one point, he becomes self-loathing to the point where he loses purpose in this fictional world. After meeting the demi-human Raphtalia, he begins to reevaluate himself and find his purpose. Backtracking a few steps, it shouldn’t be hard to identify what kind of person Naofumi is. There are many ways to describe him and to me, he is more of a jaded anti-hero than your noble hero. Throughout the course of the story, Naofumi begins to trusts in others especially his own party consisting of Raphtalia, Firo, and Melty. Out of this group, Raphtalia evolves the most both physically and mentally. Originally, she is portrayed as a weak child with PTSD symptoms. But after coming in contact with Naofumi, she grows into a courageous fighter who manages to overcome her personal demons.

All this seems to draw in a lot of interest and honestly, I believe the first half of this show managed to capitalize on them rather effectively. Sure, there are despicable characters like Myne or gullible types such as the spear hero, Motoyasu. However, they didn’t truly make the show unwatchable. If you put yourself into the shoes of the creator, they probably created those two characters with the intention of getting the audience to hate them. I should say that’s no understatement because the bottom line is, there’s nothing likable about either Myne or Motoyasu. If we talk about Myne, she’s easily described as the bitch in sheep’s clothing. In other words, she wears a mask to hide her true nature. Have you ever met someone who pretended to be your friend to take advantage of you? Think of Myne. That’s what she is: a cunning, manipulative, and treacherous sociopath who uses whatever she can get her hands on for herself. Motoyasu isn’t much of a likeable person either with his ignorance and extreme gullibility. When it comes to women, he’s like a child who virtually believes what others tell him. This pretty much becomes a running gag in the show where Myne is able use him like a dog on a leash. It doesn’t help that he display borderline pedophilic tendencies towards characters such as Firo. It makes me want to puke and I don’t think anyone can find his interactions with Firo to be comfortable in any shape or form.

At some point in the show, I’m sure viewers will wonder if the other heroes will get any sort of character development. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. This season is called The Rising of the Shield Hero for a reason and most of the attention is focused on his group and party. Characters such as Raphtalia gets their development and background story because they are a central focus in the show. Others such as Ren and Itsuki are just part of the premise. Their background stories are not explored so don’t expect to get attached to them. This is another part where I believe the show suffers in terms of characterization. We don’t really understand their personalities besides what they show on the surface. Unlike Naofumi who finds a purpose in the story, it feels like most of the main supporting cast lacks one. Even characters such as Firo or Melty becomes more and more stale overtime. I mean, how many times do we need to see an oversized chicken pronounce her intentions to eat and fight? Don’t me wrong though, I want to see the main characters to develop but outside of Naofumi and Raphtalia, the others really doesn’t set a bar. To make matters worse, it seems the show loves to inject dialogues during mid-fights to drag out content. This is especially evident in later episodes where the charaters' dialogues are far overstretched than what they should be.

That also leads to how character relationships is presented as the storytelling unfolds. In fantasy adventures like this, there’s often times that when a male and female companion develop deeper feelings towards each other. Raphtalia has obvious feelings towards Naofumi for anyone who pays attention to her dialogues. She even shows jealousy towards Firo during their early encounters to see who can earn Naofumi’s attention. While it’s not truly love that Naofumi responds with, he does develop a deep trust for Raphtalia and Firo. Melty is a bit of an oddball in the group as this season shows that Naofumi regards her more of as a companion than a friend. Watching Naofumi’s character interactions within the group can be sometimes heartwarming while other times feel out of space. However, I do give praise to the voice acting talent of the show. They manage to grasp the character personalities in particular Naofumi and even someone as intolerable such as Myne.

The Rising of the Shield Hero is more of a dark fantasy so having a studio like Kinema Citrus working on this feels somewhat fitting. I would have preferred Wit Studio known for their more refined resume, but Kinema Citrus manages to work its magic for the adaptation. As a dark fantasy, there’s often violence that displays the cruelty of this parallel world. Character designs are in line with what you can picture from an isekai show. It adapts straight from the light novel (personally, I think the manga version is a poor example for its art style). As the shield hero, Naofumi’s most noticeable design is his character expressions that drastically changes. In the beginning, he is shown smiling with joy but this shifts into a more cynical expression. On the other hand, Raphtalia’s evolution from a child to an adult fighter shows her growth. She takes on an archetype heroine look with demi-human traits such as her ears and tail. Furthermore, characters such as Firo possesses animalistic traits designed to give them a more fantasy look. And finally, I should say the world building of this show does hold value although the anime adaptation only scratches more of the surface of their world.

Perhaps the most controversial isekai show of the year aired and we’re not even half way through 2019 yet. Looking at the future lineup will likely have fans talking more about the direction of modern fantasy isekai. For The Rising of the Shield Hero, this could have been an incredible anime for a dark adventure. The first half showed a lot of potential but most of that is weathered down by the repetitive storytelling themes and lack of characterization. There’s still plenty of more in the light novels so this anime only gives a taste for the audience. If only that taste didn’t turn from honey sweet to bitter sour.

This is your typical lets feel pity for the protagonist just because we say so type anime. The writers go out of their way to try to justify the actions of the protagonist even when the protagonist is clearly in the wrong. Ep 2 he takes a slave girl (Raphtalia) as his companion and the writer justify this by claiming "his a kind master". The slave falls in love with him simply because his kind giving the typical submissive female feel.
Meanwhile the slave being clearly underage the try to justify this bs by saying demi-humans automatically grow to adulthood once they level up.

The ... story is trash and not in-depth whatsoever. Its your standard black and white, protagonist always right and his not will make it fit, "good" vs "evil" scenario.

Overall if you like cute submissive racoon girls and you don't care for story or character development then you might enjoy the show. If you're looking for something with substance however, this anime is not it.

In all honesty, Isekai is a pretty sick genre with unlimited potential, sporting endless thematic possibilities that a normal setting could never offer. Want to tell a story that juxtaposes two different societies outlook on slavery? Your options are make a boring civil war movie or make an isekai were a dude gets transported to a world full of Kanye Wests and Jesse Lee Petersons (this won’t be the last time I mention Kanye in this review). The problem with most isekai’s is that they have a tendency to be lazy in the writing department… and the themes ... department… and pretty much everything else--not to mention that they are usually light novel adaptations. Shield Hero is no exception to this, except for having a few tricks up its sleeves that makes it watchable.

I might as well talk about the show’s biggest strength first--since I want people to actually read this instead of getting salty and closing the page on the second paragraph. This show is aggravating; it is nauseatingly frustrating. This is due to the fact that everything goes wrong for the main character. Episode one was literally every conservatives worst nightmare: having an innocent man’s life ruined just because a woman accused him of harassment without a formal investigation and trial. Just imagine if the Brett Kavanaugh trial went down like this, C-span would’ve gotten more views than the Crunchyroll anime awards. All jokes aside, this show keeps piling own garbage Naofumi (the MC) has to deal with. This makes it very easy to root for him because of how unfair things are for him. It is the same feeling as watching a fighting game and rooting for the guy playing a low tier.

This feeling of vexation did keep me watching; however, the events that lead to such feelings were not all that good. What I mean by that is the show went so far out of its way to demonstrate how Naofumi is less than his peers and the people around him, that it became hard to take it seriously. Take the scene were he and his peers introduce themselves to the king for Example: the king can clearly see that there are four men standing before him, yet he ignores the MC? He has no reason to do that other than to victimize the MC for the audience. To make matters worse, the MC’s reason for being sent to another world is to aid the king in battle, so why would the king be rude to someone sent to help him? Does he want Naofumi's help at all? If his kingdom was truly threatened, he’d take all the help he could get. That is just one example of how the show goes so far to exaggerate the MC’s victimization. I am not even counting how the show makes his abilities out to be worse than Melee Kirby when he is clearly just as capable as his peers, which is demonstrated in episode four.

So basically, the show’s greatest strength is just a feeling that is created via melodrama and arbitrary, contradictory worldbuilding. Since I like offering solutions to go alongside my criticism, I’d suggest that this show desperately needs some subtly. I am not in the Quentin Tarantino cult or anything; regardless, I think it is safe to say this show could’ve taken some notes from his films. In the opening scene of Inglorious Bastards (the only good scene), Tarantino was able to display a difference in power between two characters with just body language and dialogue alone. If Shield Hero stopped exaggerating his lack of strength and took out all the forced dialogue and replace it with more subtle dialogue showcase the MC’s insecurities, the show could be pretty nice. And if the MC’s struggles comes from a place of personal limitations like shyness, the frustrating that will occur when things don’t go his way will come from a place of empathy for a fellow human--rather than pure anger.

The characters in this show are quite bad to say the least. A pet peeve I have is when an Isekai has its MC transported to another world too soon. The Vision of Escaflowne took a full episode to show its main character before she was sent off to another world. Moreover, the sight of Hitomi getting sent off to another world is all the more meaningful after seeing what her life is actually like and what she will be missing. Shield Hero was so lazy that the MC got sent to another world in under three minutes of episode one. The only characterization we got for Naofumi was internal monologue saying that he’s a basic otaku. If a show is this lazy towards its MC’s characterization, then it is safe to assume that the rest of the cast is doomed to be boring talking faces. And they pretty much are so there is really no point in discussing them--not to mention that this show turns into a boring harem.

This show’s themes actually have the potential to be really nuanced and profound. The stuff about him being an underdog is boring and nothing new. Not bad, but not the good stuff. On the other hand, what this show tries to tackle with its depiction of slavery is something else though. I referenced Kanye West in my opening paragraph because of his quote “When you hear about slavery for 400 years ... For 400 years? That sounds like a choice.” When I first watched this show, it felt as if Japan felt bad for Kanye’s bad articulation and made an anime to clarify his points. But I digress. Kanye’s views on slavery are actually more nuanced than his poor articulation would lead one to believe. The relationship between Naofumi and his slave Raphtalia perfectly depict what kanye was talking about: Raphtalia adjusted to her life with Naofumi so much to where she saw her slavery as just life rather than slavery. Obviously, real life slavery is not as pleasant as this show makes it out to be, and I am of course not advocated for slavery since I am a liberal. However, the idea that being a slave makes people see it as life rather than slavery is an interesting one to explore nonetheless. If you want to hear more on the topic of slavery, here is a discussion on it (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vx-3in7shk0&t=1888s).

