Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: The Rising of The Shield Hero
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18219 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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Ugh, are we going to continue dragging this point out from the PG thread? Look, I'm not expecting Japanese producers to be responsive to what's going on in other countries (unless the series is specifically intended for another country, of course). When anime has had ill-timed episodes or series in the past, it's usually by total coincidence, and that's what happened here. Hence the "ill-timed" comments were an observation, not the accusation that you seem to be taking it as. Given that there has been a big stink going around about rape/sexual misconduct allegations in the U.S. in the past few months - and regardless of where you stand on the issue or what your politics are, you can't deny that it's happened - I would be remiss if I didn't mention such an obvious real-world connection. Also, a title being controversial rarely has substantial negative impact on its popularity; if anything, controversy tends to make a title more popular, not less. Hence using a popularity argument to refute how controversial or ill-timed something is doesn't have any traction. Also, a reminder: a title being hugely popular does not put it above criticism. People seem to like to use popularity as a tool to refute criticism (and yes, I've been guilty of that myself in the past), but that's a garbage argument. If anything, popularity makes a title more subject to criticism, not less, because of the attention it's getting and the fact that it's probably drawing in viewers who are normally either peripheral for the genre or not interested at all.
No, I was trying to point out that the matter about tanks isn't ONLY relevant to Japanese RPGs. But I'm not going to go any further with this line of debate. |
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Redbeard 101
Oscar the Grouch
Forums Superstar  Posts: 16939 |
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No it's not. I knew this would happen sooner rather than later so let's get this out of the way now. This discussion will NOT turn into some political discussion. If there are political components to the show and/or reviews then those points, and only those points, are allowed for discussion. We will not be turning this into a generalized political or social discussion. There will also not be any flamefess, insulting people, or other trollish behavior tolerated. That includes insulting Theron or any normal user personally for their opinions. There will not be anymore pointless off topic "is this ill-timed" or "it's aimed at X" arguments either. After the bs with the GS discussion, and the preview guide discussion for this show itself, we're not going to go through similar here. The same goes for bringing up off topic and pointless topics that have been brought up in every other SH thread. Since I could care less about this series, and having it spoiled for me by having to review posts, I will be checking on this discussion quite often throughout the entire run of the series. There will not be multiple warnings given over and over nor sifting through posts constantly to edit what is ok and what is not. Posts will simply be removed in their entirety. TLDR - Don't act like a troll in this discussion or you'll be removed from it. |
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Replica_Rabbit
 Posts: 354 Location: Portland |
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I don't see the appeal of Shield Hero at all, the rape accusation is very contrivance. That scene took me out of the story and just make me hate Naofumi. I can't believe Naofumi never ask for a witness, the Blacksmith saw him buy and leave the shop with the armor on. Her accusation would fall apart if he brings it up or it would bring doubt and the other heroes would question her claims. The show wants me to have sympathy for him, but it doesn't put in the leg work. Why I should care about a person who could have won if they were thinking. If Naofumi was asking for witness and the lady was countering him by replacing them with her people and make Naofumi look like a lier to everyone then I would like Shield Hero more.
The everyone against him doesn't work, episode 2 him and his slave got good food. No one, walk up to them and tell him to take his slave outside or she can't eat on the table. Also, why no one calls the guards on him when he uses those monsters against people? I can look over plot contrivance if the characters are good. Naofumi isn't good, the only way he works if I related to him. Him being a "nice" otaku doesn't work on me. Anyway, I probably give it a couple of episodes to see the good part people been telling me about it. But I highly doubt it will turn my opinion around |
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SuperSucc
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It's understandable for players of tabletop and western RPGs to be baffled by this. However, in Japan, back when this story was written, the most popular MMOs were action MMOs like Phantasy Star Online 2 or Monster Hunter Frontier. In these games, tanking did not exist, or weren't really viable or interesting to play. The only viable choice was to go DPS. That's probably where the other three heroes' anti-tank sentiment came from. It wasn't until FFXIV came out later that the holy trinity of tank/healer/DPS became relevant again. Interestingly, in an interview, the author implied that he/she played Ragnarok Online, and was inspired by the Crusader class, which was an essential tanking class, but was virtually impossible to level up without a party. That's probably how Naofumi was born. One of the author's intentions was probably to show how underrated tanks were during that era of MMOs. |
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MiloTheFirst
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In case you didn't notice the prosecution and the judge were the very same person, the king, and the "police" were the ones that planted the evidence, it isn't that he didn't try to fight, he realized he was already doomed. after realizing that it was the king's knight that planted the evidence why would he think there is a chance for him to present his case, why would he think he would be allowed to bring his own witnesses?
