TATE NO YUUSHA NO NARIAGARI SEASON 2

DESCRIPTION

CAST

ANIME ActionTate no Yuusha no Nariagari
NOVEL ActionTate no Yuusha no Nariagari
ANIME ActionTate no Yuusha no Nariagari Season 3
MANGA ActionTate no Yuusha no Nariagari

REVIEWS

• 

  Mcsuper

  30/100
  Shield Hero Without Revenge Plot = Generic Isekai

  *Spoilers below

  After watching this season, I can safely say, Malty is the reason why I even finished Season 1. The biggest problem with Shield Hero is that it just isn’t as satisfying to watch anymore, because the revenge plot is done, and now it’s just a generic isekai. I’m sure the studio and animators realized that, so what did they do? They proceeded to milk the living heck out of Raphtalia and create some fan service, because they know there are many people watching this show just for her. I had low expectations coming into this season, because I didn’t think Season 1 was that good to begin with, especially in the second half. Somehow this season still ended up being disappointing. This season of Shield Hero was paced poorly, was uninteresting, the characters got even worse, but it did have one saving grace, and I’ll highlight that down below.

  My grading criteria: Story: /25 Art: /10 Music: /10 Characters: /20 Enjoyment /15 Thematic Execution /20

  STORY: 5.5/25

  An awkward mess would be an understatement. Granted, I didn’t expect a whole lot from this season, but this was not good. I’ll talk briefly about the two main arcs of this season:

  The spirit tortoise arc. Absolutely atrocious, and I’m sure most of you agree. I started the arc and the first thing I wondered was who Éclair was. I looked back at the previous season, skimmed through wikis, and I found nothing about her. So, you’re telling me she just showed up? YUP! That was the first sign that this was getting extremely rushed, even though I’ve never read the light novel. I don’t blame them for rushing this though, because it’s just a boring arc, and I can see why this rushed it, but you can’t introduce an important character without letting us know who she was beforehand. The biggest problem to me was how they deviated from the plot of season 1, which was fighting the waves, and seeing the video game mechanics in play. This time, there’s just this random tortoise thing that’s supposedly a danger to the world, which felt so random.

  After a few episodes of meandering about doing a whole lot of nothing, Naofumi and company face off against Kyo Ethnina, who is officially one of my least favourite villains of all time. The way he just shouts so annoyingly, but honestly has the same intelligence as people in Team Rocket from Pokemon is just near unbearable. All he does is shout arrogantly, and when he gets defeated, WHOOP-DEE-DOO, he has yet another trick up his sleeve. Very poor character writing, and one of the lamest villains I’ve laid my eyes on, Malty was actually frustrating to watch, in a somewhat good way, and vastly superior to Kyo.

  Next, we have the New World arc, which started off decently, but once Kyo came back on the screen, I realized that it’s still horrible. The first few episodes of this arc were the best of the entire season, and those were the episodes where virtually nothing happened, and they were exploring the Infinite Labyrinth. Obviously, the writers knew that the series was struggling at this point, so how should we save the story? SMOL RAPHTALIA IS DEFINITELY THE ANSWER TO ALL OUR PROBLEMS!!! Yikes. Though, the reason for my increased enjoyment to start this arc was the addition of the Cardinal Hunting Hero Kizuna, who was a fun and bubbly character with at least a little personality. Another reason is that Shield Hero finally got back to its roots and focused on levelling up and gaining items, which was the best part about Shield Hero in Season 1. Twists and turns happen, the gang eventually reunites again after episode after episode of absolute nonsense and Raphtalia somehow becoming the Katana Hero and also becoming OP as all heck. The villains were uninteresting, and the ending of the arc was rushed heavily as well. At least Kyo’s gone.

  Overall, just hugely rushed. The development of the characters was poor, the villains were lame, and the amount of plot holes was crazy.

  ART: 4.2/10

  Huge step down from Season 1, and it became abundantly clear that Kinema Citrus was already setting their sights on working on Made In Abyss Season 2. Character expressions were awkward, fight scenes took place in stills, and the Spirit Tortoise looked like a huge, heavy pile of CG. Yikes.

  MUSIC: 8.4/10

  I will say, Kevin Penkin is still the saving grace of this show, and the music is pretty good in important scenes. Looking forward to his work in Made In Abyss Season 2. The opening was not as good as the first two, and the ending was alright.

