Anime: Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari Season 2

As a fan of the first season of this anime, I was eagerly anticipating the next installment. However, this season left me overwhelmingly underwhelmed and disappointed.

The story progression and character development in the first half of the season were lackluster, and the latter half only intensified these issues. Battle scenes, once the highlight of this anime, became monotonous and uninspiring.

The plot took several confusing turns with inconsistent character arcs. A glaring example is the abrupt shift of characters from being enemies to teammates, which was handled poorly and felt rushed.

An additional letdown was the handling of the final boss, who appeared more like an ordinary mob. While there's a possibility of this character's return, given the poor execution so far, I'd rather they didn't.

Comparatively, I watched DanMachi IV recently and Log Horizon Season 3 a while ago, both of which were remarkable in their own ways. These shows managed to make even seemingly mundane themes captivating, a feat that this season unfortunately couldn't achieve.

Season 3 of this anime has been announced, but after this disappointing season, my expectations are significantly lower. Here's to hoping the next season learns from the mistakes of this one and revives the anime's original charm.

In conclusion, this season was a letdown, lacking the essence and potential of its predecessor. This season's shortcomings only amplified the successes of its contemporaries, leaving much to be desired for the future.

The only reason I haven't rated it lower is because it's still watchable, but it certainly falls short of the high bar set by the first season.

The first season of the Shield Hero had a big impact in the community. Half of it was praising it for its bold take on an isekai protagonist who is wrongfully accused, and the other half was shiting on it for being full of cheap tactics to engage the viewer through rage instead of quality writing. As the season kept going, more and more people were joining the dislike side as one by one everything that made the initial episodes good was being replaced with the same generic crap that plague all isekai, and turned a once (supposed) subversion of the formula into yet another power fantasy. By the time the second season began most didn’t care about it, but were still hopeful it would return to form. The source readers kept telling them all sorts of crazy shit are going to happen next which will blow their minds. So, they added it to their plan to watch lists and made it the most anticipated show of the season it came out. What they got was something that was vastly inferior in every aspect. Here is a quick summary:

1) The revengeporn, the main reason everybody was watching it for, was over. Naofumi got his revenge when the princess got punished back in the first season. Everything that followed it felt hollow.

2) The protagonist lost his cool edgy side where everyone hated him and he didn’t trust anyone. Now he’s another generic self insert power fantasy for antisocial otakus that everybody loves for owning a harem of slave waifus.

3) The pacing became ridiculously fast, thus not letting the antisocial otakus to enjoy the harem.

4) The animation was far worse and used a lot of horrible CGI.

5) Even the source material readers openly admitted that the turtle arc was garbage and that the morons who hyped up this season only made the backlash worse.

6) Better isekai came out during the gap between the two seasons (Rezero, Mushoku Tensei) making even the fist season to seem like crap in retrospect.

7) The anime became yet another generic harem isekai. And on top of that it’s about a slave harem that keeps excusing slavery by making it seem like the girls love being slaves.

And now for a more detailed breakdown:

The Shield Hero at this point can might as well be called the Harem Slave Hero, since the attributes of his shield change at the drop of a hat, while his gathering of cute underage girls who rush to be included to his party after being abused by some evil slaver continue as normal. The mental gymnastics for excusing such an immoral act come down to not presenting it as a bad thing, since this way the girl becomes stronger very fast. It’s something nobody else does although it’s a cheat code for becoming super powerful in a few months. The whole concept is eye-rolling since slavery is legal in the show and the slave girls are joining willingly because every other male in the show is either incompetent or an asshole. Plus, as much as they keep saying slave crests are way too expensive to be used many times, the protagonist uses them all the time without having any financial problems. Even if he had problems, he could ask the queen to pay for the expenses. He is the hero who is destined to save the world after all, why does he have to pay for anything? Meanwhile it’s neither immoral nor expensive when they use a slave crest on the king and the princess without being slaves and against their will if that way they can ridicule them for standing against the protagonist. Basically, when he does it it’s perfectly fine. When someone else does it then it’s evil.

The first half of the season is about fighting some turtle monster that nobody in the audience gave two dimes about. The whole thing was done in a very rushed way with far worse production values and no real personal investment as far as the good guys are concerned. For them it was just another side quest which through videogame shenanigans stopped the normal quest to defeat the Waves. For as long as the special event monster is alive there is not going to be another monster attack. Good. Just don’t kill the monster and the world is saved. The end, the heroes can go home now. Unfortunately the protagonist has become a saint at this point who no longer does missions for surviving in a kingdom that hates him. He just does missions on command, so when the queen tells him to kill the monster, he agrees in a second. As for the other heroes, they refuse because there is nothing to gain from it. And I don’t mean loot, I mean actually achieve something that will stop the monster attacks. By leaving this monster alone they no longer have to worry about the other far more powerful monsters. Obviously the show makes them seem uncaring for not wanting to do the wrong thing, just for the sake of making the protagonist to come off as heroic once again.