well firstly because he only used his monsters on thugs and other shady characters, I think you would understand why those wouldn't want to go to the police themselves. then he is given the food for once because he could pay (that wasn't exactly a fancy restaurant in order for them to afford losing business) and for seconds because as far as they know he is supposed to be super strong (a summoned hero) even if he was sent to jail after the deed why would the guy risk getting into a fight with him? |
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Ashabel
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Just going to point out that Steiner isn't really a tank. Yes, he looks bulky, but he has zero ways to mitigate damage to his party and is in fact largely valued by players because of his very high hybrid damage and a wide array of Killer skills that allow him to focus down specific monster types. In terms of functionality, he should be used like a burst assassin. Historically the "tank" of the Final Fantasy series has always been the White Mage due to an array of damage mitigating skills like Shell. The only single-player Final Fantasies that really play around with the idea of a tank as in a character who is supposed to lock down the enemy from dealing the damage to the rest of their party, are XII (more so in the later Zodiac Age form) and XIII. In a sense, you could argue that the reason behind the evolution of the "tank" class model happened in order to reduce the early all-encompassing importance of the Priest class, who back in the day was healer, damage mitigation and party buffs rolled into a single support juggernaut. By splitting up the roles of healing and damage mitigation, later games created more tactics and interesting roles to play with. That said, I'd like to point out that the information we're provided with by the anime isn't actually "The entire world of the Four Heroes believes that the Shielder class is useless". The information we're actually provided with is "The three other heroes believe that the Shielder class is useless based on their experience with the MMOs they played back in their world." In other words, the issue here is basically one of arrogant preconception. Ren, Motoyasu and Itsuki believe that the tank is useless and will never become useful based on a game they played. They're far too comfortable with their sense of superiority to stop and consider that just because this world resembles a game they played, doesn't mean it's exactly the same way. |
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Key
Moderator
Posts: 18219 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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Posts like this are exactly why I bother to read and engage in response threads for episode reviews. The specifics here add a lot of insight that wouldn't be readily apparent to an average viewer. With this context details in mind, the author's approach on portraying tanks as worthless makes a lot more sense. However, this also means that the six year lag in the title getting adapted may result in the context no longer being relevant to the current gaming environment. That can cause its own problems.
Another insightful post. This is an angle I hadn't considered but find to be credible. I may bring it up as a discussion point in the future if it becomes relevant again. |
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NPC
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Last edited by NPC on Sun Jan 20, 2019 6:37 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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S0crates
 Posts: 227 Location: Banned - Noticed our poor ethics |
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Just a quick point that MMO can't consist of just 4 players, especially when those 4 players are encouraged to not play together. MMO being "Massive Multiplayer", while this is just multiplayer at best. Maybe it can be seen as an MMO in the case of questing into later "raids/group dungeons", but still, that would be more multiplayer rather than MMO, kind of like Diablo III rather than FF IV. If anything it seems like a single player phone game, with social interaction through a guild, which is more popular in Japan (depends on how the team play will be later on). Think Fate/GO, which again I would argue is mostly about putting out Nero's true damage instead of being tanky, especially considering how grindy that game is. Pokémon GO is also the same, if you put a tank in during the raids you're usually just a D who leech off everyone else. This is also true for almost all mobile games that are P2W. The better example I can think of, is top lane/support in Dota/League, if tanks are in meta vs not in meta. These cases are perhaps the best example of "4-player (5) solo into team fights later on"-scenarios as well, and would actually fit into this world rather nicely. That's because in those setups the tanks are usually good at the early phase (many of those tanks can go both tank/assassin, depending on build, so the early skills usually got good damage), then horrible in the mid to late phase (as team fights early on are too much damage for the tanks to handle), yet return to shine in the late game (especially if one of the teams has too much type x damage, where you build your armor against that). However, what makes those games great is the huge diversity of approaches. MMOs that force a tank into your party is just poorly built in my opinion. Battles becomes very scripted, though I guess this is the wrong forum to make those talking points. As for this anime however, I'd just say I actually share the "other 3 player's" viewpoint of the tanks in certain games as they do indeed feel like "easy difficulty"/"slow mode". The only tank modes I do accept are "just frame tanks", like in Blade or Souls, or fighting games like Dead or Alive/Street Fighter, where your ability to hit the block/hold "at just the right time" actually reward you with damage through stuns etc., but where people playing those tanks sometimes don't even know about those abilities as it is a "mastery skill" rather than a newbie skill. Just like Death Knights are synonyms with "low skills" in games like WoW (because it allowed newbies to catch up, thus many of them ended up not as skilled as veterans) I'd say "the other 3 players" are rather arrogant for assuming that players of this class is trash, but it is a very common behavior of the general populous once a trend starts to manifest. Maybe they have their reasons (it's almost as if they logged in in a different way than the Shield Hero, and they seem to take it more as a vacation rather than "reality") and it's hard for us to say as we don't know what the core mechanics of their games from the other worlds would be that they believe "this game" to be like.
