The Fall 2023 Anime Preview Guide

The Rising of the Shield Hero Season 3

The Spirit Tortoise has finally been defeated, but there's no rest for the Shield Hero. An attack from the next Guardian Beast is imminent—however, the three other Cardinal Heroes are nowhere to be found. When Naofumi and his party set out to search for the missing trio, what awaits them are shocking secrets and vengeful enemies lurking in the shadows.

The Rising of the Shield Hero Season 3 is based on the light novel series of the same name by Yusagi Aneko. The anime series is streaming on Crunchyroll on Fridays.

Season two of Shield Hero sucked. For a show that was so controversial when the first season came out, I'm glad that season two brought everybody together despite the sheer drop in its quality. Season three would have to do a lot to compensate for the poor goodwill accrued throughout season two's run. I will not go so far as to say that one episode of season three is enough to rectify all of that, but it is a step in the right direction. Almost everything in this first episode invoked intrigue and investment that the series lacked since the early days of season one.

Right off the bat, I don't think this franchise ever looked as good as they do in this premiere. The character designs have an overall softer look that allows them to blend in with the detailed backgrounds better, thus making the world feel much more lived in. The action, lighting, and scene framing are entirely on a whole other level, invoking a more cinematic feel. Naturally, it's only the first episode. Still, if they can keep the quality consistent until the end, I will be thoroughly impressed with how the staff has effectively managed to get me this invested from a pure presentation standpoint.

As for the narrative, there are some hiccups here just because this is a direct follow-up from some plot points introduced in season two. Many of those plot points were just straight-up garbage, with some coming out of nowhere due to little buildup or by having them bank a lot of the emotional payoff on relationships that got little to no development at all. I'm glad the show isn't trying to go back and retroactively fix many of those narrative mistakes because there were so many, and they are deciding to move forward instead. This overall setup is much simpler and more emotionally investing than whatever the heck we were getting in season two. We know about the looming threat on the horizon, so Naofumi wants to fortify his defenses and land. This also coincides with his desire to free as many beastmen as possible. However, despite being recognized as a hero now, his resources are still limited, and one man can't undo an oppressive system completely.

I would argue that Naofumi is still a bit too casual around the idea of the slave trade and how closely he works in it. It would be nice if the show were just a bit more direct about the fact that it makes him uncomfortable. Instead, this is more of an “ends justifies the means" situation. However, I have yet to see a single isekai handle the concept of slavery appropriately, and while it doesn't excuse a lot of the undertones in this episode, at least Naofumi is trying to do something about it. If I were him, I would just cut off the enslaver's head, but I digress.

We even get some nice reveals and foreshadowing to things that were always questions in the background, but now they're setting themselves up to be pivotal plot points moving forward. Based on what I saw when I first previewed this series and the promotional material, it's clear that the remaining three heroes will play a more pivotal role moving forward. I hope they're written like actual characters and not stubborn idiots who have no idea what they're doing. The opening gives me hope; however, it also has me scared because it heavily implies that Bitch will be necessary to the plot. She is hands-down one of the worst things about this show.

Season three shows a lot of potential to be even better than we had before, but it has as much potential to fall victim to the same trappings as the previous two seasons.

Well, this first episode wasted no time getting things going; I'll give it that much. The other heroes have disappeared, the former princess is at large, the Phoenix is coming in three months, and, most importantly, Naofumi's attempts to end slavery for his people have had more than a few unintended consequences.

Those from Naofumi's territory can no longer be held as slaves in Melromarc. This has caused them to be sold abroad instead—with their connection to him and the current conditions in his town being used to drive up the prices ten-fold. Seemingly due to a mixture of responsibility and a need for people to fight against the Phoenix, Naofumi, and crew head to a neighboring country and, to earn money for the now-inflated market, enter into an underground fighting ring while hiding their identities.

Honestly, it's a decent setup that both drives the story forward and starts tying up some of the series' loose ends. Unfortunately, this episode feels more like the CliffsNotes version of events than a cohesive story. This is made worse, as this episode randomly sprinkles in reminders of several important events from the past without the needed context. For example, I didn't realize the identity of the Staff Hero from the few seconds we saw of him—I had to hit up the wiki to realize he was the former King. Similarly, we are reminded of the curse afflicting Naofumi and a special attack gifted to him by Ost—but not reminded how these things happened or why they should be important to the story going forward.

While it's possible to follow what's going on in the most general sense, everything is so disjointed that I decided to see how many chapters of the light novel we covered in this single episode. The results? This episode covers the entirety of 14 chapters out of the 20 in volume 10. That's a staggering amount of source material to be crammed into 22 minutes—and from the look of things several main parts of the plot have been omitted in their entirety.

Sure, there's something to be said for getting right into the action. After all, trying to pull viewers back in is exactly what a season premiere is supposed to do. However, instead of massively abridging the content, I can't help but feel the better choice would have been to start in media res—and then jump back to the past for the next episode or two and explore the whole situation at a more leisurely pace. All in all, this is an unfortunate way to start the season and I hope that it's not a harbinger of what is to come for the rest of it.