Before he gets to do anything against the turtle, another girl begs to be his slave. The show excuses it as her being sold to an ugly one dimensional rapist who smirked with the evil things he kept doing. Once she was saved by the Bow Hero she instantly fell in love with him, since what a better way to excuse being a slave to someone than love at first sight? The cute girl instantly wants to be a slave of the hero so she can help him. And by help she means become his waifu. But the Bow Hero is a retard who doesn’t let her join his party because she is weak, although the slave crest would make her super powerful in no time. This is where the Shield Hero jumps in and does the logical thing. He makes her his slave. Because in this show women can be helpful only by being slaves.

Then the battle with that turtle thing happens in a completely dull way. The other three heroes are once again proven to be incompetent so Naofumi can show off how amazing he is once again. Then they get captured immediately and out of screen because the animators skipped the battle. In fact they skipped half the source material because they wanted to move to more interesting stuff as soon as possible.

The heroes from another isekai are back and they became allies out of nowhere. They want to destroy the world but they also don’t want to team up with the villain who wants to do the exact same thing. This sudden change in alignment happened out of screen because they skipped the buildup where they slowly change the way they see things.

The new bad guy is the Book Hero, someone who came out of nowhere and with no build up to his plans. He just wants to destroy shit and acts like a one dimensional evil rapist so the audience can instantly hate him instead of pondering about his legit reasons for wanting to destroy the world. Nah, we can’t have nuance in our crappy power fantasy for incels, just make him come off as a jerk so the protagonist can beat him up with no remorse.

The queen of the chocobos appears out of nowhere and fights the turtle without ever explaining how she knew about the battle and why she came in this specific moment. She just pops into existence at this convenient moment for a convenient attack at the convenient weak point of the monster. If it comes off as lazy writing it’s because they skipped the part where she is informed about the whole situation and comes to join the fight.

Meanwhile the rest of the nobody soldiers are outside and are doing absolutely nothing because they are useless. This part is not rushed and they skipped nothing. They always were useless.

Then the new slave waifu saves the day with a power up she gained out of screen because they skipped the training.

Then harem lead and his underage nymphets get teleported from one isekai to another isekai. Isekaiception. This has the effect of making them lose all their powers. Imagine working hard to get somewhere and then losing everything just because you moved to a different area. The recent slave girl for example can no longer perform those broken martial arts from the previous episodes, and essentially loses all her character development. Also what does losing everything means exactly? You forget how to fight or how to cast spells? Your equipment magically goes back to wooden starter weapons? This videogame logic is really bonkers because it literally makes your knowledge and skills and muscle memory to be nothing more than numbers that can be taken away just like that.

A positive thing is that the raccoon girl is back to her loli form, since that is her actual age and that is what all the perverts watching the show want to see more off. The negative side is that you are reminded the protagonist had groomed a little girl that he bought as his slave and she is madly in love with him as thanks. Because this is what light novels are all about.

Anyways, they explore the world a bit and find another cute and very young looking girl who in half an episode is already in love with the protagonist because he helped her out. It’s almost like this is a videogame datesim, isn’t it? Let’s ignore the fact that she is supposed to be isekaied as well therefore she is not an NPC but an actual person. And let’s also ignore how his other harem slave chicks are presented as not jealous for having yet another girl to antagonize with for the attention of their slave owner.

After that the harem pedo slaver and his possessions begin a new adventure in a new land. The fans of this abomination were very pleased with the twist because Naofumi is no longer overpowered, and the ridiculous stupid heroes with the evil bitch princess are not around. They were hopeful the next episodes would be good again. Too bad they forgot the main reason everyone was watching the show for was for the false rape allegations, how everyone hated the protagonist, and how they were getting boners at the thought of him getting his revenge. None of that exist anymore and the show has become a generic isekai about a slave owner and his underage nymphets.

They spend a lot of time in figuring out how the new setting is different from the previous setting. That means a lot of worldbuilding infodumps. And by worldbuilding I mean explaining how the videogame terminology of the second isekai is different from the videogame terminology of the first isekai. That’s as far as depth goes in this show.