Haha, ye there you have it. Reminds me of Warlocks in Vanilla WoW. Essential for late game raids (because of the banish spell), super hard to level solo and viewed as inferior to other DPS => Almost nobody played them => super valued late game raid (but inferior in smaller parties compared to any other dps). Last edited by S0crates on Sun Jan 20, 2019 7:02 pm; edited 4 times in total |
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NeverConvex
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Why do you think that reviewers write reviews primarily to convert people to their point of view, or to undermine the financial success of a show? Those seem like awfully narrow, polemical, exhausting motivations. |
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Ashabel
Posts: 350 |
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They actually do have a reason for this, which the novel does explain during the Heroes' prolonged chat back at the king's castle - the one that, in the anime takes place during minutes 10-13 of the first episode. I'm really not sure why the anime cut that out because that part is very important in framing the mindsets of the four Heroes, and why Naofumi perceives the world differently from the rest. spoiler[Since it's not really a spoiler due to being revealed literally in the first chapter of the original novel, I'll say it as it is - the other three heroes are, well, in a word, dead. All of them ended up being summoned after being killed in various ways, ranging from accidents to, in Itsuki's case, good ol'-fashioned death by Truck-kun. Motoyasu, the Spear Hero, is particularly notable for having been stabbed to death during a fight between his multiple girlfriends. It takes a bit to sink in, but he's literally a walking School Days meme. Naofumi is the only one who went to sleep while reading a book in the library, only to wake up in another world. So as far as Naofumi is concerned, he is still alive back in his original world and has a chance of returning home. To the other three, this is basically a cool power fantasy they get to experience in the afterlife. As for mechanics, the novels also explain that but the anime cuts it off. According to the other three, the base problem of the Shielder is exactly the same as Ragnarok Online's Crusader - its stat growth curve, combined with how with how the combat is balanced within the game, means it starts off strong but drops off like a rock in the mid-to-late stages. Again though, keep in mind that they assume it's going to work that way because that's how it worked in their original games. That doesn't mean it's going to work in literally the same way.] |
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S0crates
Posts: 227 Location: Banned - Noticed our poor ethics |
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I see, that makes sense. It sounds like the opposite of that Crusader Class though (where the crusader class only starts off slow, but becomes great in the late game). Some classes in some games are just inferior from A to Z though, but where they compensate by being easy to play. I assume this is what the other 3 players assume to be the case, while it in actuality is probably more like the Crusader class. |
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Ashabel
Posts: 350 |
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You're right, I didn't frame my explanation quite correctly enough. Basically, the Shielder that the other three heroes know is a class that starts off super-strong but gets disproportionately weak as it goes on because it never grows in any aspects other than its defensive stats. In other words, it's a "noob class" that gets to lord over the other classes early on but then ends up having to be carried in the endgame. IMO, removing all that information also weakens the other three's reasoning behind so easily siding against Naofumi during the kangaroo trial. To the other three, Naofumi is playing a noob class that has it easy early and then has to get carried the rest of the way, and he hasn't experienced the trouble they did before being summoned. Obviously those things don't automatically mean he's a bad person, but they do result in personal biases against him and people are often eager to find an excuse to justify those. |
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NPC
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It wasn't directed at Key or current review though. I think it is generally fine review, I made a few comments about parts I disagreed with. |
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Cryten
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So spoiler free does Naofumi continue along the path of ostracised cruelty or does he show signs of humanity and caring to his path? I just want to know because I prefer anti heros more of the Lelouch or Scar variety that show their own morals twisted as they are. As opposed to series like Tanya of the evil and goblin slayer which embrace the bad of their main characters.
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