Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: The Rising of the Shield Hero Season 3
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everydaygamer
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I believe it is mentioned that the slave trade is currently in the process of being abolished within the kingdom. However that kind of thing takes time so in the interim everyone is selling their slaves to other kingdoms where slavery is still legal.
Anyway the current season has been great so far kind of reminds me of how season 2 of Danmachi was awful only for later seasons to see a major improvement. Hopefully it keeps this up. |
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encrypted12345
Posts: 728 |
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Not that Shield Hero in particular handles slavery all that well, but there is an argument to be made for not trying to rock the boat too hard if you aren't native and especially if you don't really have the political power to actually do anything. I'm not really a proponent of of moral relativism, but trying to enacting social change without a solid plan can be pretty ineffective, not to mention that you might end up doing more harm than good as shown in S1 when Spear Hero tried to "save" Raphtalia.
That said, if you want something that has a lot of fun with slavery, I recommend Reincarnated as a Sword. Slavery is outright illegal in most of the world there, so the ex-slave secondary protagonist has free reign to slaughter slavers whenever she feels like it. It's fun. |
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Beatdigga
 Posts: 4631 Location: New York |
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While I won’t speak to execution, the concept of subverting a system from within while waiting for laws to be passed dealing with it outright has some merit as a storytelling tool. Not to mention S1 had Naofumi running his own business ventures like he was in Spice X Wolf so it’s clear he has the economic means.
Yes, this deserves a side-eye till we see how it’s pulled off but the concept has potential. |
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GildedDash
Posts: 2 |
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In season 1 it was understandable that Naofumi would trust a slave over anyone else after everything he went through. Raphtalia only wanted the crest back to show Naofumi her trust and loyalty to him but also for the fact it protected her from anyone else trying to mess with her. He never actually treated anyone like a slave and only allowed people that wanted the crest to take it.
In season 3 the Queen did try to help get the demi-human slaves back from Raphtalia's old village but if you listen in the episode they say, the slaves got moved out of the Kingdom to the surrounding nations. So, even if the Kingdom end slavery in its borders doesn't mean it will end in that entire world. Also, the slave crests have good uses for criminals and such. |
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Gnarth
Posts: 175 |
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Well, it's already better than the entirety of season two, which while not a high bar is very much appreciated. Overall it's better visually, but I liked the old character designs more. Some people called them "overdesigned" but I honestly really liked how "full" and detailed they were compared to these simpler versions.
The main problem I have with the depiction of slavery is the fact that no characters ever seem to realize the evil of it, even after witnessing it or being a victim of it and openly condemning it. It made sense for Raphtalia to be oblivious at the beginning as she saw Naofumi as her only source of light, but even after overcoming her trauma and becoming friends with free people she never even thinks about it, while yet condemning demi-humans' awful treatment every time she sees it. Somehow nobody makes the clear connection. It's not really a matter of morality but rather they just look dumb. This would've worked better if Naofumi remained the disillusioned, selfish, angry man who's seen everything unfairly taken from him he was at the beginning. Turning him into a righteous and, frankly, boring hero has made him and the overall story less interesting in my opinion. I would've liked him to stay more morally grey, but if this season develops him in such a way to solve these problems in the other, heroic way, that's fine as well. Last edited by Gnarth on Wed Oct 18, 2023 12:03 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Hal14
 Posts: 727 Location: Heart of africa |
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Hopefully pacing should be better this season since it looks like their adapting fewer volumes. And there is a different director. How often does that happen, a show having a different director each season?
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MFrontier
Posts: 14216 |
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Just from the get-go this season is already a step up from season 2 in terms of visuals, direction, and characters. Sadeena is already a much more entertaining character than Ost was and I hope we get more with her.
Even the OP is a lot better this season in my opinion. I've about made my peace that Naofumi will never stop working with the slave merchant for one reason or another. Though it's kind of hilarious how the guy is part of a Nurse Joy/Officer Jenny type family of identical slave merchants. |
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jdnation
Posts: 2127 |
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Short of war and conflict with every powerful and well connected person in an unknown land, it would be stupid to think one can just totally abolish an institutional system that was a mix of economic necessity, debt, punishment and a potential source of survival for the desperate and impoverished and expect everything to be sunshine and rainbows.
