It was really a great anime series. Anime cliché was in the minimum and both the story and the animation were fantastic. Side Character development was a little lower then needed though. I enjoyed it more than I anticipated. Can't wait for the next season. **Edit:** A bit more cringey but a lot more action than the first season. Definitely worth watching.

As someone not overly fond of anime, I found Rising of the Shield Hero to be a total mess that somehow kept me watching. I'd need a full novel to air my gripes with the show, but I'll try to keep it short. Starting out as a pretty standard Isekai, the course of the anime is upset by an early misadventure, making our hero pretty unwelcome in the world he was summoned to save. I've only come to be familiar with the Isekai genre, in which the characters, often Japanese teens, end up in a video game type world with an absurd level of strength relative to the average person, but RotSH fits the mold very well. From the very beginning, our heroes are barely surprised to be summoned in another world. One has a bow, another a sword, a spear or a shield. "Yeah we've seen that in MMORPGs, move along" they say, despite apparently not being aware of what a tank is. The show goes on a whole story arc insisting on the importance of the lives of NPCs, despite having a literal health bar shown on screen. The characters are cliche to such an extent it can become amusing, they are completely oblivious to the bad intentions of people around them. Most of the cast is completely one-dimensional, those accompanying our hero in particular have almost no agency and behave in a comically irrational way that sometimes border on deranged. The backstories of the secondary cast come out of nowhere and just serve as confirmation that they strictly conform to the cliche archetype they're meant to represent. Despite that, and much more (passive protagonist, unengaging story, poorly defined world), the anime does attempt to embark on a more elaborate story than a standard Isekai and depicts more complicated interactions between characters, even if it fails at doing so. If you're just an occasional watcher of anime, I wouldn't recommend Rising of the Shield Hero, but some anime aficionados might be interested in its nonstandard story and dark themes.

This anime sets up some great concepts but seems to have a lot of trouble following through effectively. The Shield Hero is unable to wield any weapons, making him practically useless offensively. (Although how does that work exactly? What if he picks up something like a baseball bat? The rules for this are glossed over.) At first he seems to overcome this weakness by carrying around weak monsters he can use as weapons. Secondly, he manages to form a companionship with someone who can provide him with offense. Then we start seeing hints that he would find creative ways of using "defensive" powers in an offensive way. Okay. I'm intrigued. But instead of building on this, his weakness just gets kind of forgotten and he just starts getting powers that are explicitly offensive. He doesn't even have to learn a valuable lesson to earn these attacks. He just gets them because [spoiler]he got a bit angry one time.[/spoiler] Yay~ There are also some very strange story moments. For example, his two main companions are enslaved to him by a "curse" placed on them. Even though they are perfectly willing to follow him (and crush on him constantly -- of course they're both part of his loli harem), for some reason it was necessary to magically enslave them. One of them is even said to be put through a lot of pain just in order to have this curse applied. This is our (anti)hero torturing and enslaving people he actually likes -- for no reason! It's just weird. The moment that really made me lose interest in this series is in episode 13 when [spoiler]some random soldiers have what is essentially a magic video camera, to record the shield hero's team defending themselves against some soldiers. THEN this video footage is essentially photoshopped to make it look like they're having a murder spree. THEN they use a magic TV projector to wander around the country showing this footage to all the common people to show how nasty he is.[/spoiler] The lazy ways in which the Shield Hero is constantly getting set up as a bad guy just boggles my mind. Overall, it's been kind of awkward and lazy. On the plus side, adult Raphtalia is pretty cute, and I felt the series was strongest when it just focused on them as a pair (though she's still technically underage, ugh).

Luckily for me I started watching the show when season 3 was already out, so I binged season 1, 2, and 3 one go. Waiting for Season 4 wasn't too bed because each season had it's own story while building up to a larger storyline which keeps this Isekai interesting. Season 1 - Good Season 2 - Meh Season 3 - Fire Season 4 - Damn Good Lets hope the wait for season 5 isn't too long, but overall I really enjoyed the show.

There are a lot of reviewers bagging on this show, but most of the criticisms seem like they heard about the show, and didn't actually watch it. There's no harem, and the character that's being constantly called a loli was literally raised by the MC from birth. He always refers to her as his daughter, so if you're sexualizing that relationship, that's a personal problem. That aside, this show is dope. Season 2 does dip a bit in quality, but season 3 was a return to form and excellent. I was hoping for more from the season 2 otherworlders arc, but the curse series arc for all the heroes in season 3 was fantastic. If you don't know what you're getting into when you start this series, the first five episodes are pretty shocking. Seeing an MC treated that way in an isekai really pulls you to his side. It's also understandable as he loses trust for just about everyone in this new world he finds himself trapped in. Raphtalia is probably one of the best sidekicks in any isekai, earnest, competent, and trustworthy....she always has the MC's back. You can see where the relationship is going, even if the MC can't. It's one of the more nuanced relationships in this genre. A lot of characters were added in seasons two and three, and not all have been completely fleshed out. I'm hoping we get more backstory for several people in season 4....it's honestly a bit crazy how large the cast of characters for this show has grown. Everyone is unique, in character design and personality. Great animation and artwork, but I wouldn't call it elite... Excellent fight scenes and lots of different fighting styles on display. Honestly, this is a really good one...don't let the hate keep you from watching it.