Despite the show having potential for good themes, the stuff they do go over is done in a vary juvenile way. Episodes four and five is where the slave talk reaches its peak.. During these episodes, the morality of slavery is brought into question. The MC argues that he is treating his slave right and giving her food and water; therefore, he is morally alright to keep her the way she is. Fun fact: in ancient Egypt, people at the bottom of society would choose to be slaves for the same basic protections, here are some sources (https://study.com/academy/lesson/facts-about-slaves-in-ancient-egypt-lesson-for-kids.html) (http://blogs.nature.com/houseofwisdom/2013/01/voluntary-slavery-ancient-egyptians-paid-a-monthly-fee-to-become-temple-slaves.html). With that tangent aside, the other guy arguing with him literally just brings up the topic of slavery just as an excuse to fight him. And that’s about it. In all honesty, I am a little insulted that a show with interesting themes would waste them just for a lame fight.

Since I am done sounding like a mad man ranting about Kanye in an anime review, I’ll quickly go over some other things about the show and why they’re not good. The world he goes to has this thing called the apocalypse that forces all the main characters together. This is a lazy plot device to bring characters together that would normally have no reason to be together otherwise--so basically like highschool in anime. The show is a harem and not the good kind. The good kind being the girls all have a genuine reason to like the guy. In this show, Naofumi literally hatches an egg and a waifu comes out, and I am supposed to take this show seriously. The animation and sound are bland, not much else to say there. Basically, I could've just said this show is vanilla isekai trash and saved myself a lot of time.

To conclude this, Shield Hero is not good. I mostly used this show as an excuse to share my thoughts Kanye out--because we all know Shield Hero isn’t deep enough to say anything about it. In my book, this show gets a two; it is of no intellectual value, and it gets boring after the frustration leaves and the harem shows up.

If you think I am a jerk for making you read two paragraphs about Kanye just to then give your favorite show a two, then check out my twitch (I have a working link on my MAL profile) and call me out for it. I am surprisingly cordial and am very open to hear what you guys have to say. So if you catch me live, during one of my live anime analysis or melee sessions, ask me anything I'd happily respond. Or if you want to talk in private, (another_Fiend#2240) I got a discord. Have a nice night, hope to hear from you. Peace.

Harem trash. The setup, which at first seems interesting and unusual in the main character's early and severe downfall, soon turns out to just be pretense. The female harem 'characters' (if you can even call them that) don't have personality that extends beyond loving the main character and being excited about food.
Also, it doesn't really seem to matter what kind of animal the main character takes into his party, it is going to magically evolve into a demi-human harem girl. Why, you ask? No reason. Just the writer peddling to otakus who have never had a real conversation with a woman and who like ... to escape into fantasy worlds where girls constantly throw themselves at them just to cuddle their ego.

The main character is slow to adjust and to act in an emotionally intelligent way. He gets by because he magically always has the proper tool at hand to solve whatever situation presents itself in front of him. Yet, he always gets screwed by the evil conspirators messing with him, just for fun. Despite them needing him to save their world.
Sounds nonsensical? That's because it is. The only way to rate this abomination higher than 4/10 is to have no expectations of good writing.

"Almost all Japanese animation is produced with hardly any basis taken from observing real people, you know. It’s produced by humans who can’t stand looking at other humans. And that’s why the industry is full of otaku!"

It's anime like this that make me share Hayao Miyazaki's sentiment. While I wouldn't say that his works are perfect, at least he wrote characters that are realistic, relatable and have feelings and ambitions beyond "I want MC to marry me".

Overview:

I normally dislike writing previews, but Shield Hero is so odd I don't want to wait another few months. Shield Hero is impossible to avoid on social media. Every week it pisses off an entirely new group of people and generates enough controversy that it DEMANDS we rubber neck and bare witness to the train wreck. When you get past the outrage culture it's just kind of a garbage Isekai, but it's provided a wild ride so far!



Le Elephant in the room:


Firstly, let's talk about the initial outrage that boosted Shield Hero to fame. The very first episode features a greedy, gold-digging whore that falsely ... accuses our hero of rape, so she can steal his money. My issue isn't that the plot point is used. The Princess is a villainous character and bad guys do bad stuff. False rape accusations are also a real thing. The FBI estimates somewhere between 2-10 percent of rape claims in the US never happened. The issue is that it doesn't make sense within the show. The Princess is already rich as shit, so why would she create this elaborate plot to steal a small bag of coins that are an absolute pittance to her? The Shield Hero is also prophesized to save her world from the total destruction it currently faces. She's risking the destruction of her world for what? For the Lulz? For a tiny bag of coins that could buy her a few meals? It feels like Shield Hero just wanted to awkwardly insert a hot button issue in order to gain attention. It's borrowing the strategy of trash exploitation from the 70s and 80s that couldn't sell on quality and sold purely on controversy.

Let's look at a better example of storytelling. The game Persona 5 begins with the main hero getting falsely accused of assault. The goal is the same. The writer wants to inspire sympathy for the hero and make you hate the villain. The difference is that it makes sense within the story. Joker is walking down the street late at night and stumbles upon a drunken politician named Shido abusing some call girl. Joker has caught Shido in an embarassing moment of weakness and Shido knows this could threaten his image. Shido is a paranoid authoritarian that like Stalin believes in crushing even the smallest of threats. It makes complete sense that Shido would protect his reputation by destroying Joker's and getting him labeled as a juvenile delinquent. If Shield Hero used a false rape allegation in a way that made sense like that, I would have no issue with it.


Story and characters:

A fantasy world is being threatened and summons 4 otaku from our world to slay the monsters and save them. This sounds like every other Isekai ever made so far. What sets it apart is the lengths it goes to immediately try force us to feel sorry for the Shield Hero and hate everyone else. Everyone immediately starts shitting on our MC because he was chosen to use the shield instead of the bow, sword, or spear. The other otaku claim that defense/support players in MMORPGs are the garbage players and all the people agree. Has this writer ever played a multi-player game of any kind?! Support roles are usually harder to play and require more patient, veteran players. The shittiest players want to cheese damage from a safe distance, so the archer would likely be the low skilled one.

After getting mocked by the entire Kingdom, robbed, and falsely accused of rape, our hero decides to go buy a furry slave girl. Demi-humans, who're part animal and part human are commonly used as slave labor in this kingdom. The Shield Hero initially just sees her as an inanimate tool, but gradually forms a bond with her. Oh and she's a racoon girl because slave...coon...haha laugh at the clever joke. Surely we know where this is going. Shield Hero will learn to recognize her humanity and grant the coon freedom. NOPE! The other otaku are portrayed as "holier than thou" villains for saying slavery is wrong. Shield Hero says that slave masters can be kind or cruel, but slavery isn't inherently evil. Some races like the demi-humans are better off as slaves. The villains cheat in a duel and free the coon from a curse seal that forces her to obey Shield's orders or die. This emotionally devastates poor Shield Hero, but the coon rushes to his side and declares she is happy as his slave because at least she has a purpose. She then has the curse seal put back on despite the fact she apparently serves willingly and doesn't need it. Why? To fucking piss me off of course! It really seems the series doubles down on being tasteless to troll the audience. They know exactly what they're doing. Did I mention the coon suddenly matures physically so we can get some echii shit despite her mentally still being a child? I can't wait for what the writer will come up with next.

Later our hero gains a Chocobo girl and continues to build his harem of furry slave girls while slowly plotting his revenge on Princess Bitch. At least Shield Hero is consistently less boring than Goblin Slayer. For what it lacks in quality it makes up for in jaw dropping moments of stupidity. NO THEY DIDN'T! ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!? Shield Hero also has something that Goblin Slayer doesn't...characters. The Shield Hero is capable of being selfish, spiteful, and wallows in self pity. At the same time, he can show moments of kindness and even courage. Goblin Slayer's personality is that he slays goblins and says "I See". It's far better to have a loathsome protagonist than a boring one. A hero doesn't HAVE to be a pure good guy or even likeable to be a great character. Look at Rorschach from Watchmen. He's an ugly homeless dude who smells bad and rants about how everyone is garbage. He kills people and feels no guilt for it. He's openly homophobic. He subscribes to a magazine that defends the KKK and features anti-Semitic cartoons. However, he's completely Kantian in his morality and will never compromise his principles. He'd rather die than accept utilitarianism based on moral relativism. By the end of the comic, Rorschach is a tragic and sympathetic figure that readers get behind. I'm not saying that Shield Hero is a great character and I'm certainly not comparing him to one of the greatest characters in comic history. All I'm saying is that even a pro-slavery asshole like Shield Hero COULD have been compelling and interesting, if this were well written.



Art:

This is the same studio that did "Made in Abyss". This at least looks WAY better than Goblin Slayer and has some impressive action sequences. I really don't have any complaints as far as the art goes. It's not the best I've seen, but it's not bad.


Music:

Hmm...that theme song actually isn't half bad. You know what would be even better though? (plays Dixie's Land)


Overall impressons:

Once you strip away the controversy and some of the more baffling writing decisions, Shield Hero is another substanceless Isekai that exists to serve as a juvenile power fantasy. It's shit and it's happy being shit. That's ok honestly. Not all food has to be an 80 dollar steak. Sometimes you want to eat that greasy double quarter pounder from McDs. I don't intend to cast any kind of judgment on people for enjoying Shield Hero. My favorite anime is an exploitation gorefest with a serial killer lead hero and enough underage nudity to make it illegal in Canada. If you love Shield Hero that's totally cool. I'm going to continue watching it because I'm a masochist and each new episode provides interesting conversations with friends both offline and online.

Try to walk and you may stumble.

Cringe - that's the first word that pops into my mind when thinking of Tate no Yuusha.
It's poorly written, lazy, offers nothing unique or interesting, but at least they kicked the cheese into overdrive.

It starts out as your generic isekai nonsense; some random, average dude gets summoned into wonderland. This is *not* necessarily bad, but it ain't gonna win points for creativity either. But the show immediately begins to crumble. Where other shows take the effort to provide a semblance of explanation as to why MC gets selected and transported, this one says 'no' and skips it ... all.
Standard MC introduction in 5 minutes (or less) and BOOM we're in business.

And once you start falling, it's difficult to regain your balance.

Immediately afterwards we're getting a boatload of cringe. 4 random dudes summoned, of course our Hiro must stand out even then - where the rest of them listen and think, MC starts this "comedic freakout" act and does so with aLOT of enthusiasm.
But the other "heroes" listening and "thinking" isn't an upside, it's no compliment. They calmly state they don't care at all if fairyland is destroyed, not their problem, they want to be sent home -which is cold, but reasonable isn't it? But then they change their minds within a minute when they hear the magic word;
"reward",
and proclaim they'll help *if* they get paid handsomely, with no subtle arrogance I might add. All 3, in unison. Such heroes. And if you think they'll have a hard time believing they've been just summoned into the world of Dungeons and Dragons, then you'd be *very* wrong because apparently, DnD is common knowledge where they come from, (disregard the fact it's still just fairy tales).

In the meanwhile, the show throws quite a few arbitrary rules at us to make things more difficult and unfair for our protagonist first and foremost.
At this point, all my expectations were officially subverted.

