*Spoilers below

After watching this season, I can safely say, Malty is the reason why I even finished Season 1. The biggest problem with Shield Hero is that it just isn’t as satisfying to watch anymore, because the revenge plot is done, and now it’s just a generic isekai. I’m sure the studio and animators realized that, so what did they do? They proceeded to milk the living heck out of Raphtalia and create some fan service, because they know there are many people watching this show just for her. I had low expectations coming into this season, because I didn’t think Season 1 was that good to begin with, especially in the second half. Somehow this season still ended up being disappointing. This season of Shield Hero was paced poorly, was uninteresting, the characters got even worse, but it did have one saving grace, and I’ll highlight that down below.

My grading criteria: Story: /25 Art: /10 Music: /10 Characters: /20 Enjoyment /15 Thematic Execution /20

STORY: 5.5/25

An awkward mess would be an understatement. Granted, I didn’t expect a whole lot from this season, but this was not good. I’ll talk briefly about the two main arcs of this season:

The spirit tortoise arc. Absolutely atrocious, and I’m sure most of you agree. I started the arc and the first thing I wondered was who Éclair was. I looked back at the previous season, skimmed through wikis, and I found nothing about her. So, you’re telling me she just showed up? YUP! That was the first sign that this was getting extremely rushed, even though I’ve never read the light novel. I don’t blame them for rushing this though, because it’s just a boring arc, and I can see why this rushed it, but you can’t introduce an important character without letting us know who she was beforehand. The biggest problem to me was how they deviated from the plot of season 1, which was fighting the waves, and seeing the video game mechanics in play. This time, there’s just this random tortoise thing that’s supposedly a danger to the world, which felt so random.

After a few episodes of meandering about doing a whole lot of nothing, Naofumi and company face off against Kyo Ethnina, who is officially one of my least favourite villains of all time. The way he just shouts so annoyingly, but honestly has the same intelligence as people in Team Rocket from Pokemon is just near unbearable. All he does is shout arrogantly, and when he gets defeated, WHOOP-DEE-DOO, he has yet another trick up his sleeve. Very poor character writing, and one of the lamest villains I’ve laid my eyes on, Malty was actually frustrating to watch, in a somewhat good way, and vastly superior to Kyo.

Next, we have the New World arc, which started off decently, but once Kyo came back on the screen, I realized that it’s still horrible. The first few episodes of this arc were the best of the entire season, and those were the episodes where virtually nothing happened, and they were exploring the Infinite Labyrinth. Obviously, the writers knew that the series was struggling at this point, so how should we save the story? SMOL RAPHTALIA IS DEFINITELY THE ANSWER TO ALL OUR PROBLEMS!!! Yikes. Though, the reason for my increased enjoyment to start this arc was the addition of the Cardinal Hunting Hero Kizuna, who was a fun and bubbly character with at least a little personality. Another reason is that Shield Hero finally got back to its roots and focused on levelling up and gaining items, which was the best part about Shield Hero in Season 1. Twists and turns happen, the gang eventually reunites again after episode after episode of absolute nonsense and Raphtalia somehow becoming the Katana Hero and also becoming OP as all heck. The villains were uninteresting, and the ending of the arc was rushed heavily as well. At least Kyo’s gone.

Overall, just hugely rushed. The development of the characters was poor, the villains were lame, and the amount of plot holes was crazy.

ART: 4.2/10

Huge step down from Season 1, and it became abundantly clear that Kinema Citrus was already setting their sights on working on Made In Abyss Season 2. Character expressions were awkward, fight scenes took place in stills, and the Spirit Tortoise looked like a huge, heavy pile of CG. Yikes.

MUSIC: 8.4/10

I will say, Kevin Penkin is still the saving grace of this show, and the music is pretty good in important scenes. Looking forward to his work in Made In Abyss Season 2. The opening was not as good as the first two, and the ending was alright.

CHARACTERS: 5.5/20

Uninspiring, boring, and just stock characters. Maybe they’re kinda cool in fight scenes, but what could you tell me about any type of reasonable character development? Let’s go over some of the characters.

Everyone’s favourite character, Raphtalia! I’m convinced she’s just here since the fans love her. She can fight, and keep Naofumi level-headed, but that’s no different from Season 1. The romance is just there because you just gotta have some kind of a harem in an isekai for the fans to be happy. When the story gets bad, they just show some smol Raphtalia, and expect the fans to be satisfied.

Let’s talk about Filo and Rishia now. Filo barely got any screen time, and there was no development for her, she’s just there. Rishia got my character development this time, by being more brave I suppose, and building up her skills. Her plot armour is crazy though, as not even Kyo’s gravity attack can oppose her. The question though is, why was Rishia wearing that Filo outfit in the tortoise arc???

I mentioned Kyo earlier, and how bad he is, so let’s talk about our saving grace, Kizuna. Definitely the best character in the series, because she’s strong, and has a pretty fun personality. Still a very bare-bones character that would benefit from some development. Would love to see more of her.

Finally, let’s talk about our protagonist, Naofumi. He seems like a smart guy right? To be honest, he’s just an average protagonist, but he looks smart because everyone around him have very low intelligence, and rely on him to do the heavy lifting, though we do see this theme quite a lot in other shows as well, it just seems more noticeable here. He’s a solid character, but his only intriguing aspect is when he gets angry and the wrath shield tries to take over. I still don’t understand how he can attack when he’s supposed to be a defensively oriented hero.

ENJOYMENT: 2.5/15

I found myself completely checked out at times, and there was little to no elements that had me enjoying this season.

THEMATIC EXECUTION: 4/20

What this show does, is fix bad thematic execution, with what the writer and director thinks is good themes. For example, if a fight was underwhelming, or if the story was convoluted, they’d try to fix it with some fan service. If the plot was boring, they’d try to spice things up with a hint of romance. It just doesn’t work. No themes were executed well, as a lot of things felt forced and rushed.

OVERALL: 30.1/100

Definitely the worst show I watched in the spring season. The story was massively rushed, the characters were uninspiring and bland, the villains were lame, and I didn’t enjoy it at all. I even heard that they didn’t follow the light novel very well from the readers. It’s a shame, though I kind of expected this, since the second half of the first season gave me signs that the story would go downhill, but I didn’t expect that this would be this appalling. The production and animation overall was very janky as well. The saving grace for this series was definitely Kizuna and Kevin Penkin’s composing. I believe that Season 3 might be a bit better than this season, but I’m not going to be expecting much at all.