I feel like the training arc is more important than people give it credit for. It's the start of Ren and itsuki's downward spiral going forward. it also puts into perspective just how much the other heroes are holding naofumi back and what their actual problems are.
+ Rishia could have started to rebuild herself, and we could have had some lore regarding the turtle, or the other kingdoms/kings with way more subtlety.
i've only read a little ahead int he manga, but i'd say it is doing the obvious conflict of this arc, the turt, way better than the manga did. the anime is putting focus on actually bringing the world to life sensibly (an actual war council to deal with the turt? infinitely better than what the manga did), which is honestly a way better approach. they should have committed to a longer season or another season and slowed to pace down to include important character moments, though.
This is how I feel about the Fullbringer Arc for Bleach, people bashed that arc but its actually a pretty important arc when you dysect it. And you can say the same about the Training Arc in Shield Hero.
@@comyuse9103 When I think about it though it does kinda make sense to skip it. Think about the training he actually did. It isn't something that easy to make entertaining. Rens duel would make sense but then again there is agoing to be antoher duel showing the same thing later. Not just a duel between the same characters but her pointing out his failings through the duel. It kinda makes sense to combine them
The thing that annoys me the most is that they skipped Eclair's introduction and training arc. That's not the only cut content that I think should've been included, but it's the one that I think is actually going to hurt the series in the long term.
One element I realized this week was that the first seasons jumping to Naofumi putting down roots and expanding the community of those he is committed to protecting skipped over a good deal of character development that is supposed to take place over the next few arcs. He's jumped from "I just want to get back to Japan, but I'll make sure that Raphtalia and Filo have secure futures first" to "I need to make sure this whole village and a few other people are safe and secure, and then we'll see about what happens after that." The result may be that he has kind of a flat character arc this season (and next?). I hope they work around that. So... you can argue that Season 1 sabotaged Season 2 a tiny bit so they could get their satisfying ending.
Yeah, I'd agree with that, though I already made a video about the village change at the end of season 1 so I didn't really want to go over that again.
Anime only here: I’ve watched the first episode and am just so completely lost from season 1, it’s like they did a huge time skip but are still at the same relative time. I don’t remember the girl from the bow hero’s party, nor most of the people in his Demi-human village. This is an anime I’m gonna wait for the dub to come out so I can have it as background noise and don’t have to pay attention.
The Pacing is decent enough, it might have been better if they did a 1 hour episode/episode 0, then episode 2 and when 3 comes out shift to the Tortious. I can see they want to get to the action, as a person who read the WN (most of it) and the LN after may the rest of the series pick up and do well enough for a thrid season 25 episodes if that can work.
The problem is that these are made for tv. 1 hour episodes are not a one size fits all solution. Ufotable gets away with it a lot but there’s a reason it’s not an industry standard. It costs significantly more money to have an episode that long since it would need to push at least 2 other shows out of the time slot for only a single day. Not gonna happen, especially if the time slot is aiming for the highly competitive early morning showing to catch kids and teens before they head out for school every day.
the first season had 25 episodes while this season has 13 episodes and they seemingly want to cover about the same amount of manga chapters as season 1 based on the shown people in the intro and when their place in the story is
Shield Hero airs at midnight in Japan, which is usual for anime series like this that are aimed at adults. So, they're definitely not going for the early morning kids' shows slots... Episode 1 of season 1 was a double length episode, so I think that's why OP suggested they might have done that here. It isn't uncommon for first episodes (Re:Zero episode 1 was also a double length one, and that was aired in the same time slot). But yeah, it wouldn't be the norm to expect to be able to make episodes longer than standard anime episode length, which is why some shows do stuff like skip the OP and ED to gain more screentime in an episode they want to have a bit more stuff in it - naturally that makes an episode cost more though, so it's not something they tend to do just for the sake of it.
@@zacwicht3189 yeah, that's a cap, I am a LN reader and the characters that appear in the op are all within books 6 to 8, so it is 3 books in comparison to 5 from the first season
When they jumped the gun on throwing in the start of the village arc I knew that season 2 was going to go off the rails. The two arcs before the village were really important to establish the reason for the existence of the village as well as extensively developing both Naofumi and Raphtalia.
As someone who's anime-only with this series, I feel like it's hard to judge the entire season on just a couple of episodes. Anime adaptations often skip "non-essential" parts of the story for pacing reasons or because they wouldn't be as interesting when animated. That said, it does stink when whole arcs are skipped. Hopefully they somehow shoehorn the missing details into the anime so there's context for the character developments.
you know what separate good isekai and shit isekai?, world building and character building, and if you think that world building/character building is non essential and it's fine if they cut it, then you probably enjoy shit isekai with no world building and straight up cut to the "interesting part"
Except the training arc was definitely essential. It goes over Risha’s rare Ki Talent is unique, it has Kiel join up with Naofumi, and both Kiel and Risha join Naofumi as slaves and have their levels reset so they can properly level (and become slaves so they don’t insta die from leveling super quickly)
I would have liked to see the training arc, most to show how poor the other Heros are and how they need to improve and show why Naofumi's group is better, it would have also been quite nice character building for Rishia.
Honestly I feel the production team did not fully understand what they needed to do for this arc to make sense, the training and tension building of the first half of volume 6 was set up for stuff that pays off throughout the next 8 volumes or so skipping it means alot of sloppy catch up or exposition dumps will be needed especially if season 2 is rushing to have the spirit turtle arc done with by episode 6 (thats just a feeling on my part) but yeah volume 6 was really one big world building session after the Calmira arc and episode 2 being the end of that volume feels way way WAY to rushed.
Excellent video, a balanced analysis. As an anime only who is aware of some parts of the story to come, I'm willing to suspend judgment until we have more of the whole narrative in our hands. Too many fans are ready to pass judgment on fragments.
Thank you for the breakdown. I wasn't sure what to expect since they skipped ahead in some areas and were left out in others. I'm still invested in seeing how it will work out, even more so after this informational recap. Thank you again!
Its only been 2 episodes its a little early to jump to its the new Promised Neverland season 2. Would be nice if we later get flashbacks or an ova to explain more, even though would have been nice that they didn't skip it.
ima be honest the first episode was a bit uhhhhhhhhhhhhh but from 2 onwards it seems to be getting somewhat better as for the skipping part while it is concerning i've heard rumors that they did it with permission from the authot so they might have worked some things out which gives me hope
I don't blame them for speeding through this arc because I imagine unless you are interested in the waves and mystery of the spirit tortoise you are not gonna get much out of this arc. I imagine most anime watchers get to this point in the show because they want to see more of Naofumi and his crew, but their development feel sorta subverted by this arc even though he is the primary driving force to getting the root of it all. My friend is just glad the other heroes have been sidelined since he is tired of them being terrible people enabling other horrible people and cause of catastrophe. I'm waiting for the next arc since it's my favorite.
While I agree strongly cause well.. The Spirit Tortoise was where I dropped the manga due to it feeling slow and just a huge right turn out of nowhere, introducing new characters flatly doesn't really warm you up to them at all. That said, the old lady is quickly becoming a favorite of mine.
Skipping the training arc threw me off and I don’t like how the Spirit Tortoise arc was handled. However, I like this season cause of the New World Arc. It also cut out a few things, but I thought it was paced better. Plus, it introduced Kizuna in a respectable manner. So S2 is a mixed bag.
Animation quality and voice acting quality (I dont know if some of the VAs had to record from home due to Covid or what) but there is clearly a difference between the characters sound quality and the music quality is also subpar... Just the entire production value of this season leaves a lot to be desired
I take solace in knowing that this arc was never meant to be as action packed as the previous as well as how much was skipped. It has its flaws for sure, but it'll get better. It deserves more than two episodes for judgement.
Either you're a fan of the action, the mechnics, leveling, etc., or you're the type who gets excited about the worldbuilding/lore and the slow-life aspect. I imagine both sides care about character development as well, but the way things've been going so far, I don't think anyone really feel satisfied. I agree however, two episodes is simply not enough to judge fuck all upon. When we're halfway through and things are still a mess, then maybe there's room for concern... Who knows, they could even pull a "So I'm a Spider, So What?" and muck it up completely within the last couple of episodes.😅
@@FromDkWithLove Couldn't have said it better. Just because they deserve a chance doesn't mean they won't totally fuck it all up lol. They're not immune to the fuckery.
Shield hero season ep1 was mental. What the fuck are you talking about? They started great and now they're shit. The truth deserves to be spoken especially everyone has been waiting for it for couple of years now.
I was speaking to a friend of mine (he’s a manga reader he’s caught up I’m reading the LN only on book 7) and he said the spirit tortoise arc is mostly exposition to set up the next part. So he said it gets a LOT better after this arc
They could just skimmed it better by showcasing the duel and or a montage training, it'd take half the episode max. Also established the slave buff and as espiritu mentioned raphtalia was pretty out of character when introducing it. Risha's exile can easily be religated to a later arc closer to but not in the same arc as when itsuki gets more involved
I'm really concerned with the skipping of the trailing arc with Eclair and Hengen Muso lady, mostly because of the arc after this, with Raphtalia's new power up, and how integral Eclair is to that once that arc concludes. Because the OP contains Kizuza, I'm worry that arc is going to find it's way into the season finale, which is maybe 10 episodes to go from fighting off familiars and not even laying eyes on the Tortoise to the fight with Book-dork at the end of Vol 7. [S3 stuffz] I really hope they show us a little bit of Chibi Raphtalia in Fantasy World #2, even though Naofumi doesn't see the B plot that happens, it would be nice for the anime to include a little. But primarily, I hope they do the Katana Weapon justice, because those skills are described beautifully in the novels, and the graphics team will be hard pressed to match those descriptions.
Wow, they actually skipped the Training Arc, especially Ren vs Eclaire? Damn... I was waiting for the dub to drop, but if they skipped that much already with only 13 episodes to the Season... I did momentarily consider skipping the Season entirely, but with 11 more episodes to go, at which point I'm sure we'll hit either the very end of Volume 7 or the very start of Volume 8 material, hopefully the pacing gets better to the point they don't skip all this important stuff.
IMO it's really hard to classify it as "bad" - it's only been 2 episodes, and the Spirit Tortoise arc is such a tangent from what we've had so far that it was always going to take a few episodes to change directions before we can get to the meat of this arc - but 2 episodes in and TH-cam creators everywhere have already written it off as "bad". I will say the beginning of S2 is greatly suffering from the decision to tack on the founding of Rock Valley at the end of S1, in a place where it doesn't belong. That time could have been used to kick off the Spirit Tortoise arc as well as have been a teaser for S2, and S2 could have jumped right into the meat of the Spirit Tortoise arc from the beginning. Am I saying the first two episodes are great? Not at all - they aren't. But I know where this story is supposed to go, and because of that I'm not ready to give up on S2 as a "lost season" yet. Of course if they butcher the core of the arc I'm not going to be happy, but we're not there yet. Not to mention the fact that Kizuna is in the OP, I already know we're not spending a whole lot of time in this arc anyway.