You would think that if you are in a different world with different rules then the plot will also be different. And it isn’t. It’s still about one dimensional rapist villains enslaving and torturing cute girls. That’s what happened to Filo. No matter the setting the author can’t write anything other than helpless slave girls and tormenting slavers. The protagonist is of course the only exception since despite being a slave owner he treats his harem in a nice way. He also makes sure to punish the slaver, save the girl, and then adds her back to his harem as thanks for rescuing her. No matter how much the Shield Hero tries to reinvent himself, he immediately relapses and crawls back to his incel power fantasy addiction. Because that is the target audience for this show.

Since we are in a completely different isekai with a completely different magic system, it makes sense that the plot will not be the exact same as in the first isekai. And that is why the three heroes of the second isekai who were presented as powerful and capable at first, end up being completely worthless idiots who are in constant need to be saved by the person they mocked. You know, like the other three heroes of the first season. Then there is Raphtalia, a weak and victimized character who ends up being super awesome and constantly winning in situations where she’s supposed to be weak compared to everyone else. You know, like Naofumi in the first season. Unfortunately the lolibait grows up in a single episode and gets sexualized, proving that she was always there to be groomed as a little girl. You know, like in the first season. She loses her slave crest for the second time and while being finally free to be herself and not part of the harem, she runs back to her slave owner, wishing to be dominated. You know, like in the first season. There is also a one-dimensional rapist mini boss who acts evil for the heck of it and gets owned by an otherwise weak and victimized character for some sweet-sweet revengeporn. You know, like in the first season. And that is how the author of Slave Harem Hero proves how creative he can be by constantly writing the exact same plot over and over again.

And then comes the final episode where we get the big finale of the second season. Our heroes have the hardest battle of their lives as they fight the Book Hero… Not. They defeated the final boss an episode ago, very easily. The last episode is just softporn for those who keep saying it is not a harem. Here we are with a team consisting of one male slaver and lots of female slaves who cosplay for his amusement. They even lift the skirts of little girls for showing more skin. When asked why they are doing it it’s because they openly admit the protagonist is lolicon and bare feet make him very excited. Then they spend the rest of the episode in cockteasing him into choosing one of them as his prime waifu. And when they are asked if what they are doing is indecent, they reply by making it seem like it’s not indecent. There is nothing wrong with a man buying little girls and mating with them. And that is what the Slave Hero is all about.

Can’t wait for the next amazing arc when he buys more slave children who will love him just because he bought them. And remember, it is not a harem, it is a subversion of isekai because the protagonist is not overpowered and everyone hates him.

The latest instalment of Rising of the Shield Hero was long awaited, but it is hard to say that it lives up to the relative hype. Whether the first season was actually good or its fans are simply nostalgic, this season does not have many of the attributes that made the first season entertaining, culminating in a disappointing performance. It is plagued with bad animation and serious plot holes.

This anime has had chronic trouble in its development, far more so than other anime, like Railgun T, that were also adversely affected by the pandemic. The announcement for this season was made during the run of the first season, while the initial air date for the second season was set in October 2021. This is well after two years of the airing of the first season, which is uncommon; normally the anime either goes silent until a resurgence or there is a new season within the year. The air date was moved once again to April 2022, 3 years after the airing of the first season. The creators should have had enough time to work through everything, which is why the end result is all the more disappointing.



The animation is quite bad for such an anime. It compares unfavourably to the animation of the first season. Simply put, it is not very well detailed overall, especially the faces. This goes double for animation that involves the main antagonist of this season. The battles at the start of the season are also not well animated despite the apparent ‘epicness’ of them. A weird effect is the very dull colours in this anime. If you look at the character design of Ost Hourai, it will look much brighter and have more color contrast (and much more detail) than that character had in the actual anime, where she generally had an almost green tone to her. This was certainly not the case in the original and it is confusing as to why the animators played with the lighting in such a way.

Kevin Penkin, the Hans Zimmer of anime, is still responsible for the OST and BGM, which makes it quite nice and serene. It is used a bit sparingly, though, and there don’t seem to be that many new compositions.

It is hard to tell what happened with this season and its production; this was very raw from plot to animation, which is a shame. There was potential for this season, but looking back it honestly looks doomed to be mediocre from episode 1, with only a few moments that show some elements of a good plot. In writing this review, I tried to find both preposterous and good things about this anime, but it is just so dull and inferior to the prequel that it is hard to do even that. I honestly would think twice about watching this, even for those that saw the first season; not only is it subpar but this season seems only very loosely related to the first season. With this performance, it is not particularly surprising at how the hype and the marketing effort died down as the air date came closer. This franchise really deserves a better sequel and hopefully Season 3 will not be so much of a flop, but this season will definitely at least leave a mark on the franchise.