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.

The Rising of The Shield Hero Episodes 1-3 Review

I was originally planning to review The Rising of The Shield Hero once I’ve seen all the episodes. However, it’s not so often in my time as an anime/cartoon fan that a series got me super hyped after the first few episodes that I want to openly talk about it while anticipating what happens next. Imagine an episode of Dragon Ball Super or Steven Universe where nothing really happens, yet you get so hyped about it anyway. It’s the same with The Rising of The Shield Hero (or I’ll call it as simply ‘Rising’), except there’s a number of reasons why this series got me hooked.

I personally never read the original Light Novel or the earlier manga adaptation. But Rising got under my radar when news reports from places like ANN and Sankaku Complex came on the controversy surrounding the series pilot. For context, let me give you the rundown:

The series begins with one Naofumi Iwatani, your typical NEET or modern day hermit who spends most of his time on anime and gaming, never goes to work, and gets his money from his parents. In one of the rare occasions he decides to leave his home, Naofumi visits the local library and opens a book where he is transported into a fantasy world. He meets three other people, who also arrived on similar circumstances and learn that they are all summoned because the locals believe they are the Four Legendary Heroes that would save their world from the Wave, a catastrophe where various monsters come down wrecking everything in their path.

The four receive their respective weapons as heroes with the exception of Naofumi, who only gets a shield. As the Shield Hero, Naofumi is magically forbidden to equip any weapons, as he is exclusively for defense. Add that, like a typical RPG, the heroes need to gain experience to be able to fight off the Wave, and Naofumi becomes ridiculed for his inability to fight, with several adventurers not interested in joining party save one – a woman named Myne, who guides Naofumi in everything he needs to get started.

This is where the controversy comes in. Naofumi was later arrested on accusations of raping Myne, with planted evidence that he has done the deed. We then learn that Myne made up the false rape accusations to avoid being pinned for stealing all of Naofumi’s gear and money, and has joined the party of the Spear Hero. As Naofumi is still vital to stopping the Wave and can only return to his world once the threat is fully neutralized, Naofumi is let go but is shunned by everyone, and his character changed drastically as a result. He still needs to level up, somehow and fight off the incoming Wave.

The above controversy gave Rising a lot of bad press even from places like Anime News Network, who lambasts it for reasons that you, the reader, I assume already know. It’s not that long ago that Goblin Slayer also received flak for similar reasons. Both also receive negative reviews over those scenarios. Yet in spite of all that, Goblin Slayer and Rising receive a lot of praise from anime fans as they are actually quite good shows. And I tend to agree with that.

Personally, Myne’s actions are similar to that of Lupin III’s Fujiko Mine. Both use their charms to seduce their men, and then run off stealing the goods while leaving them in the dust. The difference mainly is that Fujiko never uses a false rape or similar accusation against Lupin, since she occasionally gets him into a lot of trouble, anyways – and in many cases, intentionally.

One of the factors that made me love Rising was Naofumi. Similar to characters like Naruto, Naofumi starts off as weak and not much love from everyone around him. This trope is deviated further in the restrictions applied to him as the Shield Hero. Rather than try to clear his name and gain the acceptance of the people, Naofumi doesn’t care about it anymore and tends to prepare to fight the Wave by any means necessary. It’s like when a babyface wrestler turns heel for a shot at the world championship belt and win it, even if it means cheating his way through. Naofumi does this so well he becomes a likable protagonist, while still in a very underdog-like position.

Another is the appearance of the series’s secondary protagonist, Raphtalia. As a raccoon-dog demi-human, she’s a young girl who Naofumi takes in as his slave and trains her to be his swordsman in combat. While appearing harsh on Raphtalia as he needs her to ready to fight the Wave for him in a short amount of time, he does care about her and treats her like a daughter-like figure. This results in quite the chemistry between the two that it’s great seeing them together. Raphtalia has quite the charisma in her design and character that, as a viewer, you would want to protect her, while also train her to be your sword. I am also surprised that the slave concept in this series isn’t that frowned upon unlike the false rape scenario.

The anime adaptation of Rising is produced by Kadokawa, who has produced a lot of anime under their belt and a number of them received high acclaim recently, among them are Made in Abyss, Kemono Friends, The Boy and The Beast, Your Name, and Mirai (which is nominated for this year’s Oscars as Best Animated Feature). You can see how Kadokawa is quite serious in terms of production quality in their works, and Rising does not disappoint one bit. It’s also worth noting that the pilot episode was an hour long (if you add in the commercials), an single anime episode with that kind of runtime is rarely seen these days, and it does work to establish what the Rising is about and getting people like me anticipate the next episode.

So yes, The Rising of The Shield really impressed me and I am glad that this series will run for 25 episodes. And I got hooked so much I just can’t wait for the next episode. As long as it doesn’t falter later, I would make it an early pick for Anime of The Year for 2019. So for the first three episodes of The Rising of The Shield Hero, on the scale of 1 to 5, they all get perfect scores.