The Rising of The Shield Hero Mid-Season Impressions With Karandi

Hello everyone and welcome to the Anime Shelter! 🙂

Today is time to have another friendly chat with the awesome Karandi! As you probably already know, at this side we are commenting The Rising of The Shield Hero and today we will be commenting on the mid/late-season evolution. Seat tight, get a cup of whatever you prefer as a beverage, and let’s go!

My part is in baby blue and regular font while Karandi’s part is in purple and in italic!

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Hey there Karandi, thanks again for being here! 😀

So, time to speak about the Rising of Shield Hero evolution to mid-season and I feel there are a few things to discuss 😛 But, first of all, I wanted to speak about the pace of the show. I’ve watched the 5 episodes in a row yesterday, so I may have a different perception than you. However, I do feel that for someone watching it on a weekly basis, it may have felt that the show dragged a little bit after the first wave. What do you think?

I’ve actually been feeling the opposite. Having read the light novels and knowing what is coming, I feel like the story is skipping over events without giving them any kind of consideration or weight and just moving us onto the next thing. I don’t know where they plan to adapt to, but it feels like they are frantically trying to get somewhere and so everything feels like it gets part of an episode to show itself and then we get moved on.

For instance, the whole seed thing with the spear hero giving it to the village and Naofumi having to clean it up. That really feels like it should have been an actual issue and explored but instead we just kind of get a ‘here’s the problem’ and then Naofumi fixes it.

Then again, parts within episodes have dragged a bit so the pacing seems a little all over the place.

Oooh, I see! Well, I believe both the seed and the zombie dragon were just there to show that the other heroes do not care what happens to this world, besides Naofumi that is… But, I can see what you are going for, both of those 2 episodes explained everything too fast. Yet again, while watching both episodes I genuinely thought that it would make a great RPG.

But, let’s start from the beginning… Episode 4, where Raphtalia is freed just to get her slave crest right away in the next episode, what do you think of that?

It didn’t really bother me because from a character point of view it makes sense. Then again, I am not in any way connecting the way slavery is portrayed in this story to real-world slavery which is a thing that just should not exist. But in the context of the story, Raphtalia is well aware that Naofumi is unable to trust others and she’s really grown to like him and wants to be by his side. For her getting the crest back is important as it means she can stay with him.

Still, I kind of get why some people found this a little silly. Why take the crest off her just to put it back? But, I felt it at least made it her choice. We couldn’t say that Naofumi kept her against her will. She made a clear and deliberate choice about who her master would be.

What did you think?

Well, I believe the point of taking the crest is to make Naofumi feel the anger and get to a desperate place so he is able to activate the “curse shield” for the first time.

I understand the idea you said, that Raphtalia did that to show she completely believes him, but, yet again, I feel that it was not really that essential. From my point of view, it was just “well, let’s make this happen so he gets angry and then we just put everything back together in the next episode”.

I also feel that the idea of her putting back her crest is just to make them go to the slave seller and have the opportunity to buy the Filo egg. I do believe though, they could go in a different route, and that Naofumi could just buy the egg in some other place.

So, in my opinion, the crest coming back is just not really that important. Unless it’s the only way to have Rapthatalia back into his party and have them share the experience of killing monsters. If not, then I believe the story would be best if this scene did not happen.

In some sort of way, it would be more interesting, even romantic if Raphtalia continued by Naofumi’s side even without the crest.

Talking about romantic, how do you feel about this new Raphtalia which seems to be crying for attention of Naofumi? Is it too much?

Really not the biggest fan of this phase with Filo and Raphtalia more or less fighting for Naofumi’s attention while he’s more or less indifferent or annoyed by their antics. Raphtalia could have been a much better character than that but it was like she regressed in age again after Filo was introduced into the mix.

Honestly, even reading the books I didn’t find much romantic about this situation. It is just one of those ridiculous light novel tropes with the oblivious main guy and the girls who all fall instantly in love with him. While Shield Hero manages to make a lot of the standard tropes a little bit more interesting by giving them a bit of a twist, this is one that it didn’t do anything to change and the result is pretty average.

Not to mention, Filo clinging to Naofumi is just kind of creepy even though she’s cute. I mean, she’s like a month old.

I completely agree with you! I’m not a fan either. I don’t believe it adds anything to the story, it’s not even funny or anything rather than annoying.

At the end of the day, Naofumi sees both Raphtalia and Filo like his daughters, especially Naofumi. There were many scenes when Filo was playing with that girl who ended up being the heir to the throne where Naofumi’s face seemed like a father when he sees his children playing.

However, it is true that is way too strange having Filo wanting Naofumi to be her mate when she sees him as a father.

Nevertheless, we do have to take into account that the creator always tries to put himself in the shoes of the characters and where they are coming from in this strange, strange world. Meaning that, when thinking on Filo, we can’t think about the cute girl that she transforms, but in her big bird original form.

