It’s safe to say at least with Western anime fans a breaking point was reached with isekai series. We can only see people having gone from a world like ours to a fantasy world so many times before it becomes old hat. Despite this, one of the most popular anime on Crunchyroll this past year was The Rising of the Shield Hero, yet another fantasy isekai story.
But what makes this series stand out so much compared to the others? The dark fantasy? The harem elements being cranked way down? The surly protagonist? For those who’ve yet to try this series, this list gives you ten things you need to know before diving in.
10 WHAT'S THE SERIES ABOUT?
Rising of the Shield Hero starts out like a pretty straight-forward isekai/alternate world series. The main character is Naofumi Iwatani, a shut-in who visits a library one day, opens a book about heroes and gets dragged to an alternate world. There, he and three other warriors are informed that this world needs help battling against “waves” of monsters that attack periodically. The heroes all possess different weapons and thus have certain specialties—there’s the Bow Hero, the Sword Hero, the Spear Hero...and Naofumi, the Shield Hero.
9 SO THE DIFFERENT HEROES TRAVEL TOGETHER?
Because the story needed more conflict, it’s actually not as simple as just pairing all these heroes who would seemingly balance each other out weapons-wise together. When the Heroes work together, they find themselves unable to grow stronger or “gain levels” and as such, they’re all forced to work separately. Each Hero forms their own team that they’re the leader of, while being outfitted with equipment and money from the Kingdom which summoned them.
8 ARE THEY IN A GAME?
This is something we actually don’t know. Shield Hero certainly tries to gamify as many concepts as possible. They talk about parties and leveling up and, in a dark way, they give a new meaning to having party members under a player’s control.
Naofumi, in particular, gains new abilities by beating up people and feeding pieces of a monster or a weapon to his shield, unlocking brand new abilities for him to use. However, despite all the game references, there’s no one, specific game the alternate world references.
7 DOES NAOFUMI GET BETTER?
For those who haven’t watched a single episode of the series, in the first episode Naofumi gets accused of assaulting the princess of the country that summoned him. He’s nearly killed, but since they literally can’t win without the Shield Hero, they settle for kicking him out of the castle and treating him like crap. This results in Naofumi turning into a cold, pragmatic jerk... but that’s actually part of his character development. Without it he’s identical to every other isekai protagonist. With it, we get to see him gradually learn how to be a human again through interacting with people.
6 WHO ARE SHIELD HERO'S OTHER PARTY MEMBERS?
The other major characters in the Shield Hero’s party include Raphtalia, a Demi-Human who found her way to Naofumi as a child when he bought her. Then there’s Filo, who was originally born as a Chocobo-looking pet known as a Filolial, that turned out to be a Filolial Queen and took a human form. Then there’s Melty Q. Melromarc, princess of Melromarc and heir to the throne because her older sister’s a terrible person. Lastly, there’s Rishia, a woman from a noble house who joined Naofumi’s group after the Bow Hero kicked her out.
5 WHO'S NAOFUMI'S RIVAL?
The closest person to this would definitely be Motoyasu Kitamura, also known as the Spear Hero. Motoyasu takes the side of Malty, the person who betrayed Naofumi, and invites her into his party. Over the course of the series, Motoyasu is swindled into getting in Naofumi’s way by Malty.
Though the first one results in Naofumi’s defeat (via cheating), every subsequent match up between the two has...significantly more hilarious results. Still, he remains opposed to Naofumi and serves as a counter point, an obstacle the Shield Hero must overcome.
4 WHERE'D THE OTHER HEROES COME FROM?
Interestingly enough, the other heroes actually come from entirely different versions of Earth. They were all dragged there into this isekai universe, which implies there’s some multiversal craziness going on. They even talked about who the Prime Minister is on their world, all giving different answers, and the game the world reminds them of is different on every world. This plays out later in the series as well, as they learn even their menu screens and how they operate are entirely different based on the game they’re supposedly based on.
3 WHO'S THE MAIN VILLAIN?
Contrary to what one might think, the main villain is not Malty, the woman responsible for framing Shield Hero. She’s more like a more serious version of Team Rocket when she’s with Motoyasu—a brief annoyance and that’s about it. There’s another villain that this article won’t be spoiling that serves as the primary villain for the first arc, and then beyond that the villains appear to be the “waves” and whoever’s sending them. The Shield Hero’s not short on opponents, that’s for certain.
2 THERE'S A SPIN-OFF SERIES FEATURING THE RIVAL
Shield Hero’s popularity has lead to the inevitable: a spin-off! A light novel known as The Reprise of the Spear Hero, the story follows Motoyasu after he dies and returns to life, learning his spear has the ability Time Reversal. Armed with his knowledge of the past, Motoyasu aims to help Naofumi in any way he can. Unfortunately, Motoyasu’s kind of a screw-up so he winds up going through several time-reversed loops as other Heroes die around him, causing him to have to do everything over again.
1 WILL IT ACTUALLY FINISH?
This part remains to be seen. The original web novel came to an “end” after 22 different arcs, and even the light novel adaptation (which is over sixteen novels and counting) hasn’t quite finished it up yet. However, while the anime has adapted roughly the first five light novels, that still leaves more to go than what’s unadapted. However, Shield Hero was confirmed to be receiving a second and third season during the Crunchyroll Expo this year. So fans and newcomers alike can feel free to indulge without being concerned they’ll be left with an ending that points towards the light novels.