With another Wave happening in a week, Naofumi Iwatani and his party have no time to waste. However, when bat familiars raid Lurolona Village and the Wave countdown comes to a halt, the Four Cardinal Heroes reconvene with the queen, Mirelia Q Melromarc, for a quick briefing. The queen presumes that the odd occurrences are linked to the Spirit Tortoise—a threatening creature that has awakened from its slumber, back to cause havoc once again. A plan to put the Spirit Tortoise to rest is devised—but out of the four men, only the cursed Shield Hero agrees to help.
[Written by MAL Rewrite]
Nenhum episódio encontrado.
Comentários
SingleH
This show is a piece of trash, and I’m shocked I or anyone else ever gave it the time of day. The first four episodes of season one are decent, and while the production issues which would later come to plague the series were already rearing their ugly heads even back then—bad CG, bits of clunky animation, and so on—the actual story they told, at least as far as isekai is concerned, was fairly compelling, and the firestorm of internet controversy they ignited was thoroughly hilarious. However, immediately after this, the series devolved into the most generic isekai harem you’ve ever seen, and nothing aboutit is worth anyone’s time for a list of reasons both obvious and egregious.
Reason 1: How the fuck are we not bored of this yet?
Gosh, where do I even begin? I’m so glad Mushoku Tensei came out between now and the previous season of Shield Hero, because it serves as a nice and easy example to reference when explaining why this very similar anime is, in comparison, complete shit. Isekai as a genre has grown into this unholy behemoth, and almost all of it has been awful, but Mushoku Tensei was a truly refreshing exception. In oversimplified terms, both are isekai anime with an overpowered MC who is, at least ostensibly, easily characterized as a self-insert. However, their execution sets them apart completely. Where Mushoku Tensei actually cared about developing a uniquely detailed fantasy setting whose immersion was only bolstered by the stellar background art, beautiful colors, and hand-drawn detail, Shield Hero relies on the same RPG video game standard we’ve seen used fifteen billion times by now, whose drab, ugly, lackluster banality and endless info-dumping is only made worse by the hideous art design, garish CG, stale environments, and shitty over-designed, off-model character art. It’s an anime that both looks and feels incredibly cheap, and I’m having a very hard time figuring out why this series has received so much attention, even as a light novel. I understand why it grabbed peoples’ attention at first—and we’ll get back to that in a minute—but why didn’t people get bored and drop it after it became so generic and boring? Was the first arc just good enough to keep people around, no matter how awful it got? Because as it stands now, I’m genuinely challenging myself to find any difference between this and the seasonal isekais that nameless studios pump out every season, and I seriously cannot find anything.
Reason 2: What the fuck is the author expecting me to see in this man?
Whenever a show comes out that doesn’t conform to peoples’ strict worldview, it has become normal to see internet mobs trying to “cancel” such anime. The most common source of this sort of whining and bitching is, as one might expect, lolis. Anime containing loli fanservice or lolis in general will very often find themselves the targets of raging lynch mobs screaming about how they contain or promote pedophilia, and while this may seem like a ridiculous thing to suggest, I must say, as an individual who grew up and lives in a country where the first response to gun violence in schools has always been out-of-touch elected officials blaming the sales figures of Grand Theft Auto V, this method of conflating fictional entertainment with real life social issues is actually a very common thing. However, in the anime community, these people almost always come across as virtue signaling prudes or, as is most often the case, as complete charlatans who don’t actually give a shit and who just want to ignite controversy surrounding a show they don’t like. I know reviews can be taken down for analysis like this, but I’m not technically breaking the rules as I’m not commenting on viewers of this show specifically, and either way, I don’t disrespect the hustle. I’m an attention whore myself, and I’m glad I brought up Mushoku Tensei earlier, because the controversy surrounding that series absolutely reeked of this, and it remains a good comparison for my thoughts on Shield Hero. The protagonist of Mushoku Tensei was an outright sexual deviant, and this became quite controversial not simply as a matter of fact, but also because the series and its characters seemed to go out of their own way to make excuses for his behavior in a way many found discomforting.
Personally, I enjoyed Mushoku Tensei for two main reasons. Firstly, it had a clear and impressive amount of effort put into its production, and seeing such love and care from the creators behind it gave me an inherent respect for the series. Secondly and more importantly, it was shockingly and consistency well-written in a way that most anime—and certainly most isekai—are not. But why is this relevant to the controversy, and why is the controversy relevant to Shield Hero? Naofumi is, generally speaking, a good person, and Rudeus, the protagonist of Mushoku Tensei, is not. He’s a borderline narcissist who has great difficulties recognizing his own faults, and whenever he does recognize such faults, he turns into a pouty child who’s incapable of getting out of his own head and improving in real terms. Much more damning is the fact he’s a pervert, and his willingness to cross the physical boundaries of women in his life is only exacerbated by the fact he’s the protagonist of an isekai harem and, quite crucially, knows it. Before being isekai’d, he was a disgusting otaku NEET who spent his days jerking off to anime girls exactly like the one’s who he now inhabits a world surrounded by, so his tendency to instantly view and treat the women he meets as sex objects is frankly gross. I could go on, but hopefully you get BOTH of the points I’m making here. Point one is obvious: Rudeus really is a scummy guy. But the second point is what I’m really getting at: Rudeus is a real, fleshed-out, well-rounded, flawed character, NOT a self-insert. He has some positive qualities, and he has what some might consider to be a relatable backstory, but he is far too complex and unpleasant of a character to be broadly considered a “self-insert.”
In comparison, Naofumi was a real character for about four episodes, and ever since those first four episodes (which were not the most brilliantly written pieces of literature in the first place), he has been a classic, hollow, lifeless self-insert, and this is where the controversy becomes relevant, because what is a self-insert? Why is it used as a derogatory term? A self-insert is a protagonist who the author deliberately designed to be as generic and unremarkable as possible, while simultaneously being as relatable as possible, but only by means of the most inoffensive, broadly applicable, and unchallenging personality traits imaginable, all for the soul purpose of creating a clear and inviting non-character for the audience to project themselves onto to achieve maximum escapism when watching a show, which itself is also deliberately pandering in whatever way. This is usually considered to be a negative way to construct a character, because not only is it cynical and manipulative, but because it is simply a recipe for an awful script. If you’re watching anime because you want to actually watch an anime and not insert yourself into it for whatever indulgent, masturbatory reasons you may have, and you actually want to be treated to quality storytelling, then this approach to constructing a protagonist is obviously contemptible. Naofumi going from a brooding, expressive, angry MGTOW to some generic light novel man and falling squarely into this self-insert trap can be criticized on these terms, but watching this season, I’ve started looking at this show from a slightly different angle, because this show features slavery. And that’s fine. I mean, slavery exited in real life, so why shouldn’t it exist in fiction, right?
