Review of The Rising of the Shield Hero

When watching an isekai style anime I don't expect much, since there's so much trash out there. Despite the odds this one kept me in front of the screen. Long story short: I liked it and I would recommend it. Story: The story itself is not super innovative. It follows the typical anti hero pattern, where the MC is not welcome in his new world. Together with 3 other heroes he should save the world by fighting off monster waves. Unfortunately the group dynamic between the heroes doesn't work very well and personal matters hinder the characters to work together as it was intentioned. Character developement: Tbh I didn'texpect a lot here. Usually you'll find some superficial changes where someone was afraid to fight before but then, due to some surcumstance, they changed their mind.
In the case of this series the character developements were overall deeper. You follow the MC who needs to find a way to manage his anger and trust issues. It's not clear if he'll stay a hero or become some kind of villain. Other characters need to overcome grief, anxiety, naivity, stupidity and find their purpose in life. Also changes can also occur physically due to leveling up or archieving some intermediate objective. At the same time you follow the interpersonal matters between the heroes, the royals and the religious people. I liked how that was wrapped up in the end.

Art style:
In total I would describe the art style as clean and soft (soft because of the desaturated color palette) There's not much distortion or changes of styles.
I noticed quite a collection of different faces which of course gave the characters more personality. This also counts for the background figures, if there were any.

Animation:
1. Over all the animation was well made. I didn't find too many reused frames or overusage of still images. Or at least it was well integrated in the scene.
2. Timing and pacing felt good. I didn't have a lot of moments where I thought that scenes could be cut shorter/longer.
2. Usually there is not a lot going on in the backgrounds but at least the background images are not too flat.
3. The characters felt natural in their movement, expression and body language.
4. I'm not too fond of 3D animation in 2D anime. It wasn't too bad not my personal favorite.