Nowadays, there is not a single season in which isekai is not present in some way shape or form. It's an over saturated, repetitive and cliche medium that we all laugh at, and yet somehow find ourselves coming back to. However, despite the over saturation of the isekai genre, there are series that have overcome this as very well written and executed stories, such as Konosuba. Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari (Shield Hero), on the other hand, is not. Out of all the anime that have aired in recent times, it is without a doubt one of, if not the most, garbage and overrated show to have aired.

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1. The World

1.1 World Building

The world in Shield Hero was never the main focus of the story and little information is given on the geography and the surrounding areas of this world. We did get some moments where we saw maps and characters where discussing future locations they would to travel to, however, the information never actually built on anything or added anything to the series. I want to point out how this is not an issue applicable to all other series which do not focus on the world, as a simple world can sometimes be beneficial to the story. It can allow writers to quickly make the audience know about the world, in this case a fantasy world, and focus their attention on the other more important aspects of the story such as the characters or themes. However, in Shield Hero this is a problem, as the story mainly follows Naofumi and his party travelling around this world visiting villages and cities. Having the protagonist travel through a simple world who’s races, landscape and structure are very simple and have been repeated several times in other series, is ineffective and gets quite boring. Apart from the main plot point in an arc of the story, for example, when they go cure the disease caused by the corpse of the dragon slayed by the Sword Hero, there is not much else to delve into or care about. This consequently makes the audience not care for the characters in those arcs, in this case the villagers in trouble.

Furthermore, the story doesn't even do a decent job of actually world building. For example, remember the reason as to why Naofumi was the only one out of the 3 heroes who came into this world without any knowledge of how the hero mechanics work or information about the world? Yeah, me neither, and neither does the series, because this is clearly just a cheap excuse for the series to easily dump a whole lot of exposition onto the viewers with the excuse that Naofumi also needed it. Since I was curious and wanted to know if this plot point actually lead to anything, I consulted some of my friends who have read ahead in both the light novel and the manga about it, but from what they told me, it has yet to be explained; and taking into account where the story heads to after the anime I doubt it ever will be.

1.2 The power system in Shield Hero

The power system in Shield Hero's world seems to revolve around simple usage of basic elements like fire, water, earth, ice, thunder, etc., with the exception of the heroes and other powerful creatures like Fitoria or the giant dinosaur. This I have to clarify is not a flaw in my eyes, it is its execution and its link with the story as a whole that makes simple magic great, or bad in this case.

For example, in Black Clover the power system consists in casting spells with a grimoire, these spells range from simple ones such as powerful gusts of wind to more complex ones like Yami's dark magic. However, the way it links with the characters and the story is what makes its simplicity great. For example, the magic one has in the Black Clover universe depends heavily on their personality and how you approach situations regardless of your birth and magic type, case and point Langris’ and Finral’s spatial magic. Even though Langris and Finral are brothers and where brought up in the same household, the way their spatial magic took form differs quite heavily. Finral can open human sized portals, sort of like space fissures, connecting different points in space. On the other hand, Langris has a more offensive type of spatial magic, being able to erase matter from existence by simply swiping his hand. We can see how there is a huge difference in their application of their spatial magic. This is due to their personality, Finral is a calmer and more passive person while Langris is a very determined person facing any obstacle in front of him.

Going back to Shield Hero, in the story, the power system makes no sense at all. From the heroes, Naofumi is the only one that has a unique way of acquiring new powers that differs greatly from one another, of course they all at the end of the day have the purpose of serving as a shield but that is not the point. The other 3 heroes literally have the same attacks but for their respective weapons, case and point 'Thunder -' or 'Meteor -'. Unlike Naofumi, they don't develop any new special skills that differentiates the heroes from one another, and we don't even know how their powers functions. This makes all the fights in which they participate repetitive and boring. What’s even worse is that even the heroes from other worlds don't have unique attacks, case and point Therese in episode 24 using:

"Bejeweled Meteor Shower!"