My reaction to these kinds of things being included in anime has always been to simply shrug it off and ask, “Who gives a shit?” But then I started to truly appreciate the angle Shield Hero was taking. In the first four episodes of season one, back when (despite not being the best anime ever made or anything) the show was actually decent and able to be invested in, the initial handling of slavery didn’t seem particularly eyebrow-raising to me. Regardless of the inherent evil of the institution, he used it to rescue Raphtalia from a horrendous situation, and her thankfulness didn’t seem inappropriate to me. When taken out of context, sure, presenting a character as being happy to be someone else’s slave might make you question the author’s intentions, but in context, it worked given the nature of the setting, the circumstances of the story, and the personalities of the characters. But what happens to this dynamic when the characters lose their personalities? What happens to this dynamic when the protagonist goes from being a desperate man raging against a corrupt system maliciously rigged against him, using whatever means he could and taking advantage of whatever institutions were at his disposal to gain victory, to a generic, unchallenged, deadpan self-insert with an afterthought of a personality? And most of all, what happens when this dynamic becomes unnecessary? What happens when new waifus willingly becoming slaves just becomes a fun little gimmick of the story? At what point do we start asking ourselves if, actually, the slave harem was the author’s fetish all along, and at what point did he expect his audience to self-insert with his Ottoman Sultan harem-having slave-driving protagonist?
Reason 3: What is even the fucking point anymore? (Spoiler: there is no point.)
The plot of this season picks up pretty much exactly where season one left off. There’s lots of boring, generic new characters to replace some of the side characters from the previous arc, and while the main cast obviously remains the focus of the story, everyone feels like a complete husk of whatever they once were. Filo, for example, has always been a hollow character, so I guess calling her a husk isn’t much of an insult, but Raphtalia lost any spark of life she previous had and has devolved into your standard mid-class pandering waifu, and as I’ve discussed now at great length, Naofumi is a self-insert. Just stoic Mr. Isekai Man who everyone loves and who can do anything. They info-dump the plot to come, then it comes, and there’s a new setting, so they info-dump all that, and life goes on with a string of unexceptional, over-the-top, villain-of-the-week monstrous perverts for white knight Mr. Isekai Man to save all his women from and gain the love of everyone. If I’m to bring Mushoku Tensei back for one more comparison, I guess it should be: what is the fucking point? Mushoku Tensei is about Rudeus coming to respect himself on his own terms while also learning to value the bonds of family which he in his past life was too self-centered to grasp. Shield Hero was, at one time, briefly about learning to love and trust in an unfair world you never understood and which valued you less than dirt. Its theme was poignant and empathetic. But those days are over now. They were over in 2019 when, over the course of a single episode, the series transitioned from betrayal and redemption to atrociously animated sequences of the villains humiliating themselves with goofy retard music playing clumsily in the background.
Season one started decently, and quickly descended into mediocrity and failure.
Season two is just mediocrity and failure from start to finish.
Thank you for reading.
Mcsuper
After watching this season, I can safely say, Malty is the reason why I even finished Season 1. The biggest problem with Shield Hero is that it just isn’t as satisfying to watch anymore, because the revenge plot is done, and now it’s just a generic isekai. I’m sure the studio and animators realized that, so what did they do? They proceeded to milk the living heck out of Raphtalia and create some fan service, because they know there are many people watching this show just for her. I had low expectations coming into this season, because I didn’t think Season 1 was that goodto begin with, especially in the second half. Somehow this season still ended up being disappointing. This season of Shield Hero was paced poorly, was uninteresting, the characters got even worse, but it did have one saving grace, and I’ll highlight that down below.
My grading criteria: Story: /25 Art: /10 Music: /10 Characters: /20 Enjoyment /15 Thematic Execution /20
STORY: 5.5/25
An awkward mess would be an understatement. Granted, I didn’t expect a whole lot from this season, but this was not good. I’ll talk briefly about the two main arcs of this season:
The spirit tortoise arc. Absolutely atrocious, and I’m sure most of you agree. I started the arc and the first thing I wondered was who Éclair was. I looked back at the previous season, skimmed through wikis, and I found nothing about her. So, you’re telling me she just showed up? YUP! That was the first sign that this was getting extremely rushed, even though I’ve never read the light novel. I don’t blame them for rushing this though, because it’s just a boring arc, and I can see why this rushed it, but you can’t introduce an important character without letting us know who she was beforehand. The biggest problem to me was how they deviated from the plot of season 1, which was fighting the waves, and seeing the video game mechanics in play. This time, there’s just this random tortoise thing that’s supposedly a danger to the world, which felt so random.
After a few episodes of meandering about doing a whole lot of nothing, Naofumi and company face off against Kyo Ethnina, who is officially one of my least favourite villains of all time. The way he just shouts so annoyingly, but honestly has the same intelligence as people in Team Rocket from Pokemon is just near unbearable. All he does is shout arrogantly, and when he gets defeated, WHOOP-DEE-DOO, he has yet another trick up his sleeve. Very poor character writing, and one of the lamest villains I’ve laid my eyes on, Malty was actually frustrating to watch, in a somewhat good way, and vastly superior to Kyo.
Next, we have the New World arc, which started off decently, but once Kyo came back on the screen, I realized that it’s still horrible. The first few episodes of this arc were the best of the entire season, and those were the episodes where virtually nothing happened, and they were exploring the Infinite Labyrinth. Obviously, the writers knew that the series was struggling at this point, so how should we save the story? SMOL RAPHTALIA IS DEFINITELY THE ANSWER TO ALL OUR PROBLEMS!!! Yikes. Though, the reason for my increased enjoyment to start this arc was the addition of the Cardinal Hunting Hero Kizuna, who was a fun and bubbly character with at least a little personality. Another reason is that Shield Hero finally got back to its roots and focused on levelling up and gaining items, which was the best part about Shield Hero in Season 1. Twists and turns happen, the gang eventually reunites again after episode after episode of absolute nonsense and Raphtalia not leaving the screen for more than two seconds. The villains were uninteresting, and the ending of the arc was rushed heavily as well.
Overall, just hugely rushed. The development of the characters was poor, the villains were lame, and the amount of plot holes was crazy.
ART: 4.2/10
Huge step down from Season 1, and it became abundantly clear that Kinema Citrus was already setting their sights on working on Made In Abyss Season 2. Character expressions were awkward, fight scenes took place in stills, and the Spirit Tortoise looked like a huge, heavy pile of CG. Yikes.
MUSIC: 8.4/10
I will say, Kevin Penkin is still the saving grace of this show, and the music is pretty good in important scenes. Looking forward to his work in Made In Abyss Season 2. The opening was not as good as the first two, and the ending was alright.
