Review of The Rising of the Shield Hero

**This may contain light spoilers** Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari (The Rising of The Shield Hero) may, at first glance, seem like another generic harem Isekai in the oversaturated genre that is Isekai. When I first was recommended this show by a friend I was hesitant at first to watch it due to the fact that I’ve never really been a big fan of the Isekai genre and let me tell you, my expectations were low (Just to clarify, although my expectations were low I didn’t let this sway my opinion/rating through this review). When looking into this anime I discovered a lot of people discussinghow The Rising of The Shield Hero was a disappointment to fans of the genre, cliched, predictable, and disgusting. Boy was I wrong to take the words of people on the internet.

This show isn’t a perfect one and it’s not difficult to point out what some of the show’s flaws are. While watching, I sometimes felt that some of the events throughout were trivial to the story and were just there to be there. On top of this it seemed that there was no specific rhyme or reason for why the majority of unjust situations were happening to Naofumi other than that the shield hero has always had a bad reputation even before Naofumi was summoned. This leads a lot of people to the conclusion that the author is just putting this guy through these awful situations just to draw out anger from the audience towards the main antagonists. As well, at times, the story just seems like the author is writing a 1 dimensional wish-fulfillment story that has no depth to it or it’s characters. This is easy to state about the show, especially when just taking the show at face value which is what many people seem to do when watching this anime, but The Rising of The Shield Hero doesn’t just have flaws, and it actually has a lot on the contrary. Though, many people look past the pros to this show as they aren’t as strongly depicted as some of these flaws are even though if you see them you might just realise that these pros outweigh the cons more often than not.

Now with that, you might be wondering to yourself “tf is this random talking about, he just said that the flaws are more prominent than the pros to the show, but he still thinks it deserves a high rating???” Let me explain; The Rising of The Shield Hero’s plot is generic to say the least, but a show can have a generic plot whilst still maintaining to be intriguing, filled with emotions, and an overall joy to watch. This is exactly what The Rising of The Shield Hero does throughout it’s story. The Rising of The Shield Hero’s story is surprisingly really well done for being an Isekai, with the drama not just being added for shock value, but as a story builder to show the viewer what might happen to them if they were transported into another world where no one could trust them despite being one of the four cardinal heroes. And while the shield hero was summoned to be a defender of the lands to fight off the waves of monsters attacking this new world, Naofumi isn’t normally fighting just these waves, and instead we often see him fighting for himself against the people that should be his allies in this dire situation. This leads to a lot of belittling remarks and accusations thrown towards Naofumi that some find to become annoying. Even so, if you like feeling genuine hatred towards a fictional character this anime will be right up your alley since Shield Hero does an excellent job at this when showing some of the degrading things these antagonists do to tear Naofumi down.

Where I believe The Rising of The Shield Hero shines the brightest, though, is with it’s characters. So, our mc Naofumi is unlike most other Isekai characters you may come across within the genre. At first, Naofumi is just your typical loser otaku who was lucky enough to be isekai’d… or was he? Well you see, after Naofumi gets absolutely cucked by our main antagonist, Malty and the king, things change. Now, everyone pretty much hates Naofumi, being that he was accused of raping one of the princesses, but I really liked how Naofumi handled his horrible situation, albeit not always making the morally right choices, like when he purchased a slave named Raphtalia. (Again, I’m not saying that I liked when he bought Raphtalia and enslaved her; it was more that I felt that the way he trained Raphtalia to help him battle was good for both Naofumi and Raphtalia. And because no one else would join up with him it was interesting how he went about exacting revenge on the people who did him wrong was entertaining/took a realistic perspective to what someone might do in that situation). I feel like a lot of unjustified hate for the has come from this as well, but I’ll leave that up to you to judge for yourself, but I personally didn’t see a big deal with this happening especially due to the fact that Naofumi treats Raphtalia a hella a lot better than most people might in his enraged state and for the greater reason… it’s fictional. Raphtalia, in fact, plays a major role in the story line being that she is Naofumi’s “sword” since he teaches her how to hold her own in a battle and that she is the first person in Naofumi’s loli harem… yeah, I didn’t see that coming either, but okay.

As the story progresses two other loli’s join up with Naofumi, one being a filolial with the name of Filo. He pretty much raises Filo from an egg up until she is a giant bird that often transforms into a loli. Oh, and what’s this? Melty, the Imoto of Malty, the bitchy princess, also happens to be a loli. At first Naofumi is very hesitant in accepting Melty into his hare- I mean... group of fearless “heroes of the land” due to the fact that he finds out she is royalty. However, as the story progresses Melty finally gains the trust of Naofumi and they continue on their journey to help save the world that has treated most of them like dirt on the side of the road. This is also not to mention the pacing of the show is, IMO, on point and doesn’t waste too much time on unimportant things. I think this is also a great aspect of this show since I never felt that the story was going too fast for me to understand the situation properly or too slow that I was pulling teeth while watching the show.

I realize I only briefly glanced over these characters, but overall I really enjoyed each and every one of them and if you want to know more about them read the character descriptions on MAL. Now, the reason why I feel like Shield Hero stands above other harem Isekai is that there are actually emotions besides lust involved throughout the show. In fact the show rarely, if at all, suggests sexual desires to be a motive for these girls wanting to be with Naofumi, (this is likely due to the fact that all the girls are probably under the mental age of 12, but I digress) which is kind of a relief after watching shows like Isekai wa Smartphone to Tomo ni.

Anyways, my overall impressions on this series do not at all reflect that of what I originally thought the show was going to be like. Of course Shield Hero has its flaws, like with anything, but if you are someone that is into the Isekai genre this show will definitely satisfy you especially when you take into consideration all the things that this show did right, with it’s characters, story, and overall narrative. If you aren’t so fond of Isekai, like myself, I still highly recommend this series and once you get past all the basic/generic themes Shield Hero has and you can look at the good that overpowers the flaws I believe The Rising of The Shield Hero is a great anime for almost anybody. If I had to give Shield Hero an exact rating in terms of numbers I would give it a 8.5/10 and unfortunately as much as I would like to give this show a higher rating, it just falls short a bit when looking at everything from it’s story and some of the flaws within it. If you do dislike this show I can see your perspective and I can respect that you have your own opinion and I won't try and stop you from disliking an anime, but I do also hope than anyone that feels this way can also look at it from my perspective and see why I find this show to as good as I made it out to be.
Anyways, cya in S2, or not, I don't care.

**Things To Note**
- I quickly want to reiterate that this show definitely has it's controversies due to some of the situations the author put Naofumi in, but I tried not to go too deep into them since I like to keep the real-world and anime as separate as possible, especially when writing a review and since these controversies mostly revolved around real-world issues I decided to stray away from them.
- Another thing to note is that the score I give the show on my profile may change from 8-9 or vice versa since I am really split on whether I want to give it a 8 or a 9.