Oh, would you look at that another meteor attack so creative.

For people who are not heroes like Malty or regular adventurers, the power system consists of casting spells which range from simple spells like fire attacks to casting a spell which boosts the target's attack. This is normally shown in the series as simple castings with the prefix 'Zweit' before the type of spell. This isn’t a very creative and unique magic system, but it did its job at establishing its capabilities for the reader to understand. However, in later episodes, out of nowhere they started chanting new spells without the use of the ‘Zweit’ that were considerably more powerful than the latter. For example, in episode 20 when Filo and Naofumi are charging at the pope who used 'Phoenix Blade' to attack them, in a combination spell (which in and of itself is a plot hole because it was established that they couldn't use combination spells until they had the class upgrade, which they didn't) without any previous explanation of how or where they learnt the spell, starts casting the following spell:

"As source of thy power, the Shield Hero I order thee! Decipher the laws of creation, consume the flame and give me power! Wrath Fire!"

The one who says "As source of thy power, the Shield Hero I order thee!" is Filo, not Naofumi which shows that Filo had some part in the spell. The use of this new chanting system makes two huge mistakes. Firstly, it disregards the whole purpose of the ‘Zweit’ spells, for example, why use 'Zweit Aqua Shield' if you can just decipher the laws of creation and use the enemies spell against them. Furthermore, it was never shown in the series how the use of these ‘law decipherments’ had any drawbacks or costs that the ‘Zweit’ spells had, making the latter basically useless. Secondly, these new types of spells have no range of capabilities at all, basically this would categorize as a type of soft magic. Soft magic in writing is a term to categorize magic systems which have very vague rules and give the characters in the story a wider range of possibilities in terms of manipulating their magic. For example, the magic system in Harry Potter would be considered a type of soft magic. Soft magic in a story is not bad, however, it is considerably harder to pull off as this type of system if executed badly will remove all the tension in a scene as the reader will not be satisfied with the characters solving a problem with a new out of nowhere spell. Shield hero is a perfect example of how not to write a soft magic system, having characters pull magic out of nowhere for the convenience of the plot. For example, in episode 23, Naofumi just starts chanting yet another unknown spell that in and of itself doesn’t make sense:

“As a source of thy power, the Shield hero orders thee. Decipher this message and energize my target.”

First of all, Naofumi and his party were trying to see what the message meant, so how did Naofumi know that it would “energize my target” and suddenly made Filo be able to jump higher. Even worse, this scene is useless, literally filler. Filo being able to jump higher is not referenced at all in the future episodes, and since she can already jump pretty high it didn’t make Filo stronger, or faster. Having the characters use attacks that no one’s heard of might be acceptable for side characters or villains who we don’t know much about, however when the protagonist of the series, who’s growth we’re supposed to be following, suddenly pulls like ten attacks out of his ass, it just comes off as bullshit and unplanned.

1.3 The hypocritical purpose of the heroes

The Four Cardinal Heroes were summoned into the Shield Hero universe due to The Waves of Calamity threat to the world. However, seeing the performance of the four heroes in the waves as well as some other over powered characters like Fitoria in the series, makes you wonder if they’re actually needed in the world.