CHARACTERS: 5.5/20
Uninspiring, boring, and just stock characters. Maybe they’re kinda cool in fight scenes, but what could you tell me about any type of reasonable character development? Let’s go over some of the characters.
Everyone’s favourite character, Raphtalia! I’m convinced she’s just here since the fans love her. She can fight, and keep Naofumi level-headed, but that’s no different from Season 1. The romance is just there because you just gotta have some kind of a harem in an isekai for the fans to be happy. When the story gets bad, they just show some smol Raphtalia, and expect the fans to be satisfied.
Let’s talk about Filo and Rishia now. Filo barely got any screen time, and there was no development for her, she’s just there. Rishia got my character development this time, by being more brave I suppose, and building up her skills. Her plot armour is crazy though, as not even Kyo’s gravity attack can oppose her. The question though is, why was Rishia wearing that Filo outfit in the tortoise arc???
I mentioned Kyo earlier, and how bad he is, so let’s talk about our saving grace, Kizuna. Definitely the best character in the series, because she’s strong, and has a pretty fun personality. Still a very bare-bones character that would benefit from some development. Would love to see more of her.
Finally, let’s talk about our protagonist, Naofumi. He seems like a smart guy right? To be honest, he’s just an average protagonist, but he looks smart because everyone around him have very low intelligence, and rely on him to do the heavy lifting, though we do see this theme quite a lot in other shows as well, it just seems more noticeable here. He’s a solid character, but his only intriguing aspect is when he gets angry and the wrath shield tries to take over. I still don’t understand how he can attack when he’s supposed to be a defensively oriented hero.
ENJOYMENT: 2.5/15
I found myself completely checked out at times, and there was little to no elements that had me enjoying this season.
THEMATIC EXECUTION: 4/20
What this show does, is fix bad thematic execution, with what the writer and director thinks is good themes. For example, if a fight was underwhelming, or if the story was convoluted, they’d try to fix it with some fan service. If the plot was boring, they’d try to spice things up with a hint of romance. It just doesn’t work. No themes were executed well, as a lot of things felt forced and rushed.
OVERALL: 30.1/100
Definitely the worst show I watched in the spring season. The story was massively rushed, the characters were uninspiring and bland, the villains were lame, and I didn’t enjoy it at all. I even heard that they didn’t follow the light novel very well from the readers. It’s a shame, though I kind of expected this, since the second half of the first season gave me signs that the story would go downhill, but I didn’t expect that this would be this appalling. The production and animation overall was very janky as well. The saving grace for this series was definitely Kizuna and Kevin Penkin’s composing. I believe that Season 3 might be a bit better than this season, but I’m not going to be expecting much at all.
jahver
The Rising of Shield Hero Season 2 is one of the worst experiences I’ve ever had to sit through, and this is coming from a Yankees fan. How do you even manage to fuck up a sequel to one of the most popular LN adaptations of all time this badly? Say what you want about the first season of Shield Hero, but it was hard to deny it was all the rage back in 2019. As early as the first episode’s airing people were either ranking it among their Top 10 or throwing shitfits over it. There’s not much to say about Season 1 that hasn’talready been said by thousands of others. Shield Hero is the definition of low-hanging fruit at this point. It’s juvenile shlock with terrible characters and endless plot contrivances that has no idea what it wants to be. I hated it, but at the same time I kept coming back. At the end of the day I had fun watching it week to week, laughing at the comical amounts of edge, tonal whiplash and stilted dialogue. Season 2 on the other hand strayed so far from my expectations I was left speechless by just how consistently fucking terrible it managed to be every episode. It’s not bad in the entertaining sense, it’s bad in a way that just leaves you incensed. So much of it fundamentally fails on every level that you’d think this was the result of some kind of corporate sabotage scheme put into place by the vengeful author of another terrible isekai series, angry that his internet fanfiction turned legitimate franchise was overshadowed.
As you can probably guess, Season 1 left off on all the plot threads that kept people watching (the rape accusation, the “other universes” nonsense, etc.) resolved in the most unsatisfying ways possible; now Naofumi the Shield Hero/wholesome slave owner and his harem of walking cliches have pretty much accomplished all the goals that were set in the first season, or the first 5 volumes of the novels. Here’s the issue: the whole point of the "rising" of the Shield Hero was already shown in the first season. There’s nowhere else to go from here, but considering there was still 17 volumes left to cover, a second season is pretty much a given. Guess what Kinema Citrus decides to do? Rush through the following volumes, completely skip context to new characters and story developments, and drag out what fans already consider to be the worst arc in the series with a decreased animation budget and worse directing. Great. Of course most viewers won’t know any of this supplemental info at first, so they’ll be immediately let down. I couldn’t think of a better way to make sure 70% of viewers drop your series within the first 5 episodes.
The Spirit Turtle/Kyo arc is (from what I’ve heard) incredibly boring enough in the novels, so I have no idea why the studio chose to turn it into even more of a pointless slog. I couldn’t tell what the worst part of this season was, the endless scenes of characters spouting prosaic dialogue at each other for minutes on end, pedestrian attempts at developing characters or the stale, repetitive fight scenes that only exist to hook the audience back in after the other 2 put them to sleep. Director Masato Jinbo doesn’t have that bad a record, working on stuff like Shakugan no Shana S2 and Yuru Camp. The animation is considerably less polished than Season 1 and there’s an embarrassing number of off-model shots, even during still frames or any one of the thousands of mind-numbing talking scenes. Looking at all the shoddily drawn characters is more stimulating than actually listening to them converse. It’s a direct contrast to Season 1, which looked leagues better than this. In Season 1 characters were hardly ever off-model for 25 episodes, and the worst I can say about the animation was that it relied too heavily on CGI models for a lot of fight sequences. The background characters even looked like humans instead of stick figures most of the time, and it's sad that I have to praise it for doing the bare minimum that most anime can't even seem to accomplish these days. What’s the problem here? Did they not care? I’d have to guess that condensing the volumes of the story this season covers into a 13 episode season gave the staff less time to refine everything from adapting the light novels to a television format to making sure it actually looked halfway finished. This was probably the decision that sealed Season 2's fate.
On the topic of characters, one of the biggest blights on this season is the new character Rishia. She’s so fucking annoying. I thought people were overreacting before I started the season but yeah, she really is one of the least likeable characters ever written. 99% of her screentime is wasted on her obsessing over one of the heroes who wants nothing to do with her (understandable), crying for some reason or just being dead weight in fights or emotional scenes. Season 2 opts to skip most of the scenes establishing her and make her feel like a genuine addition to the cast and just skip right into her training, making her feel like she was awkwardly inserted into the story at the last moment. You’d think a character like this would have some kind of arc or emotional resolution but she NEVER IMPROVES. She’s obnoxious and stagnant enough to the point Naofumi calling her out during his rage scene feels completely justified instead of mean-spirited. The reason I reserved almost an entire paragraph for her is because she’s a major character in the season, and you’d better believe they try to force you to like every time she’s onscreen despite the fact there’s absolutely nothing to like.
