Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari
The Rising of the Shield Hero

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(This review may contain minor spoilers. Please continue reading at the risk of spoilers.)

As I was reading the first chapter, I was thinking, Is this just a typical seinen manga about some random person travelling to another world? But boy, was I wrong about this one. It illustrated the meaning of how it was to be downgraded by society but with the essence of fantasy in a different world.

I was captivated by the story. It started with a simple cliché, that somehow lead into something much greater that makes me love this manga so much. It demonstrated the meaning of betrayal and what it meant ... to be isolated and hated by others, and the meaning of warmth, strength and love, all in a few chapters.

The art is beautifully illustrated to capture most of what is showcased in this manga, but I believe it doesn`t really capture a true battle scene. However, it was able to fully illustrate the characters emotions and feelings; in all aspects. Like Raphtalia`s loyalty and respect towards Naofumi, and Naofumi`s depression and lack of love in the world; for he was being hated by many around him.

As Naofumi started as an ordinary person and has now evolved into the new person he is, I believe he went through massive events that helped change his character throughout the story. He was betrayed and played by a thief and degraded by those around him, and that rendered him unable to see and enjoy the beauty of life. But that all changed as he met Rapthalia, who later becomes his slave, as he is unable to wield weapons other than his shield.

After the harsh life Raphtalia has lead so far, she was bought by Naofumi, the shield hero. She was afraid of killing monsters at first, but she learned to trust Naofumi and feel needed as she was not treated so before. She tries her best to become of good use to Naofumi, as she learns that he will be the one to protect the people during the Calamity. She goes under a giant growth spurt, and because of that attracts danger to Naofumi but that allows him to be able to experience and see the beauty of the world.

I, personally enjoyed this manga, and those hoping to read the manga, I will tell you this manga has its ups and downs but its REALLY worth it. Even with 8 chapters translated so far, it really surpassed some seinen mangas with more than 20 chapters out there.

(If I made any mistakes, please tell me and I will correct them immediately.)

I think the best way I can describe reading this after watching the anime is... Disappointing?

The art isn't particularly bad or anything, it's just way too soft for the tone of the series. Even comparing it to the Light Novel cover materials you see how much softer the art style is. It more closely resembles an fanservice based idol series than a darker, plot-heavy series. The illustration feels kind of lacklustre and arguably lazy at times. A lot of the fight scenes lacked the impact the anime adaption was able to imbue into them. Great manga can manage to outperform or at least match animation, ... but this felt vastly inferior to me.

It's kind of hard to really pin down everything that felt bad about this adaption and I think a lot of it is arguably just preference than things one could argue as demonstrably bad. Either way, a very disappointing read for me.

There are two things I have heard about this story. Frist, that this is SAO done right, and secondly, that it's got an interesting main character who, thanks to a betrayal at the beginning of the story, becomes an untrusting bitter person. Unfortunately, the manga failed to live up to my (not particularly high) expectations. I have read 25 chapters, but I have little desire to continue. I would like to advise caution to everyone, who wishes to read it because, in my opinion, this manga is not worth more than 4 overall.

Let's start with the main hero. In light of the synopsis, I've expected ... him to be a more atypical shonen protagonist, someone who is more of a man of reason, kind of amoral, thanks to what happened to him. Don't be deceived, however, he is as impulsive and as much of a good guy as they come, in the end, he always saves the day. He is just a brooding asshole all the time, outright not listening to reason, which is somewhat understandable, but that doesn't make it less aggravating to watch. Moreover, he isn't all that consistent, he is Ok with some rather suspicious stuff, only to be so untrusting later, that he wouldn't even hear someone out. That's the thing, he seems to be more untrusting when the story needs him to be, more than when it would actually make sense.

This is one of the biggest problems with the story, it reeks of contrivance. Everything has such a convenient explanation. One of the main hooks of the story is the dark and edgy tone set up at the beginning, but funnily enough, that is all but gone by chapter 25. The manga had a strong first few chapter, and I thought: "Well, this might just go somewhere interesting." It didn't, by chapter 25 it became a completely run of the mill fantasy story.

This is where my disappointment stems from, I was more intrigued by the possibilities that all the dark and edgy staff can lead, rather than the actual pain and suffering that it depicts. And with it turning out to be more self-indulgent, it only strengthens the impression that the story just played the ever so convenient (and somewhat cheap) empathy card. I don't personally mind if something is emotionally manipulative, as long as it leads somewhere interesting, after all this is one of the reasons why we read these stories. However without any catharsis, conclusion, or more intriguing plot line to reward my emotional investment, the only thing I am left with is the feeling of being cheated, and ultimately... disappointed.

Just to illustrate my problems with the manga I am going to talk about ch.12 and 13, some spoilers ahead. So in ch. 12 they get attacked by a zombie dragon, and Firo gets crashed in the dragon's jaw, you can see the blood and all, but I am just sitting there unshocked and thinking: "I don't think they have the guts to pull this off, they will probably find a convenient explanation, as to how she survived". In ch.13 we find Firo alive and well, and turns out the blood we saw was actually her lunch, tomatoes... I seriously laughed out loud at that explanation. Also in these chapters when we see Firo "die" and all hope seems lost, the main hero starts hearing an ominous dark voice that offers him power, with which he defeats the dragon, but he momentarily loses himself in the flames of wrath of this newfound power. You mean he has some kind of dark power residing in him, that he can pull out of his ass at critical moments, which offers him immeasurable strength in exchange for his sanity? I wonder where I saw something similar... *cough* Naruto... *cough* Bleach. In these short chapters the manga not only established that it has no guts or intentions of killing any of the characters, which would not necessarily be a problem, if it wouldn't try to lead us to believe otherwise, since the story supposed to have a darker tone, but it also establishes that we can expect random asspull powerups whenever the heroes or the story requires it. In just two short chapters the narrative fucked itself pretty hard, I mean... smashed tomatoes... how am I supposed to take any of this seriously, after something like that?

I consider this manga to be the kind of "turn your brain off" story. Unlike most people, I don't use this label on fun and mindless stories, but on ones where you shouldn't think too hard about the plot. Because the more you think about the plot, the less sense it makes. Did anyone think about why the MC was betrayed in the first place? On how Rapthalia grows a more mature body by leveling up and also becoming more mature in the mind, or why this world needs the heroes when regular residents can level up and become powerful just as fine? Now, I am not someone who couldn’t suspend his disbelief for even a minute, I actually did it at the beginning, but when my overall enjoyment drops significantly, these sort of questions inevitably starts popping up.

I don't really know what went wrong with this manga, I have no idea how faithfully it follows the novel, I didn't read that. Perhaps the author had a good and dark idea about how to kick off the story but didn't know how to follow it up, or maybe he just wanted to create a good old-fashioned fantasy with a unique twist, but couldn't execute it well. The only good thing a can tell about the story is that it moves at a reasonable pace, although it was on the brink of becoming boring by the time I gave up.

As for the upcoming anime adaptation, I think it will flop, it won’t work in a post Re: Zero world. What do I mean by that? The fact that Shield Hero’s main draw, the "unique" twist, is the dark and edgy „sufferporn” that happens at the beginning, means it will inevitably be compared to Re: Zero and that show portrayed the suffering and failure (some would call it sufferporn) much better and more consistently.

I could go on, but to sum it up, Shield Hero has a strong start, that quickly becomes a completely run off the mill shonen action-adventure fantasy. It isn't unique in any notable way, nor its story or its characters are particularly deep and it's misleading dark beginning can easily lead to disappointment.

As for me personally, I think I put it on on-hold and see what the anime will make of it. Depending on that I may or may not pick it up at a later date.