The Rising of the Shield Hero Season 2

The Rising of the Shield Hero Season 2

The Rising of the Shield Hero Season 2 anime series cover art
The Rising of the Shield Hero Season 2

Season Overview

The Rising of the Shield Hero Season 2 (Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari Season 2 / 盾の勇者の成り上がり Season2) is bad. I was never a huge fan of the First Season. But, even compared to that, this season is bad. And, I’m happy to report that everyone agrees.

My ratings of the two seasons aside, Season 2’s average rating on MyAnimeList is 1.47 lower than Season 1’s. That’s pretty significant when you consider that about 90% of all anime fall within a 3-point range. On MyAnimeList, the average scores for most anime are between 6 and 9 out of 10.

But, what makes Season 2 so bad? People enjoyed the First Season. What went wrong? Well, many things. First of all, the visual quality of the series decreased. The animation was poor or at times nonexistent. And the Spirit Tortoise, which is a prominent part of the season, is CGI.

Speaking of the Spirit Tortoise, that’s what the first half of the season is all about. There’s a mountain-sized tortoise going on a rampage and collecting souls. And, of course, it’s up to the Shield Hero’s party to put a stop to it.

Well, actually, the other Heroes allegedly tried to take down the Spirit Tortoise, as well. But that happened off-screen and wasn’t explained. One moment they weren’t interested in stopping it, and the next they were in enemy hands. Either this season skipped a lot of content (likely) or the writing is terrible (also likely).

The second half of the season isn’t much better. It turns into an isekai within an isekai as Naofumi’s party heads into another world. The good news is that there’s no more CGI tortoise. But, the bad news is that there’s a super boring antagonist.

New Characters

At the start of the season, the series retcons some new characters into the story. It acts like they’ve been there the whole time. But, when I checked, that wasn’t the case. These characters aren’t listed as being in the First Season.

Two of the three retconned characters aren’t important and don’t have much screen time. The third is Rishia Ivyred, the newest member of Naofumi’s party. She used to be part of the Bow Hero’s party. But, she got kicked out because she’s useless. And, no, she’s not suddenly useful now that she’s in Naofumi’s party.

Rishia isn’t the only new member of the party this season, though. There’s also Ost Horai, a mysterious woman who claims to be a familiar of the Spirit Tortoise itself. Ost is better than Rishia in every possible way. She’s both useful and brings some mature woman fanservice.

Ost Horai and Rishia Ivyred from the anime series The Rising of the Shield Hero Season 2
Ost Horai and Rishia Ivyred

Kyo Ethnina is the main antagonist of Season 2. And as I mentioned earlier, he’s a terrible antagonist. Kyo’s entire character is that he’s evil for the sake of being evil. He has no motivation for doing anything other than that he’s the bad guy. At this point, I can say with confidence that the author doesn’t know how to write villains.

Once in the other, other world, Naofumi’s party meets Kizuna Kazayama. Kizuna is an otherworlder from “Japan” like Naofumi. And also like Naofumi, she’s one of the Cardinal Heroes. But, the Cardinal Heroes are a bit different in Kizuna’s world. For example, she’s the Hunting Hero.

And the last character I’ll mention is Yomogi Emarl. Yomogi is Kyo’s childhood friend. She seems to be in the series as a way to humanize Kyo and make him more relatable. But, Kyo’s so poorly written that Yomogi doesn’t fix him.

Shield Hero Multiverse

The Rising of the Shield Hero has been a multiverse from the start. And I don’t mean that the fact it’s an isekai series makes it a multiverse. Something I already alluded to when mentioning Kizuna was the idea of “Japan.”

Every Cardinal Hero we know of (Naofumi, Ren, Itsuki, Motoyasu, and Kizuna) is from “Japan.” You may recall from the start of the First Season that they’re all actually from different Japans. Naofumi and Kizuna could never have met each other in their original worlds. They’re from different universes.

Why am I bringing this up now, though? Now that Naofumi’s party has traveled to another world, we know these other worlds work in the same way. Kizuna’s world is to Naofumi’s world as Kizuna’s Japan was to Naofumi’s Japan. They’re different versions of the same thing.

Naofumi's party and Kizuna Kazayama from the anime series The Rising of the Shield Hero Season 2
Naofumi’s party and Kizuna Kazayama

I’d like to say that I’m interested in how this whole multiverse thing is going to play out. It sure seems like it’s all going to tie together in some way. But, the author of Shield Hero hasn’t exactly filled me with confidence in his writing ability so far. So, it wouldn’t surprise me if it turned out to be nothing.

Under normal circumstances, I’d put forth my theories regarding the multiverse right now. But, I really can’t think of any. I don’t know how the multiverse is going to play out. Since you can travel between parallel worlds, is the same true for parallel Japans?

If that’s what we’re getting to, it would mean Naofumi & co. are going to return to Japan. But, if that happens, it would be a pretty different series to what it is currently. Would the current fans still be interested? It would be like Sword Art Online post-Aincrad.

Conclusion

While it may seem a bit harsh, I gave The Rising of the Shield Hero Season 2 a 3/10. It was the worst anime I watched during the spring 2022 season, and I’d say it deserves that score. It looked bad, the plot wasn’t that good, and the new characters are mostly boring.

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My review of Season 3 is available now.

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