There are many strong existences in the world of Shield Hero that could easily wipe the floor with the four heroes and be much more useful in fighting the waves that the heroes. Fitoria, for instance, is so strong that she could kill the four heroes all by herself. This is shown at the end of Raphtalia’s arc where the noble in his last breaths releases a gigantic dinosaur that Naofumi and his party could do nothing but run when they saw it. Fitoria comes into the scene and wipes the floor with the dinosaur showing her gigantic size and immense power. If the world of Shield Hero has existences with that sort of power, then there should not be a reason to summon the heroes. Moreover, it can also be argued how someone as strong or stronger than the dinosaur had to seal it in the statue, as it couldn’t be Fitoria as we saw how she instantly killed it meaning that before it was sealed, Fitoria would have killed it instead of sealing it, confirming the existence of other powerful beings in the world of Shield Hero. Furthermore, in episode 24-25 Melty remarks how it's the responsibility of the royal army to fight against the waves. The excuse given in the series as to why the royal army wasn’t present in the first two waves was because the Queen had to deal with the consequences of the King of Melomarc summoning the four heroes. However, there was no indication that the Queen was fighting the Kingdoms that were infuriated for the King’s actions, but instead, it was implied that she was having a very hard discussion and negotiation with them. So, there shouldn’t be any reason as to why the royal army couldn’t have been in Melomarc helping with the waves. The Queen already had her secret squad that could protect her, so there was no need for the entire army to be there. And if Melty’s statement regarding the responsibility of the royal guard is correct, then that would mean the army would be strong enough to fight waves which would add further questioning as the reason why the heroes are even summoned.

In addition, the four heroes don’t even help much as not only do they have to start from zero, but they also can’t work together to level up as they will receive less exp the closer they are to one another. Their performance the first wave was quite decent, and it actually played into the theme of Naofumi being weaker and less knowledgeable about the world than the others. The Second wave, however, is where we see the four heroes being completely useless against the increased strength of the wave. Ignoring Glass since she was revealed to be a hero from another world, the only reason they managed to clear the wave was due to Naofumi using the rage shield which boosted his strength enough so that he could beat the boss. The three heroes do absolutely nothing in the fight apart from landing in a trap and constantly killing the same enemies. It’s in the third wave where the four heroes apparently get stronger due to the boost in exp gain on Cal Maria, however, the four heroes do absolutely nothing in the fighting of the wave, and when I say nothing, it is not fighting weak enemies and not helping out in the overall picture, its them literally standing on the boats. Naofumi is no exception, as all he did in the fight was serve as bait for the big boss so that the heroes from another world could actually kill it. In these three waves we can see how the only reason the heroes are able to clear the waves is because Naofumi got a very over powered new skill that makes him as strong or stronger than the wave’s boss, and outside help.

Furthermore, in the fight against the pope we saw how a mere clone of the four cardinal heroes’ weapon was enough for him to be stronger than the four heroes working together and wipe the floor with them. So, why summon the four heroes and waste resources on them instead of producing these cloned weapons and giving them to trained fighters for when the waves appear. This shows that the only reason why the heroes are even in the story is to serve as cheap, two-dimensional antagonists to make Naofumi suffer.

Another major plot hole in series is the fact that it makes no sense that the shield hero was even summoned by Melromarc in the first place. Think about it, the church and king, both hate the Shield Hero and clearly see him as useless compared to the other heroes. Plus, it was revealed that the nations can actually choose which heroes to summon, as the original plan was that each nation would summon their own hero. Taking this into account, it makes no sense that Melromarc would choose to summon the Shield Hero. It could be argued that they summoned him in order to keep him in check and prevent another nation from getting hold of him as they saw him as a threat, however this argument falls apart quite quickly as despite taking his money and removing his reputation, they do nothing to keep him in check and pretty much let him roam free.

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2. The Characters

2.1 Character development

Apart from Naofumi and Raphtalia, the series has zero-character development not only for the supporting cast like the other 3 heroes and the royalty, but also the main cast like Filo. The only characteristics Filo has as a character is that she loves her master, Naofumi, and will help him with his journey. That’s it. She doesn't have any further character development in the rest of the series. In what can be considered Filo’s character arc, there was ironically no change at all in Filo’s character whatsoever. The only reason why this arc even existed was to hammer in an excuse for Naofumi to be nice to the other three heroes. Filo in this arc became the Filolial Queen, which was then totally ignored for the rest of the series; it made no impact to her character at all. Also, the one thing she learns from the previous Filolial Queen, Fitoria, is a new claw technique. But, oh wow, totally unexpectedly she doesn’t use it for the rest of the series. Hm, I wonder if that’s happened before. That fact that she receives no development past “Goshujin-sama daisuki!” and yet continues to play a prevalent role in the story makes her one of the most annoying characters, as she constantly repeats the same generic lines.