Moving on; eventually the 4 heroes get companions because what are RPGs without sidekicks right? But if you think it's the heroes who pick companions, then -PLOT TWIST- no. The companions choose the heroes, not up to debate. Doesn't make sense? Who cares! It creates drama!
Because -ANOTHER PLOT TWIST - MC is chosen by nobody so he throws another "comedic" tantrum.
Who could've foreseen this...
...or the next 5 plot twists within 10 minutes.

So, that must mean it's a comedy like Slime or KonoSuba, yes?
Haha, no.
It's not.
It most definitely is not.

And so you fall and break.

While the premise lacks creativity on every level, and the actions and reactions of characters are just comically absurd, it doesn't render the show terrible by default. Take Spongebob for example, it is just stupid, but herein lies the difference; Spongebob is self-aware. It knows it's stupid and doesn't try to act like grown-ups do. But this show does, and does so eagerly, using every trick in the book.

The misunderstood and mistreated MC is the epitome of goodness yet tries to act like the bad guy (teens, eh?), except when it comes to actually *doing* bad, he backpedals.
Every.
Single.
Time.
Because he's the good main character you're supposed to be rooting for and no, you don't get to decide that.
They made that choice for you, and they'll be damned if they don't force it down your throat every chance they get.
And you'll eat it with a spoon...or give the show a rating of 1 to 3 because the writing is just bloody atrocious.

You see Fashion Emo-kun is suffering over-the-top injustice by pretty much every other character introduced, for no real reason whatsoever. Every single character believes everything other characters say, no matter how ridiculous or nonsensical it sound, they will not have a shed of doubt. But absolutely NOBODY believes the Creep Hero.
Because reasons.
He's looked down upon because of nonsensical prejudice, he's not heard out or believed in because common sense wouldn't generate nearly as much melodrama, he's betrayed off the bat (and who didn't see it coming... I mean, -PLOT TWIST-) to make him the saddest victim of the world, then he's tossed out to fend for himself with nothing to his name but scorn, and even his class, the "shield hero" is holding him back because apparently, in this game "shield slam" is not a skill and all he can do is...shield stuff.
"So why not just grab a sword and stab things?" you ask? Because then he wouldn't be as miserable and that's bad, so -PLOT TWIST- he quite literally can't do that. Poor fella amirite?

I said "no real reason", that's because there's an unreal one; you are supposed to feel sorry for him (I said BE SORRY DAMNIT!!4!44) and they made sure to remind you of that fact every other minute.

Edgy, but least no more awkward humor, right?
...Right?
Oh, look... They actually found a way to put some awkward between the edges...

...yay...

And so the "epic" journey begins. MC's good and anyone who isn't with him (which is pretty much everyone else) hates his guts and tries to screw him over every chance they get, no matter how ridiculous it is, no matter the world's about to end, bullying him takes priority, his suffering is paramount!
So "conveniently" all these cheesy villains took a number and lined up in an orderly fashion.
Openly judging and berating someone based on hearsay? Pretence? Betrayal? Corruption? Blatant abuse of power? Hostages? Bottomless arrogance? Racism? Denial of reason for the sake of melodrama generation?
Say no more, fam, it got you covered!

It's black and white, characters are either angels or demons, and anyone opposing the Cringe Hero is most certainly twisted.

This is what this show's really about. Nonsensical, soap opera level melodrama gift-wrapped in borrowed ideas, rated W for 'worthless', it's for everyone 12 and below. Puts Bollywood to shame.

Bloody 8.4 rating, it's unbelievable.

Overrated.

There was a deposit for a good anime at first, but with each episode, the anime scored a stud in its coffin.
This does not mean that it is so bad that it can be dropped immediately, but so weak that it doesn’t cause the experienced animefan to cause the same effect when you don’t think that it is anime, but simply watch the development of the plot with enthusiasm and wait, that very day week, when the series will be released.
at first, primitiveness didn’t trigger so much and there was a certain interest in plot development, but later the anime turns more and more into ... a circus, where every episode the plot revolves around the same thing - he trusts no one and boring, wooden characters try to belittle him.
frankly killed the series, where they staged a race and set traps for each other, looks very ridiculous, given that at first the anime positioned itself as more serious. the series is a solid facepalm, where each series is deja vu (this effect is multiplied for experienced viewers who have experience in watching such an anime subgenre)
I think many of the indignant will still continue to watch, because the anime is produced quite qualitatively. I really respect the studio Kinema Citrus and I do not miss any of their releases, but "you won't build a house out of sand and sticks". You can watch, but preferably in airing. I do not advise anyone to spend time on it when it is completely released, because with a high probability it will be a drop for you. (if you are a beginner anime fan, you are under 16 years old, your favorite anime is Tokyo ghoul then you are welcome)

"Everybody Hates Naofumi" is your obligatory seasonal Isekai that went viral just like its predecessors because it tried to bring something else to the table. This time, its not about time travel but the victimization of our protagonist in the most exaggerated (and almost comical) way imaginable. But before we get to the "twist" that made this show unlike any other Isekai you've seen, let's take a moment to talk about the elephant in the room: the protagonist everybody hates in the story, including me.

Naofumi, your ordinary Otaku, gets summoned to a fantasy world against his will. Instead of actually voicing his opinion on ... the matter, he accepts it instead, unlike the 3 other heroes who immediately frowned after being teleported, or should I say "abducted" at this point. At first, Naofumi seems your typical self-insert protagonist who gets all the waifus and lolis while treating them as they were mere "prizes" he can collect and show off to the viewer, without actually making any move. But then we get to the "twist", which this time is a false rape accusation that was randomly thrown away without any actual context or motive. Apparently, almost all the characters in this show victimize the protagonist and treat him like garbage because of rumors about the "Shield Hero" being a horrible person. Then why exactly did you summon him in the first place? Why not execute him after falsely accusing him without any evidence whatsoever?

Needless to say, Naofumi, who was first presented as an atypical protagonist who doesn't do any of the cliches mentioned previously, becomes your typical protagonist who does ALL of the cliches mentioned previously in just 2 episodes. But this time everything is excused, since he was victimized and everybody who doesn't side with him is immediately labelled as villain. No matter what he says or does, it makes sense to the viewer who immediately sides with him without actually taking his actions and decisions into consideration.

Some of his decisions are questionable as they raise some serious ethical questions, like his idea of buying a loli slave. Why exactly does it have to be a loli? Couldn't be something less pathetic and more adequate for a fantasy world, like an animal companion? Later on, he decides to buy an actual animal as means for transportation. But that exact animal turns into a loli too for no other reason than to pander people's fetishes. There is nothing wrong with having a harem, loli or any other type of fanservice element as long as its relevant to the genre. When I decide to watch a fantasy anime, I'm not exactly expecting constant arguing between the waifus over the protagonist. I'm also not expecting random lolis who add nothing to its story and development. In fact, the only reason why I decided to watch this show in the first place was because everybody was saying how different and refreshing it is. Is it?

As the story progresses, Naofumi begins to feel like any other overpowered, know-it-all protagonist since he never looses, even when the enemy is clearly cheating or way beyond his level. Not to mention the fact that he was presented, from the very first beginning, as the weakest among the heroes since he can only use a shield. Apparently, this shield turns out to be a devastating plot device he can use to heal, damage, trap or block enemies.

Everything and everyone is in Naofumi's favor, since he is the victim in the story for poorly explained reasons. I'm guessing it has something to do with a devilish curse, but it all feels too contrived. From the false accusation to the slave loli to the typical harem.

You might as well call him "Kirito, but this time its more tragic".

The pacing is absurdly fast sometimes, like when Raphtalia turns from a weak, shy and sensitive loli to a tsundure, jealous and badass 20-year old girl in just one episode or when Filo rapidly grows up in just one day. And all of this fast progression is shown using a slideshow of images, which honestly felt more like a PowerPoint presentation to me. Really? That's not character development. Its more of a skipping in order to rush Naofumi's harem.
Other times, the pacing is purposefully dragged out for the sake of fillers. You have a fight between Naofumi and another Hero over who gets to keep the loli, and it is used to victimize Naofumi even further by making EVERY single character in the episode hate him. You have a risky pointless adventure where they go looking for magical crystals just to make a special dress for Filo (She constantly transforms into a loli, remember?).

World building is almost non existent. Everything is presented as a video game even thought it isn't (the protagonist gets summoned after opening a book that describes the fantasy world he's trapped in, and not after playing a video game or something). The protagonist even has an interactive UI at his disposal he can use to upgrade his weapons or view his stats. So it actually is an alternate reality video game after all. Moreover, the world is a copy-paste of what you'd expect to find in any Isekai anime. If I took a random screenshot of this fantasy world and showed it to people next year, they wouldn't be able to tell which Isekai anime it is. In fact, they will probably think its next year's Isekai anime. That's how dull, unimpressive and repetitive the world seems to me.

"Everybody Hates Naofumi" is no different from any other Isekai you've seen for the last 5 years. The only reason you feel like its different and refreshing is because the writer tries his best to convince you that it is, while pouring the exact same elements scavenged from different Isekais over the years into the mixer and calling it a day. He's the perfect example of a seller convincing you to buy a product you already have and seen (OP protagonist and his harem) by telling you its different (victimizing the protagonist for the sake of plot armoring everything and everyone around him). But this victimization which was too exaggerated to the point that it became irritating is more than enough to fool the average viewer into thinking this time its different.

It's not.

1) The hook
A lot of people were really hyped during the early episodes of this anime because of a little thing called Outrage culture. Just like it happened with Goblin Slayer some seasons before, the touchy premise of fake rape allegations and pro-slavery themes triggered the social justice warriors. This in turn motivated the defenders of the light novel to write long essays for defending the anime. One of the usual excuses any fan says about any show he likes is how it’s a subversion. It ain’t like other isekai! This one is different! These fans were so vocal about it they managed to attract ... a lot of random people who got curious by the ongoing controversy. Before you know it everyone was watching and talking about the Shield Hero. And as usual what matters the most is the execution and not the initial hook or how popular a show is. Which is actually really funny when you look back at what they were saying and what the show ended up being. The hook of the premise, the same one that lured in so many people with fake rape allegations and pro-slavery themes, managed to enrage a lot and to keep them watching with a promise of justice porn. And by that I mean everyone was waiting impatiently for the protagonist to prove his innocence and make those who were responsible to pay. Something which he eventually does. Pretty easily I must say. And then most of those watchers lost their interest because they got what they wanted and the hook was no more.

