The Rising of the Shield Hero Season 3

Episode 10

This episode went almost exactly how I expected it to. During season 2, Rishia's character started as one of the biggest sources of contention. We had no idea what her purpose in the show would be, whether it was as another love interest or just a ditzy character to be dragged around everywhere. I want to think that whatever negativity geared towards her ended up getting eclipsed by the negativity towards season two as a whole because I don't see anybody talk about her anymore, and maybe that's for the best.

Rishia's character served as a reflection of Naofumi (I'm noticing a pattern here). She was ostracized from her group and wanted to prove herself. Along the way, she found things that only she could do and grew strong. However, she was never able to get closure with Itsuki, the Bow Hero. Part of the reason is that the Bow Hero screwed up, got captured, and had his name dragged through the mud like everybody else, but now she finally has the opportunity.

We got everything about Bow Hero that I figured we would from this episode. Not only did he mess up during the spirit tortoise fiasco, he was also manipulated by Bitch. His old teammates being used to treat him in a similar way to how he treated other people shows a lot of dramatic irony. But this setup feels a lot weaker than what we got from Ren. I don't like what happened to Ren's character at the beginning of the season, but it made sense. Ren was trying to escape trauma and ended up going to the worst possible person for that. It's not the main focus. Ren's character arc about trying to make amends for what he did and genuinely contribute to good causes has been refreshing. Even the little things like him asking if he could help look after the town was nice.

I would've liked more back-and-forth between Ren, Naofumi, and Itsuki. I don't like that Itsuki didn't have a response to Naofumi or Ren's objections outside of the fact that Bitch just warned him that THEY were going to warn him. I can infer that he's also maybe trying to gaslight himself into thinking that he's doing the right thing, but I need more context, which I hope will be given during this confrontation between him and Rishia. You can tell that next week will probably be where the real meat of this confrontation will be since everything here was a setup. Overall, it is a very basic episode without anything surprising.

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The Rising of the Shield Hero Season 3 is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.