I'm of the opinion that good stories need these downtime moments for character development. Even the greatest adventure has it's humdrum moments, and this arc does show how lazy and stubborn the other heroes really are, expecting easy wins because they are the "chosen ones," even after they got trounced by Glass, L'arc, and Eclair in the case of Ren. Naofumi by comparison doesn't take his title for granted, and is constantly improving, despite his level being lower than the others.
I'm anime only and am watching 11 animes this season. Shield Hero S2 so far is probably in the bottom 2 from those 11. Let's wait and see if it gets better
I'm watching about that many too (haven't counted, but it's a lot, and there are still some I want to watch that I haven't started yet) - the season is stacked! Especially after last season where I was really only watching AoT (and I've read the manga so that wasn't really full of surprises) and a couple of other shows. I think though, that as sequels are going so far, even with its flaws in these two eps, Shield Hero is getting to something that feels more interesting so far than Ascendance of a Bookworm - that for me has had the slowest season start of the shows I'm watching.
Yeah last season wasn't particularly great, seasons of Demon Slayer and Ousama Ranking came to a close, aot I watched only the first couple episodes but wasn't too excited about it. I guess there was dress up darling and genius prince that I really liked, and sabikui bisco to a lesser extent. This season I only know it's 11 because of the my MAL xD. The one I least expected to be watching and enjoying is the golf girls one.
I don't watch Demon Slayer, and I didn't watch Ousama Ranking until a big binge at the end of the season... I did watch Dress Up Darling and Genius Prince, and I liked both of those (I wasn't as obsessed with Dress Up Darling as a lot of people but it was a good show, and Genius Prince was one I didn't have high expectations for but actually really loved). I haven't tried the golf girls one yet haha. So far I'm mostly watching the stuff you'd expect - sequels (Kaguya, Komi, Shieldy Boi, Bookworm, Demon Girl Next Door), Spy x Family, and a bunch of fantasy/isekai type stuff (Skeleton Knight, I'm Quitting Heroing, Executioner and Her Way of Life, Trapped in A Dating Sim, Don't Hurt Me My Healer), and a couple of others.... then there are a few more I want to check out that I didn't fit in in the first two weeks... It's pretty great!
oh yeah, I have no idea why I'm even watching golf girls tbh... It's not that bad tho. Ranked from favorites to least favorites so far I'm watching: Tomodachi Game (first episode blew me away), Ya Boy Kongming (technically an isekai? Also best OP of the season), Spy x Family (obviously), Kaguya (obviously), Otome Game (it's really fun despite the production values), Shikimori, Love after world domination, Golf Girls, Shield Hero (a bit disappointed tbh) and Quit Heroing (filling the quota of garbage isekai of the season even tho it isn't an isekai). Also Summertime Render, but still gotta wait a bit since it's a mystery.
Are you not watching Skeleton Knight? Skeleton Knight is great. ETA I want to watch Tomodachi Game but I'm waiting for there to be a few more episodes out because thriller type stuff I prefer to binge rather than have to follow week to week. Shikimori is one I plan to watch and think I'll like but haven't got around to yet. And I definitely agree about Otome Game, I'm enjoying that way more than I want to admit haha!
As an anime only I think it's fine but just fine. Not great, the world building could be several times better if they took their time but I mean it is what it is. Not trash, but certainly fast paced and a bit confusing at times. Cant call the show trash after two episodes though, I just hope skipped stuff is either addressed or brought back in a way to where I know what's going on and who certain people are.
As an anime only something just felt off like they were skipping alot of material that was covered elsewhere. This vid helps, but the changes need to pay off to have some benefit down the road.
The first two episodes had so much going on it could easily have been four, so I get the complaints. I don't think it ruined the anime though and I see a lot of potential for future episodes and overall I still enjoyed them. I'm kinda concerned that there is only 13 episodes and think that might be part of the rush. Hopefully that 13 is only the first half of the season as we've been seeing quite often in other anime.
It's the full season, but season 3 has also been confirmed so it's functionally not really any different than a two part season (like Mushoku Tensei - a lot of people still think that was two seasons). The current arc is only two volumes in the LNs (season 1 covered 5), so even without speeding through the start they can comfortably cover the arc in one season (and they'll probably start the next one too). So, the length isn't really a problem.
@@NatalieXHunter same thing happened with 86 as well. Honestly though I find it weird they decided well in advance to have them as two separate seasons instead of a 24 episode season with a several month break. Since I’m practice it’s literally the same thing. It’s odd since usually that only happens if a subsequent season was not approved early in the production of the current one, but it was so why lol.
I hope they somehow bring the training aspect up in seasonn3 to explain why the heroes took off as well as why they left which I cause they were angry Naofumi was getting special treatment
Thanks for your thoughts on the first 2 episodes. I had made the comment about how the fist part of the 2nd episode was just an exposition dump. I had made the comparison to the 2nd episode of Ranking of Kings where it showed Kage's background. Perhaps an unfair comparison give Ranking had 23 episodes for its season. Maybe throw a bit more show than tell. In any event, I hope you're right and the next episode or so, the pacing will sync. I'm still excited to see where it all leads.
I was worried when everyone said this new season was bad because I really enjoyed season one. Thanks for giving such good insight on the things that got taken out, or the things that might be shuffled around, and I do hope things pick up as the season goes on.
I think part of the pacing is that they look like they plan to cover almost as many volumes of the LNs in almost half as many episodes. The Spirit Tortoise arc was one of my least favorite, so I don't mind if it's shorter, although I do wish they didn't speed as much through the very start of the arc. If they want to rush through it and then give the next arc some room to breath, I think I'd be okay with that.
I realized I overreacted in my initial thoughts. We were Really REALLY blessed with how Re zero handled the sanctuary arc, and expecting the same thing from another production is really entitled given the current state of the world so I admit I needed to touch some grass. Maybe eventually we can get an OVA for a proper introduction for Éclair. And then get some happy moments to fill in Naofumi's perspective change of caring about his immediate party/family to caring about his domain.
Thanks Natalie as always for the great video! Just wanted to few things to say about shield hero. First off, I am grateful that there is a season 2 and I hope there’s more to come. I really we will see the end of it eventually. Yes, there are a couple of issues with season 2 (for instance the art work is not as good as season 1 and story feels quite rushed), but I hope the pace is pick up as the story progresses. I am still hopeful it will turn out great because of how good the novel is. Keeping my fingers crossed 🤞
Imo Its similar to people that wrote off jobless after like 1-4 episodes and then miss out or vinland saga missing out on black clover because you cant get past asta's personality for 20 eps ect. I often find it really silly to judge an entire season of anime let alone a series on a handful of content. What story would ever be good if you segmented it into tiny chunks? Almost none.
The funny thing about all the talk that Shield Hero is bad now is that all the people who criticised the first season for being “problematic” are now quiet on the second season, lol.
I think the good thing about season 2s is usually all the people who think things are 'problematic' have moved on to something else by the time we get a season 2, so they don't watch it or talk about it and we can just enjoy it in peace...
To anime from LN and manga there are always compromises made. They are trying for some sort of continuity. And you can win and or lose when that's done.
It was a little Easter thing, I figured it was fine to date the video since this video will be irrelevant in a few weeks when everyone has decided Shield Hero s2 is great again ;)
I’m still feeling pretty positive about Shield Hero’s anime adaptation, because I did love season 1 just so so much. I’m still hopeful, and I’m always a fan of stories going from ‘jumpy’ or ‘drawn out’ to just fire, so I do hope that shield hero is going to take that path, but we shall wait and see I suppose! - I’m predominately anime only for context
I believe that the anime adaptation need to make substantial changes since the contex for the training arc is not the same since the teachers in the novel where encouraged by the queen meanwhile in the anime they are naofumi's citizens so its understandable that they cut off the struggle to train the other heroes since in the anime it wouldn´t sit to well to be under command of naofumi's citizens with them. Also the things they establish on the light novel with Rishia and Keel didn't pay off enough to give it more time on the anime adaptation, the way i see it they are cutting corners to get to the better part of the story but i have to said it's understandable how the pace feels a little off for anime only viewers i doubt we'll have this problem for the next episodes
When season 1 aired I was a bit burnt out from isekai and so I waited until it had finished and then planned on watching it dubbed (something I never do with modern anime) while only half paying attention. What I found was a surprisingly competent dub, as well as a compelling world with interesting characters and mechanics. I binged it over a week. I watched the first episode of season 2 last week and I didn't feel what I described just before. Everything felt glossed over, characters looked the same but acted like exposition husks, nothing was explained nor was there anything open to interpretation. The pacing simultaneously made the episode feel like it lasted 5 and 40 minutes because by the halfway point I just wanted to watch or do something else. I feel like they're going too fast and introducing too many elements at once to set this new arc up. I'm sure the structure will get better a few episodes in but I'm just going to wait until it is all out again, watching weekly seems like a frustrating prospect.
I love the sheild hero , I love how it brings real life occurrence to light and the story being so slow burn . So seing the quality of season 2 , both animation and plot ploting id lie if I said I wasnt disapointed , I really love the series but , somehow it doesnt feel the same as season .....
There are quite a lot of isekai that don't have any romance (not sure if you're asking for ones that are isekai but not romance, or ones that aren't isekai OR romance... but there are so many with no isekai where it's just one genre that I won't go into those). Faraway Paladin is one from last season that doesn't really have any romance (yet at least), and this season there is the new season of Ascendance of a Bookworm, which isn't very romance heavy (it might have romance later on, but so far it doesn't). Of the most well known ones, Tanya the Evil doesn't have romance as a major feature. Overlord doesn't really either, but it is still somewhat harem-y so it depends if what you dislike is romance plotlines or just characters being romantically interested in the MC.
That's an awesome outfit. Do you download textures from booth? I like Shield Hero, but I've never taken it as especially brilliant. As long as it doesn't skip entire arcs and characters like Promised Neverland S2 did, I'll keep watching for Raphtalia^^
Yeah, they're all from Booth (this one I paid for, but a lot of them are free ones). The bunny ears are just because it's Easter! I definitely don't see Shield Hero going the way of TPN... I hope nothing ever goes the way of TPN again!