2) The degradation of the plot
During the initial episodes, the plot was edgy, dark, and kind of depressing in tone. It begins to fall apart after the fourth episode by becoming another generic empowerment fantasy. Up until then nothing was easy and uplifting, but then it turns into a typical isekai full of every cliché in the book. Comic relief, fan service, cockblocking romantic advancements, easy victories, constant ridicule of the opposition, and non-stop ego-stroking.
-Naofumi’ shield was supposed to be weak and unable to be used for attack, but soon became able to cast every ability imaginable, and to have enough firepower for blowing up entire mountains.
-The girls Naofumi travels with, which were supposed to have depth and mental issues, constantly do typical fan service shenanigans. Going to hot springs, getting molested by tentacle monsters, never shutting up about how awesome Naofumi is, fighting over who gets to be his lover, and constantly yelling about how they can’t live without him.
-By the time you get to the half point of the first season Naofumi gets vindicated. His enemies, the vicious nobles who at first were sinister and sneaky in their plan to ruin Naofumi’s reputation, turn to complete idiots who exist to be constantly ridiculed. Their only defining features are being evil and idiots. It’s easy to get bored of them since they come off as incompetent and not as threatening as they did in the first episodes.
-The rival heroes who during their introduction were presented as super smart and calculative, quickly turned into complete idiots who can’t even walk without tripping over their own feet. Every single thing they do turns to a disaster and it’s up to Naofumi to clean after their mess.
-The world where nobody supports the Shield Hero, is quickly proven to be full of people who are constantly supporting him (peasants in need), wish to enter his team (soldiers during the monster invasion), defend him every time he is accused (queen’s spies), and even plot armor him when he is about to be killed (Fitoria).
-The notorious fake rape allegations, the bread and butter when it comes to this show, like it or not, ended up being just dumb people with power incriminating a person THEY summoned for helping them out. It was a cheap shot at victimizing the protagonist for making him sympathetic to the audience. Lots of shows do that and try their best to maintain the victimizing all the way to the end of the story. This anime doesn’t do that.

3) The protagonist

The initial impression you were given about the protagonist, was that he was not another overpowered self insert otaku and not everything in his second life in an isekai is rainbows and unicorns. He is not yet another neet otaku loser who gets transported to a different world that works like a generic videogame, gets ultra powerful very fast, and amasses a harem of pretty girls who all love him for being bland. Well, fancy that, he ends up becoming that as the episodes go by. Something you can’t forgive though, even if he is bland, is how he is entirely passive. Not a characteristic you want from any hero in any show. Naofumi is constantly told what to do instead of thinking for himself, and is then praised for doing what he’s told. So it’s basically double standards at play. The author can have him doing whatever he wants for the plot to move in any direction he fancies and is then retroactively proving him right for being passive. The author treats the protagonist’s actions like a heroic feat, when in reality he makes him comes off as a robot following a program imposed by others.
-Buying the slaves was not the protagonist’s idea, it was proposed by the slave merchant.
-Doing the missions that help the villagers was not his idea, it was the villagers asking for help.
-He did not want to be a team with the other heroes, the chocobo queen demanded it or she would kill him. Plus that archbishop dude wanted to kill them. He went as far as revealing his evil plans right in front of them. He became a common enemy of the heroes by wanting to kill them and they automatically became a team in order to take down this enemy.

Some elaboration on that last point. What really takes the cake is how besides being passive, the narrative is also constantly using double standards for every little thing he does, thus coming off as hypocritical. Naofumi’s idea of working together as a team comes down to mocking the very people he is supposed to work with as a team. The constant need of the author to provide justice porn contradicts what the protagonist is supposed to be doing. You don’t mock your teammates and then pretend you are a team player. In fact, you are not a team player if you were forced to enter a team.

4) The bad guys

The nobles and the clergy are very shallow as bad guys since they did all their evil fake allegations just because they didn’t like Naofumi. When Naofumi eventually gets vindicated he doesn’t even allow them to be punished with public execution. No, he saves their lives just for changing their names into slurs and having them being humiliated for life. That is apparently enough of a punishment if all the viewer cares about is constant humiliation of the protagonist’s enemies. It’s otherwise very childish and done that way for a revenge porn written with the mentality of a ten year old. Haha, let’s change the big baddie’s name to kaka doodoo and call her names all the time, haha! Beyond that, nothing changes in the evil princess’ behavior. After all the crap she did, she remains in the team of the Spear Hero despite humiliating him that way, and she still constantly tries to mess with Naofumi despite having her life spared and being given the chance to turn a new leaf.

Then there is the evil clergy which frankly do their best to contradict their very agenda.
-The cartoonishly evil religion hates the Shield Hero because the previous heroes of the same class were allied with the furry kingdom. So basically, they hate the current hero for nothing, since he didn’t do something to hurt them. He just belongs in the same class.
-The dogma of the cartoonishly evil religion is against the cute furry waifus, thus they seemingly justify their hate. And I say seemingly because they don’t, since the hate came before the Shield Hero had cute furry waifus. They hated him before he even got to have cute furry waifus.
-The Shield Hero was normally supposed to be summoned at the furry kingdom. The cartoonishly evil religion cheated and summoned him in their kingdom, so they can hate him. Which means, they have the nerve to blame the guy for forcefully appearing in the place they rigged for him to appear.
-If the cartoonishly evil religion hadn’t framed the Shield Hero, he wouldn’t be forced to buy cute furry waifus as aid in battles. So by framing him they got exactly what they were trying to avoid. And no, this is not smart writing by having a self-fulfilled prophecy. It’s backwards reasoning.
-The cartoonishly evil religion is also suicidal. Before the second monster invasion they had the excuse of not needing the Shield Hero for defeating the monsters. After the second monster invasion they clearly need the Shield Hero, because he’s the only one who is not incompetent. By continuing to slander the only person capable of defeating the monsters they effectively doom everyone, including themselves.
-The cartoonishly evil religion gets completely rewritten into a different organization. At first they needed to resort to slander against Naofumi, because they were unable to kill him directly. And then out of nowhere they have a magic weapon that is as powerful as the four heroes. Why were they accusing the Shield Hero all these months when their plan was to kill him? Everybody believes their lies, so there is no need for all this nonsense. Why didn’t they kill him all this time when they had such a powerful weapon and he was far weaker? Why were they hiding this super weapon and weren’t using it against the monsters? Why did they even need the heroes to save the world when they have weapons and chocobo waifus that are far more powerful than them? Why are the other three heroes considered blessed when they casually decide to kill them? Why do they have monarchy and not theocracy if they can casually kill the royal family in front of a thousand people and get away with it? There is absolutely no consistency.
-In general all villains are one dimensional jerks. They smile smugly, love to torture and kill innocents, and they do it for fun because they can. What a better way to justify your justice porn if not by having sadistic one-dimensional nobles who exist just to make you hate them and wish to see them dead. And obviously, the only one who can stop them is the self-insert protagonist.

5) The slave girls

The slaves in Naofumi’s harem have horribly rushed character progression. The author never gave them more than a single episode for growing up into the forms they maintain throughout the rest of the show. Because why should you spend years on properly nurturing anything? Just skip all the build up and go straight for the outcome. And by outcome I mean seeing them constantly antagonize each other over who gets to have the self-insert’s attention, like in any typical harem. Obviously the protagonist is written to be dense as solid rock and constantly ignores their flirting, since the age rating doesn’t allow to show sex. There’s Redo of Healer for that. By the way, isn’t it strange to have everything growing up so fast on this world, yet their lifestyle is the same one we have in a typical medieval world? Not even the world building feels right because of that.

Adding to that, whether they are slave raccoons, or birds from loot boxes, or random encounters with princesses in the wilderness, the protagonist’s allies are all cute girls who make every other male to be jealous of Naofumi. Did I mention how their ages range from 12 and all the way down to… a few months old? What does that say about the author’s sexual preferences? Let’s not ignore the fetishism of the show as many fans tend to do. It’s about a male slaver saving very young girls from other slavers, who are deliberately written to be one-dimensional evil rapists so the protagonist will be ‘forced’ to protect them by adding them to his harem instead.

6) The antagonists

Whatever issues you might have with slavery you can’t blame the show for having it if it’s doing a decent job at portraying it. But, as I stated several times already, the author keeps using double standards all the time, so everything comes off as disingenuous. Naofumi makes fun of the Spear hero for taking advantage of cute girls for adding them in his team, when his own team also consists of nothing else besides cute girls, whom he also took advantage of by buying as slaves. So basically, it’s ok when he does it and wrong when anyone else does it. Also, very conveniently, Naofumi’s furries do not correct him on this obvious hypocrisy and instead support him, while also making fun of the Spear Hero for doing the exact same thing thus only making the hypocrisy more obvious.

Late in the show, more heroes from a different world appear. They were constantly helping Naofumi and the rest to level up, defeat the monsters, and protect the people. Then all of sudden they want to kill everyone. The reason is so convoluted it becomes impossible to follow. They want to destroy this world, so the world they came from will be spared. It’s a lie, it will be destroyed anyways, but we need some sort of new fake allegations now that the justice porn is over. That aside, they are not fighting with the monsters so the world will be destroyed, they are fighting against the monsters which is the opposite of what they are here to do. So, the ‘logical’ explanation is, they are good people, they don’t want to kill innocents, they only want to kill the four heroes so the monsters will have nobody able to stop them. It’s another lie, because there are a dozen more people far more powerful than the heroes, so the monsters can still be stopped. And also, their sense of justice is so stupid they actually believe that if they only kill the defenders of the world they would totally not be responsible for the deaths of all those innocent people. Also, even if they are here to kill the heroes, they fight the monsters and help the heroes to level up and become harder to kill, although they are here to kill them. The ‘logical’ explanation for that is that they didn’t believe those four were the heroes they came to kill because they were too weak, so they might as well befriend them and help them get stronger, although it doesn’t matter because they are going to die anyways. So basically they befriend people they know they will eventually stab in the back. And obviously they couldn’t simply ask someone to confirm if they are the heroes; that’s too much work, man. It’s not like they are here to find and kill the heroes, thus their first question should be where they can find them. Literally everybody knows who the heroes are besides them. But wait, there is a ‘logical’ explanation even for that. They didn’t ask anyone to tell them where the heroes are because they had to level up first. You see when you cross over from another world the videogame logic of this stupid show dictates that you lose your levels because it’s a different videogame, so they had to grind all over again. Only when they were strong enough they felt like asking if they are the heroes and only then they wanted to kill them. And then they proceed to not kill them and to change their minds in the next season, thus dooming their world and making their trip here completely pointless. Don’t tell me all that are not completely convoluted, because they totally are.