  CHARACTERS: 5.5/20

  Uninspiring, boring, and just stock characters. Maybe they’re kinda cool in fight scenes, but what could you tell me about any type of reasonable character development? Let’s go over some of the characters.

  Everyone’s favourite character, Raphtalia! I’m convinced she’s just here since the fans love her. She can fight, and keep Naofumi level-headed, but that’s no different from Season 1. The romance is just there because you just gotta have some kind of a harem in an isekai for the fans to be happy. When the story gets bad, they just show some smol Raphtalia, and expect the fans to be satisfied.

  Let’s talk about Filo and Rishia now. Filo barely got any screen time, and there was no development for her, she’s just there. Rishia got my character development this time, by being more brave I suppose, and building up her skills. Her plot armour is crazy though, as not even Kyo’s gravity attack can oppose her. The question though is, why was Rishia wearing that Filo outfit in the tortoise arc???

  I mentioned Kyo earlier, and how bad he is, so let’s talk about our saving grace, Kizuna. Definitely the best character in the series, because she’s strong, and has a pretty fun personality. Still a very bare-bones character that would benefit from some development. Would love to see more of her.

  Finally, let’s talk about our protagonist, Naofumi. He seems like a smart guy right? To be honest, he’s just an average protagonist, but he looks smart because everyone around him have very low intelligence, and rely on him to do the heavy lifting, though we do see this theme quite a lot in other shows as well, it just seems more noticeable here. He’s a solid character, but his only intriguing aspect is when he gets angry and the wrath shield tries to take over. I still don’t understand how he can attack when he’s supposed to be a defensively oriented hero.

  ENJOYMENT: 2.5/15

  I found myself completely checked out at times, and there was little to no elements that had me enjoying this season.

  THEMATIC EXECUTION: 4/20

  What this show does, is fix bad thematic execution, with what the writer and director thinks is good themes. For example, if a fight was underwhelming, or if the story was convoluted, they’d try to fix it with some fan service. If the plot was boring, they’d try to spice things up with a hint of romance. It just doesn’t work. No themes were executed well, as a lot of things felt forced and rushed.

  OVERALL: 30.1/100

  Definitely the worst show I watched in the spring season. The story was massively rushed, the characters were uninspiring and bland, the villains were lame, and I didn’t enjoy it at all. I even heard that they didn’t follow the light novel very well from the readers. It’s a shame, though I kind of expected this, since the second half of the first season gave me signs that the story would go downhill, but I didn’t expect that this would be this appalling. The production and animation overall was very janky as well. The saving grace for this series was definitely Kizuna and Kevin Penkin’s composing. I believe that Season 3 might be a bit better than this season, but I’m not going to be expecting much at all.

  Continue on AniList
• 

  Nagumo

  20/100
  Shallow, hollow, lackluster, overall just terrible

  *Contains spoilers
  S2 of The Rising Shield Hero throws away everything that S1 offered. S1 is among my favorites, especially because of the excellent revenge plot, but it never found itself again and starts using tropes, becomes cliched and it does not help that it is rushed compared to its source material, as well. Maybe I enjoyed the S1, because of the timing. I cared little about plot devices, flaws, tropes, etc. I even agree with a lot of the criticism made on S1. I never read the Light Novel, but after S1, I thought about reading it. After reading a chunk of reviews, it was apparent it went downhill after S1. Though I was still highly expecting this season, as S1 was highly enjoyable, as I should have expected, “it went downhill.” The first season was not without its flaws, but it had world-building, a great plot, and was not entirely generic. It differentiated itself from the rest of the batch, being the revenge plot, but after that plot finished in S1. It began going downhill and became highly generic. It never finds itself again and becomes pure generic isekai with your typical magical beasts, weak antagonists, who have zero motive. Problems ‌get solved by Deus ex machina, and overall it is just a colossal mess.

  The story helps little with the progression of world-building, or character development. A problem arises, then gets solved, without no consequence or any progression in the grander scheme. Ultimately, it feels as if there is no point ‌with this season. The newly introduced characters are all shallow and thin, with no depth‌. It is your typical copy-paste characters. Every character is “good” and wants “world peace”. Nobody has any desire or motivation, everything is just really shallow. The same thing applies to the antagonist. He is your typical generic shounen villain. It feels as if there is no reasoning for what he is doing, other than being a villain. There are things suggesting that there is reasoning behind his actions, but it cannot establish anything, and appears being extremely weak, and leaves no room for a mystery. He does what he does for the sake of being a villain.

