Review of The Rising of the Shield Hero

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime was great. It was a show that brought me back to the isekai train after watching a certain broken heap of an isekai anime from the Summer 18 season that shall not be mentioned. The story was fun and nicely written. The characters were fun and enjoyable especially Rimuru. The visuals were beautiful and the music, as well as voice acting for both languages, were great. It's was the best isekai anime that I watched despite its few faults. Naturally, I decided to check out Shield Hero as I thought it would be the next best iskeai anime thatwill surpass Slime based on the amazing premise. It had the potential to be the saviour of this tiresome and uninspired genre. Maybe that was my mistake and I expecting too much for an isekai anime at this point.
So what exactly went wrong here?
The story, characters, themes, world-building, direction all of the above?

In order to not immediately begin destroying this contrived mess of a plot, I'll start talking about what I liked and that is the revenge aspect of Shield Hero.
One of the main things that made Shield Hero stand out of the isekai crowd is that it was the first true dark isekai anime. You could say that Re:Zero was the first true dark isekai anime however it only had one episode that was truly dark while the rest the show is tamed in comparison.

From start to finish as we follow a broken and damaged lead trying to save the world while trying to endure and fight the endless hatred caused by the people he was summoned.
This alone really made Shield Hero unique in the story side of things as it ditches most of the story elements that were in other isekai anime in order to introduce new story elements that were not presented in other isekai anime until now with Shield Hero.

Shield Hero is a core revenge story.

The revenge story may not be as special when it comes to anime but Shield Hero is one of the most fascinating and rewarding revenge stories I have seen in the long while. While it may not be as well written like Skip Beat and Gankustou it was still a fascinating ride I really enjoyed.
Seeing Naofumi humiliating and take down the people that caused his reputation to get shattered put a smile on my face as he really went through a lot of things in order to have the will to take them down. This is all thanks to the show's fairly competent writing when it's not being an incompetent pandering feast and that is where our problems begin.

While the revenge aspect of the show was strong from start to finish, I cannot say the same thing for the other story elements such as the save the world from the waves. The waves are basically your typical survival arenas that you see in a video game and they are not that interested in the slightest thanks to weak execution.

I will give the show credit for trying to make the waves interesting toward the end but by then the show was already over by that point.
Another major problem that would later plague the anime is how they make everyone minus the protagonist dumb and contrived. This alone really takes a massive shit of Naofumi's revenge tale as it could have been avoided if the characters just shut up and behave like actual human beings.

Furthermore, why did no one in the capital cast a lie detector spell on both Naofumi and Malty chest? Any person with a brain would have put a lie detector spell on someone in case they are lying where they could receive a shock. The fact that the series showcased that the slave crest can also detect lies in episode 21 was infuriating and it really highlights just how contrived and poorly written the series is as it could have been used in episode 1 for Naofumi's trial.

Don't get me started with the lacklustre world-building. I will give it Shield Hero credit for least trying to establish it's own world in certain episodes it compared to most other isekai animes but it's still lacklustre as the world at various points feels so lifeless and empty.
The UI system is not interesting in the slightest as just another generic UI system that has been done in other isekai anime in the past.
Now Shield Hero has a lot of themes yet most of them were poorly executed. My favourite is how the show tackles the topic of slavery. Not only is it handed incredibly poorly due to how preachy it was but the topic of slavery more often gets shafted (especially in the second half) in favour of stupid pandering.

By far the biggest problem with Shield Hero is that it doesn't truly know what it wants to be.
At first, the show is a dark revenge story, then it's a power fantasy and then it's an adventure series, then it's a harem. This alone really screws up the tone, direction and pacing of the series.
The first 4 episodes of Shield Hero is very grim and dark that has a lot of tension and atmosphere thanks to the subject matter of rape and humiliation. Naofumi is portrayed as a cold lead who just wanted to revenge of the people that humiliated him. Unfortunately, episodes 5 and onward the series decided, for the most part, put its revenge plot in the bus just so the series can add generic isekai tropes and cliches for a show that didn't need it in the first place.

It's not like the revenge has been shafted the revenge aspect it's but it doesn't appear all the much post-episode 5 as the series decides to waste its time of sick self insert loli pandering.

Finally, the final 4 episodes which were without a question one of the most boring and lacklustre final 4 episodes I have seen in 2019
Not only did the series completely jump the shark where it introduced plot threads up its ass but it also lost its purpose.