7) Videogame (lack of) logic

The world of the isekai functions like a videogame, which is nothing uncommon, but it’s done in such a way that it makes no sense. The allegations which make up the whole conflict of the show could have instantly been proven false, if anyone had bothered to use a slave crest that forces the target to be truthful. The core conflict had no thought placed behind it since there is a way to fix it in a few seconds. The reason it didn’t happen so soon is because everybody was deliberately not mentioning the ability of the slave crests. The viewer had no idea they could be used that way and not a single character who knew about them pointed it out. The excuse in-story is that they are very expensive to use in a trial. And yet Naofumi used them three times on his waifus with no financial problems. Did you see any villages starving to death because of all the money he spent on drawing a few crests? Of course not, because they don’t exist.

Even the cost excuse falls apart when you take a step back and realize the setting is an oligarchy. The king owns everything in the kingdom, so it wouldn’t cost him a thing if he uses crests in a trial. I mean, he didn’t because that would prove he is a scumbag, but the fact remains. It doesn’t cost a thing to him. As it doesn’t for the queen, who used one in the trial without starving a million children. Essentially, the author had no idea how to prevent everyone from spamming crests and said ‘errr they are expensive I guess’ before allowing everybody to use them whenever it suits the protagonist and without any penalties. More specifically, when he enslaves waifus, and gets his justice porn by placing it on the bitch princess during the trial. Oh, now the cost is not an issue!

The funny part is that they didn’t need magical crests to force the bitch princess into reveal the truth. If they had bothered to ask the guy who sold Naofumi the armor, he would reveal the lies of the princess, since she didn’t find it somewhere and then gifted it to the Spear Hero. It was an armor Naofumi bought from the armorsmith and it’s now right before his eyes!

On top of all this mess, the dreaded videogame logic ruins even the concept of money in general. During the pilot episode, the heroes are given coins to buy their equipment. Why do they have to pay for anything? They were summoned against their will to save the world. Just give them the best available armor so they can save your sorry ass. An excuse could be so they won’t ruin the economy, but what good is money if they are all dead? And it becomes even messier later on, when Naofumi is constantly given stuff for free as thanks for helping people out. Also, turns out the magical weapons can literally clone anything for free. There was literally no need for money since day one, so what was the point of giving them coins? The author had no idea what he was doing, and he definitely did not thought of the economy collapsing because of it.

The videogame logic ruins even the need to have a team and go on missions. There is no need to do any missions, because there is nothing to actually gain from them.
-Some missions give them money, which they don’t need because their weapons can clone anything they want.
-Mundane stuff like food and drinks are free for heroes who are here to save the world.
-Monsters during missions give you experience points for leveling up, but there is no need to bother as there are special events where you can level up like crazy by beating trash mobs.

Dumb action
Despite the videogame terminology, everything constantly comes down to getting power ups in the middle of the battle by triggering a hidden ability, or turning to the power of friendship. What is the point in having rules, if powers come and go depending on what the plot says will happen?
-They try to make it seem like the backlash for using major attacks comes at a cost by losing enough blood to fill a swimming pool. Yet there is a scene where Naofumi casually waits defenseless for 5 minutes, as everyone else around him are busy talking to the queen than saving him, thus making it seem like his injuries are not serious. He can take it like a champ.
-The villains stand still while the heroes talk in the middle of the battle.
-The heroes use mostly long ranged attacks, even when their weapons are short ranged. This makes the battles dull, since they are just standing still and fire projectiles. It also makes the Bow Hero to seem like he got the crappiest weapon, since he is supposed to be the only one using arrows and be useless in close range.
-The three heroes use the exact same one attack all the time, making the battles repetitive on top of dull.

9) Slavery
Regarding the touchy subject of slavery, which caused the controversy and made the show so popular… it’s garbage. Naofumi was accused of owning slaves in a setting where slavery is legal and most nobles own slaves. Hypocrisy, anyone? It never gets any deeper than that, and eventually it’s just an excuse for harem shenanigans. No sir, Naofumi is not forcing cute girls to fight on his side, and is certainly not going to have naughty moments with them at the hot springs. He bought them! Plus, the slave chicks clearly state that they love being slaves. Raphtalia in particular is given her freedom when someone removes the slave tattoo from her body. But she immediately rushes to get another slave tattoo. On her boobs I need to point out, since we need fan service for this garbage to sell. This validates the victimized protagonist by having the cute animal ear waifu proudly stating how she loves being manipulated as a slave. You don’t want to disagree with a cute animal ear waifu, do you now? Look how cute she is and has a tattoo on her boobs, she can’t be wrong. And as simple as that Naofumi once again has the moral high ground to do whatever the hell he wants.

10) Plot armor
There is absolutely no tension in the show. The chocobo waifu plot armors Naofumi from the dinosaur, the spy woman plot armors the 2 heroes from the energy attack, the 2 heroes plot armor Naofumi from the Pope. There is never any sense of death in the show if they can survive all the time like that. And don’t get me started on why the Pope didn’t confirm the death of the 2 heroes before trying to kill the other 2, or how they never show how Sword and Bow survived the explosion. Eventually, even the queen plot armors the heroes from the church, and proves how the allegations were false by using a slave tattoo. Something everyone could have used since day 1. And essentially Naofumi didn’t have to do a thing for clearing his name. He could have sat on a bed for months and just wait for the queen to solve everything. There never was any urgency, there never was any actual threat, and he was plot armored from all sides.

11) Retroactive answers
Most of the illusion of tension in the story comes from the author omitting information from the viewer. Almost every conflict would be easy if we were told how slave crests work or how the weapons can copy everything without the need for money. Even the heroes from the other world would have an easy mission if they had asked who the heroes of this world are. The show constantly hides its problems by basically making everyone too stupid to ask about things that are free and known to most people. Furthermore it provides answers to mysteries that shouldn’t exist in the first place. Why should the way crests and weapons work be kept a secret in the first place? It’s counter-productive for what the heroes aim to achieve. As a literary device it works on people who have no critical thinking, since they will perceive it as a plot twist or a major revelation, instead of bad writing. Thus whatever complains you might have about the show are instantly shut down by the defenders, who will claim ‘you didn’t know that at first and it’s explained later in the story, thus your complaints are moot’. The thing is, nobody was watching the show just to get answers for what is going on with the monster invasion or why the church hates the Shield Hero. Everyone was watching the show for the revengeporn and the pedophilic memes concerning Naofumi’s harem. There was no mystery to solve and therefore late explanations did nothing to save face. Especially when they did not fix any problems and did not make the writing any better.

12) Everyone is dumb
This last point is a culmination of everything that is wrong in the aforementioned points I made. Every single character is dumb as rocks and self sabotages his own goals that way.
-The protagonist not telling the armorsmith to clear his name right away
-The king mentioning money when they are not needed
-The other heroes being morons who cause more trouble with whatever they do
-Raphtalia forgetting she had friends being tortured somewhere until she bumps onto them. Then she refuses to kill the slaver so she won’t be like him (although she is not a slaver so WTH?)
-The church hating the Shield Hero when they can’t survive without him (plus they already had a super weapon)
-In general, the civilian population is a bunch of sheep with no thoughts of their own. Throughout the series they believe everything they are told right away. And before some of you say that’s exactly how the real world is like, people don’t do a 180 in a couple of seconds. One moment they demand to see the ones responsible to be punished, and the immediate next they change their minds and renounce the religion they believed in for centuries just because the validated self insert that is Naofumi said a few mean words against their god.

And that is why the Shield Hero is a dumb show for dumb people that blew in popularity because of all the wrong reasons.

Terrible show about terrible people. Less than typical isekai trash. Story sets itself out to be epic, exciting adventure but stumbles to a crawl by the end of the fourth episode. It's about as dull and meaningless as one can expect. At least other isekai trash put SOME effort into their world-building and plot. Almost everyone in the show is either an idiot or an asshole, with one of the only "good guys" being a slave trader. So that should give you a good idea about what you can expect from the characters. If anyone but Spear Hero brought up the Raphtalia/slavery thing, they would ... have been right. But because the biggest idiot in the show said it, suddenly everyone else is wrong and slavery is okay. Even worse is how the show goes out of its way to jump through so many hoops in order to defend slavery. Naofumi is a dense idiot (and a bit of an asshole) but at least there's some empathy to give him considering his situation. How ironic that a "blank slate" main character is the best written character in the series.

Reminder that Raphtalia is still 10 years old. "bUt ShE mEnTaLLy AgEs aS sHe LeVeLs uP". Yeah and his entire harem is lolis. Doesn't exactly help your point.

Only redeeming factor is the fantastic OST, but it doesn't do enough to save this travesty.

I honestly wanted to like it but just couldn't.

The first two episodes had potential. the show is set up as a hero being forced to play the villain in order to succeed in a world that has some unknown grudge against him but the show never took off from there. The hero never fully embraced the edgy "anti-hero" status initially promised and spent nearly every episode wallowing in angst while helping villagers through unimpressive tasks. Most importantly, the combat scenes are underwhelming, especially compared to the quality of those in other shows currently airing. Save yourself the pain and re-watch overlord instead.

***Stares at medieval, full-bodied armor***

“I don’t think it’s my style…” — Naofumi Iwatani

“Yeah, it will strip Naofumi-sama of all his individuality.” — Raphtalia

“Did these mother f—ker’s just insult the Goblin Slayer?!” — Krunchyman

Summoned to a world he knows not. By a group of medieval aristocrats, whom wish to avoid a calamitous event known as the “Wave.” Naofumi Iwatani — along with three other “Heroes” — embarks on a quest to refine his skills in preparation for the fateful day when the “Wave” finally arrives. Unfortunately for Naofumi, his role as a “Hero” is starkly different than Ren, Itsuki, and Motoyasu (the “Sword,” ... “Bow,” and “Spear Hero,” respectively). Because while their skills are geared toward an offensive mindset, Naofumi’s shield requires him to accept a defensive role that is seen by the majority of the characters as being useless (including himself). Combine this with the betrayal of the bitch — otherwise known as Malty — and you have a recipe to alter the insouciant main character into a dejected, spiteful loner who wanders the countryside with rage in his heart and not a single companion to aid in his adventure.

Normally, this would be the part where the metaphorical player would rage quit or reset the game in hopes of gaining more favorable circumstances. But for Naofumi, he is forced to deal with the disadvantaged situation by making concessions (i.e. cheap meals) and buying a sickly slave girl — Raphtalia — to function as his “sword” to hasten his ability to kill more monsters and level up. And, really, that’s all Raphtalia aspires to be throughout the series — faithful slave, whom wishes to please her master (get you head out of the gutter!). As a side note, there has been a considerable amount of controversy regarding the integration of slavery in a modern anime, but given the medieval time period, and the fact that “Amurica” had slaves up until the 19th century, it’s a foolish complaint by “do-gooders” who have entirely too much time on their hands.