Raphtalia was a great character at the beginning since she acted as a great representation of Naofumi's lack of morality when buying her as a slave; but as the story progressed, everything that made her a great character was just tossed out and she ended up becoming annoying. For example, the first time she addressed herself as being Naofumi's sword was a nice symbolic representation of how she was Naofumi's way to attack enemies since he could not wield any other weapon other than his shield. It was even a wholesome way to contrast the previous scene and prove to him that she will never leave him. However, repeating it during every fighting situation just made it lose its impact and made it annoying. The phrase becomes even more pointless as the series goes on and Naofumi’s shield gains the ability to essentially function as an offensive weapon, removing the need for him to wield a shield in the first place. Furthermore, in what can be considered her arc, where they encounter the noble that tortured her and her village friends, why, WHY, did you not kill the noble. It would have made the series a lot better and would have brought back the unique tone from the beginning that had died out by this point. But no, we had to go with the stereotypical "I'm not going to kill you because it would make me the same as you". cliché. One of the appeals of Shield Hero that brought it many fans, myself included, was how it broke and twisted around isekai cliché’s that are always present in all other regular boring isekai anime. This coupled with the appeal of Naofumi as a character at the beginning, Raphtalia being a super cute loli, the Malty plot twist, etc., made the series unique and set it apart from the rest. However, now the series does the opposite of what made it unique, making it a huge disappointment and another boring cliché isekai. It’s also worth mentioning that this scene completely goes against Naofumi’s established character as he is supposed to be amoral and yet is shown to be opposed to her killing the noble. Furthermore, Raphtalia and Naofumi’s father-daughter-like relationship at the start was actually sort of unique and interesting to watch. This relationship even worked when Raphtalia grew up a little in episodes 3 and 4. After that however, they completely threw that relationship out of the window and Raphtalia became another generic love interest. Filo was probably meant to be her replacement however I’ve already talked about why she’s a terrible character in her own right.

The only thing we know about the Sword and Bow Hero is that they look at this world from a gamer's perspective which makes them not care about the actions they take, possibly leading them to view the worlds monsters and citizens as NPCs. But that’s basically it, apart from that they are cliché and annoying characters. The Spear Hero is a bit more developed than the sword and bow heroes, however this doesn't extend very far. Apart from what was mentioned above, which applies to the Spear Hero, we know that he is a womanizer since his party is only compromised of woman; and that he likes Filo. We did get some Motoyasu screen time in the execution when he wasn’t convinced that Malty lied about faking her abuse by part of Naofumi. His character does develop a bit as we see the desperation in his face and voice when the slave crest electrifies Malty, signifying that she lied. This was a golden opportunity to start developing Motoyasu by having him see how all his actions had been manipulated by Malty washed over him. However, as the author does very well in his story, let’s just completely forget about all of that and in the last scenes of episode 25 make him appear again relaxing on a sofa with Malty as if nothing happened. Oh, and also make him keep being an asshole to Naofumi for no reason at all. And these are supposed to be three of the most important supporting cast characters, that at the beginning were set up as Naofumi's friends but were twisted to become his enemies. But nothing, they are just there. Their characters are completely ignored the entire way through the series, only appearing when the plot needs Naofumi to do something or move to another place.

