It’s easy to walk away from a few episodes of Shield Hero and understand why Naofumi is such a polarizing character in the world of anime. After a less-than-welcoming introduction to a new world, the character immediately turns into a curmudgeon who has a negative outlook on the world and society in general, eventually turning to some rather nefarious means to survive in a harsh world.

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Nonetheless, that didn’t stop him from being one of the more compelling anime characters to be created in the last year. Instead it makes him feel distinct in that he doesn’t seem to be built to be likable at all. Let’s delve a little deeper into the hero behind the shield.

10 LEAST RESPECTED OF THE HEROES

Though Naofumi being disrespected becomes more of an obvious thing after Malty and the King turn him into a pariah, he wasn’t exactly super popular beforehand. When the King summoned the four of them to their land, Naofumi already got zero respect from any of the other characters or the King. In the case of the King, the explanation is that he was a follower of the Three Heroes church, which believed there need only be three heroes. In everyone else’s case, it was because he was only the Shield Hero. No one even wants to join his party, even though he’s got the same resources bestowed upon him as everyone else.

9 CAN'T FIGHT FOR HIMSELF

Naofumi is forced to get creative very quickly in this series, because apparently his title is quite literal. He’s the Shield Hero—he’s not allowed to use any weapons, and even attempting to grab one will result in him being shocked and the UI telling him this isn’t possible. He can still attack people hand to hand, but this doesn’t do much in the way of damage. Though he later develops a specific way to attack, it’s a big drawback and isn’t exactly something he’s meant to do. Other than that, he tends to work off countering attacks, and early on using monsters that can attack for him.

8 HIS SHIELD HAS INFINITE GROWTH

Though Naofumi can’t actually attack thanks to his chosen item, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. We’ve seen that when Naofumi beats monsters that attack him, he’s able to “feed” remnants of the enemies to his shield. This causes the Shield to develop new properties that Naofumi is capable of accessing later on. From what we can tell, there doesn’t seem to be any limit to the number of times he can do this, and by the end of the series he has dozens of different techniques available to him.

7 HE CAN'T GET DRUNK

One of the weirder aspects about Naofumi is his incredible alcohol resistance. Apparently even in his original world, drinking alcohol rarely ever had any powerful effect on him. In this new fantasy world, it appears that power has been amplified (likely due to his resistances raised because of his role) to a point that the planet’s alcoholic fruit has zero effect on him. Eventually this is how people come to recognize who he is.

6 JACK OF ALL TRADES

Naofumi is forced to learn to survive without the resources of the Kingdom after the first episode. As a result, he develops several skills the other heroes never even think about. The first thing he learns is how to craft potions, but later he gradually learns more, even figuring out the language of the world to read books and unlock more secrets.

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With no way of getting money, he becomes a trader and carries goods about, operating as a merchant. Eventually, he even learns to make special defensive accessories and even becomes a talented cook. There’s seemingly no end to Naofumi’s talents.

5 WAS SUPPOSED TO BE SUMMONED SOMEWHERE ELSE

The Four Heroes exist to protect the entire planet that Naofumi is teleported to. But strangely enough, they’re all gathered at a single country’s castle even though we know there are multiple other kingdoms. This was initially not the plan, and the country of Melromarc summoning all four heroes to their lands created a major diplomatic issue that the Queen was forced to solve. What country was the Shield Hero supposed to go to? Well, as it turns out he was initially going to be called by the people of Siltvelt, which is where all the demi-humans live. There, Shield Hero is worshiped because of how other versions of him have treated demi-humans in the past.

4 IS A FATHER FIGURE

Despite Naofumi’s surly nature, he winds up serving as more of a father figure to the people in his party. At least in the first season, he doesn’t know how to look at Raphtalia as anythig other than his daughter, and when Filo transforms he views her in the same way. Even Melty eventually comes to look up to Naofumi, thanks to the machinations of her sister. Over time, Naofumi tries to teach both Raphtalia and Filo how to survive on their own, just as any proper dad would do for their children, because he still desires to return home.

3 IS KINDER IN THE ANIME

Strangely, Naofumi gets nicer with each subsequent adaptation made about him. Within both the web novel and light novel, we get to see more of Naofumi’s inner thoughts which don’t really reflect on him kindly. By the time we’ve gotten to the manga, he seems far closer to someone that can be looked at as a character to feel sympathy for.

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And by the time we’ve gotten to the anime adaptation, Naofumi has gone from suggesting the King and Malty be killed, to someone who can’t actually take seeing them killed because of what they’ve done, and instead suggesting their name changes.

2 IS BEST FRIENDS WITH HIS RIVAL

Alternate universes are awesome. Capitalizing on the popularity of Rising of the Shield Hero is the spin-off series, Reprise of the Spear Hero. In this universe, Motoyasu is slain in combat and winds up learning about a secret ability of his spear—the ability to rewind time. With that ability, Motoyasu is sent back to the start of his time in the world but with all his stats. Having seen what happens to Naofumi, he goes out of his way to protect him and the two become close allies. This is in sharp contrast to his normal universe, where Naofumi despises him due to being the first person to turn on him.

1 MOST USEFUL HERO

Ren Amaki fighting

Midway through the series, Naofumi has become the most useful hero in the group by far. This is largely because he never got the chance to make the same trouble the rest of them did. Spear Hero spends his time chasing girls when he’s not adventuring. Bow Hero wants to be a hero so bad he sometimes rushes in with bad judgments. All of them have caused more problems than they’ve even tried to solve. But Naofumi, as Shield Hero, has been different—whether it’s saving the common people during Wave Assaults or even fixing the problems other heroes have caused, he’s done the most good.

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