Coming back to this after episode 6, man I really wish the story wasn't so rushed. Don't get me wrong, I think it's cool that we'll be seeing Glasses world, but things with the spirit tortoise just felt way too rushed. In season 1, I loved how well fleshed out the world was. It wasn't just a backdrop or excuse for the story they want to tell, it was an integral, logical part of the story and honestly it was bigger than the story itself. But in season 2, I just don't get that same feeling. Everything feels so rushed and just kind of empty to be honest. I don't know if the other countries that were taking part in the fight against the spirit tortoise were named, but I definitely know I don't remember the names. The massive army has no real weight, it just turned up and what do I care if it's wiped out? There's apparently a whole country based on the spirit tortoise, or so I'm told. Is it just some fever dream one person had and nobody else corrected them? Who knows, I couldn't tell you the difference. I fear that for this season of shield hero they just tried to adapt too much of the story.
I remember what happened to Ost hitting moderately hard in the LN, and being a bit of a behind the scenes emotional driver for the fight against a certain bookworm in the following volumes. While I have not watched season 2, episode 5 yet, I am kind of afraid the anime's pacing might undercut its ability to give emotional weight to upcoming events.
So I have a question for Natalie or anyone else who has read the LN, was Naofumi ever able to tell the other Heroes about being able to use each others Game Mechanics to grow their Weapons? I know in the Anime he tried at the Island and failed, but it seems like he had plenty of time and reason to try again.
I was really looking forward to the training arc and more specifically the duel between Eclair and Ren, simply because I would have found it hilarious if Eclairs voice actress was Haruka Tomatsu, but it's not either way I hope they touch upon the training stuff and just did it off screen or are planning some sort of filler episode down the line explaining it to everyone.
I've only seen the anime so far. Season 2 so far is confusing and sucking so far. The complete 180 of the heros from being "I want to look good" to thier now "not my problem fix it yourself" is so weird and makes me feel like I've missed so much. Once I find the light novels I will start those. Your videos have showed how much has been skipped and how good the show coulda been
Well I read the books so it's difficult to go in without knowing what's ment to be going on. It did seem a bit hasty though. They had to reintroduce thinhs and corse correct a bit already. So maybe a bit of a messy transition. Maybe it will continue to be this messy, but I think once they get more on track to the novels it will fix it's self. Can't imagine them doing worse then The Wheel of Time show. Side note, but my bet is the author is a gal just based on how the protagonist is written. He shares a lot of similarities with romance protagonists. That kind of outer darkness hiding a softer inside. Think of it like this when men write other men they tend to be write Superman. When women write men they tend to write Batman.
Hahaha my bet is the author is a man, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the most cringe chapters from a writing perspective are the chapters they attempted from the perspective of female characters - Raphtalia and Melty. Now, plenty of men can write female characters just fine, and it could also be that it's a woman who just finds Naofumi easier to write than those two, given they have more practice writing from his perspective, but, since to me the flaws in the writing in early volumes feel more like a lack of confidence than anything, it stands to reason that that would come through more when writing for the gender you're not. Secondly, this thing in one of the last couple of novels about how 'sex with the shield hero wouldn't hurt because he can't attack'. I don't think it would occur to a woman to have a female character say this - adult women don't typically expect sex to hurt anyway... Just seems like something a man might think a woman would think but a woman wouldn't, iykwim! I'm not disputing that he's written a lot like a romance hero, but I used to be a romance author, so I know quite a few men who write romance novels under female pen names, and I think because those heroes are so much part of the collective consciousness men can write them regardless of their own taste in characters if they decide that they're what they want for the story.
as someone who has only read a little bit ahead in the manga; i think the anime is doing some good shit that the manga should have done (the war council? the more sensible plan of dropping a fortress on the turt? muhc better), but it has skipped some stuff that seems _very_ important, like vital shit. unless they plan on dedicating time specifically to some important stuff once they get the turtle out of the way then mistakes were made.
The anime is finally catching up to the manga, but I have to say I got board and frustrated with continued issues with the other heros just being rehashed. With all that has happened in the story there's no movement in growth for anyone outside of shield heros party and friends. Its just children who look like adults pretending to be 8th graders. And I think that's really where the issue is. The story just did a 180 from where it started. Starting with betrayal and finding ones place in the world is a compelling story but that never amounted to much after the trial. Not to mention the addition plot twists that you see suddenly from the SH. Forgotten trauma to make friends with complete strangers, ultimatum of death for all or nothing scenarios, and continually introducing ever stronger baddies. I feel like the lot just moved to a more juvenile level where it started out with more mature (non sexual) content. Naufmi's trust, raphtallia's family loss, the whole teams emotional trauma, and real personal growth have been replaced by a shonin/slice of life story punctuated by a new weekly waifu. It feels like the original audience was thrown out with the bath water for some one else. So, for myself it is a hard drop. Probably not a popular option but it is my own. Love the work! Keep it up.
I think the thing with Shield Hero is, it starts out seeming like it's going to be a revenge story or something like that, but what it actually is.... It's basically a xianxia story. If you like xianxia, you'll recognize it as a full on xianxia with all the trimmings after a couple more arcs. Not many isekai have that story structure or feel (though it's more common in manwha), so Shield Hero can, compared to others, feel like it has way more fights, way more power creep, way more detail about how everyone and everything becomes stronger and then how that is implemented and challenged by opponents who also increase in strength... but that's all the story beats and structure from a xianxia series. For me, it made so much more sense why the story is the way it is once I figured that out!
6:48 Exposition Tortiise and Information racoon. Now that's a good one. So are the other heroes relevant for this arc? If no,then I don't see a problem,seeing Naofumi handle the spirit tortoise alone,I could not stop remarking how useless the other heros still are.
i am intrested to see how they start to set up the characters and mysterys in the later epsiodes/season 3, will they rush charcter arcs or will it just come off diferently. i hope they turn it around as i really enjoyed how the mystery is slowly drip fed as they figure it out and charcaters got development.
I've been watching the anime with someone who has read neither the manga or light novel and they are really confused and pretty turned off by the season so far. I completely understand it too; even as someone who has read the manga, I'm also confused and annoyed with the second season so far. I want to be optimistic for the rest of this season but the way they introduced Ost made me feel like they're going to butcher most of the upcoming content.
I feel the opposite. The more they cut of the Spirit Turtle arc the better for the show. If the people complaining knew how bad those early volumes are they would be on their knees thanking the anime makers for cutting what they have. I've been saying for some time cutting and rewriting the Spirit Turtle was the only way we're ever going to see season 3 without the show getting canceled. Also... Hengun Muso is so badly explained and implemented in the novels that I made it to volume 16 before starting to hate the writing so much I couldn't go on, and I still never got a proper explanation as to how it works and even Rishia the so-called prodigy of Hengun Muso still can't use it properly (despite going back to the dragon hour glass, resetting all her stats, and leveling up all over again from 1) let alone Nauofumi, Raphtalia, or anyone else. I honestly think the best thing they could have done was kill the old lady off and delete the existence of Hengun Muso from the anime. It's awful.
I'm anime only on this and I'm not liking what I'm seeing soo far in season 2. The continuation of the other Hero's being idiots(which seems to be a mechanism to make Naofumi to look better or the only reasonable one because it's seems pretty inhuman to be this bad to learn from past mistakes) and the story seeming like a copy paste of season 1 but with new enemies is what I don't like specifically. It's very one dimensional thus far on the character front, I will keep watching though but at this point without building up the other Hero's perspectives it's being hurt massively the longer this goes it feels.
Thank you guys! I don't make content every day (usually - if I do it's normally not for long periods), and I do take breaks - burn out sucks and I definitely want to avoid that!
while I did like the training bit in the beginning. I REALLY didn't like this arc in the manga, and was just kinda waiting for it to be over. luckily pushing through it was 100% worth cause the arc after where they go to Glass's world has been great so far. but imo they aren't working with much in terms of compelling material, yet, so only so much they can do with it besides push through, i guess
I don't know about the manga, since I've only read the LNs, but the next arc in Glass's world is definitely more interesting. A lot of the spirit tortoise arc was set up for later stuff, but it did at least have some cool action - sadly most of that was cut in the anime too though...
Honestly, I think season 2 is going to drive people away. Mainly because the spirit turtle arc is very long, and they seem determined to only air 12 episodes this series. I don’t think there will be enough time to build any thing. I think they should have been planning to show some of Glass’s world, with the same 25 episode lay out like the first season. If they change and do that, They may be able to recover, but if they force people to wait another year or two to get to Glass’s world, the series’ fan base is going to crash
not related, but I remember watching some of your mushoku tensei videos and then realizing that your videos stopped popping up in my feed for some reason. Now I realize that it's because I wasn't subscribed lol
I felt that the expectations for season two were much too high. Knowing where it was coming from in the LN, I am okay with skipping some things, but the anime while going quickly through the chaff, the anime missed some important things. I still have hope for season two.
I feel like they wanted to shorten it because of the animation budget and because of the controversy first season. But mostly the animation budget but I don't have a lot of knowledge on this. But I still enjoy the show.
Nah, I don't think that's the case. If the controversy put them off, they just wouldn't make a season 2, they wouldn't make a season 2 and tell the story faster... I think most of the controversy was in the West anyway, and there's nothing in the current arc that they cut that would have caused any particular controversy. As for animation budget, I don't see why that would affect the stuff covered anyway - if anything, they are skipping stuff that could have been done with less budget than the big action scenes they are speeding towards, so the season would have been cheaper to make if they'd dragged out the village stuff and had less action heavy stuff in the season. Season 3 is confirmed but even with 2 and 3 they won't get to even half way through the currently existing 22 volumes (and the story isn't finished yet in the LNs), so shortening arcs that have some less interesting stuff in them isn't really a crazy move - it's a very long story, and regardless of budget or whatever there will always be cuts made to that kind of content.
they seem to be trying to cover the same amount of content with half the episodes as season 1 making it a bit of a rushed mess thou this arc but i think the next part will be better once the scissors are put away level up is not the term i would use as a gamer we have a saying for what they need to do and i want Naofumi to drop the line to them of "Git gud" to help them realize they are not as good as they think they are at the game they think this is
As a light novel reader I was a bit disappointed with how they handled Ost, as she came off rather clueless. They fully introduced her early and she would of changed to much of the story had she told them how to defeat the spirit tortoise before they fought the thing. Instead she just gave them the simplistic "cut off it's head", which didn't actually work. The first season kind of hobbled the second with that rushed ending of getting Naofumi off the island as fast as possible, which prevented them from really diving into Rishia's character arc. However they could of still of given Eclair some time to shine as appose to just having her hanging around for no apparent reason. Even a few more episodes in and having read ahead, albeit about two years ago so I'm fuzzy on the details, I'm not able to tell where they are planning to go with this season. Namely how many episodes they are going to spend on each volume or what plot points they will focus on. I don't know how far ahead of the source materiel they have read or understand how important certain details will be in later seasons, even if they will be largely unimportant this season.