Naofumi and his harem are as insipid as ever. The other new characters from parallel universes range from uninteresting to background scenery. Glass, the mostly silent rival to Naofumi from the first season, gets ruined as she becomes another sidekick for Naofumi. The arc villain Kyo is a bland, two-dimensional prick with about as much likeability as Rishia. Season 1 at least had the smart idea of making all the villains comically over the top, unapologetically evil scumbags so you could enjoy how awful they were, and get some satisfaction when they finally go down. Kyo is not only unbearably annoying but also has no depth to him. Filler villains in Naruto have more complexity than this guy, who’s supposed to be a major player in the Shield Hero world, as he’s the illegitimate Book Hero as well as being from a parallel world. He appears, conducts a little evil in the background, makes some evil swords (ripped off from that one Bleach arc for some reason) and gets defeated in one of the least exciting climactic battles ever animated. You really think nothing of him the entire season and forget everything about him once it’s over.
Shield Hero Season 2 is an unbearably ugly, passionless and aggravating sequel to a series that didn’t really need any further continuation. I actually feel like I was too hard on Season 1 in the past, because despite it being tasteless, ludicrous and offensive to everyone, it was entertaining. It was fun, ridiculously grimy shit you got invested in because it always managed to rise to some absurd new level of stupidity. Season 2 has nothing of value. It insults fans of the light novels and the manga by removing key elements of the story. It insults casual viewers by being an ugly, vacuous waste of time. There is nothing redeeming about The Rising of Shield Hero Season 2 and it should not have been made. There was no passion put into the production at any level and it absolutely shows. The best thing you can say about this season that it’s a massive letdown and the worst thing you can say probably breaks several MAL guidelines. I’m not even a fan of the series yet I still feel like a part of me died watching this.
ThatAnimeSnobRE
The first season of the Shield Hero had a big impact in the community. Half of it was praising it for its bold take on an isekai protagonist who is wrongfully accused, and the other half was shiting on it for being full of cheap tactics for engaging the viewer through rage instead of quality writing. As the season kept going, more and more people were joining the dislike side as one by one everything that made the initial episodes good was being replaced with the same generic crap that plague all isekai and turned a once (supposed) subversion of the formula into yet anotherpower fantasy. By the time the second season began most didn’t care about it, but were still hopeful it would return to form. The source readers kept telling them all sorts of crazy shit are going to happen next which will blow their minds. So, they added it to their plan to watch lists and made it the most anticipated show of the season it came out (MAL statistics wise). What they got was something that was vastly inferior in every aspect.Here is a quick summary:
1) The revengeporn, the main reason everybody was watching it for, is over. Naofumi got his revenge when the princess got punished back in the first season. Everything that followed that felt hollow.
2) The protagonist lost his cool edgy side where everyone hated him and he didn’t trust anyone. Now he’s another generic self insert power fantasy for antisocial otakus.
3) The pacing became ridiculously fast, thus not letting the antisocial otakus to enjoy the harem.
4) The animation is far worse and uses a lot of horrible CGI.
5) Even the source material readers openly admit that the turtle arc is garbage.
6) Better isekai came out during the gap between the two seasons (Rezero, Mushoku Tensei) making even the fist season to seem like crap in retrospect.
7) The anime became yet another generic harem isekai. And on top of that it’s about a slave harem that keeps excusing slavery by making it seem like the girls love being slaves.
And now for a more detailed breakdown:
The Shield Hero at this point can might as well be called the Harem Slave Hero, since the attributes of his shield change at the drop of a hat, while his gathering of cute underage girls who rush to be included to his party after being abused by some evil slaver continue as normal. The mental gymnastics for excusing such an immoral act come down to not presenting it as a bad thing, since this way the girl becomes stronger very fast. It’s something nobody else does although it’s a cheat code for becoming super powerful in a few months. The whole concept is eye-rolling since slavery is legal in the show and the slave girls are joining willingly because every other male in the show is either incompetent or an asshole. Plus, as much as they keep saying slave crests are way too expensive to be used many times, the protagonist uses them all the time without having any financial problems. Even if he had problems, he could ask the queen to pay for the expenses. He is the hero who is destined to save the world after all, why does he have to pay for anything? Meanwhile it’s neither immoral nor expensive when they use a slave crest on the king and the princess without being slaves and against their will if that way they can ridicule them for standing against the protagonist. Basically, when he does it it’s perfectly fine. When someone else does it then it’s evil.
The first half of the season is about fighting some turtle monster that nobody in the audience gave two dimes about. The whole thing was done in a very rushed way with far worse production values and no real personal investment as far as the good guys are concerned. For them it was just another side quest which through videogame shenanigans stopped the normal quest to defeat the Waves. For as long as the special event monster is alive there is not going to be another monster attack. Good. Just don’t kill the monster and the world is saved. The end, the heroes can go home now. Unfortunately the protagonist has become a saint at this point who no longer does missions for surviving in a kingdom that hates him. He just does missions on command, so when the queen tells him to kill the monster, he agrees in a second. As for the other heroes, they refuse because there is nothing to gain from it. And I don’t mean loot, I mean actually achieve something that will stop the monster attacks. By leaving this monster alone they no longer have to worry about the other far more powerful monsters. Obviously the show makes them seem uncaring for not wanting to do the wrong thing, just for making the protagonist to come off as heroic once again.
Before he gets to do anything against the turtle, another girl begs to be his slave. The show excuses it as her being sold to an ugly one dimensional rapist who smirked with the evil things he kept doing. Once she was saved by the Bow Hero she instantly fell in love with him, since what a better way to excuse being a slave to someone than love at first sight? The cute girl instantly wants to be a slave of the hero so she can help him. And by help she means become his waifu. But the Bow Hero is a retard who doesn’t let her join his party because she is weak, although the slave crest would make her super powerful in no time. This is where the Shield Hero jumps in and does the logical thing. He makes her his slave. Because in this show women can be helpful only by being slaves.
Then the battle with that turtle thing happens in a completely dull way. The other three heroes are once again proven to be incompetent so Naofumi can show off how amazing he is once again. Then they get captured immediately and out of screen because the animators skipped the battle. In fact they skipped half the source material because they wanted to move to more interesting stuff as soon as possible.
The heroes from another isekai are back and they became allies out of nowhere. They want to destroy the world but they also don’t want to team up with the villain who wants to do the exact same thing. This sudden change in alignment happened out of screen because they skipped the buildup where they slowly change the way they see things.