What's even worse is the insane inconsistency of their only characteristic, that being their hatred for Naofumi. In the fight against the pope they team up, TEAM UP. Keep in mind that from the perspective of the 3 heroes, Naofumi did rape Malty, furthermore, as Fitoria pointed out, Naofumi did not try to defend himself which only made the situation worse for him. Even worse, once the pope appears and the heroes have to fight against him, they are suddenly able to make a coherent combo attack against him (not combo attack like combining spells). You can argue that the three other heroes could have trained sometime together for some reason, but that's nothing more than head-canon which cannot be confirmed. Moreover, it was stated that the heroes would receive less experience when farming together so it doesn't even make sense that they know how to fight together, even less with Naofumi. This is clearly showed in episode 23 where Naofumi is literally forced to move to a different farming location because the other three heroes were farming in the same place, thus, making the gain of exp so low that they started getting nothing. Also, the relationship between the heroes, excluding Naofumi, isn't that great either as they are blinded by their huge ego about being heroes. This is seen clearly in the second wave when they are fighting in the flying ship and are arguing who did more damage or who killed the most monsters. Ultimately, they almost lost the wave due to that reason alone making it even less likely that they would suddenly work together so well. Furthermore, in episode 22 when Naofumi, the three heroes and the Queen are in a table discussing, the three heroes start arguing about what makes weapons strong to the point that Motoyasu picks up Ren by the neck and Ren provokes Motoyasu to a fight. This just shows how their relationship is not to a level where they could corporately work together to defeat a single opponent. In addition, it makes no sense how in the span of one episode they can go from acting friendly with each other to hating each other without any sort of trigger. In the fight with the pope, all they spoke about was the power of friendship and the importance of working together and even in episode 21, they acted nice to Naofumi after the execution scene. And yet for some reason, they all apparently hate each other in the next episode, as shown by the meeting with the queen. It’s as if the series has an undo button that it presses every few episodes to undo any bits of character development.

2.2 The fall of Naofumi's character

Since the start of the series it was established how the Shield Hero was hated by everyone for some reason that had relation with the royal family. This all culminated in Malty falsely accusing Naofumi of raping her in episode 1, putting everyone against him. This was one of the best plot twists in recent anime and broke the normal isekai cliché of the protagonist and his first love interest. This set a beautifully dark tone for the story and made it unique, thus, making it one of the most popular series of winter 2019. Naofumi’s development as a result of this event was massive, he became someone new in contrast with his first appearance in the series. He became an amoral anti-hero who didn’t care about the world or the people around, essentially the polar opposite of the typical isekai protagonist. This as I stated before is one of the many reasons why the series was appealing to many people. He didn’t go as far as killing everything that moved and leave innocent civilians for dead, he did have some compassion but only for those that did not instantly disregard him just because he was the Shield Hero.

However, unfortunately, apart from the development of the relationship between he and Raphtalia, his development as a character has only gone downhill. Now he has become a boring and flat character that has no motivation or the same thrill as the beginning. For example, one of the worst parts about Naofumi now is his current relationship with Melty. Coming from Naofumi’s and the viewer’s perspective, the royalty that summoned the 4 heroes, are total garbage. Malty set up Naofumi and turned everyone against him, even better, the King of Melomarc spread false propaganda about the Shield Hero all over the country preventing anyone from even wanting to look at the Shield Hero. And then, when Naofumi meets Melty he just distrusts her for a bit until she cries. Honestly, regardless if Melty is lying or not she is still family with the 2 people who made his life hell. There was nothing preventing Melty from acting and gaining the trust of Naofumi just to set him up again, or potentially kill him. This is all hypothetical situation since we as the audience knew that this wasn’t going to happen, but still, from Naofumi’s perspective she could have. Why trust the sister of the horrible human being that ruined your life, this is just bad writing and cherry picking who to trust; because you know if they cry, they are showing their true emotions, just like Malty. It was actually quite nice when he essentially told Melty to fuck off after finding out she was a royal however the next time he saw her, it was like he completely lost his balls. When he saw her for the second time after learning she was a royal, he just stood there with an awkward smile as she insulted him for not cooperating with the king. He even went as far as helping her out when there was no benefit to him, completely contradicting his established character.