In terms of Naofumi as a character, he lacks emotion when Raphtalia and him begin to roam the countryside in search for stronger “beasts.” Besides his seething anger for the individuals that wronged him, Naofumi seems relatively vacuous as the main protagonist. It makes sense given the Louis C.K. treatment he’s been subjugated to, but seems obvious that the writer’s intentionally dragged Naofumi down (below the other three “Heroes”) to set the stage of an eventual underdog story. Hence, it was much expected that the level of antipathy directed at Naofumi would dissipate as he methodically gained the trust of those around him. This also entailed a shift in Naofumi’s cynicism and “anti-hero” role toward an idealistic one when his selfless deeds become more well-known.

But does this predictability deter from the overall enjoyment?…Yes, yes it does.

Most of the monsters were typical run-of-the-mill cannon fodder, only serving to perish in droves to accentuate the skills of the “Heroes.” The characters were quite lacking, with everyone falling into familiar tropes. Also, the show quickly devolved into a harem with the introduction of Filo — Naofumi’s side “chick” — and Melty (the second princess). By the way, not only was Filo a loli and a chocobo, she’s not even ONE—YEAR—OLD. F—k!

The art was pedestrian throughout the series, with an abundance of static shots and bland character aesthetics (off model shit and whatnot). Enjoyment wise, Shield Hero was far too predictable and tropey to have any staying power. Relying on the good versus evil dynamic — without further exploration — is just lazy writing. Speaking of which, the whole premise of the show was inane after Naofumi became the strongest, most popular hero in the show. Which makes “The Rising of the Shield Hero” a doppelgänger of the Isekai genre, that is already littered with clones aplenty.

I'm not a fan of rating anime as they're airing, in fact I'm actually opposed to it and find it incredibly annoying. But I felt like this time it should be an exception.

Ok first of all I'm going to try to review this anime the best possible way I can without completely going off the rails and insulting it (which I will be doing a lot) but I will rate it professionally and not just based on my bias thoughts on how shitty this anime is.

Well let's start.

This anime sucks, it really does, and no this isn't coming from a point of ... view of hating on something because it's new and trendy. This anime is just plain bad and I wish it wasn't bad.


Story - The story is typical guy that goes into a virtual world and has this fate of making the world better, similar to rezero, slime, and SAO, it's not very creative or new. It's another milk to the genre. Just another typical anime with the same shit, with the same aspirations. The story so far is not interesting at all, it just seems like a combination of all the worst things in anime. The loli, the furry girl who will do everything for you and doesn't have a true independence in her personality. No cool action has happened, nothing cool whatsoever has happened. Except the red haired bitch screwing up the MC and making the viewer angry for obvious reason. The MC developing more and more of a sasuke-like revenge personality. Nothing is new, nothing is creative, in fact it's doing more of the bad things. SAO was at least innovative because it was the first anime to make the genre big.


Characters- Possibly the worst part of the series. Because I understand isekai anime will be isekai anime, it will be about virtual shit. But the characters CAN make up for it. But in this case, they're not giving me anything to work with. Ok raphtalia is cute, and it makes all the fanboys horny. But a badass and independent character who was supposed to grow and create some self worth for herself turned into what? a mindless token to the MC and for fanboys to get boners over? c'mon man. And the thing that really made me lose faith in this anime is when the loli/bird came into the mix. That's just all I needed for me to realize this anime is a fanservice for all the casual fans out there. The MC is not bad, but he's typical, and he looks like sasuke so that shit is already a negative.


I'm sorry if I offend any of you guys that read this but please watch better anime. There's more to an anime than furries, and lolis, watch something like Dororo and not this trash.

3/10 it's trash. Garbagio.

Rising of the Shield Hero? More like rising of the Edgelord Hero!

[Warning: Spoilers]

Shield Hero is another overrated isekai the fandom overhyped it being "different from other isekai" and to an extent I could see where they’re coming from since it did have a promising start, but then it continuously declined with each episode and devolved into a generic, power fantasy, loli harem isekai.

Story (3/10):

The story is about 4 otakus who get summoned into this world where they’ve become legendary heroes and have to defeat the succession of waves to save the World in order to go home. However, the show would be over if ... we fought all the waves so quickly, right? To drag out the story, we follow Naofumi’s party daily lives as they: learn about this world, fight monsters, fulfil side adventures, buy new items/equipment, become merchants and start trading (which comes off as bootleg Spice & Wolf), and most importantly deal with the latest contrived drama Naofumi has gotten himself into. I’ll explain this in more detail later on.

Characters (2/10):

Naofumi starts out as this misunderstood ‘nice guy’. That’s all I can describe him because he had no personality and we know barely anything about him or his past. He gets played by Myne and is accused of a rape accusation. This is only the first of many acts created to shit on Shield Hero. The show constantly goes out of it’s way to portray the royals, heroes and pretty much everyone in the world as unlikeable assholes to make Naofumi the victim. Naofumi is the “nice guy” who believes he has terrible luck for being chosen as the shield hero, which is seen as the worst class. Myne’s betrays him, steals all his money, he gets a false rape accusation, a bad reputation, ostracised by everyone and because of this Naofumi’s drastically changes into a edgy ‘morally grey’ anti hero- who buys a child slave in order to fight for him. Thus the story how the Edgelord Hero is born!

My problem with this is Naofumi at the beginning is a blank slate that isn’t fleshed out enough so his sudden change doesn’t resonate with me. I’m not yearning for Naofumi to go back to his old self because we didn’t spend enough time for me to care about him. Edgelord Hero doesn’t have much of a personality or endearing qualities, he’s just a standoffish, cynical asshole who’s less sociable, has trust issues and asks quest givers money for his help.

The amount of forced drama is so poorly written and contrived that it’s emotionally manipulative. The writer wants you to feel sympathetic to Naofumi’s cause and root for him in this ultimate underdog story. Too bad I’ve got none for the Edgelord Hero! For example, why should I be rooting for him Vs Spear Hero to win his duel so he can keep his slave?

You want to know what I don’t understand? Is these evil assholes who are hellbent on screwing with Edgelord Hero, [i] need him [/i] to save their world. He has no reason whatsoever to fight for them, so why do they hate him with a passion? Why do they keep handicapping one of their four chosen heroes? For example, the King giving him less starting gold, not giving him information about the hourglass to access the waves, not letting him class upgrade. It makes no sense.

We aren’t given a explanation as to why they act the way they do, so unless it’s for the Lolz, it’s to make Edgelord Hero the victim. LN readers are constantly saying “there’s a reason for all this, you just have to wait!” but the writer has dragged this out for 20 episodes with little hints alluding to why (e.g. a history of nefarious shield heroes), while adding more contrived drama to the point where I’m exhausted and desensitised to the whole situation. The reveal after all this buildup was sooooo underwhelming. The consequences was incredibly childish and pathetic, that I will spare you the details and just say it was akin to one of the school playground punishments.

Raphtalia is a bland, poorly written heroine (Demi-human) who went from a scared, meek little girl with a tragic backstory of being tortured, in slavery, had PTSD over her parents death, to losing all her flaws and any potential of emotional conflict that could have led to some good character development because of how she changed in a instantaneous, implausible manner e.g. an absurd personality change and rapid aging that happened offscreen after two episodes to gain qualities to make her the “perfect waifu”. Her development is too unrealistic. She remains a static “Naofumi sama” bot for the rest of the show.

This may sound sensitive to some, but I have to say, this show romanticizes slavery. It sweeps under the rug the nature of Edgelord Hero and Raphtalia’s master/slave relationship, him buying her out of necessity because Edgelord Hero can’t attack or trust anyone else to party with. Edgelord Hero punishing Raphtalia when she didn’t bend to his orders. It’s worse in the manga where it was stated Edgelord Hero bought her because she’s a girl that looks similar to Myne so he could project his pent up hatred on her.

They wasted the opportunity to explore the themes/morality addressed with slavery and their dynamic in detail. For example, Raphtalia essentially was a broken slave who’s lost everyone she’s ever cared about. It’s clear Raphtalia developed stockholm syndrome for Edgelord Hero over a few instances of kindness due how shit her life has been and the story about the legendary Shield Hero who will save the demi humans. Instead of showing how unhealthy their relationship is with both of them depending on each other to “lick each other’s wounds”, leading to some good character development for both of them, it’s portrayed to make Raphtalia the perfect waifu who unconditionally loves Edgelord Hero, who worships the ground he walks on and will stand by him even when everyone in the world’s betrayed him. Doesn’t that sound like a edgy fanfiction to you? They could have slowly developed their relationship into a genuine romance with them gradually growing closer- slowly letting each others walls down, begin to trust each other (despite being ostracised from society) and eventually fall in love.

It was hard to watch the scene where Raphtalia was angry that the kingdom freed her from slavery and was defending Edgelord Hero basically saying:

“Naofumi sama is kind! He feeds me, bought me a ball, he tortures me when I don’t bend to his will i.e. being scared to fight, but it’s okay because I want to be his slave!” Her level of stockholm syndrome surpasses that of a battered wife. Raphtalia is nothing more than pure waifu bait. Worse of all is Naofumi doesn’t see the problem with slavery, he doesn’t change his perspective with the slave trader and becomes a regular customer, hell he doesn’t even apologise to Raphtalia. This is further evident when Raphtalia wants to go to the slave owner’s shop to get a new slavery mark because she likes being his slave- she wears it as a badge of honour now. Who the hell cares about her years of PTSD when it’s magically cured from a few moments of kindness?! As long as you fed and pet your slave then you can be a great slave owner!

Filo is a one-dimensional, generic, cute bird loli with no depth. The only reason she’s a loli is for fan service. I despise Filo because when she joins the party the story goes downhill. It started off deep with a darker tone to it which was interesting, but slowly devolved into a lighthearted, generic harem isekai with loli’s joining one after another. The parental relationship between Edgelord Hero and Raphtalia becomes a competition between Filo and Raphtalia for the Edgelord Hero’s affection, despite him not returning it. Malty gains feelings for him too, because it’s not Isekai if all the girls don’t worship/ fall in love with the self-insert protagonist right?

Myne is a one dimensional, spiteful, unlikeable, basic bitch with no depth. I don’t think ever witnessed a character who was created to be as insufferable and hated like her. Her only motivation in life seems to be ruining Edgelord Hero’s life e.g. faking a rape accusation, stealing all his money, lying about Raphtalia being held against her will as a slave, interfering in the Shield/Sword duel while trying to have the King and Pope cover for her. I don’t even hate Myne anymore because that’s what the author wants and won’t give him that satisfaction. I feel sorry for her for being a victim of bad writing. Together with her trusty sidekick Spear Hero they become so comically evil, i can’t take them seriously. There a discount version team rocket because even they have more depth than them.