The new bad guy is the Book Hero, someone who came out of nowhere and with no build up to his plans. He just wants to destroy shit and acts like a one dimensional evil rapist so the audience can instantly hate him instead of pondering about his legit reasons for wanting to destroy the world. Nah, we can’t have nuance in our crappy power fantasy for incels, just make him come off as a jerk so the protagonist can beat him up with no remorse.
The queen of the chocobos appears out of nowhere and fights the turtle without ever explaining how she knew about the battle and why she came in this specific moment. She just pops into existence at this convenient moment for a convenient attack at the convenient weak point of the monster. If it comes off as lazy writing it’s because they skipped the part where she is informed about the whole situation and comes to join the fight.
Meanwhile the rest of the nobody soldiers are outside and are doing absolutely nothing because they are useless. This part is not rushed and they skipped nothing. They always were useless.
Then the new slave waifu saves the day with a power up she gained out of screen because they skipped the training.
Then harem lead and his underage nymphets get teleported from one isekai to another isekai. Isekaiception. This has the effect of making them lose all their powers. Imagine working hard to get somewhere and then losing everything just because you moved to a different area. The recent slave girl for example can no longer perform those broken martial arts from the previous episodes, and essentially loses all her character development. Also what does losing everything means exactly? You forget how to fight or how to cast spells? Your equipment magically goes back to wooden starter weapons? This videogame logic is really bonkers because it literally makes your knowledge and skills and muscle memory to be nothing more than numbers that can be taken away just like that.
A positive thing is that the raccoon girl is back to her loli form, since that is her actual age and that is what all the perverts watching the show want to see more off. The negative side is that you are reminded the protagonist had groomed a little girl that he bought as his slave and she is madly in love with him as thanks. Because this is what light novels are all about.
Anyways, they explore the world a bit and find another cute and very young looking girl who in half an episode is already in love with the protagonist because he helped her out. It’s almost like this is a videogame datesim, isn’t it? Let’s ignore the fact that she is supposed to be isekaied as well therefore she is not an NPC but an actual person. And let’s also ignore how his other harem slave chicks are presented as not jealous for having yet another girl to antagonize with for the attention of their slave owner.
After that the harem pedo slaver and his possessions begin a new adventure in a new land. The fans of this abomination were very pleased with the twist because Naofumi is no longer overpowered, and the ridiculous stupid heroes with the evil bitch princess are not around. They were hopeful the next episodes would be good again. Too bad they forgot the main reason everyone was watching the show for was for the false rape allegations, how everyone hated the protagonist, and how they were getting boners at the thought of him getting his revenge. None of that exist anymore and the show has become a generic isekai about a slave owner and his underage nymphets.
They spend a lot of time in figuring out how the new setting is different from the previous setting. That means a lot of infodumps about the worldbuilding. And by worldbuilding I mean explaining how the videogame terminology of the second isekai is different from the videogame terminology of the first isekai. That’s as far as depth goes in this show.
You would think that if you are in a different world with different rules then the plot will also be different. And it isn’t. It’s still about one dimensional rapist villains enslaving and torturing cute girls. That’s what happened to Filo. No matter the setting the author can’t write anything other than helpless slave girls and tormenting slavers. The protagonist is of course the only exception since despite being a slave owner he treats his harem in a nice way. He also makes sure to punish the slaver, save the girl, and then adds her back to his harem as thanks for rescuing her. No matter how much the Shield Hero tries to reinvent himself, he immediately relapses and crawls back to his incel power fantasy addiction. Because that is the target audience for this show.
Since we are in a completely different isekai with a completely different magic system, it makes sense that the plot will not be the exact same as in the first isekai. And that is why the three heroes of the second isekai who were presented as powerful and capable at first, end up being completely worthless idiots who are in constant need to be saved by the person they mocked. You know, like the other three heroes of the first season. Then there is Raphtalia, a weak and victimized character who ends up being super awesome and constantly winning in situations where she’s supposed to be weak compared to everyone else. You know, like Naofumi in the first season. Unfortunately the lolibait grows up in a single episode and gets sexualized, proving that she was always there to be groomed as a little girl. You know, like in the first season. She loses her slave crest for the second time and while being finally free to be herself and not part of the harem, she runs back to her slave owner and wishing to be dominated. You know, like in the first season. There is also a one-dimensional rapist mini boss who acts evil for the heck of it and gets owned by an otherwise weak and victimized character for some sweet-sweet revengeporn. You know, like in the first season. And that is how the author of Slave Harem Hero proves how creative he can be by constantly writing the exact same plot over and over again.
And then comes the final episode where we get the big finale of the second season. Our heroes have the hardest battle of their lives as they fight the Book Hero… Not. They defeated the final boss an episode ago, very easily. The last episode is just softporn for those who keep saying it is not a harem. Here we are with a team consisting of one male slaver and lots of female slaves who cosplay for his amusement. They even lift the skirts of little girls for showing more skin. When asked why they are doing it it’s because they openly admit the protagonist is lolicon and bare feet make him very excited. Then they spend the rest of the episode in cockteasing him into choosing one of them as his prime waifu. And when they are asked if what they are doing is indecent, they reply by making it seem like it’s not indecent. There is nothing wrong with a man buying little girls and mating with them. And that is what Slave Hero is all about.
Can’t wait for the next amazing arc when he buys more slave girls who will love him just because he bought them. And remember, it is not a harem, it is a subversion of isekai because the protagonist is not overpowered and everyone hates him.
SomeoneRandooum
The only reason I gave this season a 5 was because of the average animation. Otherwise, it would be a 3. This season was seriously just a DISASTER. Absolutely NOTHING was done right. All the things done perfectly in season 1 were just scraped and totally removed from this season. Way too bad a successor. I seriously can't understand how could they do this to such a great story... "New characters were, useless plot points, overly confusing and boring storyline with the worst possible main villain" This line sums up the entire season. Conclusion: Watch this only if you want to simp on a character. Useless forany other reason.
Valik93v2
This anime is bad. Really bad. At this point this seems like a fundamental universal truth like math axioms. Almost every review is critical of it and an average score of 6.6 on MAL is pretty much a certified garbage label. But here's a thing. Season 1 was just as bad, however the reception was way more positive. The writing is consistently dreadful throughout both seasons and the characters have the IQ of 6 year old kids. There is absolutely nothing interesting happening and the revenge subplot from season 1 was handled so poorly, that I have issues expressing how bad it was. So why didthis happen?
The answer is that the second season committed the CARDINAL (pun appreciation moment) sin of being boring.
As a fellow anime connoisseur, I noticed that my tolerance for bs is way lower than that of the general public. In time, I got significantly more chill and was able to watch and to some degree enjoy actually bad anime. As long as it is able to provide some level of entertainment with passable fights or style (ex. Jujutsu Kaisen) it was fine. This anime however was too much for me and I ended up fast forwarding through all episodes and I'm confident that I didn't skip any relevant information.
