Well after watching a high amount of isekai anime and coming to the conclusion that i wasted my time i think i got "isekaiphobia", Shield hero is one of the most popular isekais in the past 10 years, And for unknown reasons. If it just had the first half(ep 1-12) maybe i would gave it a 7 or 6 for being entertaining and having an acceptable likability, But after that the show went on a downfall which many isekai go on, That i often call these downfalls "trying to be second coming of the Christ downfall"
But before that keep in mind
- i believe there is no such thing as "Objectively" reviewing or giving an opinion on a show/novel/book/movie/manga/game or whatever. I'm not saying it's about taste. Many may like a show that if they think about it come to the conclusion that the show is shit. I'm talking about the point of view.the way someone looks at a show and thinks about it. So being disagree with me or anyone else isn't wrong. Nor strange. That's all
- i'm not a native English speaker so if some parts have grammar and spelling problems i just can apologize for it
-
This review has two parts, the first part doesn’t contain spoilers and the complementary parts that are tagged in spoilers are there for the people who have finished the show and want to know the things in an analytical detailed fashion about the criticisms and praises in the review
[Story]
“Trying to be second coming of Christ” is a term i use when a writer tries to do what he/she can't and is unable to handle the story and the characters Making the story flawed for trying to progress in a way that the writer couldn't handle
Shield hero starts with iwatani naofumi who after being betrayed by three other heroes and the kingdom which summoned all of the heroes decides to find a way by himself to get back to his own world, and in the process he meets some other characters, The first parts of the story are where i think were handled okay and made an acceptable isekai to watch and enjoy without trying to be something bigger than that, And don't misunderstand this part because I'm not saying trying to surpass the limits is a wrong thing, The wrong thing is to try surpassing them when you can't, First you need to know what you are really going to do, Just wanting to surpass limits doesn't make anything better. The first half is mostly based on the journeys naofumi has with his companions and helping different people making his reputation better bit by bit
Spoiler, click to view
usually because one of the other three stupid heroes was busy shitting on the people of the villages before naofumi saves the people and cleans their mess)The first half doesn't force you to enjoy a badly written story and badly written plot twists, just gives you something that many isekai don't, Normalcy.
The first half isn't something special or anything like that, it is just good. It exists to develop main characters' relationships bit by bit making them a normal group of friends, And that's fine you Don't need to surpass your limits when you can't, And naofumi at least isn't the saint who is there to save the day, he wants money in return for his services, He is kind like many other isekai characters and is Clichy in many parts even in the first parts of the story but isn't completely mediocre and has a few good points. But then we have the second half of the show (ep 13-25)
This is the part that the story tried to surpass its limits and messed up
The story starts to go for characters’ back-stories and starts to let other three heroes shine too,
The problem is that the other three heroes are just one dimensional stupid arrogant idiots with nothing interesting in particular and nothing worthy of noting about their characters exists and the show doesn't give them anything to like them for. It just makes them the typical brainlet strong characters who are unwise and irresponsible And even doesn't make them anything else
Spoiler, click to view
and they’re not just total idiots in the first half, they are total idiots in the second half too, those idiots even don’t question malty’s attempted assassination of her own sister, they just blindly follow her lead even when a freaking donkey could understand malty’s attempt at assassinating her sister, they’re just like: “oh dear princess why you’re shooting at your own sister too if you want to save her?” and malty is like “the shield hero can brainwash others my sister doesn’t know what she’s saying when she says she isn’t a hostage”, and there isn’t even a single person who asks: “how the hell you know what powers he has? Can you even prove this? Were you able to understand all of his collective powers in his “attempted assault” at the first episode?”…
Most of the characters are stupid so that naofumi can shine as the wise protective hero who is the only person who has an IQ above a monkey’s
And when it comes to the main characters' back-stories it just messed up, Making them completely the typical illogical pacifists that don't have anything else but saying:”oh no listen child that is bad this is good don't do bad things just do good things”
Spoiler, click to view
