Tate no Yuusha/Shield Hero Anime General Discussion Thread

[Kanon]

I found it interesting that the slave seller knew Naofumi was going to pick Raphtalia. We didn't see what the other slaves looked like but I guess the episode implied he chose her because as the Shield Hero, he is destined to be the hero of the demi-humans. Of course, the theory falls apart if the other cheapest slaves were also demi-humans, as they seemed to be going by your posts. If it's simply a matter of her being objectively the best choice because the other were worst, this line just seems odd. I thought there was some meaning behind it.

As for Naofumi and Raphtalia's relationship, no doubt it can be interpreted several ways. I was a bit surprised they showed Naofumi forcing her to his bidding and hurting her (through the seal), cementing his status as a anti-hero. Even the weaponsmith was disgusted by it. Of course, in anti-hero, there's still "hero" so he's not all bad. He did nice some nice things for her that he didn't have to do, like buying her a ball. Of course there's the end where he was about to sacrifice himself to save her, and no, I don't think he was attempting to emotionally manipulate her.

By the way, wasn't the slave seal supposed to make slaves unable to lie? Because Raphtalia lied several times. For small things, granted, but they were still lies.

[Applehell]

@Felix agree. There is a lot of mental conditioning done to (not delibrately on Naofumi's part but the writing itself) Raph and audience to make her situation and relationship to Naofumi much more platable. The issue is still there, but it's danced around a lot. The anime even goes out of it make it nicer because it removes a lot Naofumi horrendous thoughts.

Originally Posted by Stark700

Episode 2 is out.

That definitely reminds me of MMORPG video games with the leveling up, experience points, equipment, upgrades, etc..

The weird thing is the show actually blurres the line a bit what is game-ike and what isn't. For example it implied that only Naofumi has a status menu, however concepts like party members and classes, levels are universal. It's weird.

Originally Posted by LG-MAX 2.o

You are underestimating the trauma that Naofumi developed after being betrayed by someone he believed to be his companion.

You can not overcome a trauma easily. The healing of something like that is complex and time-consuming. And for someone like him who is going to be forced to fight constantly, he does not have the luxury of having something like time to spare.

Traumas are not light things.

I don't think Naofumi's trauma is handled and written very well to be honest. You say this but his trauma doesn’t prevent him from interacting with people like normal and being empathic among other things. It not crippling him seriously as it would happen to most for it be this extreme. It defintely kick a lot of the teeth of "practicability" not the least of because of Raph herself.

Originally Posted by The Green One

Naofumi needs a companion who he doesn't have to constantly be in fear of getting stabbed in the back. Something that about 95% of the kingdom has shown he needs. He also needs Raphtalia to be healthy and fighting fit. If he mistreats her or allows her to get hurt, he has to waste time and resources in getting her healthy again. It's in his best interest that she is healthy and happy. So no he's not going to mistreat her as that is just going to get him killed in the end. It's also showing even at his lowest some of his original self is still there.

Putting aside the ridiculousness 95% of an entirely country hating anyone, there is zero reason for slave like Raph to betray him. There is nothing in for someone like her. Outside her freedom her (which could have been avoided if he freed her and had some kind of deal) her life wouldn't get being poor without any skills to survive on her own and his rep shouldn't the least of all. LG-MAX 2.o stance Naofumi's continued ownership of Raph is more based on his irrationality at least makes some sense to me.

[Kinematics]

Originally Posted by BWTraveller

Also, concerning the other alternatives, the rabbit man didn't have a broken arm, his arm was deformed and twisted, or had broken then healed badly in a weird angle. Either way it wasn't something that would heal and allow him to fight well.

Yeah, I tried to keep the description short.

Originally Posted by Kanon

By the way, wasn't the slave seal supposed to make slaves unable to lie? Because Raphtalia lied several times. For small things, granted, but they were still lies.

In the shot we get of the settings, the only two conditions that were activated to cause punishment were Refuse Order and Attack Master. Lie to Master was turned off by default. So it's a condition that can be added, but wasn't being used.