The problem is that Shield Hero provides absolutely nothing. The plot is a generic isekai that everyone here has seen way too many times with extremely poorly defined mechanics and worldbuilding. Every character is a generic copypasta without any defining qualities. It's literally just - the good character, the bad character and the mind-numbingly dumb character. There is nothing outstanding in any other aspect of the show to compensate for the dreadful writing and to be honest there isn't much room in this script to add an actual well choreographed fight. It is still hard to say which villain is more poorly written, but I know for a fact that everyone enjoyed the princess from the first season as a lolcow way more.
In general, the first season was the hilarious kind of bad. The pacing was significantly faster and the amount of stupid stuff happening per minute was high, just enough to not make anyone fall asleep. This is the only thing that made it watchable as a "so bad it's good" kind of anime. But too bad... when it takes you about 3 episodes just to get to anything happening at all, you f-ed up. There is no way around it. Nobody ever cared about any of the characters, it was always about a comically dumb mf-er getting owned by the god introvert main character that is perfect in his perfection just like every otaku on this planet and his little harem, provided to him, as usual, by the author's grace in random encounters.
To summarize, anime was a mistake. Stop wasting your time on this and go touch grass instead.
SeekDWay
Rising of the Shield Hero season 2 is a major disappointment. When I originally watched this show I had watched only the anime, but season 2 was so basic and unpolished that I started reading the Light Novels which by the way are in no way perfect but are well above average and a very enjoyable read. If you are an anime only viewer and have come here after season 1, I highly advise you read the manga instead. Start at around chapter 33 to get a better grip of the pacing, this is well before season 1 ends, because some major changes were made to theending. Shield Hero tells a very good story which is heavily character focused and if you ain't interested in reading Light Novels the manga is stellar and much better use of your time. I recommend it and this review has nothing to do with the source material.
Back to the anime, season 2 has many problems but there are 3 major ones I would like to focus on without comparing it to the Light Novel:
1. Character development is removed in favor of fanservice and shounen stuff.
Compared to the previous season it quickly becomes apparent that they tried to wrap some loose ends due to anime plot changes instead of embracing them. You end up with 2 episodes of monologues and very mundane interactions, which looking back at how basic the other heroes were portrayed in season 1 might not seem too bad but quickly piles on. We're jumping from an action sequence to an info dump until the very end of the season. Raphtalia gets more screen time than she should and animation improves when she is being cute but major plot lines have been reduced to a few lines of extremely basic dialog, which is barely enough to set a tone or describe what is going on. The priority was to showcase specific flashy events, yet major characters like Raphtalia are reduced to sidekicks from "Eminence in Shadow" or plain simps.
2. It is very clear major plot points were cut.
Season 1 was not perfect but it was extremely coherent, yes changes were made from the source material including major cuts and tone shifts but the show flowed nicely and an anime only viewer could rarely get lost or in a situation where they couldn't figure stuff out. Every arc felt like it had decent dept, something to chew on. This is not the same in season 2, characters just high five each other and become best friends. Villains have nothing going for them except maniacal laughter. New lands are discovered every episode and forgotten by the end of it. It's like a crossover between "Eminence in Shadow" and "Shield Hero" where we got all the one-liners from Eminence and the crappy animation from Shieldbro.
3. The animation is horribly inconsistent.
Many might remember the dinosaur fight in season 1 and laugh at how choppy the 3D was. Hold your breath, because this was miles better than almost every fight in season 2. Choppy 3D is now the norm, intermixed with stills and basic Sony Vegas AMV effects. The shading is also much worse, I dunno if they changed the person in charge or they had so little time but some scenes look absolutely mortifying.
Marinate1016
Few things in life have disappointed me as much as Shield Hero season 2. I don’t like looking like a fool at all. I hate it. Yet, because of the God awful adaptation that was Shield Hero season 2, I look like an idiot to everyone I tried to put on this series. Disclaimer. I am one of the biggest fans of this series. I am over 22 novels deep into this and have been reading it since the WN days, so my review and disappointment are from a place of love, not hate. Shield Hero season 1 was not a perfect adaptation. At best it wasmediocre, but the changes they made there were tolerable. Moved an arc around at the end and slightly changed raphtalia and naofumi’s personalities to make them more palatable for anime onlies, stupid, but tolerable. Season 1 had a kick ass soundtrack, some great fights, tension, edgy and dark revenge story, etc. It was a very fun time even with the changes, so it didn’t come as a surprise that it was one of the most anticipated sequels of all time.
Season 2 on the other hand, was the complete opposite. From completely erasing important side characters’ development such as Rishia and Eclair, to omitting large swaths of the Spirit Tortoise and otherworld arcs, to animation issues, to pacing problems, this was a train-wreck. No, in fact train-wreck is putting it too lightly, this was just awful. While the Spirit Tortoise arc may not have been the best written story in the medium, it basically sets the tone and lays pivotal groundwork for most of the next 8-10 light novels. Kinema speedraced through it leaving us with a climax that felt equally disjointed and unimportant. Like why would people get emotional when a character dies if you have done absolutely nothing to help us get attached?
The second half of this season was slightly better, but still Kinema insisted on making changes to the story. Changes which really made no sense because this is largely considered one of the best parts of early Shield Hero novels. I legitimately think that the production committee are afraid to not have Raphtalia on screen for more than 5 minutes because they think that it will kill the story or make people lose interest. Seriously, the amount of revisions to her character and events surrounding her in this season were real head-scratchers. It’s a shame that I can honestly say the only good episodes were 9-12. You have to go damn near two months until you get to a decent Shield Hero episode and that’s just sad.
While the studio’s changes were why myself and many other LN readers hated this season, we aren’t the only ones. Even anime onlies will find this to be a much weaker instalment. What made Shield Hero cool in the first place was the edgy revenge story with Naofumi going out to clear his name and make Malty pay for her crimes. Once we reached that point in Shield Hero S1, this story really loses some of its fangs. It no longer has any of the spice that separates it from the other 200 isekai/fantasy shows we get a year. Combine that with Kinema Citrus removing all the groundwork and world-building that should have made seasons 2 and 3 really special... and you’ve got a shitty combination.
I spent 2 years hyping this season and season 3 up as peak isekai. Shield Hero may not be the BEST isekai or BEST written story out there. But it’s one I really love and enjoy. There’s so many emotional moments in volumes 6-14 of Shield Hero that will probably have 0 emotional payoff when we get to them in the anime because of the rushed adaptations and content changes and it saddens me. This series, source readers and even casual fans deserve better. I have little hope that we will get it going forward. My suggestion is that if you have ANY interest in this world or the characters, read the books.
Shield Hero season 2 gets 4 out of 10.