  The first newly introduced character is Ost, who apparently was the guardian or something. It is extremely forgettable, and she ends up just being another plot device. Throughout the entire arc, I thought something might happen, but she ended up acting like an NPC, who guided the squad through the arc and told them how to defeat the tortoise. Whenever they did not know what to do or were mind-boggled. Ost was always there to tell them what to do, and her entire motivation was generic. She helped kill people in order to give the tortoise souls, and it does not help, when showing nothing of the tortoise when they are talking about it, “show, don’t tell,” . It makes the entire problem or antagonist seem weak and non-existent, as they are merely following the tutorial. It gives no anticipation of the showdown between the squad and the tortoise. The use of CGI at this point is questionable, but I found it to be decent. Overall, the tortoise arc is incredibly weak, and flat-out boring.

  The power-scaling is probably amongst the worst, as well. The only thing it really ever establishes is “Nafoumi is stronger than everyone.” At one point, I thought maybe Kyo would be a decent antagonist, but low and behold, he was easily defeated, and then when he came back. I had absolutely no expectations for him as a villain and was overall just waiting for him to take yet another L, which he did. Alas, being predictable.

  I just began not caring after the first or second episode, and the lore, etc, felt “meh.” Sometimes things felt pleasant, but the incredible rush of its source material made it feel like there were missing heavy chunks of dialogue, build-up, or anything else. Tropes are not per se bad, and they can be used well. There is a reason why they are always used because they work and are easy to use. For example, the chosen trope. It can feel rewarding when someone has worked hard compared to others and been on a long journey towards their goal and they get that power-up.

  Solo leveling uses this concept well. It feels rewarding to see him progress after clearing dungeon after dungeon. But when someone gets a power-up in Shield Hero, it just feels not rewarding. There is no build-up, ‌again, and just “why?” There is no reason for it to happen, and even the villains are made dumb and weak compared to the good guys, so just why is it necessary? Every bad guy is ‌a stormtrooper, so what is the point of giving an even better light saber to the good guys? It makes for extremely boring and predictable fights.

  Again, predictable fights are not bad per se, but it fails at making anything exciting or building up villains. Predictable fights can feel exciting because the villain is written to be extremely annoying and you know soon enough, he will get crushed, but Shield Hero fails at almost everything. Stuff might be rushed and partially blamed on its poor adaptation, but all the villains feel shallow and lackluster and all have the “We were just trying to save our own world when we destroyed your world” ideology or “I am evil because I am evil”. Is it per se bad? No, it is not, well the latter is generic and bad writing but the former can be done well, though it is generic, there can be events and build-up that makes for anticipation, but Shield Heroes does it in poor fashion and is executed poorly. I even forgot who L’arc or glass was and first remembered them when there was a flashback.

  The power-ups come out of nowhere. Raphtalia suddenly got a vassal weapon or something. Overall, it feels like there is no point in giving power-ups to the main characters, so the already idiotic other characters can feel even stupider or weaker, and having all other heroes and other characters being stormtroopers does not exactly help‌. They as well experience no character development and have little to no screen time. It could have been nice to see them go through character development and start acting like normal people. They have little to no screen time, so it hardly affected my enjoyment. It just felt like a missed opportunity. Of course, they might go through some development in the next season or later, but honestly, who cares at this point? It keeps making them look stupider and stupider to ‌the point where any reconciliation would feel weird, and something that just comes out of nowhere. Do I look forward to the next season? Yeah, I still do, as my fundamental problem with this season was mainly that everything happened outside of their world. There was the spirit tortoise, which also felt highly generic, but at least if the next season focuses on the actual world and waves. It might go somewhere, but do I care at this point? Maybe I do. Maybe I don’t. I really don’t know at this point.

  The only decent character is Naofumi, whose ideology goes against every other character. He does not see the good in everyone or forgive everybody, because of his past, while his other companions are the opposite. You could also just call him an anti-hero, I guess. He is not per se a good character, but he is just the best of the batch. Kizuna, another new shallow character, wants to forgive Kyo, because she thinks he is doing it to save their world, while Naofumi does not share the same sentiment. He has more depth than any other character, but his character is still incredibly shallow throughout the entire season as well, and indecisive. The inevitable conflict between ideologies is heavily foreshadowed through the entire season and is something that I at least found interesting, and looking forward to, and then it happens, everything goes down, and the tension rises. Really not much build-up, as it is heavily rushed. You see flashbacks, there is finally some emotion, though it feels iffy without build-up, though finally, something is happening. The animation is superb. The final showdown is finally happening. The inevitable conflict is slowly reaching its climax, and the little to no build-up is still there, but then… out of nowhere… it pulls out some weirdest “emotional speech” that honestly could not have been worse and ruins everything. From being a 3/10 it went down to 2/10 in mere seconds. It feels incredibly anti-climactic, but there is still tension, and hope for something to happen… but then absolutely out of nowhere… again… everybody appears, and the inevitable conflict is solved. It is horrible and deus ex machina, which also was apparent in the reviews for the Light Novel.