Episode 21 in terms of atmosphere and direction feels like I'm watching a finale of anime and it really shows. The episode after that feels like episode fodder as it's filled with fan-service and plot threads that won't be fleshed out due to the low episode count. I give the final 4 episodes credit for showcasing Naofumi's new powers and abilities then again the show could have ended with a cliffhanger after episode 21/22

The final thing I want to point out is the controversy in the first episode. When Shield Hero first aired it was met with controversy thanks to its offensive content where Malty (aka Bitch) falsely accused Nafoumi of raping her. I can definitely get why people get mad of this messy storytelling as it was done much better in Persona 5 but what I cannot forgive is a bunch of SJW try-hards trying to put down a show just because it deals with more serious themes and topics.
This is why I didn't give two shits about the Goblin Slayer controversy as that series was an awful show regardless of the controversy being there or not.

The characters aren't much better as all of them minus Nafoumi and Raphtalia ranged from bland, annoying, poorly written or the combination of the three.
Let's start with Nafoumi who is easily the best thing about Shield Hero.
He starts off as a grumpy individual who doesn't trust people but as the series progresses with the aid of Raphtalia not only does he open up to people he also becomes a proper badass especially towards the final quarter of the series.

Another strong aspect of Naofumi is that he's not overpowered as he mostly relies on his partners to take down various enemies. Finally, he is not a bore to watch, which more I can say about iskeai protagonist as they all lifelessly self-insert husks.
Nafoumi is tied with Rimuru for being my favourite isekai protagonist.
Another character that I really liked is Raphtalia. She may not be as good as Naofumi in terms of development but she's a good character in her own right.
I liked her chemistry towards Naofumi. Despite being a loli she will do anything to project Naofumi from falling into darkness.

Sadly this is where my praise for the characters ends. The show has a lot of characters yet all of them are clichéd and poorly written to the core.

The other heroes are a bunch of soulless character archetypes. They don't develop as characters whatsoever and they are all incredibly contrived. The bottom dog of the bunch a spear hero who is one of the most contrived and dumbest characters I have seen. His dialogue is painful to listen as he incredibly preachy for the sake of it and he's the main source of the show's major contrivances. In many ways, he's no different Sugou from Sword Art Online thanks to comically evil appearance and dialogue.
Finally, the less I say about his confrontation towards the Shield Hero the better. The same thing can be said for Malty and Filo as they are literally loli trophies that constantly suck of Naofumi hairy crotch for a living.
The villains are garbage. They are all evil for the sake of being evil, especially Malty who is probably the worst female villain I have ever seen in any fictional work. Her motivations are contrived beyond belief and she's overall a slag.
She's comically evil and not even treating in the least. Her contrived motives aren't explained or given any depth whatsoever.
Our villain's ladies and gentlemen.

As for the overall presentation, Shield Hero looks beautiful for the most part. It may not be as colourful as 8bit That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime but it still has that special visual flair that helped it stand out from the crowd of other isekai anime. Character designs for the part were appealing to look at. The background scenery has a lot of attention that is only made better by the use of dark soft colour palette.

The animation is, for the most part, good and fluent. The fight choreography is solid, the movement is smooth and there's rarely any recycled footage.

Unfortunately, Shield Hero visually is not perfect for one. The animation does dip a bit for certain episodes as it messes up the overall good fight choreography of the series. The second and final notable issue was the crappy use of CGI as it was not only ugly to look at it but also didn't blend in with the 2D animation.

Now we have the soundtrack and it's shocking subpar. The series features a dull score of fantasy music that doesn't keep the viewer invested in the scene due to how bland they were.

Sure there were a couple of decent tracks every now and then, but it wasn't enough to save this mediocre soundtrack.

The first opening theme Rise by MADKID is a fantastic opening that not only fits the tone of the series, it also a generally well-produced song that is filled with great vocals that scream hype.
The same cannot be said for the second opening theme FAITH by MADKID. It's still a good opening on its own right but it was missing the intensity that was from the first opening.
I may be the minority when I say this, but I really dislike the ending themes. Everything about them screams generic and lazy with their boring vocals and mediocre ending visuals.
The voice acting is great for both languages. The voice actors for both the dub and sub did a fantastic job with the roles that they were given. Notable performances go to Kaito Ishikawa as Nafoumi (sub), Billy Kametz as Nafoumi (dub), Erica Mendez as Raphtalia (dub) and Rina Hidaka as Filo (sub).

It's honestly sad what happened here. Shield Hero had to be great but it totally blew it.
It has underwhelming characterisation, a shitty executed plot that is only made worse by plot contrivances and a subpar soundtrack.
The only thing that saved this show from being terrible is the visuals and the main two characters. Everything else was a mess.

I honestly thoughtt that Shield Hero and Slime would save the isekai genre for me but I guess Shield Hero was not suitable for the job as it showed its true colours which is being another generic isekai anime.

I hope season 2 and beyond will be better.

Least you tried Shieldbro.