The king is another one dimensional prick who’s hated the Edgelord Hero since his inception.

The Queen feels like a plot device. She’s isn’t present for the first 15 or so episodes to allow for Naofumi hate conspiracies to continue and when she eventually shows up out of the blue after her Country had gone to shit. She magically solves all of his problems. The Queen’s reason for being away from her Country is absolute BS, since if she really wanted to reprimand the King her little shadow bodyguards could have delivered the message.

The three heroes are one dimensional caricatures. We never follow their journey, view events from their perspective or really learn anything about them:

Motoyasu aka. Spear hero... the guy has the most screentime out of the three and yet he’s a utter moron lacking any brain cells. Seriously, his level of stupidity is unrealistic. For example, who the hell starts a fight in the middle of the city? and when they get called out for damaging the place he gets all pissy about being a hero. The dude was the first to pipe up accusing Naofumi being a sexual offender, all the while trying to molest Filo at every given opportunity. Why is are these hypocrites okay with this? Pedoyasu needs to be castrated because his Filophilla is uncomfortable to watch. Honestly, I’ve given up on Spear Hero. The guy’s either being a brainless pawn or straight up comedic relief.

I literally can’t describe Itsuki aka. Bow Hero, because he has no personality or character besides a hero complex.

Ren aka. Sword Hero (Not Kirito) seems to be the most competent out of the three, too bad he’s still as bland as the others.

The three heroes are more like the three stooges. Everything about them from the lacklustre characterisation, to their dialogue and actions are some of the most lazy, poor written I’ve ever encountered. It’s really annoying that they are continuously portrayed as incompetent morons who can’t do anything right, since their sole purpose is to make Edgelord Hero look good saving the day! I understand it was it meant to be a plot point to portray how they view the world as a game e.g. them not treating the NPCs as real people or not properly completely a quest, however the writer goes out of his way to emphasise the stupidity of these idiots by making the three heroes' attacks always follow the same move of “Meteor shot/thrust/slash" and attack at the same time like when they fought the dimensional spirit it’s simply lazy writing on the writers part. Their development is inconsistent. After Edgelord Hero points out the three heroes flaws and they come to terms with him not being the guy he’s been portrayed as you’d think these guys would grow, but nope. The three heroes are the still the same idiots who antagonise Naofumi, still use the same attacks and treat the world as a game. The heroes (especially Motoyasu) always follow every word Myne says, being gullible to the fact that the Edgelord Hero is being setup at every opportunity for no reason. I think the worse case was when Myne said Edgelord Hero was brainwashing Melty so she tried to kill her sister.

The game mechanics are stupid and unnecessary in this fantasy setting. It’s been proven time and again that levelling means absolutely nothing.

The way how the everyone in the Country is portrayed as unlikeable, cult following assholes who hate Naofumi is beyond unrealistic. None of them behave like real people. Whenever Naofumi points out how obvious it is that everyone is conspiring against him, no one seems to bat an eye? They never believe him, which to be fair he does a shit job at defending his case e.g. The heroes accuse the Edgelord Hero of brainwashing his party and yet they have no evidence to support their claim. Does Edgelord Hero mention this? No. Why doesn’t he show one of the heroes his skill tree to show he doesn’t have a brainwashing shield? Myne states that Melty has been brainwashed and has to be rescued, she then proceeds to try kill her and all the heroes do is stand there like dumbasses as if she didn’t just do what Edgelord Hero was saying. Myne’s whole potryal and evil laugh is like the most generic mustache twirling villain ever.

The pacing was bad. The constant montage sequence to try develop character interactions where they’re bonding isn’t working. It’s a shallow attempt to make me care about them. Another problem is the way it’s chopping scenes together e.g. Edgelord Hero & Raphtalia are waiting for Melty & Filo, the next they’re meeting the Pope.

I really don’t like the rage shield. Not only is it a powerup that focuses on his rage boner, it defeats the purpose of him being a tank. It’s bullshit that the lower level tank is doing more damage to the enemy than the three heroes combined who are higher levelled, got better gear, equipment and are offensive classes. It would have been better if the heroes cooperated and Edgelord played the tank. Not to mention, there’s no real consequence for using the rage shield. Edgelord Hero didn’t need time to learn how to master the shield e.g. he just uses it in the second wave not because his party or the other heroes were defeated and it was his last option, but because it was taking to long to defeat the boss. In fact, there’s no tension in the show. Edgelord Hero is stronger than everyone in the Country who could try to mess with him. His party is loyal to a fault and will never leave him.

Animation (5/10):

The animation is mediocre, the CGI is horrendous. Don’t believe me? Look at the T-Rex. Th action scenes are terrible. Not only are they so static that it reminds of you a Pokemon battle where characters take turns attacking, but the choreography and storytelling is weak.

Conclusion (2/10):

Naofumi is a classic example of a MC who in real life would be so unlikeable that no one would hang out with him, let alone have girls fawn over him. This show panders to the types who want to think it's the worlds fault.

Everything that happens to Edgelord Hero is fuelled to making him the poor misunderstood victim of a revenge story going against the authoritative power (e.g. royalty, legendary heroes), who are the bad guys. The audience is supposed to emphasise with his plight as a underdog trying to free his name/reputation and build towards the satisfying climax where Naofumi sticks his middle finger at the big guy as he finally gets his revenge for all their wrongdoings... The problem here is the execution is appalling.

Shield Hero has the elements to be a good show, such as an interesting story, usage of game mechanics and world building, but the storytelling is badly written, the characters having no substance, the villains have nothing going for themselves and are comically evil- to the point it becomes repetitive and boring. If you need to hammer down the same plot points and themes while sacrificing any potential interesting thematic elements then you’re doing something wrong.

I’ve read the manga to see if it might change my perspective and manga/LN readers kept banging on how much better it was. I’m pleased to inform you, that’s not the case. The anime has been more faithful than most isekai adaptations. They did change a couple of scenes and remove, but that was bound to happen due to time constraints. The anime toned down Naofumi and omitted his inner monologues to make him more of a generic, good guy isekai MC. I don’t see this as much of a problem though, since him being a edgy insufferable twat like his manga counterpart isn’t any better.

The point is the manga isn’t much better than the anime, as it still suffers from the same pitfalls. Shield Hero is shallow, poorly written revenge porn.

This show had so much potential when it first aired (I did not read the lite novel) but after a friend nagged me into watching the current 18 episodes. I have found nothing enjoyable about this show apart from the OP (which is actually pretty good).

The "Story": (*SPOILERS*) I put "" around story because this show really doesn't have one. It started off with a good premise. Dude gets put into a game-ish world and gets falsely accused of rape. He is then cast out by his comrades and is rock bottom. Really good stuff for a show called Rising of The Shield Hero, since ... he has to start from bottom and rebuild his reputation. BUT! the show dismisses that after a few episodes like it never even happened. After about episode 4 things go downhill quick. Nothing of any meaning happens at this point. There's no plot or over-arcing story to be seen, Some of the most boring and anti-climatic fight scenes I've seen in any show, BORING characters, It has one or two decent episodes sprinkled in like episode 15 but that's about it.

Art: It's pretty generic, nothing stands out as pretty or anything but that's not a bad thing. It's not painful to look at but It's also not beautiful, just meh

Sound: Again nothing special. The First op is really good but the rest of the score is very generic. Which is sad since it is Kevin Penkin who did the Made in Abyss OST (which is amazing if you didn't know) and the sound of character abilities is boring, they have no oompf to them, forgettable.

Characters: Naofumi is both smart and dumb at the same time. He's a good judge of character one minute and terrible the next. He's okay as far as characters go but he doesn't stand out like other protagonists in other shows. Raphtalia is probably the only decent character in this show. She's also the only character who gets any development (Literally). Filo is annoying but you get used to it. Malty could've been a good character but she just turns into part of the harem girl #3. The other "heroes" are extremely ANNOYING. They are also 100% useless. The Redhead (cant even remember her name) is someone the show wants you to hate but just end up getting annoyed at the sight of her. She will give you a headache. All the other side characters are very forgettable and don't do anything for the "story".

Enjoyment: After the first few episodes and episode 15, I don't see how people get excited to watch this show week after week.

Overall: Skip it, if you want a show like this watch the following instead: Log Horizon (Very similar) Overlord (Very Similar) Sword Art Online... (This but somehow better) Anything else...

The story seemed great at the beggining but all become into a dumpster fire when more lolis appeared in the show, and that's when I realized the characters have no chemistry between the viewer and the show. I can't feel anything for any of them. Sorrey waifufags but as a woman I can see the things in a more clear way. Okay, besides annoying lolis, this show also has a team rocket, who appeared every fucking episode doing some boring shit like bullies that run away when the good guy solves everything or btfo them. Also the fights were so boring as hell, art was ... close to zero. I mean okay, iron maiden's appearance was great but the rest of the fights? trash (no, not you trash, the other trash).

Moving onto the art, awful awful cgi, the parts that were supposed to look amazing were laughable the most part of the time, I can't believe I loose my time watching this show. Godzilla vs. Giant Bird was the cherry on the cake. The tense got lost and instead it made me laugh so hard and also I felt ashame of watching the show.

Characters, ok, I may have a problem, but I DISLIKE Raphtalia's character, unlike people that loves her character just because muh waifu raccon, muh loli, or waifu 1dimensional seasonal bait, I do dislike her. I used to think about her as a meh character when reading the manga and reading some WN spoilers but anime made her dirty specially in her character focus episode.
Naofumi, was well, at the begginig I felt pity for his fate and also maybe wanted him to find happiness BUT the show made me change my mind once the show advanced, OP shield? really? OP powers REALLY?! okay man I guess you don't need help much less the help of Raphtalia aka your sword since you have too OP powers, huh? well, have a happy life, you are not interesting anymore since also seems you forgave trash and slut for making your life miserable (at least at the beggining).

The rest of the characters are forgettable, I don't even remember well the name of the rest, I guess, I need to reread manga and try to read the LNs...At least the characters were more enjoyable in the manga.

The sound, well, I guess is okay. i heard the guy in charge of the ost was the same of MiA, yeah I guess that could be possible but definitely his work here was way too inferior from his work in MiA.

To sum up, If you want to loose your time and think watching a raccon girl is worth your time or maybe if you are a furryfag, slavefag, waifufag, etc. This show is for you. You won't be dissapointed. Also, what about taking note of this: That tight raccon girl is a 10 years old girl who also wants to impress her benefactor (her owner) by wearing swimsuits and making sandwiches. (That reminds me of a certain mary sue...)