I could have sworn that Naofumi also made many/all of his village people have slave crest not just for power, but also because of trust issues he has had since the start. It has been a long while since I read through that though.
Yeah, I didn't talk about that in this video though given it's a spoiler that he does that. I'll talk more about the slave crest thing in a video about Keel I'm working on.
I wonder how Rising of the Shield Hero would do as a actual game? The first problem would how much freedom you get, though one could assume that would depend on where you are in the story. The other thing is would there be a timer?
As an anime only viewer I do think the pacing of the story has been really bad so far in S2. I thought that ep 1 was ok with the Ost introduction adding some mystery at the end but then we just got an exposition dump in that meeting of the armies, who we’d never really seen before either, which removed all the mystery. So going into the tortoise fight in ep3 we have a bunch of armies who we don’t know or care about. And Ost in Naofomi’s party who is suddenly being trusted by everyone even though we were just told that she is linked to the tortoise and has been basically murdering people on the tortoise’s behalf. The fight in ep3 feels like it has no stakes because, apart from the Shield hero party, we don’t know or care about anyone involved. And it feels like Ost is accepted by everyone far too readily, especially given Naofumi’s history. If we’re being set up for a backstab by Ost then it’s not so shocking because the party was just stupid to trust her in the first place. If she gets a tragic death then it’s not so tragic because we hardly know her and she didn’t really have time to have the party get to know and value her and she never had to overcome any understandable distrust from Naofumi so that’s also unearned.
yes... they rush to put all the character to build for the next arc. but end with i don't care and didn't feel attached to any character including naofumi. this one is bad, writing is so boring, everything explain verbally. the logic is so wrong in this season.
I honestly resent that they told us the blacksmith's name at the end of season 1. The light novel doesn't give us his name until what would be the halfway point of season 3.
I do think that they should add some OVAs for training stuff or other stuff. However it’s possible to add training later on in the middle of the season maybe or after the turtle fight. Although the OP seems to suggest the other 3 heroes will face trouble in some form or harm. Also we see some other important characters that seem to show up in later volumes. Unless those people will come in second cour. I do think that starting with a training arc might bore others or may not seem fun and cool. I do think names could be introduced from other characters and we should also think how much changes the author wanted. Maybe they decided on some edits. But some edits are questionable for sure. But the previous seasons had changes I suppose that we didn’t notice
It actually isn't possible to add it later in the arc, as the heroes are now missing. It can't even really be shown as flashbacks, as in the anime the training took place at Naofumi's village (it was at the castle in the LNs as he doesn't have the village yet) and the heroes weren't shown as ever being there, so it isn't like it could just have happened off screen and be in a flashback later. The season doesn't have a second cour - it's just likely that they will get to the start of the next arc within this season which is where the character shown in the OP will show up - she appears right at the start of that arc.
@@NatalieXHunter by second cour I mean in the third season. Also it’s possible they could show a flashback of the training arc in the village instead of the castle? The arc is messy itself but maybe it will work out eventually 🤔
They could, but my point was that since there was no indication the heroes were ever in the village, it doesn't look like that would be something they're planning for. If they want to skip it, then they can skip it, but what would be the advantage to just moving it to a later flashback where it takes up the same amount of time but makes less sense? Additionally, what happens after the spirit tortoise arc would not really make for a suitable time to flash back to that, given the other heroes aren't even in the next arc.
@@NatalieXHunter ya very slim chances that it’s probably not happening at all. I suppose hopefully after this arc and a bit it should get back on track with minimal disruptive changes. Was just thinking of alternative possibilities and trying to be optimistic despite how it may seem
The show played off the slave exp bonuses as a slight to Naofumi, which felt really off. I do wish the other 3 heros and what happened to them was sprinkled or hinted at over the arc, the episodes could have been padded out with more lore and things happening which would have helped the cohesion of the story. It was definitely rushed, for some unknown reason
Dear god season 2 so far for me is not looking good after I decided to drop out half way through episode 2 just because of the shear stupidity of the story changes they did. I read the LN during the start of the pandemic around May of 2020 and from then to August of that year I caught up with the series (at the time it only had up to book 17 or 18 translated) and I enjoyed every book I’m not going to lie book 6 wasn’t as slow as some people claim and is so vital to the story going forward that it’s up surd to think why people believe that skipping it was an ok decision. Then there’s the changes to Ren, Itsuki, and Fuck boy McGee that will prove troublesome next season from FBM calling The Witch Bitch by her adventurer name of whore which in the LN’s he was one of the few characters still calling her by her original name. Then there’s the omission of Rens team that is so vital to his character moving forward that it’s so idiotic that they didn’t have them around when after the spirit tortoise arc he becames the way he is because of them. And it’s because of these few thing that I worry about season 3 considering it will most likely have Sadaana the best girl going forward (fight me on that ), Atla who I worry what they’ll due about the adaptation of book 15’s end (which made me cry for the entire end of the book), to her brother Fohl, to Rat the best thicc mad scientist money can enslave (out of context that sounds wrong, but it’s true), to Sy’ne the sweetest overprotective little cupcake with over sized scissors.
I'll second the view on the author's ability changing over time in LN. I think the anime wants to be different in some ways as well as it's focus, ie the character personality differences. I still think we are going to be done and fishing for the next plot within the next 2 or 3 episodes, but calling the season as trash before it's out is like saying the Disney star wars trilogy was great with only seeing the commercials. And we all know how that went. So it's to early to judge with a strong standing in fact. My only fear is if they do a FMA thing and just decide to break from source material, as rushing episodes opens avenues for that. I really really wanna see the whale sisters and Miko dress.
If this season is covering volume 6, I do so hope that season 3 will cover volume 8. Not a light novel reader (yet), but I hear that's when things begin to spice up.
She's the old lady Naofumi saved with medicine in season 1 who appeared fighting in the wave as well. She's the last remaining master of a martial arts style called Hengen Muso, so she's there to train people in that, right now.
I think a good writing opportunity with the game world aspect that the light novel did well with was using skill unlocks to set up other events. The fact that action wasn't put towards the existence of Naofumi's stat and xp multiplier skills which affect party members with slave contracts is bad adaptation.
As a light novel reader, I didn't even realize that "Old Lady" was given a proper name. I know in the anime we get "old guys" way earlier but I felt it was done in such a way that it still felt true to the soul light novels. It doesn't feel that way for the spirit Turtles Ark so far.... I really wish they'd spent the entire second season on this Ark. I have to keep explaining things that are happening to my friends are watching it which is bad
Yeah, I think also it was different because the 'old man's' name is actually used in the light novels (though not until after we see his Master and find out what it is), whereas the old lady's name is still unknown, so it seemed pretty weird to have her just say it normally. I get that it's harder to have a character be unnamed in an anime than in a novel told from the perspective of someone who doesn't know the person's name, but they could have at least had her say it when Naofumi was around and show him being like 'I'm not going to remember that'.
I only read the manga and it felt really weird how they are adapting the anime cause they skipped a lot of content like the visit to the village that naofumi already rescued on season 1 and the training chapters, the fact that the turtle was already even before the battle and naofumi group just climb the turtle and we get more info and a bit of keel kinda character development, and the thing is weird to me is ost personality,on the manga (at least) she seems like a serious character but in the anime seems a bit more silly, I don’t mind when anime change slightly things but this lack or skipped content is kinda confusing, still gonna watch the anime but I hope the anime gets better later
Whatever happen to the cardinal rule of watch 3 eps of an anime before passing judgement. I understand why light novel readers are upset but I want to see ep 3 because saying. The anime basically skipped a whole light novel of character development for the other heroes that will bite them down the road but I honestly think that we are getting a good 3rd party view of the show for only the shield hero. Light Novel and Anime are different experiences.
It's vastly different from the LN and manga. So if you're a fan of those then you will have issues with the anime. I'm a fan of the manga, so I find the anime to be a half-assed money grab. Especially the way they butchered the addition of Rishia to the team. The Anime robbed us of the most emotional moment in the manga.
@@NatalieXHunter Biggest part was Naofumi running into the ocean to save Rishia as she was attempting to commit suicide. His words still ring in my brain today, "Let me help you get stronger." Truly emotional and hard hitting moment they completely skipped in the anime by Filo finding her while she was fishing.
There are some details I find off but, since they pretty much skept some parts in season 1 and even developed Raphtalia's love for Naofumi in a different direction, well, I kind of expected that. So I will just accept it as it is despite my frustrations. The characters are saving this anime tbh. They're good enough to cover those errors.
I feel like the training arc is more important than people give it credit for. It's the start of Ren and itsuki's downward spiral going forward. it also puts into perspective just how much the other heroes are holding naofumi back and what their actual problems are.
+ Rishia could have started to rebuild herself, and we could have had some lore regarding the turtle, or the other kingdoms/kings with way more subtlety.
i've only read a little ahead int he manga, but i'd say it is doing the obvious conflict of this arc, the turt, way better than the manga did. the anime is putting focus on actually bringing the world to life sensibly (an actual war council to deal with the turt? infinitely better than what the manga did), which is honestly a way better approach. they should have committed to a longer season or another season and slowed to pace down to include important character moments, though.
I REALLY wanted to see the sword hero lose to eclair it’s a shame the training arc was cut
This is how I feel about the Fullbringer Arc for Bleach, people bashed that arc but its actually a pretty important arc when you dysect it. And you can say the same about the Training Arc in Shield Hero.
@@comyuse9103 When I think about it though it does kinda make sense to skip it. Think about the training he actually did. It isn't something that easy to make entertaining. Rens duel would make sense but then again there is agoing to be antoher duel showing the same thing later. Not just a duel between the same characters but her pointing out his failings through the duel. It kinda makes sense to combine them
The thing that annoys me the most is that they skipped Eclair's introduction and training arc. That's not the only cut content that I think should've been included, but it's the one that I think is actually going to hurt the series in the long term.
One element I realized this week was that the first seasons jumping to Naofumi putting down roots and expanding the community of those he is committed to protecting skipped over a good deal of character development that is supposed to take place over the next few arcs. He's jumped from "I just want to get back to Japan, but I'll make sure that Raphtalia and Filo have secure futures first" to "I need to make sure this whole village and a few other people are safe and secure, and then we'll see about what happens after that." The result may be that he has kind of a flat character arc this season (and next?). I hope they work around that.
