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Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: The Rising of The Shield Hero Season 2
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Blanchimont
 Posts: 3564 Location: Finland |
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The thing is, spoiler[her stats stay low despite the levels rising(that fact will change later, dramatically so).] |
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TarsTarkas
 Posts: 5928 Location: Virginia, United States |
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Glad this got picked up for episode reviews.
I found the review refreshing. Anybody looking for anything good from the three heroes will be disappointed. If they are who you care about, you are better off reading that evil tome, "The Reprise of the Spear Hero". A blatant attempt by the vile Spear Hero to rewrite history. |
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Hiroki not Takuya
 Posts: 2658 |
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Glad to see AJ doing the review and how he approached the show, with actual analysis (what a concept...). Have to agree with most of what was said. Not sure how Risha will work as a character but as for being incompetent, she hasn't had much of a chance to do much yet and if anything, Naofumi seemingly sidelining her is uncharacteristic and annoying.
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TarsTarkas
Posts: 5928 Location: Virginia, United States |
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They are going to be fighting a giant turtle monster. A monster that can flatten cities. A monster that easily killed 10,000 trained soldiers. I think Naofumi is entitled to be a bit worried for her, and possibly wonder if this 'particular' threat is a one way ticket to death for Risha. |
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MFrontier
Posts: 13708 |
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If you watched the first season of Shield Hero, then so far this season is more of the same...the three stooges are the three stooges, you-know-who is still a conniving witch, the queen is kind of awesome, girls becoming slaves, Raphtalia is Naofumi's conscience and says "Naofumi-sama" all the time, Filo likes to eat and be cute, and it always comes down to Naofumi having to do pretty much everything, though he's in a much better headspace compared to early season 1.
What we've got less of is Maaya Uchida (although she and Sarah Emi Bridcutt are still playing sisters in DAL airing in the same season). We do have Rishia who has joined the cast but I'm not sure if she's quite found a place for herself other than being a ball of anxiety, wearing animal costumes, and talking about "itsuki-sama." I mean, it sucks what happened to her, but there's only so much "fweh fweh" that can make a girl compelling. I want to see more of Eclair. A noble knight lady who is the lord of Naofumi's domain and is super beautiful? I'd rather see more of her than the three stooges. I'm not quite sure what to think of Kana Hanazawa's new character. She seems, really...off? Like, I guess some of that is intentional because she'd been posing as a concubine and manipulating people for the sake of the Spirit Turtle, but then she acts so blunt and kind of...ditzy? Her trying to give Rishia advice on how to And what is with these Seven other heroes? Were they meant to serve under the Four Cardinal Heroes? Why are we only learning about them now? I wonder if the fact that the Spirit Turtle was able to stop the countdown and seems like an alternative to stopping the Wave (albeit at the cost of human souls) will present a true moral conundrum for the protagonists even though they have to stop it's rampage. I'm guessing glasses guy (voiced by Ryohei Kimura) is behind everything. I'm not as in love with MADKID's Opening this season. |
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@ASAnime6
Posts: 434 |
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only 5 comments ? unexpected for such a popular anime
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AQuin1904
Posts: 270 |
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I admit I'm coming from a place of loathing the way the Shield Hero LNs structure their story (and also some elements of the writing style), but I'm very interested in where the anime is going with its adaptation choices. There were definitely a fair number of tweaks in S1, but nothing this dramatic (with maybe one exception of a major event getting moved forward multiple books).
Dialing back the number of people enslaved and playing up Naofumi's reluctance seems like they're angling to make him more sympathetic overall, although I wonder what that means for future developments involving that plot element. While I'm on board with skipping more than half of book 6 (even if it meant losing one scene I like) in the name of getting to the action, I can't help feeling that action is still in awfully short supply. The pace these episodes are moving at makes me wonder if this season is only planned to cover through book 7, although the OP would seem to indicate otherwise. |
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Intranetusa
Posts: 36 Location: USA |
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So no real character development? Naofumi continues being the overpowered Mary-Sue character while acting like an emo edge lord, the girls are still basically fanservice, and the other heroes are still reduced to bumbling idiots? |
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Juno016
 Posts: 2423 |
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Personal subjective question. Anyone can answer if they have a different experience, but it seems like you and I might see alike. I loved season one of Shield Hero. I felt like it had some pretty intentional story beats, structure, character writing, and world building, and its mystery had me on the edge of my seat. Re:Zero was my favorite isekai and reading the light novels gave me an immense boost in appreciating for its world building, characters, etc.--so much so that I expected the same going into the light novels for Shield Hero... ...And so I finished volume 1 of Shield Hero a week and a half ago and it left a pretty bad taste in my mouth. It felt almost juvenile and overly simple in its writing. It left very little for me to appreciate. I rewatched the volume 1 content of the anime, thinking maybe I misjudged it, but it really feels like the anime crew improved on the overall writing in that bit. My question is, as someone who has read more than me... Should I expect the LN to improve? Is there anything of value you think I could get out of the LN that the anime hasn't given so far? Or should I consider giving up on the novels and sticking to the anime? Your opinion. |
