Reviews

Jun 26, 2019
When I first heard of Shield Hero I was not that impressed. It seemed like the typical isekai designed with elements to shit on the main character and get people riled up because of that. And when I watched the first episode I had some very mixed thoughts. They were dabbling with some touchy subject matter to say the least, and had many elements that I personally found off-putting, however the execution was pretty good. As it turned out the strong execution managed to mitigate the concerns I had with those elements and ended up making what I consider to be a very good show.

There is a lot of shit thrown at Naofumi. And at times it can seem quite excessive. A good portion of the show is dedicated to piling as much as it can onto him. And while I'm not the biggest fan of this, I think where the show is able to shine is in the execution of it. Shield Hero does a good job of showing how Naofumi reacts to all of this, and how his heart grew colder in relation to it. It showed the trust issues that happen to come after being falsely accused, and how it can affect his whole character. The show was able to give reasons why everything around him happened, and the whole plan around it rather than just leaving it up in the air, making it easier to understand the predicament that he was in. Since the show went into detail into showing and demonstrating the severe effects of all of this on Naofumi it makes it easy to empathize with him, and to feel for him.

It could have easily felt like too much, mainly because it was so close to being too much, but the show being able to clearly show why the characters were doing what they were doing worked well. For example, take the other heroes. While they certainly are a burden for Naofumi, it's not as if they are evil. They are actually a realistic depiction of the typical guy being isekai'd. They are naive and think everything works like a video game. They are unable to think about the consequences and go with whatever they desire. This does create problems but it's understandable why they do what they did. Overall this reaches every misfortune that happens to Naofumi, and so while it can be painful to watch, it all matches up. Ironically it's Naofumi's struggles that make it so understandable why he ends up so OP in the end. While the other heroes were just doing whatever they wanted, Naofumi was struggling through life trying to do whatever he could to survive.

Furthermore I think that Naofumi's anti-hero status was quite interesting to watch. While he grew colder there is an arguemnt to make that he didn't turn that cold and rather turned his outside cold, while still caring on the inside. His companions show this well. He clearly cares for Raptalhia despite her being his slave, and her having to do anything that he wants her to do, in theory. In fact even when he's training her and putting her through struggles, he cares about her and gives her the chance to leave. The relationship between Naofumi and Raptalhia is a high point of the show, and I think it demonstrates an interesting part of morality. Having slaves is immoral, and from that lens it'd be easy to see Naofumi as immoral. But because he picked up Raptalhia as a slave, he gives her a much better life just by treating her right, and caring for her. It's very easy to see things in a black and white manner but one thing I liked about the show is looking at these topics with more nuance. And while the show never directly talks about it, I like its able to the positive results to the grey-decisions that Naofumi had to make.

The production values are also great and do a really good job of aiding the execution. The visuals look pretty amazing, outside of some CG, and the soundtrack may not match Perkin's Made In Abyss, but it is a great good OST that fits the song well. Furthermore Kinema Citrus manages to bring out great pacing yet again and allows for the time for Naofumi and his group to bond, allowing the audience to bond with them and grow to like them. While the second half's pacing was a lot more questionable, the first half was so good and did a lot to really enhance the show.

Overall the show deals with some questionable subject matter but does it well, in a way that allowed at least me to relate and sympathize with the characters, and one that made it feel real and understandable rather than poorly written revenge porn for the sake of revenge porn. I think there's quite a bit to offer in this show and I quite enjoyed watching personally. I'd recommend it to isekai fans as for me it's one of the standouts in the bunch, and while I can't guarantee that everyone will be content with the subject matter that Shield Hero pursues, I can at least vouch and say that the merits of the show were able to mitigate the negatives of them.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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