So... you can argue that Season 1 sabotaged Season 2 a tiny bit so they could get their satisfying ending.
Yeah, I'd agree with that, though I already made a video about the village change at the end of season 1 so I didn't really want to go over that again.
Anime only here: I’ve watched the first episode and am just so completely lost from season 1, it’s like they did a huge time skip but are still at the same relative time. I don’t remember the girl from the bow hero’s party, nor most of the people in his Demi-human village. This is an anime I’m gonna wait for the dub to come out so I can have it as background noise and don’t have to pay attention.
The Pacing is decent enough, it might have been better if they did a 1 hour episode/episode 0, then episode 2 and when 3 comes out shift to the Tortious.
I can see they want to get to the action, as a person who read the WN (most of it) and the LN after may the rest of the series pick up and do well enough for a thrid season 25 episodes if that can work.
The problem is that these are made for tv. 1 hour episodes are not a one size fits all solution. Ufotable gets away with it a lot but there’s a reason it’s not an industry standard. It costs significantly more money to have an episode that long since it would need to push at least 2 other shows out of the time slot for only a single day. Not gonna happen, especially if the time slot is aiming for the highly competitive early morning showing to catch kids and teens before they head out for school every day.
the first season had 25 episodes while this season has 13 episodes and they seemingly want to cover about the same amount of manga chapters as season 1 based on the shown people in the intro and when their place in the story is
@@SH1NK1R01 Huh, I see many tv serieses with 45 minute episodes the enitre season
Shield Hero airs at midnight in Japan, which is usual for anime series like this that are aimed at adults. So, they're definitely not going for the early morning kids' shows slots... Episode 1 of season 1 was a double length episode, so I think that's why OP suggested they might have done that here. It isn't uncommon for first episodes (Re:Zero episode 1 was also a double length one, and that was aired in the same time slot). But yeah, it wouldn't be the norm to expect to be able to make episodes longer than standard anime episode length, which is why some shows do stuff like skip the OP and ED to gain more screentime in an episode they want to have a bit more stuff in it - naturally that makes an episode cost more though, so it's not something they tend to do just for the sake of it.
@@zacwicht3189 yeah, that's a cap, I am a LN reader and the characters that appear in the op are all within books 6 to 8, so it is 3 books in comparison to 5 from the first season
When they jumped the gun on throwing in the start of the village arc I knew that season 2 was going to go off the rails. The two arcs before the village were really important to establish the reason for the existence of the village as well as extensively developing both Naofumi and Raphtalia.
As someone who's anime-only with this series, I feel like it's hard to judge the entire season on just a couple of episodes. Anime adaptations often skip "non-essential" parts of the story for pacing reasons or because they wouldn't be as interesting when animated. That said, it does stink when whole arcs are skipped. Hopefully they somehow shoehorn the missing details into the anime so there's context for the character developments.
@@jshbld6582 nah it’s not budget it’s time and staff
The season is a 4th over. So i think 3 episodes is pretty good indicator of how the season is going to go. I was all in on episode 1 of season 1.
you know what separate good isekai and shit isekai?, world building and character building, and if you think that world building/character building is non essential and it's fine if they cut it, then you probably enjoy shit isekai with no world building and straight up cut to the "interesting part"
@@Xantheus07 Yeah, I was actually thinking after this last episode that... Maybe this season really does suck. Lmao
Except the training arc was definitely essential. It goes over Risha’s rare Ki Talent is unique, it has Kiel join up with Naofumi, and both Kiel and Risha join Naofumi as slaves and have their levels reset so they can properly level (and become slaves so they don’t insta die from leveling super quickly)
I would have liked to see the training arc, most to show how poor the other Heros are and how they need to improve and show why Naofumi's group is better, it would have also been quite nice character building for Rishia.
Honestly I feel the production team did not fully understand what they needed to do for this arc to make sense, the training and tension building of the first half of volume 6 was set up for stuff that pays off throughout the next 8 volumes or so skipping it means alot of sloppy catch up or exposition dumps will be needed especially if season 2 is rushing to have the spirit turtle arc done with by episode 6 (thats just a feeling on my part) but yeah volume 6 was really one big world building session after the Calmira arc and episode 2 being the end of that volume feels way way WAY to rushed.
Excellent video, a balanced analysis. As an anime only who is aware of some parts of the story to come, I'm willing to suspend judgment until we have more of the whole narrative in our hands. Too many fans are ready to pass judgment on fragments.
„The introduction raccon“ sounds super cute, I want one !
Thank you for the breakdown. I wasn't sure what to expect since they skipped ahead in some areas and were left out in others. I'm still invested in seeing how it will work out, even more so after this informational recap. Thank you again!
@4:20 I think a perfect example of newish anime that incorporate game mechanics was that so I'm a spider
Yes, I agree that's another good example.
It’s sad that it didn’t blew up because of CG despite it being good
Its only been 2 episodes its a little early to jump to its the new Promised Neverland season 2. Would be nice if we later get flashbacks or an ova to explain more, even though would have been nice that they didn't skip it.
ima be honest the first episode was a bit uhhhhhhhhhhhhh but from 2 onwards it seems to be getting somewhat better as for the skipping part while it is concerning i've heard rumors that they did it with permission from the authot so they might have worked some things out which gives me hope
I don't blame them for speeding through this arc because I imagine unless you are interested in the waves and mystery of the spirit tortoise you are not gonna get much out of this arc. I imagine most anime watchers get to this point in the show because they want to see more of Naofumi and his crew, but their development feel sorta subverted by this arc even though he is the primary driving force to getting the root of it all. My friend is just glad the other heroes have been sidelined since he is tired of them being terrible people enabling other horrible people and cause of catastrophe. I'm waiting for the next arc since it's my favorite.
Yeah but anime only it doesn't help if you don't care about certain characters introduced. Especially if they become a key player in later arcs.
While I agree strongly cause well.. The Spirit Tortoise was where I dropped the manga due to it feeling slow and just a huge right turn out of nowhere, introducing new characters flatly doesn't really warm you up to them at all. That said, the old lady is quickly becoming a favorite of mine.
I watch AniNews I’m a lore based anime only
Skipping the training arc threw me off and I don’t like how the Spirit Tortoise arc was handled. However, I like this season cause of the New World Arc. It also cut out a few things, but I thought it was paced better. Plus, it introduced Kizuna in a respectable manner.
So S2 is a mixed bag.
I haven't seen Shield Hero yet, but I'm sure I'll get around to it sooner or later. Without knowing anything about season 2 either, here's hoping.
Animation quality and voice acting quality (I dont know if some of the VAs had to record from home due to Covid or what) but there is clearly a difference between the characters sound quality and the music quality is also subpar... Just the entire production value of this season leaves a lot to be desired
I take solace in knowing that this arc was never meant to be as action packed as the previous as well as how much was skipped. It has its flaws for sure, but it'll get better. It deserves more than two episodes for judgement.
Either you're a fan of the action, the mechnics, leveling, etc., or you're the type who gets excited about the worldbuilding/lore and the slow-life aspect. I imagine both sides care about character development as well, but the way things've been going so far, I don't think anyone really feel satisfied. I agree however, two episodes is simply not enough to judge fuck all upon. When we're halfway through and things are still a mess, then maybe there's room for concern... Who knows, they could even pull a "So I'm a Spider, So What?" and muck it up completely within the last couple of episodes.😅
@@FromDkWithLove Couldn't have said it better. Just because they deserve a chance doesn't mean they won't totally fuck it all up lol. They're not immune to the fuckery.
Completely agree, we shouldn'tjust immediately jump to calling it trash cause of a couple episodes.
well as of episode 3, its still bad.
Shield hero season ep1 was mental. What the fuck are you talking about?
They started great and now they're shit. The truth deserves to be spoken especially everyone has been waiting for it for couple of years now.
I was speaking to a friend of mine (he’s a manga reader he’s caught up I’m reading the LN only on book 7) and he said the spirit tortoise arc is mostly exposition to set up the next part. So he said it gets a LOT better after this arc
They could just skimmed it better by showcasing the duel and or a montage training, it'd take half the episode max. Also established the slave buff and as espiritu mentioned raphtalia was pretty out of character when introducing it. Risha's exile can easily be religated to a later arc closer to but not in the same arc as when itsuki gets more involved
I'm really concerned with the skipping of the trailing arc with Eclair and Hengen Muso lady, mostly because of the arc after this, with Raphtalia's new power up, and how integral Eclair is to that once that arc concludes. Because the OP contains Kizuza, I'm worry that arc is going to find it's way into the season finale, which is maybe 10 episodes to go from fighting off familiars and not even laying eyes on the Tortoise to the fight with Book-dork at the end of Vol 7.
[S3 stuffz]
I really hope they show us a little bit of Chibi Raphtalia in Fantasy World #2, even though Naofumi doesn't see the B plot that happens, it would be nice for the anime to include a little. But primarily, I hope they do the Katana Weapon justice, because those skills are described beautifully in the novels, and the graphics team will be hard pressed to match those descriptions.
Wow, they actually skipped the Training Arc, especially Ren vs Eclaire? Damn... I was waiting for the dub to drop, but if they skipped that much already with only 13 episodes to the Season... I did momentarily consider skipping the Season entirely, but with 11 more episodes to go, at which point I'm sure we'll hit either the very end of Volume 7 or the very start of Volume 8 material, hopefully the pacing gets better to the point they don't skip all this important stuff.
IMO it's really hard to classify it as "bad" - it's only been 2 episodes, and the Spirit Tortoise arc is such a tangent from what we've had so far that it was always going to take a few episodes to change directions before we can get to the meat of this arc - but 2 episodes in and TH-cam creators everywhere have already written it off as "bad".
I will say the beginning of S2 is greatly suffering from the decision to tack on the founding of Rock Valley at the end of S1, in a place where it doesn't belong. That time could have been used to kick off the Spirit Tortoise arc as well as have been a teaser for S2, and S2 could have jumped right into the meat of the Spirit Tortoise arc from the beginning.
Am I saying the first two episodes are great? Not at all - they aren't. But I know where this story is supposed to go, and because of that I'm not ready to give up on S2 as a "lost season" yet. Of course if they butcher the core of the arc I'm not going to be happy, but we're not there yet.
Not to mention the fact that Kizuna is in the OP, I already know we're not spending a whole lot of time in this arc anyway.
I'm of the opinion that good stories need these downtime moments for character development. Even the greatest adventure has it's humdrum moments, and this arc does show how lazy and stubborn the other heroes really are, expecting easy wins because they are the "chosen ones," even after they got trounced by Glass, L'arc, and Eclair in the case of Ren. Naofumi by comparison doesn't take his title for granted, and is constantly improving, despite his level being lower than the others.
