Better than S2?
Without a doubt! but that's not an achievement.
I should have listened to the elitists on twitter when they called this show mid.
Gone are the golden immersive sequences which caught me by surprise in the marvellous orchestration of S1. This season I could barely stop myself from pausing the video, several times, in utter disappointment. I struggle now to recommend this series to anyone other than the Isekai fanatics.
Let's be honest, they got us good. That short stretch of episodes we were blessed with at the dawn of S1 have lived rent-free in our heads for too long. The novelty has now worn off, they can longer hide the flaws.
I remember the loud LN readers telling us how the show was going to be far better after S2's failure. "Tortoise arc was the worst one", "The characters get so much better". I'm not going to say they're wrong. It's no where near as bad as S2, except, what's carrying this experience are the animators and Admiral Penkin, not the story.
Ultimately we must now come to grips with the fact that this show is barely a mid-tier Isekai. The writing and direction are in absolute shambles.
After watching so much anime, I doubt I would find many first times for anything. This show managed to be the first time I was bored during a tournament arc.
I'm a sucker for tournament arcs, but if you wanted to make me hate them, just do it like these guys did.
The tournament arc was just too quick, too sloppy and had such a lack of attention to detail that It just left me stunned frozen in disillusionment. I won't even use lack of tension, as they didn't allow enough time for the brawling to get tense, paradoxically speaking.
To go into depth, something simple but important like their disguises were butchered. Honestly they were like an elephant hiding behind a bamboo tree. Every twist and turn of this arc broke my concentration. It was all so rough consequently lacking tact and a genuine atmosphere. You could never stop take in the true spectacle and emotion of environment. Oh dear! the dialogue, It was rubbish, this ruined a fair amount of the seriousness as well as any chance of me getting engrossed into it. They designed some surprises along the way but the transitions into them didn't work or felt rushed collectively cheapening the experience.
For me especially, these fights were over too fast, I needed to see more going at it, old school, head to head, 1v1s, 2v2s, 3v3s all with previous skills and abilities we have come to know from the OG squad. There was a moment where I almost got into the zone but was rudely interrupted by some annoying plot point, abruptly killing the momentum. Picture this, a crowd jam packed but seemingly dead, an announcer that is for all intensive purposes doing it for the paycheck, a plot twist but instead of bringing a welcome change of mood it stifled the creation of the mood we desired. Little things that spice up the experience were absent like, dare I say it, the spamming of authentic and interactive crowd reactions after every pivotal moment. For example; football is far less interesting without an interactive crowd of fans, fanatics, bigwigs with monetary interests and zealots who dedicate their lives to experiences like these, similarly so here, it seems like the crowd doesn't even care. The funny thing is that, there are many shows with much worse animation/budgets that can recreate the arena environment and ambiance quite well, even if you know the outcome of fights they still manage to make it interesting and enthralling. Another golden aspect of tournaments is some sort of adherence to rules and integrity and if you track where I'm going with this, you can guess what occurred.
Here's a question, can there ever be too many women in these type of shows?
Yes.
It's even worse when the men are treated by the writers as either useless old husks filled with regrets or dumb jobbers.
I hoped for my salvation with the return of the cardinal heroes, on the contrary, they dragged me deeper into mediocrity. Giving some thought to it, outside of Naofumi, the slave merchant and the countless women we are swamped with, the level of characterization is atrocious. They're not characters, they're jobbers. Person A, Person B, Soldier A, Soldier B. There's nothing to them they're robots, barely sentient just churning out the appropriate lines and "Shield Demon" or "Shield Hero".
On the subject of these cardinal heroes. We have Motoyasu being the eldest at 21, followed by Naofumi at 20, itsuki the Archer at 17 and Ren the child swordsman at 16. Every detail we are given must be used when we judge these characters. This particular 5 year difference between the ages 16-21 has a rather large neurological and emotional significance in the development of young men. In your real life you'll find that, in this age range, a vast majority of young men make copious amounts of terrible life decisions and need quite heavy guidance during this period for ample development. Whilst this could defend the author's choices here regarding the events that went on, their work rather denotes a general tone of laziness and relegates these so called heroes to "NPCs", If I may use that term here appropriately.
Instead of vivid and creative wisdom in the writing of these characters, we are graced with undeniably some of the most amateur depictions I've ever seen. Basically the other 3 heroes are just cookie-cutter, 2 dimensional, giga social-rejects with barely any autonomy. I talked previously in my review of S2 about these heroes being used as mere plot devices, despite how pivotal a role they play in the greater plot. This season did nothing to fix this, they aren't real people, they aren't alert, they don't respond to their environment, their only job is to make Naofumi look more righteous. Countless scenes of what could have been, flow through my mind; a healthy brotherhood based on age/skill related deference with constructive liaison to bolster their strengths and minimize their weaknesses. It's a real shame because they could have created really organic and lifelike interactions between them based on their shared background from Japan, or even profitable advice, strategies and methods on levelling their skills and party members. This could have created a great deal of humorous, witty and relatable moments promoting a more memorable experience that the audience could truly appreciate. Kinship, camaraderie and things of this nature certainly would have brought the hype of this show back to S1 levels. Oh, lest I forget, the flashbacks, the oh so terrible flashbacks. Utterly laughable, how did authors/writers come up with this? It's hardly believable. They try to show you what happened during the "Tortoise Arc from hell" from the other heroes' perspectives, nevertheless it comes up short. I don't have any confidence that I could think of a more insulting way to portray these events. I was just mortified with what they came up with, a thoroughly senseless exercise in writing. What you'll find truly astounding is the sheer lack of communication between these 3 heroes, they don't really even talk to each other they have no reason not to. It's a real shame because it makes no sense, it highlights the authors neglect of these characters.