Even worse, the series ruins the only part of the story that might have given the series a decent ending. In episode 21 both the characters of Naofumi and the Queen, as well as Malty’s and the King’s punishment were thrown out the window. Now, despite this only being an anime review, I will reference the manga only in this case because it will it show how the episode could have been done a lot better, as at the very least the manga handled this scene as well the Queen and Naofumi’s characters a lot better.

Towards the start of the episode, Naofumi has a dream about Malty and the King being executed, and for some reason they portray it as if he’s having a nightmare about it. He keeps repeating to himself that they deserve it as if he was doubting his hatred of them. Why. There is no reason for Naofumi not to hate them enough to want them dead, taking into account all the rage he showed at the beginning of the series. This just creates plot holes in Naofumi’s character and makes him seem weak and bland compared to his character at the beginning of the series. The episode continues and we see the whole confession from Malty about the true series of events. We then move on to their execution, only to be interrupted by Naofumi, who proposes to change their sentence to call ‘Bitch’ and ‘Trash’ to Malty and the King respectively, ruining their social status and reputation. The Queen throughout the episode also showed hints that she actually cared for her husband and daughter and didn’t actually want them dead. This behavior was completely out of character and the anime’s fault. In the manga the Queen is more objective, and not even once does she doubt her actions. She follows all the way through her mentality of being a Queen before a mother and setting up the example of how there are no exceptions for crimes committed. Furthermore, Naofumi was the one that proposed that the King and Malty should be put to death rather than the Queen, and the Queen was the one that wanted them to receive a punishment worse than death at which point Naofumi then proposed the names. She proposed this instead because the death of a King and a princess by the hand of the Queen would have caused a huge political problem and would have negatively impacted the image of Melomarc’s royalty. But no, instead of having an actual good reason to not kill the King and princess let’s just ruin the Queen’s and Naofumi’s characters. Moreover, there are various instances in the manga where Naofumi acts like he did in the beginning by showing his rage to Malty and the King. This was perfect and made the overall revenge feel more deserved and better. But in the anime, they cut out every instance of that, every single one, making the revenge feel hollow and meaningless.

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3. The Animation

3.1 The hidden master tool for animation: PowerPoint

There is not much that I want to say about the animation and art of the series as I think that overall, it’s decent. However, there are times in the series were you really wonder if you are watching an animated series or a PowerPoint presentation. I sarcastically compare the animation to a PowerPoint presentation because the cuts and movements of the characters are stiff as a rock, and they appear and disappear from the screen like images in a PowerPoint presentation. For example, as seen in the video above, Naofumi calls Filo to help him deal with the Spear Hero, so she simply just… appears. Filo then proceeds to turn around and "kicks" (there is actually no kick animation, as only a literal black screen and kick effect appear) the Spear Hero which in the next frame is floating in the air while the camera pans outwards. Another example is when Raphtalia swings her sword and slashes Malty, where her reaction to getting slashed is pulling her head up with her mouth open. To culminate and where the whole PowerPoint comparison comes from, Naofumi calls Melty and Filo who literally slide in from outside the screen. Moments like these really downgrade the animation of Shield Hero and cover up the other good animation moments. Even some of the fights have slow and clunky animation, making them boring and underwhelming. Furthermore, there are also way too many times in the series, particularly towards the end, where the character designs, specially the facial expressions, go completely off model making the series look and feel stupid.

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4. Conclusion

In conclusion, Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari started off with an immense potential by twisting all established isekai clichés and completely subverting the viewers expectations with a massive plot-twist and a genuinely good main character. However, all this hype turned out to be for nothing as the bland and inconsistent characters as well as the terrible writing and world-building lead to one of the greatest disappointments in anime on par with Sword Art Online.

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5. Score

Story & Execution: 1/10
Characters: 1/10
Animation & Art: 4/10
World Building: 1/10

Overall: 1/10

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Special thanks to Kumori for helping me add some great points to the review!

And thank you very much to you for reading this pretty long review! Have a nice day, afternoon or night wherever you are! :)

Review by: @Reoken
Proofread by: @Kumori