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AQuin1904
Posts: 270 |
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I think the LNs' prose has consistent issues with simplistic, repetitive sentences, delivering the same exposition multiple times in short succession, and fight scenes devolving into a dull series of people shouting "[insert move name here!" at each other. (This was in Japanese, so I can't speak to whether the translation did anything to smooth out the reading experience.) I like some of the ideas at play, but I don't think those aspects get enough consistent focus. The characters aren't exactly static, but they move in fits and starts. Someone will have an arc of development and then sit around unchanged for multiple books before anything happens with them again. (And some characters, villains especially, are just always one-note.) That's partly because the cast just keeps growing, which I don't think is always a good thing. The three heroes spoiler[do eventually get redemption arcs after hitting rock bottom themselves, but it's a long time coming, and it effectively just makes them new additions to Naofumi's rotating crew of followers]. If some of the edgier bits of Naofumi's narration were bothering you, however, those basically disappear after volume 1. I would say that the anime scriptwriters definitely made things feel more planned and consistent by adding foreshadowing, introducing setting details earlier, etc., and altering the staging of some scenes to be more dramatic. There's only one change I remember that I wouldn't call a strict improvement. As for content, reading the LNs will give you more setting details, a slightly different timeline of events (he doesn't spoiler[become a lord] until books later, for instance), and show you some material that the anime is currently cutting, like one amusing scene with Ren and Eclair that does play into future events. Also you can read much further ahead than you can watch. More books than I'd like feel dangerously close to filler, but there are some all-right arcs if you really care, and the exposition makes skipping books fairly painless. |
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tintor2
 Posts: 2116 |
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From what I heard the anime improved it. A staff member or maybe the actual writer said that tv Naofumi doesn't feel like the actual Naofumi but instead the Naofumi that Raphtalia sees. Kinda similar to the writer's requests about illustrating Subaru in the Re:zero anime. I heard the novel was also more violent than the tv series with one example being two deaths from the first season being spared. Naofumi was quite edgier in the light novel while in the tv series he was rewritten to stop the execution. Hope this helps. |
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jdnation
Posts: 2108 |
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I'm happy the show is back.
Though I agree that 2 episodes in, it hasn't quite roped me in as well as the previous seasons. It may be a slower build-up this time. The new girl Risha is kind of lame and I don't get the animal costumes. I don't know if expanding beyond the 4 cardinal heroes to include 7 others from some other continent or whatever is a good play. The simplicity of the 4-heroes and then developing complexities around that would be preferable, whcih is what I initially expected, that we'd explore the other 3 guys more as the series went on... I also don't know if the expanding cast will come at the cost of the only two characters viewers are interested in - Naofumi and Raphtalia - but those two and their relationship are what essentially made the series, so the show works best when the drama revolves around them and how they grow under developing circumstances. There was also the tragedy and conflict of the Shield Hero which made his labours and journey compelling early on as a slandered and reluctant hero who may have been the one who had to dirty his hands and reputation to accomplish things the other more pristine and celebrated heroes could not. But now that that situation was more or less solved, the show now needs something else just as compelling to keep me invested. So here's hoping we get something good. |
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Juno016
Posts: 2423 |
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Greatly appreciated! I bought 10 volumes already, so I probably over-invested because of the anime. I'll try reading a bit more, but if it doesn't hook me, I'll drop it. Sounds fair and now I know what to expect going in. Thank you! ^^ |
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Sariachan
 Posts: 1507 Location: Italy |
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Reading the replies to this topic really cleared my ideas.
I enjoyed the first season of Shield Hero quite a bit, but the pacing of this second one felt off and I was wondering why. Now that I know that more than half a book's content was cut, I understand what's the issue. Having this huge, epic battle happing without enough build-up left me uninvolved with what was happening on screen (I think it's also a case of bad directing with action scenes). I hope the rest of the content this season is going to adapt won't feel as rushed, and I'll probably try reading the novels too eventually since there are some key differences with the anime from what you wrote (even in the first season).
Did you read more of the novels, and, if yes, did you like them? (RE:Zero is my favourite isekai too, and that's even before reading its novels--which I'm planning to buy soon--so an opinion from a person with similar tastes would be helpful. ^^ ) |
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MFrontier
Posts: 13708 |
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I thought this was a pretty decent action episode and I appreciated the teamwork that went into them severing the turtles' head. I'm still feeling like Rishia isn't pulling her weight enough though.
Ost looks great in that China Dress. And Eclair in her armor and ponytail. It was nice to see some of the soldiers who supported Naofumi and to see how inspiration seeing the Shield Heroes' flag was for the soldiers. Naofumi has come a long way, and just look at his face when he sees all those people looking up and admiring him. Ost is surprisingly funny with her blunt and casual way of talking about major things "Oh, I'm still here! I guess we didn't actually defeat the Spirit Tortoise." |
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