[Klashikari]

Originally Posted by Kanon

By the way, wasn't the slave seal supposed to make slaves unable to lie? Because Raphtalia lied several times. For small things, granted, but they were still lies.

It "can", but Naofumi didn't set it. When the party screen showed up, displaying Raphtalia stats, there is a list of "violation conditions" which obviously refers to triggers that will punish the slave if they perform any of them.
Only "Refuse Order" and "Attack Master" are highlighted, thus active. Considering the interface, Naofumi could set the following slave curse conditions:
-Attack * (most likely allowing the owner to prevent the slave to attack specific individuals without issuing an order all the time)
-Get * meters from Master
-Lie to Master
-Flee
-Item use

It is kind of weird for this not to be on by default, but it was there at least.


Anyway, I really didn't want to discuss about the "controversy", but I frankly had no issue with that at large. People of that world seemed to have a strong bias against "the shield hero" right from the get go (some exceptions like the Blacksmith of course), so all the stuff about them dismissing Naofumi's innocence and so on was quite obvious. So it really doesn't matter if it is a rape claim, murder claim or whatever: should something happens, Naofumi was for an uphill battle anyway. The "use of slave" was hardly anything to write home about either because he needs someone that will not backstab them, and since his offensive abilities are practically inexistent, a companion is necessary.

I'm quite baffled a lot of people were harping about the potential moral issues with these points while Shield Hero had much more fundamental flaws in its narrative as a whole.
Personally, episode 1 left me incredibly annoyed by the direction of the show. Certainly, Myne's trap and everyone else's attitude were established right from the get go, but the word "subtility" wasn't really there so to speak. You get a lot of convenient things like the King being in control over a matriarchy kingdom and whatnot.
Also, the fact the author felt the need to make the "shield class" as the "most useless one" is sure laughable at best, especially if the series pretends it is common for at least 3 different versions of Japan. I refuse to believe practical skills like "shield bash" and so on would be considered as weak or "not available from the start", which is why I believe the author went too far with the conveniently hostile environment towards his protagonist. Because of all of this, the general premise feels quite artificial.

That said, Episode 2 did a much better job and established the logic behind the reasons why Naofumi "recruited" Raphtaria, but also the whole issue with the "Shield Hero" and the demi-human.
I sure wish the anime didn't go blazing fast regarding the shield itself because it sure needed to establish more about its skill tree and type of skill reproduction in order to give an idea what Naofumi can do. This is yet another reason why I still can't see how the shield can be "weak" even at its starting form because of its inherent ability.

[Rnzlr]

Originally Posted by Kanon

he chose her because as the Shield Hero, he is destined to

He chose her bacause it's shiitty isekai and MC must have a slave girl apparently

[Rasty]

Originally Posted by Applehell

@Felix agree. There is a lot of mental conditioning done to Raph and audience to make her situation and relationship to Naofumi much more platable. The issue is still there, but it's danced around a lot. The anime even goes out of it make it nicer because it removes a lot Naofumi horrendous thoughts.

And it also doesn't show to which length Naofumi is helping Raph. Like fighting the monsters her crying summoned through the night and hugging her so she doesn't have nightmares, while acting like nothing happened in the morning, while he clearly had almost no sleep (and doing this for days), or actually dumping dozens of potions he makes on her to get rid of her illness.

Originally Posted by Applehell

The weird thing is the show actually blurres the line a bit what is game-ike and what isn't. For example it implied that only Naofumi had status menu, however concepts like party members and classes, levels are universal. It's weird.

Everyone has status menu, just the heroes have the super strong growing weapons.

Originally Posted by Applehell

I don't think Naofumi's trauma is handled and written very well to be honest. You say this but his trauma doesn’t prevent him from interacting with people like normal and being empathic among other things. It not crippling him seriously as it would happen to most for it be this extreme. It defintely kick a lot of the teeth of "practicability" not the least of because of Raph herself.

