The Rising of The Shield Hero Season 2

Episode 8

OK, even I have to admit that Raphtalia was super cute in this episode. Honestly, I think the show would've been better if the affectionate father-daughter dynamic between Naofumi and Raphtalia was made a bit clearer, but the cynical part of my brain knows exactly why it isn't. There's a lot of interesting lore that gets dumped in this episode, and while this season generally hasn't been the best with handling exposition, this most recent effort is probably the best so far. So it seems like there are styles and cultures in this alternate world that directly parallel those of the real world, with the village that the heroes find themselves in being based on historical Japan. I am a big fan of the style our heroes take on when they upgrade their gear. It kind of feels like a reimagining of what they were originally wearing, and for some reason, it reminds me a bit of Batman Ninja.

It also turns out that in this world there are people who are trying to recreate the powers and abilities of the cardinal weapons. So far those efforts seem to be spearheaded by Kyo, who is really solidifying himself as the main villain for the rest of the season. I am a little confused about why Kizuna doesn't know who Kyo is – were the heroes of this world all summoned separately unlike Naofumi and the three stooges? It also appears that there is a wider variety of races in this world compared to the one that we were originally familiar with, and it seems like Glass belongs to one of those alternate races, but then again I thought that the heroes were summoned from different versions of Japan? Kyo, Kizuna, Naofumi and the other 3 heroes of the original world were all from Japan, so why is Glass's race from this world? Do the weapons manifest differently here? I feel like there are still chunks of information that were just omitted from some of the explanations we get here. Or at the very least it feels like some questions aren't being reasonably asked.

The ending did legitimately catch me off guard, with Kyo setting up a trap designed specifically to mess with Naofumi emotionally. I knew he was always a petty bastard, but I like the narrative direction of Naofumi having all of his emotional support pillars stripped away from him in unknown territory. Could this lead to character regression, or could it be the precursor for some new character growth? Hard to say at this point, and while this episode still misses the mark in a few places, it's definitely inching more steps in the right direction.

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