Review contains Spoilers



To sum up Tate no Yuusha, it is nothing but a trash revenge story with a cumulation of pointless fillers and an ever-increasing harem – with obvious atrocious writing. The first few initial episodes did a great job of getting my attention. Although it touched sensitive matters like Rape and slavery – it was never a big deal.
The anime community is filled with shield hero memes, flaming discussions and constant best girl stuff that it is literally impossible for anyone to ignore it.


It starts off as our shut-in NEET teleported to an isekai – resembling another generic RPG based world. The ... plot is simple – four heroes are summoned from their respective worlds to fight against the waves in order to protect the realm. Our protagonist kun is supposedly the one with the shield while the other three heroes have cooler weapons. While the other three heroes were practically useless during the course of the story and did nothing that qualifies themselves to be called “heroes” while living in delusion that they are playing a game.
Starting with an RPG based simple setting – things get darker as our shield bro gets accused of Rape. From then, follows a series of wild accusations towards Naofumi from the Royals. Naofumi is wrongly portrayed as the enemy of the public by the royal family and the heroes follow the bandwagon without any actual evidence and logic. By these turns of events, the shield hero is made more morally grey – added with his personality, an interesting character but is never explored beyond that.


There's so much going on to break immersion, especially considering how they bill Naofumi at the start; he's someone who plays fast and loose with things like honor and morals as a response to the world boning him. And yet, we don't get to see that beyond the first few episodes. Everything that is interesting is forgotten in a matter of an episode.

The story focuses on corruption and justice at a surface level. The revenge themes presented is one dimensional, inconsistent character writing, obvious pacing and filler problems, and finally turns into a harem.

The pacing is atrocious, and I’m not even blowing away the proportions on this one. The whole hot springs episode? It was only there for the jealousy cliché, which was alright but beyond noticeable and could have been dealt with as a side plot rather than a whole episode dedicated to it. There is another beach episode in the latter end of the story. The entire Raphtalia backstory part two wasn’t necessary to the narrative and was literally forced upon in between a side quest. The bad guy was again a bad guy because bad guys are supposed to be bad, nothing else. A cartoonish personification of an evil dude because of money and corruption. The whole backstory stretched itself to around five fucking episodes with barely affecting the story or the characters. The only purpose it served was creating more hatred towards the system (which was against Naofumi) at a one-dimensional layer. Then we get to the pope part – who is another installment of “We have to wipe out the devil of the shield”, which again was boring and without any substance.

Also, what the actual fuck was the last episode. Most parts of the final arc was literally filler but the final 5 minutes were so rushed that we got a plot twist which made no sense in accordance to the rules that the anime has already set along with an underwhelming battle and an anti-climactic ending. All they did was throw wine at her and next minute they all leave and the waves over and they have a new person in the party in the span of 3 minutes. I'm still giving it a benefit of doubt considering these would be explored in a supposedly season 2 which I am definitely not watching.


The battles in shield hero severely lack dynamics. It’s like the heroes are arguing with each other over a course of a battle and the opponent does nothing. Battles seem flat and formulaic and not to mention – boring. The spell names are so long and stupid, over 5 minutes of a 20 minutes battle content would have been saved if they were shortened or simply, removed. The heroes are supposed to be heroes – the literal meaning yet they have done nothing extraordinary in terms of their talent. When in the rare case of a melee attack, it’s usually either one single weapon slash or a weapons clash, which is followed up by another long conversation. The constant ranged attacks which are literally the same all over are already boring, and now when the former happens, it ends as fast as it started – the whole generic thing with stupid ass convo during a battle. The whole rage/demon shield was supposed to be great if it actually had any negative impact that wasn’t negated by the harem crew simple hugging him every time.



Rapthalia’s whole character is based upon loving Naofumi, without any substance. Her character is based upon riding Naofumi’s sword more than being his sword. She is a cheap excuse of being a great waifu for lonely depressed weebs. Naofumi is a classic example of an MC who in real life would be so unlikeable that no one would hang out with him, let alone have girls fawn over him - pandering bait for those who think it is the world’s fault. Filo is just an annoying character with barely any personality. She exists as jailbait for the above context lolicons. Another addition to our shield bro’s harem is another loli, which, unfortunately, wasn’t much rememberable because of her whole character existing within the worst part of the anime. The entire character of the girls revolves around the shield hero– on top of that the same scenes over obsessing shield hero take over the half episode.


The “bad” guys in this anime remind me of Romanticism in literature. Back then, characters were walking allegories of singular traits they embodied. A character was so cartoonishly evil because they were the embodiment of... well, evil. Malty is a bitch, well for no reason. The king is inherently evil because of a small grudge, while which is still a better excuse. The spear guy is made into a stupid lolicon, and the other two heroes are just mary sues. It seems to me that everyone is made dumb just to get to the next plot point. The kidnapping plot – with the original assassination attempt, just ignore those two soldiers in the background holding a crystal ball towards you and chuckling evilly while you do nothing about it, then at the mansion, Naofumi is shown suspicious of basically everyone; and while they should keep watch because they’re in danger, he lets the children go wander off unsupervised. And then get surprised anyways. The character writing in this show is so inconsistent even in terms of a power fantasy trash novels. The list on how shield hero’s characters suffer from trash writing is Voluminous.

The art style is mediocre and nothing great in particular. To be fair I’ve never liked Kinema Citrus’ work and Kevin’s soundtracks. Kevin’s soundtracks were never rememberable in the anime. I watched the entirety of MiA but I never knew that the soundtracks were considered a masterpiece.



Tl;dr
the story in shield hero:
• every hero is stupid except naofumi.
• everyone hates naofumi even though he saves the people every time because they lack common sense.
• thousands of fillers and slowly turning into a loli harem.
• pacing is bad
• the writing is bad.
• Inconsistent character writing
• Boring fights with no sense of tension
• Malty finally gets punishment which wasn't really a punishment
• Another beach episode and Raphtalia wanting Naofumi's sword.
• Illogical ending.



Story/Themes/Pacing (25%): 2/10
Characters (15%): 2/10
Artstyle/Animation/Soundtrack (15%): 6/10
Enjoyment (45%): 2/10

Total: 2.6/10

Alright, so I'm going to explain how Shield Hero endorses slavery, is completely devoid of intellectual or artistic value, and is irredeemable in any/all respects.

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The Setup:

The main character (Shield Zero) is transported to another world and has no good way to fight. He tries to recruit comrades, but the female adventurer that volunteers to accompany him betrays him, steals his equipment, and falsely accuses him of raping her.

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... The Response:

Feeling hurt, Shield Zero vows to exact vengeance on the people that made him look bad and hurt his feelings (no they didn't seriously harm him physically, or really do anything to him; they actually let him go). In order to exact this vengeance, he decides he needs someone to fight for him; he could try to become stronger on his own, but he quickly forfeits that option because that would require effort. Since he can no longer trust anyone (becwuz his feewings are hurt), he decides to purchase a slave.

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The Slavery:

Shield Zero purchases a child animal girl. Through a magical slave contract, he forces this girl to fight for him against her will. He then (unintentionally or not) brainwashes this girl into falling in love with him. This is so severe, that even when she is freed from her slave contract, she insists that Shield Zero reinstate the magical slave contract so that she is once again bound to his will.

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Proof of Slavery Endorsement:

Let's go over the chain of events:

1. Shield Zero arrives in alternate world.
2. Shield Zero acquires comrade in order to fight.
3. Shield Zero loses comrade in betrayal.
4. Shield Zero (supposedly) has no way to fight and is (supposedly) helpless.
5. Slavery is introduced.
6. Shield Zero purchases slave and uses slave to fight.
7. Story continues.

If slavery did not exist in this world, our Shield Zero would be royally screwed (according to his own self-victimizing logic), therefore, the existence of slavery is directly what allowed him to continue his journey and ultimately preserved his life.

Anyone in the show who is shown to criticize his slave ownership is portrayed as being stupid, selfish, and/or ignorant.

There are never any consequences for purchasing and using slaves.

Shield Zero is portrayed as a heroic figure time and time again. For a very short time, he is shown to be vengeful and therefore harsh due to his desire for vengeance, but never evil, and always righteous. He is also portrayed as being very kind, as he feeds and treats his slaves well; not well enough to avoid forcing them into battle, but better than they were being treated before.

His brainwashing of slaves is portrayed as kindness. I'd like to note that slavery is illegal in most of the world despite some people actually desiring to be slaves. It doesn't matter how well slaves are treated or even if they like their predicament. Slavery is unequivocally immoral, and is therefore illegal regardless of circumstances or individual desires.

This is made far worse by the fact that the slaves Shield Zero purchases are children, and are still forced to kill and fight against their will. There is little else in the world more evil than the mental and physical torture of children.

No, it does not matter that these children are okay with being slaves. Brainwashing is something that occurs in real life and is even more effective on children.

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The Message:

Shield Hero very strongly sends the message that slavery is okay, with a caveat: you need to treat your slaves well.

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Refuting Common Defenses:

You will often see people defending this show by saying that Shield Zero improves the lives of his slaves, and therefore, the slavery is justified. IT IS NOT. I cannot stress this enough, slavery is never justified. It is an unbelievably cruel and dehumanizing practice that still occurs in the world today. It's one of the most horrible things in existence and can never, EVER be justified. It is more unsettling to think that Shield Zero is supposed to be a regular Japanese 20 year old from our modern world. His values are supposed to be better than that; there is no excuse.

If you like this show, I'm not going to judge you. We all have our fantasies, but that's all this is: a child slave power fantasy. The artistic merit of Shield Hero is equivalent to that of loli hentai, and it has no intellectual value whatsoever. Keep in mind that the age rating for this show is 13+

I would like to make clear that it is not the depiction of slavery that is so unsettling here, it is the light in which slavery is portrayed that is utterly unsettling.

There are plenty of anime that display slavery; the difference is they do so with tact. Berserk and One Piece are two examples I can think of off the top of my head that handle slavery well. The depiction of slavery in those works is unsettling, yes, but it is not shown in a positive light, and is instead completely rejected and abhorred by their respective protagonists.

On one final note, I need to refute one last argument, because I know there will still be people yelling it at me and saying "HAHA GOTCHYA!!!"

A Real Argument I've Seen:
Just because Shield Zero is a bad guy doesn't make the show bad! Light from Death Note is a bad guy and that show is good, so you just don't like this show and that's why you say it's bad.

The Answer:
Yes... Death Note is good... but Light is portrayed as an absolute psychopath and despite his wishes, is recognized as the villain in his story. Shield HERO is the HERO; this isn't irony, or anything close, he's the hero of the story plain and simple. He's doing evil shit... as the hero who is portrayed in a positive light. That's the difference.

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Conclusion:

The Rising of the Shield Hero blatantly endorses slavery and is by far the most reprehensibly disgusting anime I have ever seen, and I've seen a shitload of anime.