The only means to resolve it peacefully overtime is time and economic solutions. I recall another anime Arslan, where our hero sought to free a particular set of people from slavery and they told him to shove off because of the particular circumstances they were in to the point they defended their master against him. Also vinland Saga also shows best the necessity and bad experiences of the slave system. Season 1 of Shield Hero was excellent. Naofumi was desperate, and the most necessary part of the slave/master system was shared EXP which was vital given the downside of the Shield Hero's abilities. Raphtalia's decision also made perfect sense. Both out of consideration for naofumi, her own feelings, and also just because she was free doesn't mean she is invulnerable from being enslaved again. The slave trade is ethically immoral, especially when the captive is not paying off a debt or as just punishment for crime. But it is also useful for desperate impoverished individuals, or cases where mass captives may have either died or have the choice of surviving with hope. Naturally, some would rather die, out of pride, or because slavery doesn't alleviate and may in fact increase their sufferings under a cruel trader or owner. Even if Naofumi had the power to to wage total war it would lead to mass casualties, mass poverty as a result, and ironically more reliance on slavery. As far as the story of Season 1 was concerned, it was fine in so far as it served the main leads. As Naofumi learned, this world is an unfair place, and the show could've been better if it reinforced that theme with various stories. Season 2 sucked because it lacked everything that made season 1 interesting. Naofumi's main antagonism was resolved. Then Raphtalia was separated from him for the majority of the season, and there is 0 development between our main leads. Yes, at some point it is necessary that Raphtalia learns to act independently, but this weren't it chief. And somehow, the shows big major battle scenes involving giant world tortoises managed to be boring. And who the heck were all these new characters? And why are we jumping right into these other worlds when there is still so much left here to explore? Season 3 is starting out better. But we lack urgency so far as there is no audience emotional connection to these slaves that Naofumi is going after. There is nobody we know amongst the captives. It might as well be a side mission at this point. There could at least be some stakes where the Shield hero's reputation was somehow tied into rescuing these people and the dilemma over whether Naofumi cares about them or his reputation. This would give us that same dynamic where the shield hero gets to play the despised ruffian but also saviour of certain groups of people and anti-hero Naofumi was far more compelling than what he is now. |
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Romuska
 Subscriber Posts: 814 |
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Between this and Mushoku Tensei I’m pretty much done with the iseaki genre. I refuse to tolerate the fetishized slavery in a show that practically begs the audience to take it seriously.
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TarsTarkas
 Posts: 5958 Location: Virginia, United States |
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Anime is never going to treat slavery the way Americans want it to. American view on slavery has more to do with American history, rather than world history. Slavery has been around for a couple thousand of years, and probably more. That is why Japan has no problem with treating it as a backdrop in their anime. We all know slavery is evil, but it has been around for a very long time.
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Glordit
 Posts: 688 |
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So far this has been so much better than season 2 ever was. I was skeptical when people said that the third installment would be better, glad I held out that tiny bit of hope. Last couple of sequels have been sub-par (Nagatoro, Masamune, Hataraku Maou-sama!! & Maou Gakuin no Futekigousha) so I was starting to worry.
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oilers2007
Posts: 130 |
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This isn't an airport, you don't have to announce your departure. I didn't mind season 2 myself, but I agree season 3 so far is a lot better both story wise and production wise. I'm glad to have another season of this hit anime. |
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jr240483
 Posts: 4471 Location: New York City,New York,USA |
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and it is even more so in a midevil world or a fantasy world! the idea of any fantasy world or isekai world series that does not have some kind of slavery element is foolhardy! though there are ways to use its storyline as a positive. heroic legend of arslan is one series as well as season 2 of how a realist hero rebuilt the kingdom are prime examples of this. especially the latter in the way how souma turned the slavery notion on its head by using one of them to start a system to where it is in name only & avoiding the mess of a civil war (ala what happened in america) which would have definitely happened if naofumi had ask the queen to completely abolish the practice with a royal decree & without facing a massive backlash from nobels that want to maintain the status quo!
which arc of season 2 your talking about? the rakia arc, the war game arc or the pleasure quarters arc? besides , while i can understand your distain, remember that it was bad because too many good things from the LNs were left out! its also why season 2 of shield hero ended as a disaster. instead of giving it a 24 or 26 ep season, kadokawa tied the production committes hand with a fiasco of a season by only green lighting only 12 eps when every light novel reader knew that those two arcs would at least require 24 or 26 eps! |
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NeverConvex
 Subscriber Posts: 2568 |
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I'm sympathetic; I'm a sucker for general fantasy settings, low and high, but isekai's writing around sensitive issues is usually pretty miserable (albeit with the ever-reliable, lone counterexample of Re;Zero). FWIW I do find myself gagging less at the show's tone-deafness (?) this season than in the past. I don't think that's entirely just a built-up tolerance; Naofumi called one of the slavers a scumbag this season (faint praise, I know  ), they've got an entire subplot built around buying back slaves from one of their villages to secure their freedom (and without any creepy packaged-along harem-building -- well, unless the tiger girl moves in that direction, I guess), the overlying theme of abolishment of slavery in Melromarc... it's not exactly subtle, affecting stuff, but it's actually pointing in the right direction, unlike in past seasons.
So far this season, the biggest exception to this for me was when I was reminded in episode 1 that the big bad lady villain was canonically, legally renamed to "bitch". Not even bargain-bin writing, that. |
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MFrontier
Posts: 14216 |
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I was wondering why Fohl didn't fight back against the bandits but apparently he wasn't even in the part of this story they adapted here because they've been shifting things around so much. Neither was Sadeena.
Nice to see Eclair. And that she's totally fine with executing scumbags...provided it doesn't cause political issues. But I guess now slavery can be used for justice, I guess? They're actually adding depth to Trash!? Huh. Oh joy...they found Motoyasu. |
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