The story starts with a cliche and is incredibly predictable all the way through but seems to be fine in the first few episodes, and it continues to have strong points such as the weapon skill system, the hero's character development and travels, decent and frequent fight animations, etc... However there were many negative points as well, a big one being the need to have the protagonist surrounded by little girls who fall in love with him, one who grows into the body of an adult in weeks, and another one who can shapeshift (but chooses to look like a kid), this pedo-bait element really ruins it for me, not only this anime falls into the crappy harem formula that most shonen follow, but they try to maximize revenue by making them enamored children who can magically not look like children. Well, there are also straight up children who accompany and love the hero too.
Trying to avoid spoilers, the anime follows our hero being well, a hero, emphasizing how despite his shortcomings he can be more heroic than his counterparts, there isn't much depth to it but the story is constantly moving to the next objective while a bigger threat is looming over everyone so it is engaging enough.
The most complexity you'll see is maybe the turmoil in Naofumi's head due to the way he's treated by most who meet him, there's also the way he perseveres in growing as a fighter and makes a living even when always being against comically cartoonish one-dimensional villains. Don't expect much really, despite being the supposed weakling, Naofumi has OP abilities that make every difficult and potentially interesting encounter trivial, and is lucky finding incredibly powerful companions, all of which takes away from the plot, most growth Naofumi experiences comes by chance instead of through merit.
I just know I would've loved this story when I was 15, but now that I've seen plenty of good stories this anime feels shallow, generic and focused on fanservice, watch it if you want a long fantasy story where the story is action-focused, fast-paced and easy to follow, and you don't mind the slightly sexualized lolis. The end of the season sets up some promising developments but I have low expectations, seeing how they introduced them while adding a new girl to the ever growing harem of the shield hero...
