Rising of the Shield Hero Episode 4 Review
The Rising of The Shield Hero
by Theron Martin, 
Last episode offered the offset big action ready piece of the series and established the foundation for Naofumi somewhen becoming a folk hero, but this episode really delivers the story'due south showtime major turning point and addresses several problems that have cropped up so far. That doesn't mean it'south free of problems – it certainly raises some new questions and concerns – simply information technology's finally at least trying to clean upwardly its setting and make the world more than cohesive.
We get more definition for the character of the other three heroes. Through the starting time three episodes, they uniformly came across as jerks, only this episode shows that Motoyasu (aka Spear Guy) has enough of a blind righteous streak that he'southward easily susceptible to the machinations of a sly-minded pretty face. He's as out of his league with Myne as Naofumi was, regardless of their differences otherwise. The other two are still limited in label, but at least they openly acknowledged that Myne interfered in Motoyasu'due south duel with Naofumi, which he would accept won otherwise. They may still expect downwards on Naofumi, but at least they're beingness fairer to him.
The various revelations in this episode are also interesting. Fifty-fifty without the spoilers that have been circulating, Myne beingness revealed as a princess is hardly surprising given that shot in the opener of her sitting on the arm of the king's throne. The king playing along with her scheming too makes more sense in terms of supporting his daughter, and manipulating Naofumi in order to win over the hero she really wanted also makes more sense as a motivation. Nonetheless, she still comes across as a malicious soul who gets her jollies at Naofumi's expense simply because she has a twisted personality, which doesn't make her an interesting character.
The other big revelation is nigh Raphtalia's appearance, as she has progressed to looking and sounding more like an adult for most of this episode. (Kudos to seiyuu Asami Seto on how she handles this transition.) Unlike humans, demi-human children exercise physically mature as they level upward, which is strongly continued to the nature of the prejudice against them; essentially it's merely jealousy. That opens a whole pandora'southward box of issues, like whether mental maturation goes mitt-in-hand with physical maturation in these cases. Raphtalia'due south development suggests that information technology does, although that feels more like a convenient excuse for a certain sort of fanservice than a natural office of a adult fantasy world. Withal, information technology's an interesting twist on game mechanics that I don't think I've seen used before.
The big turning signal is also fairly expected, when Raphtalia demonstrates that her loyalty to Naofumi has aught to practise with the main/slave relationship in such a way that fifty-fifty the other two heroes recognize her sincerity. The last ii episodes have done a sufficient job establishing why she would come across things that way, but this scene still didn't seem to accomplish much emotional affect, because of how irritatingly heavy-handed the series continues to be about Naofumi'south persecution complex. Almost none of Naofumi's problems stem from his own mistakes or inadequacies. He'due south being portrayed purely as a victim, which isn't a good angle for futurity character growth unless the intent is to prove him casting off his victim mentality in some interesting way.
Still, this does bring upwards the issue of how Naofumi sees Raphtalia. Terminal episode'due south scene in the tavern suggested that he however saw her as a kid, merely the slave seal-removal scene in this episode and his reactions to finally recognizing her more mature appearance suggest that this was purely circumstantial to her childlike appearance. Apparently, the novel handled this by not making the alter in her advent articulate up-forepart, but even though the viewer seeing Raphtalia's growth the whole time might accept sapped some emotional bear upon from the scene where she formally accepts Naofumi, it might have felt too gimmicky to translate this idea from the novels literally.
On a simpler notation, the actual duel was well-handled upwards to the point where Myne interfered. Watching Naofumi employ inventiveness and flexibility to offset Motoyasu's level and power advantage was fun; Motoyasu may be stronger, just he comes across equally a one-play tricks pony who's strong enough that he hasn't had to be artistic. The revelation near some expletive-related attribute to the shield was also interesting, and I suspect that will eventually be connected to the more wrathful shot of Naofumi shown in the opening theme. While the visuals before in the episode seemed a little rough, later parts looked meliorate.
So this episode doesn't have quite the emotional impact that information technology conspicuously wanted to make, but it works well enough to keep things more interesting than annoying this week.
Rating: B
The Ascent of The Shield Hero is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.
discuss this in the forum (530 posts) |
back to The Rising of The Shield Hero
Episode Review homepage / archives
Source: https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/review/the-rising-of-the-shield-hero/episode-4/.142788
0 Response to "Rising of the Shield Hero Episode 4 Review"
Postar um comentário