  I got my hopes too high, after the previous season, and it feels like the series would have been better off if these two arcs never happened. The power of friendship is not always bad. I cannot think of any anime at the moment, but it can definitely be done in ways, where it feels like there is meaning and reasoning behind it, but this season just does none of that, and in the end, it does not even strengthen the bonds, nor provide character-development. It removes any character development from the previous season.

  Did I enjoy this season? I enjoyed parts. Sometimes there was eye candy, and sometimes there were sweet and nice moments with meaning, but it always ended weirdly, ruining mostly everything. Sometimes I had a hard time continuing, as things could go in weird directions and made no sense, but I ended up watching through the entire season, so yes I enjoyed it to an extent, but a part of me also hoped for more, for it to go back to its initial plot, or explore its world more. Did I just get hopes too high up? Probably. Will I watch the next season? Probably. Will I read the source material? Maybe. Will the next season be better? Honestly, who knows, but for now I will keep my expectations low, as the LN reviews say it never gets back to its original level. The revenge plot has ended, so even if it returns to their world, stuff will keep being your typical isekai.

  Continue on AniList
• 

  RebelPanda

  20/100
  Makes you wish you were doing homework instead of watching it

  Countless anime transport you into fantasy worlds filled with excitement and wonder, far from your dreary, everyday life. Then there are anime like Shield Hero's second season that make you wish you were doing homework instead of watching it.

  The Rising of the Shield Hero season two is a significant departure from the first that will disappoint fans, but I'm just here to say, "I told you so." For starters, Shield Hero has abandoned its revenge fantasy premise. The shield hero has already risen, gained redemption, got his revenge, and now people cheer for him and his overpowered crew like he's another generic isekai protagonist. The "Waves" are still a threat to the kingdom of Melromarc; the main goal no longer hinges on fighting other humans.

  The new enemy is a Guardian Beast, the Spirit Tortoise! This was awful when I tell you this arc was boring even by Shield Hero's astronomically low standards. Shield Hero has never been an impressive spectacle, but Kinema Citrus hit a new low with this level of stiff animation, flaccid directing, and outright lazy artwork. They seem to have taken inspiration from The Promised Neverland's second season by trying to torture unsuspecting fans. The Godzilla-sized CGI tortoise is the first major fight of the season. The hideous CGI quality couldn't even pass in 2000, let alone in 2022. Four episodes of painfully bland exposition build-up to the fight; it's like witnessing a slow-motion trainwreck. Forgettable politicians and heroes from throughout the world come together to spout exposition.

  In traditional Shield Art Online fashion, Naofumi and his team of girls are too overpowered to lead a compelling boss fight, but the battle is dragged out over multiple episodes. For all the preamble, the war was about as exciting as watching paint dry. To mask the lack of animation, the artists utilized bright lights and cheap visual effects; the brown and green color grading is so over-done that it looks like someone smeared mud matter over every frame. The longer the show goes on, the more the characters start to look like wax figurines melting in the Summer heat. Their facial features appear distorted; even during still shots, the anatomy seems bizarre. I'm no doctor, but I'm pretty sure you're eyes are not supposed to be different sizes. The only thing I can thank for the production is rehiring Kevin Penkin as a composer. Penkin carries the whole show on his back with another top-notch orchestral soundtrack. It fits the tone like a square peg and a round hole, but it's a welcome distraction from the monotony and visual terrorism.

