The Rising of the Shield Hero Season 4

Episode 10

After multiple episodes of dancing around the issue, Raphtalia is finally willing to make a stand and declare that she is ready to take up the responsibility of the next emperor. The show treats it like this is supposed to be this huge and profound character moment, but it feels so shallow because of the way that the show actually got to this point. Raphtalia has had next to no agency in the show for quite a while, and I was looking forward to her regaining that agency after introducing an arc revolving around her. I still think the premise of the arc is incredibly stupid and contrived, but I will always take character building over a flawlessly executed plot. However, when the execution of the plot directly contrasts with a character's emotional journey, then it's the worst of both worlds. This moment between Raphtalia and Sadeena's obvious sister would feel a lot stronger if Raphtalia was the one who was actively pursuing the position of emperor from the beginning.

However, this wasn't even her initial idea. The only reason why we're here is because Naofumi vaguely explained that they should use Raphtalia ability to take up the position to their advantage in order to rally troops for the sake of their personal cause. The show still never went into detail about whether or not he actually planned for Raphtalia to take up that mantle or what he would've done if Raphtalia said that she didn't want the position at all. I like the fact that he keeps saying the decision is hers, but she just goes through the motions up until this point and it's sad that this is probably the first personal thing that she does as a character in awhile. It's not even really anything that profound if you think about it yet the show still managed to make it feel really shallow because I just don't feel any of Raphtalia's emotions outside of the fact that she just doesn't want to see people suffer.

I think that's my problem with the direction that Shield Hero has been going in; everything has sort of devolved into being a really straightforward good versus evil story. There's no real debate or political intrigue here, everything is just severely dumbed down. The emperor is corrupt so they need to be taken them down, but it turns out that the emperor is just a poster child who is being manipulated by a blatantly evil overseer who bears strong resemblance to Bitch. Maybe that's intentional, because for all I know this could be Bitch in disguise, but I can just as easily see the writer conceiving this character just for the sake of giving us someone to hate. There's no real justification for any of the things going on in this nation that are causing all the people to suffer outside of just vague traditions and selfish greed. It's very easy for me to be on the heroes' side, but that just makes everything feel so boring.

At this point, I'm just spending these episodes watching characters talk about things that they're going to do and then slowly watching them do those things. There's no deeper meaning, there's no intrigue or twists. Hell, the most interesting thing about this episode was the really quick cut away I got to Motoyasu apparently having the time of his life. I would much rather watch whatever wacky crazy adventure this deranged lunatic is having than anything that is actually going on in the main plot. Can we get a spin off series please? If the producers are so insistent on milking this dry to the bone franchise for all it's worth, can the show at least get creative about it?

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The Rising of the Shield Hero Season 4 is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.