This can be possibly fixed with a SHIT TON of OVA
I'm anime only and am watching 11 animes this season. Shield Hero S2 so far is probably in the bottom 2 from those 11. Let's wait and see if it gets better
I'm watching about that many too (haven't counted, but it's a lot, and there are still some I want to watch that I haven't started yet) - the season is stacked! Especially after last season where I was really only watching AoT (and I've read the manga so that wasn't really full of surprises) and a couple of other shows. I think though, that as sequels are going so far, even with its flaws in these two eps, Shield Hero is getting to something that feels more interesting so far than Ascendance of a Bookworm - that for me has had the slowest season start of the shows I'm watching.
Yeah last season wasn't particularly great, seasons of Demon Slayer and Ousama Ranking came to a close, aot I watched only the first couple episodes but wasn't too excited about it. I guess there was dress up darling and genius prince that I really liked, and sabikui bisco to a lesser extent.
This season I only know it's 11 because of the my MAL xD. The one I least expected to be watching and enjoying is the golf girls one.
I don't watch Demon Slayer, and I didn't watch Ousama Ranking until a big binge at the end of the season... I did watch Dress Up Darling and Genius Prince, and I liked both of those (I wasn't as obsessed with Dress Up Darling as a lot of people but it was a good show, and Genius Prince was one I didn't have high expectations for but actually really loved).
I haven't tried the golf girls one yet haha. So far I'm mostly watching the stuff you'd expect - sequels (Kaguya, Komi, Shieldy Boi, Bookworm, Demon Girl Next Door), Spy x Family, and a bunch of fantasy/isekai type stuff (Skeleton Knight, I'm Quitting Heroing, Executioner and Her Way of Life, Trapped in A Dating Sim, Don't Hurt Me My Healer), and a couple of others.... then there are a few more I want to check out that I didn't fit in in the first two weeks... It's pretty great!
oh yeah, I have no idea why I'm even watching golf girls tbh... It's not that bad tho.
Ranked from favorites to least favorites so far I'm watching: Tomodachi Game (first episode blew me away), Ya Boy Kongming (technically an isekai? Also best OP of the season), Spy x Family (obviously), Kaguya (obviously), Otome Game (it's really fun despite the production values), Shikimori, Love after world domination, Golf Girls, Shield Hero (a bit disappointed tbh) and Quit Heroing (filling the quota of garbage isekai of the season even tho it isn't an isekai).
Also Summertime Render, but still gotta wait a bit since it's a mystery.
Are you not watching Skeleton Knight? Skeleton Knight is great.
ETA I want to watch Tomodachi Game but I'm waiting for there to be a few more episodes out because thriller type stuff I prefer to binge rather than have to follow week to week. Shikimori is one I plan to watch and think I'll like but haven't got around to yet. And I definitely agree about Otome Game, I'm enjoying that way more than I want to admit haha!
I hope they will cover the part when Naofumi calls out the Bow Hero stupidity.
As an anime only I think it's fine but just fine. Not great, the world building could be several times better if they took their time but I mean it is what it is. Not trash, but certainly fast paced and a bit confusing at times. Cant call the show trash after two episodes though, I just hope skipped stuff is either addressed or brought back in a way to where I know what's going on and who certain people are.
I have to say your exposition is flawless, i could not agree more with what you've said!
As an anime only something just felt off like they were skipping alot of material that was covered elsewhere. This vid helps, but the changes need to pay off to have some benefit down the road.
The first two episodes had so much going on it could easily have been four, so I get the complaints. I don't think it ruined the anime though and I see a lot of potential for future episodes and overall I still enjoyed them.
I'm kinda concerned that there is only 13 episodes and think that might be part of the rush. Hopefully that 13 is only the first half of the season as we've been seeing quite often in other anime.
It's the full season, but season 3 has also been confirmed so it's functionally not really any different than a two part season (like Mushoku Tensei - a lot of people still think that was two seasons). The current arc is only two volumes in the LNs (season 1 covered 5), so even without speeding through the start they can comfortably cover the arc in one season (and they'll probably start the next one too). So, the length isn't really a problem.
@@NatalieXHunter same thing happened with 86 as well. Honestly though I find it weird they decided well in advance to have them as two separate seasons instead of a 24 episode season with a several month break. Since I’m practice it’s literally the same thing. It’s odd since usually that only happens if a subsequent season was not approved early in the production of the current one, but it was so why lol.
Man chibi just jumps to conclusions. I'm just glad I found this channel.
reason why i dont watch him alot anymore hes an idiot lol
Wouldn't be the first time he has
I hope they somehow bring the training aspect up in seasonn3 to explain why the heroes took off as well as why they left which I cause they were angry Naofumi was getting special treatment
Thanks for your thoughts on the first 2 episodes. I had made the comment about how the fist part of the 2nd episode was just an exposition dump. I had made the comparison to the 2nd episode of Ranking of Kings where it showed Kage's background. Perhaps an unfair comparison give Ranking had 23 episodes for its season. Maybe throw a bit more show than tell. In any event, I hope you're right and the next episode or so, the pacing will sync. I'm still excited to see where it all leads.
I was worried when everyone said this new season was bad because I really enjoyed season one. Thanks for giving such good insight on the things that got taken out, or the things that might be shuffled around, and I do hope things pick up as the season goes on.
I think part of the pacing is that they look like they plan to cover almost as many volumes of the LNs in almost half as many episodes. The Spirit Tortoise arc was one of my least favorite, so I don't mind if it's shorter, although I do wish they didn't speed as much through the very start of the arc. If they want to rush through it and then give the next arc some room to breath, I think I'd be okay with that.
Great one thanks a lot as always and I hope that you had a great Easter weekend
I realized I overreacted in my initial thoughts. We were Really REALLY blessed with how Re zero handled the sanctuary arc, and expecting the same thing from another production is really entitled given the current state of the world so I admit I needed to touch some grass.
Maybe eventually we can get an OVA for a proper introduction for Éclair. And then get some happy moments to fill in Naofumi's perspective change of caring about his immediate party/family to caring about his domain.
Thanks Natalie as always for the great video! Just wanted to few things to say about shield hero. First off, I am grateful that there is a season 2 and I hope there’s more to come. I really we will see the end of it eventually. Yes, there are a couple of issues with season 2 (for instance the art work is not as good as season 1 and story feels quite rushed), but I hope the pace is pick up as the story progresses. I am still hopeful it will turn out great because of how good the novel is. Keeping my fingers crossed 🤞
Imo Its similar to people that wrote off jobless after like 1-4 episodes and then miss out or vinland saga missing out on black clover because you cant get past asta's personality for 20 eps ect. I often find it really silly to judge an entire season of anime let alone a series on a handful of content. What story would ever be good if you segmented it into tiny chunks? Almost none.
The funny thing about all the talk that Shield Hero is bad now is that all the people who criticised the first season for being “problematic” are now quiet on the second season, lol.
I think the good thing about season 2s is usually all the people who think things are 'problematic' have moved on to something else by the time we get a season 2, so they don't watch it or talk about it and we can just enjoy it in peace...
I envisioned a few really interesting battles when i read the books. Alot of carnage. You dont just jump into it...
To anime from LN and manga there are always compromises made. They are trying for some sort of continuity. And you can win and or lose when that's done.
I heard the director was changed. Could that be playing a part in the change of pacing?
I wasn’t expecting the bunny ears 🐰
Very cute.
I think people are being too impatient, it’s been only two episodes.
It was a little Easter thing, I figured it was fine to date the video since this video will be irrelevant in a few weeks when everyone has decided Shield Hero s2 is great again ;)
I’m still feeling pretty positive about Shield Hero’s anime adaptation, because I did love season 1 just so so much.
I’m still hopeful, and I’m always a fan of stories going from ‘jumpy’ or ‘drawn out’ to just fire, so I do hope that shield hero is going to take that path, but we shall wait and see I suppose!
- I’m predominately anime only for context
I believe that the anime adaptation need to make substantial changes since the contex for the training arc is not the same since the teachers in the novel where encouraged by the queen meanwhile in the anime they are naofumi's citizens so its understandable that they cut off the struggle to train the other heroes since in the anime it wouldn´t sit to well to be under command of naofumi's citizens with them. Also the things they establish on the light novel with Rishia and Keel didn't pay off enough to give it more time on the anime adaptation, the way i see it they are cutting corners to get to the better part of the story but i have to said it's understandable how the pace feels a little off for anime only viewers i doubt we'll have this problem for the next episodes
When season 1 aired I was a bit burnt out from isekai and so I waited until it had finished and then planned on watching it dubbed (something I never do with modern anime) while only half paying attention. What I found was a surprisingly competent dub, as well as a compelling world with interesting characters and mechanics. I binged it over a week.
I watched the first episode of season 2 last week and I didn't feel what I described just before. Everything felt glossed over, characters looked the same but acted like exposition husks, nothing was explained nor was there anything open to interpretation. The pacing simultaneously made the episode feel like it lasted 5 and 40 minutes because by the halfway point I just wanted to watch or do something else.
I feel like they're going too fast and introducing too many elements at once to set this new arc up. I'm sure the structure will get better a few episodes in but I'm just going to wait until it is all out again, watching weekly seems like a frustrating prospect.
I love the sheild hero , I love how it brings real life occurrence to light and the story being so slow burn . So seing the quality of season 2 , both animation and plot ploting id lie if I said I wasnt disapointed , I really love the series but , somehow it doesnt feel the same as season .....
Does anyone know any anime that has no romance isekai?
There are quite a lot of isekai that don't have any romance (not sure if you're asking for ones that are isekai but not romance, or ones that aren't isekai OR romance... but there are so many with no isekai where it's just one genre that I won't go into those). Faraway Paladin is one from last season that doesn't really have any romance (yet at least), and this season there is the new season of Ascendance of a Bookworm, which isn't very romance heavy (it might have romance later on, but so far it doesn't). Of the most well known ones, Tanya the Evil doesn't have romance as a major feature. Overlord doesn't really either, but it is still somewhat harem-y so it depends if what you dislike is romance plotlines or just characters being romantically interested in the MC.
While the pacing is rough, if they can make things smother as we go forward this will be forgot, so as they say time will tell.
That's an awesome outfit. Do you download textures from booth? I like Shield Hero, but I've never taken it as especially brilliant. As long as it doesn't skip entire arcs and characters like Promised Neverland S2 did, I'll keep watching for Raphtalia^^
Yeah, they're all from Booth (this one I paid for, but a lot of them are free ones). The bunny ears are just because it's Easter!