and the more annoying part is that this fucking scene is said to be NOT IN THE ORIGINAL STORY/LN, meaning if the author could do one part right, the anime grabs that part by the collar and throws it into a trash bin and then burns it so they can make the character act like Gandhi because…… I don’t know, creating a contradicting plot that crumbles instantly if the viewer thinks about it more than 20 seconds, Because naofumi is like:”oh no raphtalia don’t kill that aristocrat because killing is bad”, the same naofumi who kills the pontiff, and no one even talks about it, morality in this show doesn’t suck it’s basically used as a plot tool so that the studio can serve a bit more killing is bad bullshit, because it seems shield hero works with the logic that any bad thing that others do is fine if the main character does the same “bad thing”I wanted to drop the show after "someone's" shitty pacifism making her even more one dimensional(but I didn’t, if you want to ask why i should say i don't know myself), The problem is the contradictory part with this pacifism and one dimensional characters that the anime studio tries to give depth to with making them do something that the script writer showed they don't, Killing is bad for that "someone" but it seems there is no problem if another character kills someone. The first 20 episodes villains were total black jerks and when it comes to punishment for the villains we have another shitty pacifism this time. Dear writer who is responsible for this scene, you can't justify such things with just one or two dreams and visions
Spoiler, click to view
naofumi kills the pontiff, but it’s bad for raphtalia to kill the aristocrat dude, and naofumi in the last minute comes to the conclusion that revenge from malty and shitty king is bad, so he makes the stupid suggestion of changing their names and everyone in the damn execution scene is eager to throw away the religion they believed in two seconds ago and accept naofumi as this fantastic great hero who is now respected by almost everyone, the show couldn’t avoid becoming another generic power fantasy bullshit for more than 20 episodesAnd the last 4 or 5 episodes try to give us better villains by making the situation less black and white but it doesn't give us details just gives us basic information, The last 5 episodes were mostly how they fight with the enemies not why they really fight, Making the “why they really fight” part so basic, because the author and the script writer for the anime are trying to increase the number of characters with nothing more than one dimensional characters and shitting on the main characters more and more and giving us bullshit plot twists whenever they like to, making the show even hardly average. Maybe even bad, with high amount of cliché you can ruin many things, and at least in this season (I haven’t watch the second season, and trust me I probably never will) the instant they try to do something slightly less black and white it’s rushed and superficial
[Characters]
At least the first half does a decent job at character development (for an isekai) and gives you fun characters, You know what i mean? Fun and acceptable for you (the viewer), to enjoy their progress in their journey.
But we have the same problem here too. The second half, the script writer for the anime comes to show you characters’ back-stories and fails.
Raphtalia was an okay character in the first half but in the second half she became the "saint girl who doesn't do bad things she is a good girl" kind of character, Destroying the little amount of realism she had and making her a generic pacifist female character. Filo at least wasn't butchered like raphtalia imo, But most of the others were. The three other heroes were just generic irresponsible and arrogant jerks who didn't do anything but after shitting on many peaple they become "good". The problem is that they become "good" without any particular characterization or anything, The first half villains were just black unwise and shitty jerks who were saved by a shitty asspull/Deus ex machina(the king and malty)
And we have a secondary villain in the middle of anime who is…… Am…… Om…… Ohmmmmmmmm……….. What the hell is this shit, we already had a generic power hungry asshole in the story (malty herself) but the pontiff is the second evil for the sake of evil villain we get (his motivation is just power, he just wants power that’s all),
Spoiler, click to view
and he’s also a villain that suddenly comes out of nowhere, and then boom he vanishes after a few episodes because our hero naofumi has successfully killed the bad guy even though the script writer came to the conclusion that killing is bad a few episodes ago…And we have the “gray" villains that…… We don't know anything about…… This part could have been fixed in later seasons (which I haven’t watched so I don’t know if it was or not) but what about other problems? Naofumi, Raphtalia, Three shitty heroes, And almost a big cast of characters, The story couldn't stay away from heavy asspulls more than 20 episodes
Spoiler, click to view
“oh look at the shield hero, he’s such a great man let us all praise him for forgiving the king and princess”and the script writer couldn’t hold himself back to don’t throw “killing is bad” bullshits in the show more than 12 or 14 episodes, how is this show going to develop the characters?
[Art]
The art isn't bad. It has sometimes shitty CGI but isn't completely shit or frustrating and the designs are good. So i think it's bad. It's good.
[Conclusion/Enjoyment]
If it wasn't for the first half i think i would have just given this part a very low score. I absolutely didn't enjoy the second half and i wanted to drop it, But eventually i forced myself to watch it (AKA forcewatched it)
If you enjoy isekai i think there are plenty of better isekais out there for you, Konosuba, mushoku tensei, and re:zero for example are my personal recommendations, But if you like isekai and enjoy any kind of isekai "and" don't have any other thing to watch then i think it can be a candidate for watching
>Overall maximum score with my taste:4
Overall maximum score:5
Overall minimum score:4