Another day, another dream come true for the fetishistic audience drooling with 2D harems and power fantasies in the painful Isekai genre. In this special case, the worst anime of 2019 and the most similar ripoff of Sword art Online, only with a shield. There won't be spoilers of the light novels, not only because I haven't read them (why should I torture myself?), but also due to the fact that an adaptation should not depend of nothing but itself.
Story: poor.
I have nothing with Tate no yuusha, only summoning 4 generic teens and help with "waves of enemies" like an RPG, they even copied SAO interface! Only that it's not a game, and the only one of the group that comes up with the belief that this is an actual world is Naofumi, because he's the only one with common sense apparently. Also in order to victimize him during the whole season he's falsely accused of rape by his pretty female companion. Why? Fuck you, that's why! Then his only companions are 3 lolis, 2 of them being furries and one of them eventually grows into a woman but keeping the age of 10. Did I mention that 2 of them were sold by a SLAVE OWNER? Wait, it gets better: all of them become part of his harem... of course this was going to happen. I'm not going to describe further generic asspulls, victimization or the countless plot holes this thing has because they are countless and the screenwriter certainly had no idea how to avoid basic contradictions while writing dialogues.
Art: meh
Kinema citrus is a completely bad studio, putting aside Barakamon and Made in Abyss. However they managed to make a slightly decent background and generic yet acceptable character designs. However, the CGI in the battles is sickening, even for their standards. Opening and ending sequences would have been ok, hadn't those been clickbait in comparison with what can be looked in the series.
Music: Average
The composer of Made in Abyss, Kevin Pelkin, was the only good thing that happened to Shield art online but that's the only compliment I can give. At least Yuki Kajiura made an effort for SAO's soundtrack to sound more memorable; but I cannot blame the composer for working in a shitstain of a show with no substance nor style. Putting aside the OST, there's no remarkable music since OP and END songs are dull
Characters: appalling at best, cancerous at worst
Naofumi started as an edgelord, misogynistic incel and ended up as the not so edgy yet overpowered generic incel for self insert.
All the little girls of the harem are annoying, especially Raphtalia, the worst female character of the cast, which is a merit considering the competition.
"Bitch" (I don't call this character like that, the MC does) is a bad person just because. If the raccoon fetish wasn't so cancerous, this pathetic attempt of antagonist would be the worst character
Spear hero is as dense as a donkey, but at least he is endearing; while the other 2 are so irrelevant that I bet no one remembers their names
Queen is boring and the King is the only one with a non developed enough motivation for his hatred towards shield heroes.
To sum up: 3/10. It's not even worth to laugh at how much it sucks. The worst episode of Re Zero or the most boring one of Konosuba are much better written and produced than any moment of this SAO copy & paste. It's easier to prevent a disease than cure it.
