Review of The Rising of the Shield Hero

Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari. The adaptation of a story about an MMORPG world. As an MMORPG lover, I was pretty excited about this one before it aired. So let's start with the first impressions, then we'll analyze every component in order to give it a proper mark. The visual graphics and animation are pretty futuristic and smooth. There is a variety of colours that captivates your eye, and the graphics style is one of the principle elements that remind you this is a videogame world by looking at the way people are shaped, by looking at the clothing styles, by looking at the buildingsand feeling the unrealistic warmth of the colours. And of course, the whole world is functioning like a videogame, offering you levels, items that you can improve, spells, NPC's, and various creatures that you can buy and train in order to increase your general power and advance. But that's not all, this specific world has much more for you, as an alternative reality where even the NPC's are real and can dramatically influence your journey. A world where friendship can exist, where drama can exist and of course, terrible conflicts that should not normally exist.

The visual graphics in conformity with the theme of the show gets a 9 from me. The animation as I said is smooth enough for the given events, and actually pleasant to see reaching beautiful points when the battles are taking place, but nothing too special, as a result, it gets an 8 from me.

The music and the soundscapes are always on point. The 2 opening themes, created by Madkid are actually giving me some genuine hype every time before the episode starts, as they relate to the actual content of the show and combined with the art are introducing you in the mood of moderately wanting to see what'll happen. The endings are very chilling and pleasant, doing a good job in leaving a good taste in your mouth. The soundscapes can't compare to those that are being used in some of the biggest, very prestigious creations that give you goosebumps from the very first second they start playing. BUT, they are decent and relate to the present action. For the more emotional moments, we get chilling soundscapes, that type of melody that makes you think about your own life. So 8.

Story... Oh boy, this is gonna take a while. An Isekai anime is always a few steps behind most of the other genres in my opinion. Because I just can't take it seriously since it's not even established on a concrete set of rules of a certain world where we know for sure that things actually matter and it's serious stuff, this world is not a joke or something temporary.
We get Naofumi, a lonely 20 years old student whose life is not very interesting, and we transport him to an MMORPG world to be a hero and save that world. Seems like a dream come true for most of the gamers. There are actually 3 more real world boring young guys that get there to be heroes. They don't seem too scared or worried or at least shocked by the fact that the laws of physics and logic have been broken and their lives are going to change forever. So it's starting to lose credibility and prestige.
Now, this might contain minor unimportant spoilers!!!!!

The story basically consists in, as the title says, the rising of the shield hero. Naomi got the shield, which is not even a weapon, but some kind of armour. People underestimate him, he is betrayed and accused of stuff, everyone starts to hate him, but still, he keeps being himself and keep the hard work, meets different people and obtains a... Harem. I don't quite understand why most of his allies look like 10-year-old girls. At least one of them is gonna suddenly grow up into a pretty attractive... Raccoon woman. Unfortunately, I'm not really into hairy tails and raccoon ears. Most of the characters are stupid as frick, as they always believe the false accusations brought up upon our shield bearer and easily hate him and attack him and so. It's amazingly annoying how the whole world is against him, and takes everything from him, but everyone expects him to save the world(excepting the religious fanatics). The author created him as literally the only male character able to use his brain and is losing some more points for that. His shield will also be able to use a lot of cool attacks and is also incredibly useful when powerful enemies strike. I would've expected to see a different ending though, but the story concentrates more on the premise of getting strong on your own by only having a few friends by your side, that you mean everything to them. I wanted to see the 4 heroes finally accepting their mistakes, and I mean, each one of them, and finally working together, but instead, the author kept Naofumi as the god of truth who's always right and cooler than everyone. It's annoying how much other characters are trying to open his eyes in vain. Kinda cliche. The main plot of the story is clear: Survive and Rise! Doesn't matter if it's your original world or their. You're gonna do your best to do what needs to be done. And maybe, maybe then you could return to your world. There are a few emotional backstories, there is a decent natural flow of the events and some critical moments that captivate your interest but nothing too impressive. And I guess we're waiting for a new season since we don't have a concrete ending of the show. 6 for the story.

The storytelling, and the last component. As we can already realize, the story is nothing special, but let's talk about the atmosphere it establishes through the way it is presented to us. The evolution of the characters is happening very very fast, there are skills and spells that will suddenly be used even though you had no idea what they are and when have they been added to their arsenal. But I guess it doesn't actually matter in a videogame world, it's a pretty common fact in MMO's. There's a decent amount of battles at the right time, battles are never too long and usually, there is a purpose in most of this kind of events. The transitions from event to event are a bit rushed, in order to fill the 25 episodes available. As a summary, I would say everything happened at the right time, and the story was presented to us in a decent way in the limit of the 25 episodes. It's clearly giving some credibility and gives you a reason to pay attention at least from time to time, and if not, the story is the component to blame. 8

Final mark 7 as a total. A pretty nice show if you like MMO's and would love to see a walkthrough story on your screen with characters that show emotions and get into conflicts and all that stuff. Not the best story out there, but the way it is presented to you it's worth watching casually. I
can say I moderately enjoyed it.