N1ghtWalker
With time, a caterpillar develops into a beautiful butterfly, An uninteresting flower bud blossoms into a lovely flower. Then there's the Rising Shield Hero, From being a "mid-show," it turned into a "typical Isekai trash"! After an overrated first season, to which I even contributed by giving it an 8/10 (regretting my life choices) came a much anticipated 2nd season. I, too, was excited. The first season ended in mid-2019. It took almost three years to bring the second season, and fans created far too much hype around it, which quickly backfired. Anime fans who are defending S2 by calling the Spirit Turtle Arc overall abad arc, need to know that Anime adaptation of the Rising shield hero was never true to its source material. In S2 They tried to fit four volumes 6,7,8&9( the Spirit Turtle Arc&New World Arc) within 12 episodes, by doing so they skipped the majority of its source material content, even going as far as altering some plot points in the anime. The pacing of S2 is like every other trash Isekai show out there. Also, Compared to S1, S2's animation quality suffered greatly, and there are some good examples of how not to use CGI in anime.
Positives- I'd be better off leaving this empty... The only satisfying moment for me was from Ep12-12:35. Rishia... she deserved every bit of it. Throughout the season, she was extremely annoying to watch.
If you want to keep up with the story read the web novel/ light novel/ manga. Don't waste your time here it isn't worth it! They totally fuc*ed up the adaptation! R.I.P. to the Rising Shield Hero(Anime only)!
uniDJar
From someone who gave the 1st season a 10/10 masterpiece rating, it pains me to say that this one is just a plain insult to the 1st season. What the 1st season had was a coherent plot with interesting characters and a smooth pacing. Well the 2nd second season has none of them. The first 6 episodes or so was good with a pretty interesting story but after that it just turns into a directionless disgrace. My long wait for the sequel of one of my favourite shows was ruined and for naught. The character design especially for the shield hero was appealing and really fresh in the1st season with green colour as the primary selection, but in this second season or whatever, it became the same overused isekai crappy design after halfway into the story.
The talk-no-jutsu and overused sentiments troupes were causing indigestion almost the entire time I'd watched this.
The villain was bland and annoying.
Hope that the director and writer takes at least 5 minutes to think before executing the works for the 3rd season.
Really disappointed with this season and wish that it didn't exist.
Here's hoping that season 3 would redeem this franchise and become the rightful successor to the 1st season.
Alanna_Knight
Spoiler Free* There were some boring parts to it and I feel like some of it was rushed and underdeveloped, however, it's an overall enjoyable sequel if you're not the overly critical stuck up watcher. I wasn't a fan of Part 1 but it needed to be there, Part 2 was fairly entertaining even though the main antagonists were subpar, and Part 3 just felt like a little extra bit of fan service, could or could not be your cup of tea. It's not perfect in the slightest, but, it's nice to know what happened next after season 1 and the main cast developed prettywell. If you liked S1 Shield Hero, you'll enjoy it if you just back and relax.
GG-WP
Shield Hero Season 2 is an anime that is a shell of its previous self. With all of the hype surrounding the release of Season 2, everyone expected something at least on level with, if not better than, what Season 1 had delivered, yet all we got as fans was disappointment. According to LN readers, both of the arcs in this season were probably the worst, and if that was the case, they could have fast-forward through both and moved on to the next arc instead of constructing something that is this bad. Even the artwork is a step down from what was shown in Season 1.To be honest, the only redeeming aspect of the story is the introduction of Kizuna, and her presence on the show at least made it bearable.
Overall, I would not recommend Season 2 to anyone, and I believe the fanbase for Season 3 has been significantly reduced as a result. Season 3 should be better than Season 2, but based on what we have seen thus far, we shouldn't have high expectations and risk overhyping the show, as we did with Season 2.
TheEtherea
Do you know that feeling when you are disappointed so much that you don't even have anything strong to say on the subject? This is exactly how I feel after watching S2. It's so average and boring with glimpse of hope that dies right there that I don't even have the passion to say anything snarky about it. The plot itself is a weak point. We have a big turtle to defeat, a bunch of background characters nobody cares about since they have nothing going on for them and "Yor" who is evil because he is evil, as in poor writing. I wasn't much of a fanof this whole "timer" thing going on, but now they are pulling it out their ass to explain why it stops\pauses\accelerates and doing other shenanigans.
We have a level reset (but not really, but it is, but no they still have skills, but they can't use most of them, but later they can) just because, a shortened Rocky training montage and a very weak world exposition that could have taken more time which was wasted on drawn out dialogues with no substance and a snooze fest of the whole Turtle arc.
The atmosphere itself isn't doing any better. Power of friendship, hugs and rainbows is what it really is about now, because let's be honest who ever cares about the extras dying in the background.
Beyond that Season 2 has weak level of animation which results in numerous static shots a god awful 3d CGI at one point and generally lazy directing.
Considering the general success and praise of Season 1 it feels like those in charge did it as an after thought (since many of the source material issues can be worked around with good production) and it's sad.
Lazy, mediocre and boring, a pure wet fart is what it is.
Tiffanys
First season was 9 for me. This season's like a 3. I hated everything about it. It's one asspull after another. I hate Rishia and every scene she's in just makes me mad and she's in so many. To make it worse they take away Filo and Raphtalia for long portions leaving the shield hero with Rishia. They even made the last episode absolute filler trash random recaps irrelevant to anything. Like random side character thoughts reminiscing about things that happened this season. Not only that, most of the character development characters went through in season 1 was practically undone this season by its uttertrash writing.
There's nothing good about this season. Nothing at all. If I made this a spoiler review I'd be raging for pages and pages.
After the end of season 1 what should've happened is the shield hero going to the demi-human nation and I can tell you that's not remotely what happened. Even after learning every single nation in the world has to face the waves they all stay in the same selfish kingdom that summoned all of them like idiots. And instead of working together 3 of the heroes just go diddle themselves for the entire season rather than taking part in literally any major events whatsoever. Even after everything they went through in season 1 and knowing they need to work together. Instead they just split up like that without even giving a reason or any explanation.
They pretty much tried to recreate the betrayal and hatred and losing everything and being weak the shield hero had the first season via asspull (everyone's literally reset to level 1 with no skills), then instead of even really having to work to get strong again it's not even really explained how everyone just suddenly gets mega pumped from a few low level trash mobs, and more asspulls than is even reasonable for a single season. Hell, more asspulls than would be acceptable for a 10 season show throughout the entire course of its run. It seems to me they just set everything up to just piss the viewer off without even thinking it through how it makes no freakin' sense whatsoever.
At this point I may give a few episodes of season 3 a chance but if it's remotely as bad as this season I'm immediately dropping it and never touching it again.