Which makes me wonder, how the hell do mounts feel inside of a videogame? I could not answer even if I wanted xD

Another thing that I want to talk about is the spear hero and one of the most annoying female villains I’ve ever seen. It gets to a point where I just don’t understand why they are continuing to come for him… Is it like a bullying thing? Or is it more?

I’ll explain what I mean. For example, let’s say that the king knows a thing about the story that no-one knows, that the shield hero is weak unless he releases his dark power. If that was the case, it would explain all these games they have been doing to make him feel angry. Especially after discovering Myne is the king’s daughter, what do you think?

I’m going to not comment on that one because that would head straight into spoiler territory.

That said, I mostly think Myne is just petty and vindictive. I do not really understand her character and her motivation other than to be the single most painful character in existence, which she is succeeding at so yay for her. Why the spear hero is a big enough idiot to follow her is as yet an unsolved mystery.

“Yay for her!” ahahahah

Well, but that puts the Rising of the Shield Hero quality in question does it not? I mean, being mean just for the sake of it is not good enough. At the moment, none of the characters is given as face value, so it would be nice that Myne had some kind of explanation to be the way she is.

It may be because of her younger daughter is the one who is in first of the line to be the heir, however, that is explained that this is the case because of Myne bad behaviour when she was a child, which basically seems that Mayne is horrible from the start and that’s it.

However, that brings another question… If she is like that since childhood, how does the king believes in her when she says she was raped without batting an eye? On the other hand, now that know he was king, his reaction to what happened is pretty light isn’t it? I mean, I would want to kill the man who tried to rape my own daughter, and he is very… King like?

I don’t know, I feel that there is something happening behind the scenes that we still don’t know.

When it comes to the spear hero, well, he is just being manipulated as hell… He is an idiot, but he does have the heart in the right place from time to time. However, at this point, I just feel he is the laughing stock of the show.

Do you want to talk about any other theme or detail?

Shield Hero is pretty good at filling in details later. So I’m hoping that these inconsistencies in Myne’s character are later given a decent reason. Lots of other things that initially don’t make sense do get explained, so I’ll probably just keep hoping that, eventually, we get some decent reasons.

I did want to ask you what you thought of how the cursed shield appeared when Naofumi was fighting the zombie dragon. Mostly because this scene read really cool in the novels and then I was kind of disappointed with how ordinary it seemed in the anime. I wondered if it came off cooler to someone who hadn’t read it.

Well, I hope that too! Until now the writing has been decent, so I feel that holes so major as these ones won’t be just left unattended.

Regarding that scene, well I was so baffled how Filo was eaten so fast and without any type of notice that I was only able to think during that scene “No! She can’t be dead! Is she? It doesn’t make sense!”…

And then, I tried to focus on what was happening and think about Filo’s dead later, which of course I did not have to do.

I don’t really think it was that cool… If we compare the action between Shield Hero and Goblin Slayer, there is no question which one is better. I believe they could have done it in a more spectacular way. However, at the same time, I think it’s interesting to see this scene in Naofumi’s perspective instead of a third person.

Yes, it’s way less cool, but it makes you connect more with the character and how he is not seeing anything besides darkness and anger… Not sure if that makes sense xP

No that makes sense. I didn’t mind the first person perspective, but I just felt the whole scene lacked something. It is hard to put my finger on it, but it was like Filo’s ‘death’ just kind of happened and we didn’t even have time to react to it, and it was visually so comical it had little emotional weight. Then when Raphtalia was trying to stop Naofumi it all just seemed fairly inconsequential.

I don’t know. I just wanted more from the scene and just felt it worked well enough but it wasn’t anything all that special and it is a scene that really feels like it should be something special.

Oh well.

Is there anything else you’d like to discuss?

Yeah, I’m with you! I also feel it could be better! I’m not the same opinion as you when it comes to Filo “death” though. I think it was a very nice representation of what would happen if it was real life and it was able to shock me… And I was actually sad throughout the fighting scene.

But I understand what you mean, both Raphtalia and Naofumi did not express that much of emotion… In fact, they seemed to be as shocked as myself lolol Moreover, the great moment where he lets himself to go into darkness is not really that special or visually impactive.

Anyways, for me, I think it’s everything. I’m still enjoying The Rising of The Shield Hero and still feel that it is one of the best Anime shows coming out today. However, it does have one point here and there that I would make different.

For all that I’ll complain about one scene or another or the pacing in general, it is still in the top 5 shows I’m watching this season. Because, while it isn’t perfect by any means, it is a lot of fun and I do enjoy that Naofumi isn’t as bland as some isekai protagonists and some of the scenes do feel like they’ve got real weight behind them.

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And that’s it for today folks! What do you think? What are your thoughts regarding Raphtalia’s slavery crest? I know well that one had some polarized opinions! Tell us all your thoughts down below in the comments! 🙂

Also, don’t forget to go to Karandi’s side and check our conversation about Meiji Tokyo Renka. An Anime which deserves way more love and popularity than it’s getting!