The Rising of The Shield Hero Season 2

Episode 4

To be honest, this episode kept bothering and rubbing me the wrong way. Since the majority of the plot points covered here weren't that interesting, I decided to focus on what the characters were talking about…and what they're talking about is confusing at best and frustrating at worst. Don't get me wrong: there were a couple of interesting character traits being established here, like Raphtalia sort of struggling with PTSD for about two minutes, or Ost having some kind of internal struggle about how she feels uncomfortable being praised as a comrade by everybody even though, by her own admission, she has done and will continue to do terrible things. I like Rishia as a character, but I remain very confused regarding what her arc is supposed to be about. We already know that she's pretty capable at magic, but everyone keeps treating her like she doesn't have anything to contribute yet, which just feels odd. Also, her motivation of wanting to improve for the sake of the bow hero because he helped her is fine, but I still feel a massive disconnect with that motivation given everything we know about the bow hero prior to this point.

Yes, it's established that the three heroes do “good deeds", but we've also seen time and again that they treat this entire situation like a game and don't really think much of the people that they're actually saving. This whole thing makes me feel bad for Rishia because I just don't see how that asshole deserves any of the attention and thought that this girl is giving to him. The author has done such a good job so far of making those three people come across as total jerks that it kind of feels weird having one of them be the motivation for another character's growth. Maybe this is hinting at a depressing twist down the line? It would honestly be very interesting but that's probably asking for too much. You know what isn't asking for too much? Making it clearer that the three heroes were captured by the spirit tortoise. With all the exposition that was dumped on us in the first 2 episodes, I genuinely missed the part where they were captured, but I also don't think that the show reinforced that as a plot point worth caring about. I feel like the show is asking me to care about developments that it keeps sabotaging through poor execution. Maybe the introduction of the other heroes from season one will finally get me to start caring a little bit

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The Rising of The Shield Hero Season 2 is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.