Furthermore it all takes a turn for the worse with an old antagonist making a quite startling re-appearance. Assuredly, there's no way this villain had a possible way of operating with such cunning deception in these circumstances if we assume there was a shred of forethought and coherence in the writing. The sad state these heroes are reduced to is practically unthinkable, it just doesn't make sense in the grand scheme of things. I recall their pitiful attempt to copy-paste repeat the magic of the emotional breakdown Naofumi had in S1 to give these heroes depth. The problem is, they all can't have the same breakdown. The depth, in question, just insults the audience. It doesn't grip me as a story of 4 different heroes with separate ideals, goals and interests. Far be it from such a exciting premise, rather we have; Naofumi and the 3 clowns with identical character development arcs, grudgingly I expected so much more. It doesn't end there, after the "development" you genuinely can't distinguish their characters other than some generic tropes and the wholly repugnant gag humor. Taking a step back I just can't help but notice the horrendous state of the characterization of men in this show. The only positive here is that with these 3 heroes at their lowest point they can only go up, hopefully their development steps up in a meaningful way adding some dimension to their behavior in subsequent seasons with the writer molding them into something we can actually interact with.
So you're thinking how after all this how it gets rated 7? Well let's talk about the positives.
In shows like this I love when they return to more familiar characters we have seen before to advance the plot rather than a whole host of new ones.
What's the best part of this season?
Naofumi is back as a functioning and autonomous main character whose decision-making appears appropriately refined and made wiser as a result of his rollercoaster of experiences in S1. This was a very welcome improvement from the garbage shell of an MC we were subjected to in S2.
There's also a neat dragon fight. I got some goosebumps watching that at least. How it was eventually defeated wasn't the best and the entire reason that fight even occurred was lackluster, but all in all, it did hit the spot.
The animation improved by leaps and bounds. With the help Penkin's creative score of pieces the show looked and sounded great even in it's darkest moments.
The positives run quite thin, to make matters worse, they end the season with a very annoying retcon ending.
A puzzling cliffhanger seemingly out of thin air with a whole host of new characters for S4.
Even though I'll most likely watch S4, I'm so disappointed. The hope and curiosity is rapidly fading for me because I know the writers/directors will likely lack the competence and careful thought at to really nail any of the developments of the next season without getting distracted with fanservice. They can start by stopping the flood of random female characters ruining the immersion.
If I am to describe this show for any prospective Isekai enthusiast I would say the following:
This series has a Hall of Fame S1 48min introduction, an above average S1 and the rest of it is just an average Isekai with some interesting world building, with S2 dangling it precariously into the trash region.
Quick summary
Pros this season
+ Cardinal Heroes revisited
+ Stellar Animation, good fight choreography, very colorful consistent art.
+ Very Pretty Anime Opening
+ Naofumi back as a character
+ One of the best CG dragon fights i've ever seen
+ Allows us to forget S2
+ Kevin Penkin soundtrack
+ Consistency in general
Cons this season
- Too many girls out of no where, doing crazy things. Harem ruining everything that could have been.
- Editor inspired tropes and events not helping the story.
- Male characterization is boring, filled with tropes and clichés lacking assertiveness or awareness.
- Hated being narrated to when they could just give us decent dialogue and a few scenes.
- Garbage writing.
- Garbage Characterization and developments.
- Worst tournament arc I've ever seen.
- Woeful Direction.
- Boring retcon ending/cliffhanger.
Ratings
Animation 9
Sound 8
Story 5
Characters 5
Enjoyment 7
34/50 6.8 = 7/10 Shamelessly, I'm inflating the score. (It's really a six but I'm hopeful for next season)
I had to score it above the 6 I duped out of S2 (which was more of a 4-5/10)
Don't Give Up! This series isn't finished yet. However, now is the time to lower your standards for this series. No more "peak" shouts.
It's not gonna be Slime, Re Zero, Kage No, MT or Overlord it's just little, bang-average, scraping the mid-tier shield hero and that's how it's going to be.
This season definitely got back on track, but that's all I'm afraid.
The coping LN enthusiasts, hyping up the developments of this show cannot be trusted, we must move forward with our eyes fully open, expelling any undue expectation.
Hope this helps.