I definitely don't see Shield Hero going the way of TPN... I hope nothing ever goes the way of TPN again!
Coming back to this after episode 6, man I really wish the story wasn't so rushed. Don't get me wrong, I think it's cool that we'll be seeing Glasses world, but things with the spirit tortoise just felt way too rushed. In season 1, I loved how well fleshed out the world was. It wasn't just a backdrop or excuse for the story they want to tell, it was an integral, logical part of the story and honestly it was bigger than the story itself.
But in season 2, I just don't get that same feeling. Everything feels so rushed and just kind of empty to be honest. I don't know if the other countries that were taking part in the fight against the spirit tortoise were named, but I definitely know I don't remember the names. The massive army has no real weight, it just turned up and what do I care if it's wiped out? There's apparently a whole country based on the spirit tortoise, or so I'm told. Is it just some fever dream one person had and nobody else corrected them? Who knows, I couldn't tell you the difference.
I fear that for this season of shield hero they just tried to adapt too much of the story.
I remember what happened to Ost hitting moderately hard in the LN, and being a bit of a behind the scenes emotional driver for the fight against a certain bookworm in the following volumes. While I have not watched season 2, episode 5 yet, I am kind of afraid the anime's pacing might undercut its ability to give emotional weight to upcoming events.
So I have a question for Natalie or anyone else who has read the LN, was Naofumi ever able to tell the other Heroes about being able to use each others Game Mechanics to grow their Weapons? I know in the Anime he tried at the Island and failed, but it seems like he had plenty of time and reason to try again.
I was really looking forward to the training arc and more specifically the duel between Eclair and Ren, simply because I would have found it hilarious if Eclairs voice actress was Haruka Tomatsu, but it's not either way I hope they touch upon the training stuff and just did it off screen or are planning some sort of filler episode down the line explaining it to everyone.
I've only seen the anime so far. Season 2 so far is confusing and sucking so far. The complete 180 of the heros from being "I want to look good" to thier now "not my problem fix it yourself" is so weird and makes me feel like I've missed so much. Once I find the light novels I will start those. Your videos have showed how much has been skipped and how good the show coulda been
Well I read the books so it's difficult to go in without knowing what's ment to be going on. It did seem a bit hasty though. They had to reintroduce thinhs and corse correct a bit already. So maybe a bit of a messy transition. Maybe it will continue to be this messy, but I think once they get more on track to the novels it will fix it's self. Can't imagine them doing worse then The Wheel of Time show.
Side note, but my bet is the author is a gal just based on how the protagonist is written. He shares a lot of similarities with romance protagonists. That kind of outer darkness hiding a softer inside. Think of it like this when men write other men they tend to be write Superman. When women write men they tend to write Batman.
Hahaha my bet is the author is a man, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the most cringe chapters from a writing perspective are the chapters they attempted from the perspective of female characters - Raphtalia and Melty. Now, plenty of men can write female characters just fine, and it could also be that it's a woman who just finds Naofumi easier to write than those two, given they have more practice writing from his perspective, but, since to me the flaws in the writing in early volumes feel more like a lack of confidence than anything, it stands to reason that that would come through more when writing for the gender you're not. Secondly, this thing in one of the last couple of novels about how 'sex with the shield hero wouldn't hurt because he can't attack'. I don't think it would occur to a woman to have a female character say this - adult women don't typically expect sex to hurt anyway... Just seems like something a man might think a woman would think but a woman wouldn't, iykwim!
I'm not disputing that he's written a lot like a romance hero, but I used to be a romance author, so I know quite a few men who write romance novels under female pen names, and I think because those heroes are so much part of the collective consciousness men can write them regardless of their own taste in characters if they decide that they're what they want for the story.
as someone who has only read a little bit ahead in the manga; i think the anime is doing some good shit that the manga should have done (the war council? the more sensible plan of dropping a fortress on the turt? muhc better), but it has skipped some stuff that seems _very_ important, like vital shit. unless they plan on dedicating time specifically to some important stuff once they get the turtle out of the way then mistakes were made.
The anime is finally catching up to the manga, but I have to say I got board and frustrated with continued issues with the other heros just being rehashed. With all that has happened in the story there's no movement in growth for anyone outside of shield heros party and friends. Its just children who look like adults pretending to be 8th graders. And I think that's really where the issue is.
The story just did a 180 from where it started. Starting with betrayal and finding ones place in the world is a compelling story but that never amounted to much after the trial.
Not to mention the addition plot twists that you see suddenly from the SH. Forgotten trauma to make friends with complete strangers, ultimatum of death for all or nothing scenarios, and continually introducing ever stronger baddies.
I feel like the lot just moved to a more juvenile level where it started out with more mature (non sexual) content.
Naufmi's trust, raphtallia's family loss, the whole teams emotional trauma, and real personal growth have been replaced by a shonin/slice of life story punctuated by a new weekly waifu.
It feels like the original audience was thrown out with the bath water for some one else.
So, for myself it is a hard drop. Probably not a popular option but it is my own.
Love the work! Keep it up.
I think the thing with Shield Hero is, it starts out seeming like it's going to be a revenge story or something like that, but what it actually is.... It's basically a xianxia story. If you like xianxia, you'll recognize it as a full on xianxia with all the trimmings after a couple more arcs. Not many isekai have that story structure or feel (though it's more common in manwha), so Shield Hero can, compared to others, feel like it has way more fights, way more power creep, way more detail about how everyone and everything becomes stronger and then how that is implemented and challenged by opponents who also increase in strength... but that's all the story beats and structure from a xianxia series. For me, it made so much more sense why the story is the way it is once I figured that out!
6:48 Exposition Tortiise and Information racoon.
Now that's a good one.
So are the other heroes relevant for this arc? If no,then I don't see a problem,seeing Naofumi handle the spirit tortoise alone,I could not stop remarking how useless the other heros still are.
i am intrested to see how they start to set up the characters and mysterys in the later epsiodes/season 3, will they rush charcter arcs or will it just come off diferently. i hope they turn it around as i really enjoyed how the mystery is slowly drip fed as they figure it out and charcaters got development.
I've been watching the anime with someone who has read neither the manga or light novel and they are really confused and pretty turned off by the season so far. I completely understand it too; even as someone who has read the manga, I'm also confused and annoyed with the second season so far. I want to be optimistic for the rest of this season but the way they introduced Ost made me feel like they're going to butcher most of the upcoming content.
I feel the opposite. The more they cut of the Spirit Turtle arc the better for the show. If the people complaining knew how bad those early volumes are they would be on their knees thanking the anime makers for cutting what they have. I've been saying for some time cutting and rewriting the Spirit Turtle was the only way we're ever going to see season 3 without the show getting canceled.
Also... Hengun Muso is so badly explained and implemented in the novels that I made it to volume 16 before starting to hate the writing so much I couldn't go on, and I still never got a proper explanation as to how it works and even Rishia the so-called prodigy of Hengun Muso still can't use it properly (despite going back to the dragon hour glass, resetting all her stats, and leveling up all over again from 1) let alone Nauofumi, Raphtalia, or anyone else. I honestly think the best thing they could have done was kill the old lady off and delete the existence of Hengun Muso from the anime. It's awful.
I'm anime only on this and I'm not liking what I'm seeing soo far in season 2. The continuation of the other Hero's being idiots(which seems to be a mechanism to make Naofumi to look better or the only reasonable one because it's seems pretty inhuman to be this bad to learn from past mistakes) and the story seeming like a copy paste of season 1 but with new enemies is what I don't like specifically.
It's very one dimensional thus far on the character front, I will keep watching though but at this point without building up the other Hero's perspectives it's being hurt massively the longer this goes it feels.
Is Worse than the original that is for sure, cuts a lot of important information.
True
Worse*
@@LTDLetsPlays Thanks for the correction.
Your VTupe models are always beautiful
Glad you like them!
I always knew that this channel destined to be great. Keep the content coming p.s. schedule a day where you take a break to relax.
Peace out homes!
Double this on both things. Pumping quality content is tough and you'll burn out. 30 second short videos and polls can be a life saver.
Thank you guys! I don't make content every day (usually - if I do it's normally not for long periods), and I do take breaks - burn out sucks and I definitely want to avoid that!
while I did like the training bit in the beginning.
I REALLY didn't like this arc in the manga, and was just kinda waiting for it to be over.
luckily pushing through it was 100% worth cause the arc after where they go to Glass's world has been great so far.
but imo they aren't working with much in terms of compelling material, yet, so only so much they can do with it besides push through, i guess
I don't know about the manga, since I've only read the LNs, but the next arc in Glass's world is definitely more interesting. A lot of the spirit tortoise arc was set up for later stuff, but it did at least have some cool action - sadly most of that was cut in the anime too though...
Honestly, I think season 2 is going to drive people away.
Mainly because the spirit turtle arc is very long, and they seem determined to only air 12 episodes this series.
I don’t think there will be enough time to build any thing. I think they should have been planning to show some of Glass’s world, with the same 25 episode lay out like the first season.
If they change and do that, They may be able to recover, but if they force people to wait another year or two to get to Glass’s world, the series’ fan base is going to crash
When I watched season 2 of Shield Hero I was mostly confused at why Filo's feather crown looked different
not related, but I remember watching some of your mushoku tensei videos and then realizing that your videos stopped popping up in my feed for some reason. Now I realize that it's because I wasn't subscribed lol
I felt that the expectations for season two were much too high. Knowing where it was coming from in the LN, I am okay with skipping some things, but the anime while going quickly through the chaff, the anime missed some important things. I still have hope for season two.
I feel like they wanted to shorten it because of the animation budget and because of the controversy first season. But mostly the animation budget but I don't have a lot of knowledge on this. But I still enjoy the show.
Nah, I don't think that's the case. If the controversy put them off, they just wouldn't make a season 2, they wouldn't make a season 2 and tell the story faster... I think most of the controversy was in the West anyway, and there's nothing in the current arc that they cut that would have caused any particular controversy. As for animation budget, I don't see why that would affect the stuff covered anyway - if anything, they are skipping stuff that could have been done with less budget than the big action scenes they are speeding towards, so the season would have been cheaper to make if they'd dragged out the village stuff and had less action heavy stuff in the season. Season 3 is confirmed but even with 2 and 3 they won't get to even half way through the currently existing 22 volumes (and the story isn't finished yet in the LNs), so shortening arcs that have some less interesting stuff in them isn't really a crazy move - it's a very long story, and regardless of budget or whatever there will always be cuts made to that kind of content.
they seem to be trying to cover the same amount of content with half the episodes as season 1 making it a bit of a rushed mess thou this arc but i think the next part will be better once the scissors are put away
level up is not the term i would use as a gamer we have a saying for what they need to do and i want Naofumi to drop the line to them of "Git gud" to help them realize they are not as good as they think they are at the game they think this is
As a light novel reader I was a bit disappointed with how they handled Ost, as she came off rather clueless. They fully introduced her early and she would of changed to much of the story had she told them how to defeat the spirit tortoise before they fought the thing. Instead she just gave them the simplistic "cut off it's head", which didn't actually work.
