Ending January on a note with my thoughts on the latest episode of the Shield Hero in short, I thought it was straight up amazing as it answered most of the mysteries surrounding it ever since the first episode like who that woman was, why she betrayed Naofumi like she did, whether or not the other three heroes were corrupted/bad and some explanation to the imagery shown in the title sequence.
Regarding one of my most wanted question, what’s with that monster/rage mode of Naofumi? Ever since the first episode premiered I was already hype about it because of this form Naofumi displayed during a battle with what seems to be a high level boss from the “wave of catastrophe” looked op and caused me to question whether this was him overusing the powers of the shield causing him to self destruct or perhaps exceeding his limits entering the levels where he could potentially turn against the people he’s protecting. But now at least I’ve gotten some insight to what this form of Naofumi is which is referred to as the “Curse Series” which was unlocked after Naofumi started to really despise the people, the royalty and the heroes themselves implying they were all out to destroy him.
Now when it showed that the requirements was met this indicated that one of the requirements involved was the intent to use your own powers in an injustice way like using it for the sake of revenge or violence from pure hatred since the main motto of a hero is to resolve all violence and malicious intents giving justice to this.
As for the actual fight between Naofumi and the Spear hero, the duel was pretty standard with Naofumi actually displaying some actual skills with the combinations of his different shields as well as acting out his so- called role of the scum of the four heroes boldly using the pumpkins he had bitten on him underneath the cloak, it was all going well except for just when Naofumi was winning he was once again cheated on by the pink haired girl who betrayed him in the start. This again repeated back to how it was her fault Naofumi was dejected in the first place.
The second time around we find out that she’s actually the daughter of the king explaining why she did what she did it a free manner and all my other questions as to why the king acted like he did when he first banished him; he didn’t technically since he can still roam the kingdom, just hated by everyone in return.
It was a relief to know that the people themselves were tricked into this as well and were aware of the cheat as the archery hero explains how one look at the royalty’s eyes will shut everyone else. It was even more of a relief that the heroes themselves turned out to be good guys after all since they didn’t shut up like everyone else did and weren’t corrupted or bad like I initially thought, just heroes who were tricked. Except the spear hero, acts and looks like a play boy gunning for all the women’s attention and also the idiot type but nevertheless is a good hero.
The overall impression I felt of the episode left me to see themes like Social Rankings since in the world the anime presents starts from the king, the heroes, the knights/soldiers, human civilians and lastly demi- humans from highest to lowest showing the different state of power and privileges each one has and how this can be wrongly used. I feel that after this Naofumi and the heroes will fix their relationship as well as with the civilians except the king and the princess who will feel hatred towards the heroes for embarrassing him and his daughter.
With that under the wrap I’m enjoying it so far especially that scene when Raphtalia saved naofumi from raging which kind of reminded me the scene when Rem confessed to Subaru in Re:zero because of the imagery as well as the dialogue.
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