I’m not even going to pretend that this season is downright terrible, in fact, it's actually best described as being just another run-of-the-mill anime in the fantasy genre; a claim that becomes practically damning when you consider that the aforementioned genre is thoroughly oversaturated with anime just like this. You see, this season of Shield Hero primarily focuses on establishing and developing more characters and story elements to be cashed in later on in the series, which is usually a good thing for any anime trying to develop into a higher-quality work. However, in the case of this season of Shield Hero, both the character and story development is ok at best and frankly, shitty at worst.
A small aspect of this is Naofumi, a protagonist who apparently needs little to no character development this season, as he already received all of the development he needed in the first season. This is a fairly annoying trend surrounding the 4 characters from Naofumi’s party that you actually care about. The character development that Naofumi receives essentially turns him into a Christ figure who wants to “free the slaves” and give “prosperity to the entire kingdom” through the exponential growth of his commune for his slaves, friends, and subordinates. This endeavor causes Naofumi to lose a decent amount of impactful screen time: when does receive some, it at times walks back upon the abrasive personality traits that defined him in the first 2 seasons, sort of diluting what made him unique when compared to the standard fantasy protagonists. However, I don’t believe that this hurts this season that much; Naofumi is still the clear bright spot in this series, admittedly dimmed by the shit around him.
Unfortunately, the commune’s new inhabitants don’t really do much for the story. Sadeena and Syne seemingly have some promise, but they spent the majority of the season just chilling around the village, adding flavor text occasionally to remind the audience that they still exist, so they can have a triumphant moment when they eventually land a hit on the raid boss at the end of the season. Additionally, there are also some other recurring demi-human inhabitants that just exist as stock characters for scenes that show the progress that Naofumi’s commune is making.
The only members of the commune that are of any significant narrative importance are Fohl and Atla: demi-humans with “high potential” or something like that makes them stronger and worth training. They do get a small bit of backstory explaining how they were abandoned, which is appreciated, but it would be even more appreciated if their development was more complete. I’ll take what I can get, but this unveils one of the bigger issues with Naofumi’s commune: with such a big character cast (and more characters being introduced throughout the story), these new characters just never had a chance to have any sort of significant development in a fast-paced 12 episode anime. This naturally calls the “fast pace” into question, as it's possible that we could’ve seen some high-quality character development without it, but I digress.
A running theme with the arcs that comprise this season is that all of them sound really interesting on paper, but in reality, they are usually not fully realized, or if they are, it's done in such a way that just screams asspull. For example, the tournament arc was a major aspect of the season’s promotional art, which gave me the inkling that it would be an impactful part of the season. 2 episodes and 1.5 out of 5 meaningful fights later, and I’m left with mild disappointment as I realize this arc was just a poor excuse to establish a group of side characters who are not nearly as impactful to the story as they were made out to be. Another example of the latter is the “Zombie Dragon Arc” where the entire setup for the eventual battle only occurs because Naofumi and all of his subordinates decided to turn off their brains for an afternoon, allowing Mega-Charizard X to wreak havoc.
That description doesn’t nearly do this arc the appropriate justice, as it may have been the dumbest thing I’ve seen throughout this entire anime, which is saying a lot. These arcs range from disappointing to downright stupid, but honestly, they were probably the two arcs I enjoyed the most this season, despite their numerous fuck ups. The arcs concerning the Cardinal Heroes however were completely non-offensive and borderline irredeemable.
This season, the Cardinal Heroes finally receive their long-awaited character developments that elevate them from essentially being clones of each other with slightly different personalities established through their past experiences. The result? A heinous waste of potential and the destruction of all three of them as potentially nuanced and competent characters on the level of Naofumi. First is Motoyasu, who doesn’t actually receive a large extent of character development, instead getting over his Malty-caused funk through the prospect of one day marrying Filo before he mysteriously fucks off from the plot in any meaningful way until its time to fight the Phoenix. Turning Motoyasu into a glorified gag character when he deserves actual character development is an… interesting choice, but I won’t knock it because we have two more Cardinal Heroes to evaluate.
Next, we have Ren, who somehow gets tricked by Malty who preys on his deepest insecurities to manipulate him. Influenced by this, he dons a stupid new antihero getup related to those insecurities and starts attacking people for money. Eventually, he runs into Naofumi and friends, who try to convince him to join their cause. After denying this offer, he gets beat up by a woman who deeply cares about him as established in earlier seasons, receives a bit of character development through a short backstory, and officially joins Naofumi’s team.
Then we have Itsuki, who somehow gets tricked by Malty who preys on his deepest insecurities to manipulate him. Influenced by this, he dons a stupid new antihero getup related to those insecurities and starts attacking people for money. Eventually, he runs into Naofumi and friends, who try to convince him to join their cause. After denying this offer, he gets beat up by a woman who deeply cares about him as established in earlier seasons, receives a bit of character development through a short backstory, and officially joins Naofumi’s team.
If you didn’t notice, those are literally the exact same paragraphs with Itsuki and Ren switched out. I don’t think I have to tell us this, but repeating the exact same character arcs for two very similar characters isn’t a good idea, as it cheapens both characters’ developments while being pretty boring to watch from a viewer's perspective. Overall, the handling of the Cardinal Heroes has an overtly negative impact on the series as a whole. It thoroughly squanders the potential for them to become thoroughly interesting characters. It cheapens Malty as a manipulator, as her success with the other Cardinal Heroes can only be explained by every character besides her being a dog who gets tricked by you holding the ball behind your back, or her having some sort of psychic powers to force you to do whatever she says. Finally, it makes Cardinal Heroes less realistic as people, as each of their insecurities is so over-exaggerated that they genuinely feel like caricatures of the characters that they are actually supposed to be.
Not to mention, these arcs weren’t well written in terms of entertainment, so they also served as some of the most nonsensically boring moments of the show, which isn’t necessarily conducive to a good anime, especially when you consider that it takes up half the season’s screen time. Granted, I will give Itsuki’s sequence credit, as it did give some decent character development to Rishia, a character that sorely needed it. However, overall, the attempted development of the Cardinal Heroes is really the worst aspect of this season, and when you consider that the above complaints all concern different aspects of the season that I consider to be mid to bad, it really calls into question what exactly does this season do right.
For all of the hating that I have done in this review, I can’t deny that all of the aspects pertaining to production were done extremely well. The animation and slightly new art style perfectly fit the anime, the soundtrack, op, and ed were really good, and there were no delays (a fairly impressive achievement in this age of anime). Still, this season of Shield Hero doesn’t reach the peaks necessary to escape the valley created by the second season. While it does have some bright spots, particularly in Rishia’s and Atla’s character development, those are outweighed by the sheer amount of shit it does wrong. It fails to provide meaningful character development to so many deserving characters, in part due to poor pacing. It fails to be competent story-wise, as many of the arcs are nonsensical or boring and monotonous. Finally, The character development provided to the Cardinal Heroes backfires in a way that almost ruins the 4 characters that had the most potential to become actually interesting. At the end of the day, although I almost exclusively spoke negatively about this anime, there were aspects of it that I did enjoy. However, this did not allow it to be comparable to the first season: something that was absolutely mandatory for it to be considered a reversal of the second season’s mistakes. Maybe one day, we’ll get a season that will finally be a return to form, so that the Shield Hero can rise again.
Thank you for reading, and someone please find me some less corny lines to end my reviews with.