The first season kind of hobbled the second with that rushed ending of getting Naofumi off the island as fast as possible, which prevented them from really diving into Rishia's character arc. However they could of still of given Eclair some time to shine as appose to just having her hanging around for no apparent reason.
Even a few more episodes in and having read ahead, albeit about two years ago so I'm fuzzy on the details, I'm not able to tell where they are planning to go with this season. Namely how many episodes they are going to spend on each volume or what plot points they will focus on. I don't know how far ahead of the source materiel they have read or understand how important certain details will be in later seasons, even if they will be largely unimportant this season.
I could have sworn that Naofumi also made many/all of his village people have slave crest not just for power, but also because of trust issues he has had since the start. It has been a long while since I read through that though.
Yeah, I didn't talk about that in this video though given it's a spoiler that he does that. I'll talk more about the slave crest thing in a video about Keel I'm working on.
@@NatalieXHunter ah okay, it might not come up in the anime though. The anime tends to make him much nicer than the novels.
I wonder how Rising of the Shield Hero would do as a actual game?
The first problem would how much freedom you get, though one could assume that would depend on where you are in the story.
The other thing is would there be a timer?
As an anime only viewer I do think the pacing of the story has been really bad so far in S2. I thought that ep 1 was ok with the Ost introduction adding some mystery at the end but then we just got an exposition dump in that meeting of the armies, who we’d never really seen before either, which removed all the mystery. So going into the tortoise fight in ep3 we have a bunch of armies who we don’t know or care about. And Ost in Naofomi’s party who is suddenly being trusted by everyone even though we were just told that she is linked to the tortoise and has been basically murdering people on the tortoise’s behalf. The fight in ep3 feels like it has no stakes because, apart from the Shield hero party, we don’t know or care about anyone involved. And it feels like Ost is accepted by everyone far too readily, especially given Naofumi’s history.
If we’re being set up for a backstab by Ost then it’s not so shocking because the party was just stupid to trust her in the first place. If she gets a tragic death then it’s not so tragic because we hardly know her and she didn’t really have time to have the party get to know and value her and she never had to overcome any understandable distrust from Naofumi so that’s also unearned.
yes... they rush to put all the character to build for the next arc. but end with i don't care and didn't feel attached to any character including naofumi. this one is bad, writing is so boring, everything explain verbally. the logic is so wrong in this season.
I honestly resent that they told us the blacksmith's name at the end of season 1. The light novel doesn't give us his name until what would be the halfway point of season 3.
6:45 you should’ve called both of them professor Exposition
People only take 2 episodes to judge something as garbage? I don't think thats really fair, imo.
I do think that they should add some OVAs for training stuff or other stuff. However it’s possible to add training later on in the middle of the season maybe or after the turtle fight. Although the OP seems to suggest the other 3 heroes will face trouble in some form or harm. Also we see some other important characters that seem to show up in later volumes. Unless those people will come in second cour. I do think that starting with a training arc might bore others or may not seem fun and cool. I do think names could be introduced from other characters and we should also think how much changes the author wanted. Maybe they decided on some edits. But some edits are questionable for sure. But the previous seasons had changes I suppose that we didn’t notice
It actually isn't possible to add it later in the arc, as the heroes are now missing. It can't even really be shown as flashbacks, as in the anime the training took place at Naofumi's village (it was at the castle in the LNs as he doesn't have the village yet) and the heroes weren't shown as ever being there, so it isn't like it could just have happened off screen and be in a flashback later.
The season doesn't have a second cour - it's just likely that they will get to the start of the next arc within this season which is where the character shown in the OP will show up - she appears right at the start of that arc.
@@NatalieXHunter by second cour I mean in the third season. Also it’s possible they could show a flashback of the training arc in the village instead of the castle? The arc is messy itself but maybe it will work out eventually 🤔
They could, but my point was that since there was no indication the heroes were ever in the village, it doesn't look like that would be something they're planning for. If they want to skip it, then they can skip it, but what would be the advantage to just moving it to a later flashback where it takes up the same amount of time but makes less sense? Additionally, what happens after the spirit tortoise arc would not really make for a suitable time to flash back to that, given the other heroes aren't even in the next arc.
@@NatalieXHunter ya very slim chances that it’s probably not happening at all. I suppose hopefully after this arc and a bit it should get back on track with minimal disruptive changes. Was just thinking of alternative possibilities and trying to be optimistic despite how it may seem
The show played off the slave exp bonuses as a slight to Naofumi, which felt really off. I do wish the other 3 heros and what happened to them was sprinkled or hinted at over the arc, the episodes could have been padded out with more lore and things happening which would have helped the cohesion of the story. It was definitely rushed, for some unknown reason
Dear god season 2 so far for me is not looking good after I decided to drop out half way through episode 2 just because of the shear stupidity of the story changes they did. I read the LN during the start of the pandemic around May of 2020 and from then to August of that year I caught up with the series (at the time it only had up to book 17 or 18 translated) and I enjoyed every book I’m not going to lie book 6 wasn’t as slow as some people claim and is so vital to the story going forward that it’s up surd to think why people believe that skipping it was an ok decision. Then there’s the changes to Ren, Itsuki, and Fuck boy McGee that will prove troublesome next season from FBM calling The Witch Bitch by her adventurer name of whore which in the LN’s he was one of the few characters still calling her by her original name. Then there’s the omission of Rens team that is so vital to his character moving forward that it’s so idiotic that they didn’t have them around when after the spirit tortoise arc he becames the way he is because of them. And it’s because of these few thing that I worry about season 3 considering it will most likely have Sadaana the best girl going forward (fight me on that ), Atla who I worry what they’ll due about the adaptation of book 15’s end (which made me cry for the entire end of the book), to her brother Fohl, to Rat the best thicc mad scientist money can enslave (out of context that sounds wrong, but it’s true), to Sy’ne the sweetest overprotective little cupcake with over sized scissors.
I'll second the view on the author's ability changing over time in LN. I think the anime wants to be different in some ways as well as it's focus, ie the character personality differences. I still think we are going to be done and fishing for the next plot within the next 2 or 3 episodes, but calling the season as trash before it's out is like saying the Disney star wars trilogy was great with only seeing the commercials. And we all know how that went. So it's to early to judge with a strong standing in fact.
My only fear is if they do a FMA thing and just decide to break from source material, as rushing episodes opens avenues for that.
I really really wanna see the whale sisters and Miko dress.
I think they just trying to get through STA asap because its not really a super intresting arc until that "Thing" happens.
hopefully they fix the pacing on the home release. Your wardrobe looks like it's getting bigger.
If this season is covering volume 6, I do so hope that season 3 will cover volume 8. Not a light novel reader (yet), but I hear that's when things begin to spice up.
I think it'll get to stuff from the start of volume 8 in this season based on the ED.
@@NatalieXHunter Sweet, thanks for information. Looking forward to a wild ride 👌
which reminds me 2:07 who is the old lady and why does it feel like we never got much characterization about her?
She's the old lady Naofumi saved with medicine in season 1 who appeared fighting in the wave as well. She's the last remaining master of a martial arts style called Hengen Muso, so she's there to train people in that, right now.
I think a good writing opportunity with the game world aspect that the light novel did well with was using skill unlocks to set up other events. The fact that action wasn't put towards the existence of Naofumi's stat and xp multiplier skills which affect party members with slave contracts is bad adaptation.
What is happening to season 2 right now? Everything in episode 1and 2 feels so rushed 🤦🏾♂️
I think cramming the season into 12 episodes insteaf of the season 1 25 episodes
As a light novel reader, I didn't even realize that "Old Lady" was given a proper name. I know in the anime we get "old guys" way earlier but I felt it was done in such a way that it still felt true to the soul light novels. It doesn't feel that way for the spirit Turtles Ark so far.... I really wish they'd spent the entire second season on this Ark. I have to keep explaining things that are happening to my friends are watching it which is bad
Yeah, I think also it was different because the 'old man's' name is actually used in the light novels (though not until after we see his Master and find out what it is), whereas the old lady's name is still unknown, so it seemed pretty weird to have her just say it normally. I get that it's harder to have a character be unnamed in an anime than in a novel told from the perspective of someone who doesn't know the person's name, but they could have at least had her say it when Naofumi was around and show him being like 'I'm not going to remember that'.
This videos outfit reminds me of something from an older video game but I'm not sure which one
I only read the manga and it felt really weird how they are adapting the anime cause they skipped a lot of content like the visit to the village that naofumi already rescued on season 1 and the training chapters, the fact that the turtle was already even before the battle and naofumi group just climb the turtle and we get more info and a bit of keel kinda character development, and the thing is weird to me is ost personality,on the manga (at least) she seems like a serious character but in the anime seems a bit more silly, I don’t mind when anime change slightly things but this lack or skipped content is kinda confusing, still gonna watch the anime but I hope the anime gets better later
Whatever happen to the cardinal rule of watch 3 eps of an anime before passing judgement. I understand why light novel readers are upset but I want to see ep 3 because saying. The anime basically skipped a whole light novel of character development for the other heroes that will bite them down the road but I honestly think that we are getting a good 3rd party view of the show for only the shield hero. Light Novel and Anime are different experiences.
It's vastly different from the LN and manga. So if you're a fan of those then you will have issues with the anime. I'm a fan of the manga, so I find the anime to be a half-assed money grab. Especially the way they butchered the addition of Rishia to the team. The Anime robbed us of the most emotional moment in the manga.
I have only read the LNs so idk what was kept or skipped in the manga either tbh.
@@NatalieXHunter Biggest part was Naofumi running into the ocean to save Rishia as she was attempting to commit suicide. His words still ring in my brain today, "Let me help you get stronger." Truly emotional and hard hitting moment they completely skipped in the anime by Filo finding her while she was fishing.
There are some details I find off but, since they pretty much skept some parts in season 1 and even developed Raphtalia's love for Naofumi in a different direction, well, I kind of expected that. So I will just accept it as it is despite my frustrations. The characters are saving this anime tbh. They're good enough to cover those errors.