re: ANN's Ep 4 review of The Rising of The Shield Hero

This really shouldn’t surprise me, but Theron Martin, who gives reviews for The Rising of The Shield Hero on ANN, is really downplaying the series with each episode review - quite contrary to its community score that is averaged at 4.5. Each time I read his reviews, I find the context to be less a review of the series and more of bashing it over his (and by extension ANN itself) social and political views. It is the new norm, whether anyone likes it or not, that sites like ANN would inject their bias in their journalism, while under the banner of an established entity that provides “fair and truthful” reporting.

While I’d simply just ignore his reviews and rate Rising in my own way (of which you may know I really loved the series so far), I do want to respond to some of his commentsfrom the series’s 4th episode, which came this week.

With regards to Motoyasu (the Spear Hero), Theron quoted as saying:

“...this episode shows that Motoyasu (aka Spear Guy) has enough of a blind righteous streak that he's easily susceptible to the machinations of a sly-minded pretty face. He's as out of his league with Myne as Naofumi was, regardless of their differences otherwise.”

If I were to say this in another angle, Motoyasu is the White-Knight in this series, in that he is over-privileged to do anything in the name of his obviously poor sense of justice. As such Motoyasu is obligated to ‘rescue’ Raphtalia from Naofumi because of this over-privilege, Myne’s influence, and of course hopefully adding her to his already harem party.

On Myne (or Malty as her real name was revealed in this episode):

“…she still comes across as a malicious soul who gets her jollies at Naofumi's expense simply because she has a twisted personality, which doesn't make her an interesting character.”

Malty isn’t supposed to be anywhere likable. The hate doesn’t come from Malty being a very bad character in the series. She’s vilified for her actions against Naofumi. She is a lot like Griffith in Berserk and what he did makes him such a hated character. Imagine Malty as a heel wrestler and you boo her because of her heelish actions. It’s different from booing her period because she’s a horrible wrestler. What she’s done in this narrative of Rising is the former.

Lastly, this one big paragraph on Naofumi as the protagonist:

“The big turning point is also fairly expected, when Raphtalia demonstrates that her loyalty to Naofumi has nothing to do with the master/slave relationship in such a way that even the other two heroes recognize her sincerity. The last two episodes have done a sufficient job establishing why she would see things that way, but this scene still didn't seem to achieve much emotional impact, because of how irritatingly heavy-handed the series continues to be about Naofumi's persecution complex. Almost none of Naofumi's issues stem from his own mistakes or inadequacies. He's being portrayed purely as a victim, which isn't a good angle for future character growth unless the intent is to show him casting off his victim mentality in some interesting way.”

This sounds more like he sees Naofumi as playing the victim rather than being one. Imagine being in Naofumi’s shoes. You’d have to be a total saint not to be cold and bitter to everything around you after what you’ve been through. Naofumi continues to fall into such despair that it did activate the Curse Series in his shield. We can see from the OP animation that this is something that gives Naofumi a huge power boost, but at the cost of own humanity. Raphtalia serves as his moral compass and to keep him from falling off that cliff towards the dark side. While trope-ish in that Raphtalia is devoted to Naofumi, at the very least, the execution makes her devotion legitimate. There was a slight change from the novel and manga in the episode’s ending in which those two versions had Naofumi kissing Raphtalia on the cheek. I find it a good choice not including that scene in the anime version, as that would’ve been quite awkward.

The next episode will be an introduction to the newest member for Naofumi’s party. It also appears to be a bit more light-hearted than what we’ve seen so far. It’s a good change of pace and something I’m looking forward to. As for this episode, if you couldn’t tell from it already, I really liked it, especially with Raphtalia’s progression as a character. ANN can pretty much shove it with their views on The Rising of The Shield Hero. But I’ll still go to them for Anime News.