  Naofumi, Raphtalia, and Filo add a new member to the wife squad, Rishia, a magic-user from a noble family. Amazingly, she has even less agency than Raphtalia and Filo and is even more desperate to please Naofumi. I couldn't believe my eyes when she begged the shopkeeper to become Naofumi's property. In retrospect, I should've expected the Rising of the Incel Hero would continue pandering to the lowest common denominator. Once again, they lampshade the owning women problem by claiming it would make her stronger. Hopefully, no one needs me to explain why it is very bad for an anime to argue that men enslaving underage girls is for their own good. Rishia is dead weight aside from her underutilized translating skills. Her character arc peaks when Naofumi utilizes her for misogyny-fueled power that requires him to choke her and call her a w-word (which she thanks him for). After being introduced, she stares at the screen and vomits her life story onto the unsuspecting audience as if we care. Her flashbacks have a white filter because Shield Hero doesn't trust its audience to have comprehension skills. Unsurprisingly the only dialogue between Rishia and Raphtalia is to eagerly compete for their master's attention. Meanwhile, Filo's role is blissfully reduced until they figure the only way to generate sympathy is by making her a damsel in distress, but the Shield Hero kind. In other words, she gets tortured onscreen by sadistic kidnappers.

  The second newly added prominent character is Ost Horai, the familiar of the Spirit Tortoise, but she quickly abandons that role in favor of helping Naofumi. Ost is a guide rather than a person, leading Naofumi's party to slay the beast. She never rises above a plot device for all the show's efforts to make us care about her. They've given us a charmless, vapid plot device without a single spec of sympathy, then pleaded with us to worry when she is put in danger. I mistook her vacant demeanor as enigmatic and wrongly assumed she would become the villain. That role is reserved for a much worse figure.

  An insufferable Vassal hero is the season's non-threatening antagonist, but at the very least, he provides a distraction from the tortoise nonsense. What motivates him? Insanity and sexual sadism. Much of the runtime is wasted chasing Kyo, the comically evil villain, through an alternate universe. Kyo is also known as the Vassal Book Hero. For the uninitiated, Vassal Weapons are wielded by Heroes who have been chosen to protect the world (you're still reading this, right?) from the Waves of Calamity and Guardian Beasts (have you fallen asleep yet?) like the Spirit Tortoise. You'll need to check the wiki to fully comprehend the endless list of names, backstories, and convoluted lore. The slideshow animation lends itself perfectly to the monotonous script consisting of one long-winded explanation after another. Speaking of dialogue, it consists of exposition dumps, video game lingo, and medieval formalities; if I hear Raphtalia shout "Naofumi-sama!" one more time, I will lose my mind.

  The second half of the season attempts to start fresh. Seven episodes are wasted establishing a new setting populated with so many cardboard cut-out caricatures you shouldn't even bother memorizing their names; ultimately, they're irrelevant to the first thirty episodes. The heroes teleport to an alternate universe because no one cares about the original one. One of the other world's cardinal heroes, Kizuna, joins the crew. Her legendary weapon is hilariously lame, a hunting tool that prevents her from attacking humans. Despite being eighteen, she looks like a twelve-year-old. Naofumi immediately nicknames Kizuna "loli-hag" because she is not a preteen and, therefore, too old to join his wife squad. All of the other heroes surrounding Naofumi contain no personality and only exist in terms of their special weapons. There's no character development for the original cast, and these episodes do nothing to build upon the overarching plot.

  Eviscerating Shield Hero to this extent gives me plenty of pleasure, and it would be dishonest to do anything else. It doesn't rise to the level of cheesy enjoyability because it was agonizing in every category. There's nothing here beyond hours upon hours of tedium. Even worse, the studio involved was so certain, so arrogant about the anime's potential that they resorted to a filler episode at the end. The post-credits scene is meant to tease the third season, but it's more like a threat that there's more torture in store.

  Continue on AniList

SIMILAR ANIMES YOU MAY LIKE

• ANIME

  ActionArifureta Shokugyou de Sekai Saikyou 2nd season
• ANIME

  ActionSeirei Gensouki
• ANIME

  ActionSekai Saikou no Ansatsusha, Isekai Kizoku ni Tensei suru
• ANIME

  ActionTensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken
• ANIME

  AdventureMushoku Tensei: Isekai Ittara Honki Dasu
• ANIME

  ActionTensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken 2nd Season
• ANIME

  ActionItai no wa Iya nano de Bougyoryoku ni Kyokufuri Shitai to Omoimasu.
• ANIME

  ActionTensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken 2nd Season Part 2
• ANIME

  ActionOverlord
• ANIME

  ActionArifureta Shokugyou de Sekai Saikyou
• ANIME

  ActionOverlord III
• ANIME

  ActionDungeon ni Deai wo Motomeru no wa Machigatteiru Darou ka