For that matter if you feel like you need to watch this season because you liked the first season, don't bother. Nothing of any importance takes place in this season. One event that doesn't affect anything happens then the rest takes place in another world entirely not affecting the other one whatsoever. There's no character development. If anything there's character regression. You'd be better off just skipping this season entirely and continuing with season 3, provided it isn't as terrible as this season. Because I'll be honest... this season wasn't enjoyable. It just made me angry, in a not good way. Like outright character stupidity and asspulls. Like characters just standing around like absolute muppets while they should clearly be doing something as something incredibly important is happening right in front of them - you know the trope. It happens in so many shows and is so enraging it has you yelling at your screen for them to do something. But of course they're too stupid.
Sooo yeah. Give this season a pass and don't bother with it. It'll only upset you and ruin your memory of the first season.
Yessme
Before you laugh for giving it a 8 read and then laugh again because I know it stills seems dumb First, I dropped this anime in the fourth episode when it was released in 2022 and I thought this was the end for me with this series forever since I also thought that it didn’t have more to offer after Naofumi regained his reputation. Second, for some reason I decided to give it another try and with the lowest expectations and… it felt like a great experience. The first five episodes were still slow, sometimes boring, but I decided to keep going. What happened next was thatfrom episode 6 to 13 it felt like a breath of fresh air and really interesting to see more about the plot since FOR ME it was truly engaging. Also, the new characters and the ones we knew felt enjoyable to follow just as the animation improved. The ending of the battle with the villain was ok but still it was really fun to see this new arc that followed the turtle battle.
I know giving it a 8 sounds like a joke for many of you, but I’m not someone really critical in anime. So yeah, it felt like trash in the beginning but if you really give it a chance you may find some of the same feeling you had with the first season. Of course, only if you are interested to see more about Tate No Yuusha1 and you were scared by seeing all the bad reviews. If that’s not the case you might want to lower your expectations and just watch it with an open mind and not try to think a lot about it without being really a critic searching for a masterpiece.
JayWrites101
I won't even try to pretend that this series doesn't have controversy. It does. And there's a lot to discuss on that front. But one thing that Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari had was the A++ writing to back it up.... In season one. Here? YIKES! There was a MASSIVE quality drop in story, and before you go write this off as a manga thing; I read the manga! The first half of this season follows the manga (mostly) with a few slight variations in the sequencing of events. That's fine! But... The second half of this season is focused on BUTCHERING Raphtalia's character. It willtake an essay to list all the changes they made, but the TL;DR of it boils down to the animators not wanting to let Raphtalia outshine the protagonist. The manga made her a child to show how much growth she'd undertaken. We see her use magic and stab a guy with his own sword to showcase that despite her old form, Raphtalia was still an adult. The anime made Raphtalia a child so they could bring back that good ol' magic of Naofumi slighting Raphtalia's maturity and showing off his masculinity by being daddy.
It doesn't get better.
I had a lot of hopes walking into this season, and I felt attacked. I'm sure that if I'd gone in blind, I might feel differently, but having read a better version of this story... I cannot in good faith rate this as anything other than trash. I can understand cutting things to save time, but they went and cut the good story just to force-feed the audience a hella lotta sexism.
And they didn't even do it well.
Drakestalker
As I'm fairly sure I mentioned in my previous piece, Shield Hero has an identity problem. The show doesn't seem to know what to do with itself in the absence of Naofumi being unfairly slighted and oppressed by those around him. Matter of fact, the show starts by posing a problem the Cardinal Heroes need to solve and the 3 others straight up refuse to help for no good reason and walk away, almost as if it were written in their DNA that they just necessarily have to be assholes to make the story work. The saving grace is that other than a couple of throw-awaylines a pop, they never show up as actual characters again for the rest of the season and don't have any speaking lines. I guess Bow Bro shows up in some flashbacks, but the point is Spear Bro is irrelevant as he should be.
Also, I just realized, that one moustached asshole in the Bow Hero's party is literally called Mald. Irony? Coincidence? I wonder.
As for the actual plot, as I said, the show doesn't really know what to do with itself in the absence of the everyone-is-wrongly-accusing-Naofumi-of-crimes plot. As such, the first half of S2 is boring as sin. It picks up towards the end, and the final couple of episodes are actually interesting, felt like watching the old Shield Hero again, but getting interesting as the climax approaches is the bare minimum to be expected and the first 8 or so episodes are a real slog to get through.
I was reminded of the whale fighting from Re:Zero, except much less interesting. It somehow felt even more boring than the Charybdis fight from TenSura, and that one was a real pain to get through, but at least that one was mercifully short. The only anime I've (recently) seen handle a properly fleshed out fight involving multiple characters versus one giant monster is the first Godzilla movie by Polygon Pictures.
If you've bought into the Shield Hero story and feel confident you are in for the ride, then give it a watch. Otherwise, skip it. If you're hoping for the quality of the first half of the first season, then this is not that.
slavemaster_1991
I'll be honest: after the first season I didn't expect much, yet I was not prepared for futher downfall of the series. Story. If you are, like me, LN reader, you are well aware how the series gradually goes down in terms of writing quality. However anime decides it can't wait too long so decides to take a nose dive into the dirt. The plot of the season may not be the worst I have seen in isekai, but good god it is rushed like they were late for a train: even the first season missed a few important for character development detailes, and yet theyhurried even more in the second season, making some explanations "off camera" - simply skipping parts. And even worse: they changed the events of the original and said change neither brings anyting good nor it makes sense. If their adaptation has zero respect of the source - I can't respect the script writers of that season.
Art. Good enough, I guess. CGI doesn't make your eyes bleed, animation looks ok. Still, cause of the way all fights are done we are not shown any stellar performance, everything is done in a rather basic and simplistic manner.
Sound. It is there I guess, but feels bland.
Characters. With all of the rushed story the butchering of character interactions is to be expected - and we have it here. The villain especially took a huge hit and instead of being an insane dude simply became cringe incarnate. He is simply insufferable and all the scenes with him were for me a huge "oh god just be done with it already" moment. The main cast had their interactions rushed and they don't feel as close as they should be.
Enjoyment. I am not a masochist so I didn't enjoy it at all. All the good moments were ruined by lacking buildup and speeding through an important scene.
Overall. A disappointment. If you are a fan - skip it and hope for s3. If you never read the source - skip it, as you will not have a pleasant experience. Just skip it.
crystalizedpig
It's a 25-episode season crammed into 13, with the budget for 6. Obstacles are frequently ass-pulled or hand-waved away. The few action scenes that happen on-screen are crudely animated/choreographed, especially in the second half. Characters are afforded no time for development; the BBEG's motivation is relegated to a few quick flashbacks. The whole season feels directionless without S1's revenge plotline driving it. Finally, the last episode is a pseudo-recap, largely shoehorning in scenes from episodes which were presumably cut after the scene was finished, and including multiple loli-bait scenes. I liked most of S1, but now my hope for S3 onward is tenuous.