He is kind in heart, but he believes (and not so mistakenly) that everyone is there for his neck and if he ever shows any weakness or gives them a chance they will stab him in his back with a smile (he is also bitter about the situation, but let's leave that for now).

He believes that whole word to be bad, though he does not necessarily lose empathy. A specific example, if a kid bumps into him, he might help the kid up and ask if it is OK, but the first thing he will do will be checking whether he still has his purse and when leaving he will make 2 steps backward before turning around, because he doesn't want to show his back too close.

Originally Posted by Applehell

Putting aside the ridiculousness 95% of an entirely country hating anyone,

His situation is basically a certain bearded german reincarnated (while everyone knows it), who also everyone thinks raped the Queen (princess in his case) on 2nd day from his appearing. For that world, he is the incarnation of "bad" guy, so everyone either stays away from him (normal people), wants to hurt him for who he is (the ones with a strong sense of justice), or want to hurt him because no one would care (the bad guys).

Originally Posted by Applehell

there is zero reason for slave like Raph to betray him. There is nothing in for someone like her. Outside her freedom her (which could have been avoided if he freed her and had some kind of deal) her life wouldn't get being poor without any skills to survive on her own and his rep shouldn't the least of all. LG-MAX 2.o stance Naofumi's continued ownership of Raph is more based on his irrationality at least makes some sense to me.

Firstly, he believes her to be in a better social position than he is if she got released, not the way you said it. Secondly, he has no trust in the people of that world. His take is, that if he were to release her, she would leave him immediately (or worse) thus making him waste all of the money and time, while he has neither the leeway (still trying to survive and under stress, because he is so far behind), nor obligation to do so. Him having gone through exactly this case (with the princess) certainly doesn't make him too eager to try it again.

[Frontier]

Poor Raphtalia. My heart went out for her from the very minute we saw her in that cage, and that deepened even more as we discovered what a sweet and endearing girl she is, which makes it all the more terrible what she's been forced to endure .

The slaver seemed to think it was significant that Naofumi bought Raphtalia. Was that because of the legendary Shield Hero's connection to the Demi-Humans? Naofumi also had a vision of Raphtalia in the premier, so maybe there's some kind of fate going on with him becoming the Shield Hero ?

Man, Myne really did screw him over if she could have been helping him level up from the start and didn't tell him .

I feel like this show is going to become "what can't a shield do?" Because now he's got a leaf shield, a medicine shield, and a rope shield

That merchant who told Naofumi about the ore made me wonder if there's an issue in the outer towns of the kingdom involving people having to deal with dangerous monsters with the "Legendary Heroes" not bothering to help them .

I love how Naofumi had to regain his composure after doing a special attack, complete with an invocation phrase. He's not completely out of being an Otaku .

So we're getting more of a contrast between Naofumi as the hero and Naofumi as the guy who's willing to do anything to survive. He takes up a slave who gets tortured if she doesn't follow his orders, and trains her to basically be the sword to his shield so he can survive and get experience, but he takes care of her and treats her better then probably anyone has since her parents died .

He's pretty demanding when it comes to training her as a warrior but almost treats her like a daughter outside of that. And at the end, against the long-necked dog monster, he gave up trying to force her to help him and tried to let her get away safely. It's almost like, as much as Raphtalia's status as his slave is a testament to how far Naofumi has fallen both morally and in status, she's also able to bring out the good in him and the true Shield Hero within .

I wonder, once the Wave hits, if that Cerberus-monster will appear and Raphtalia will have to overcome her trauma again?

Originally Posted by ~Yami~

could we take a moment to admire how cute Raphtalia is and how great her VA is?

Yeah, I was really impressed with Asami Seto here. Especially with her range, comparing this to her last major role as the female lead in the previous season's Rascal Does not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai (with Kaito Ishikawa also voicing the male lead in that anime).

I mean, Ishikawa sounds like Ishikawa in pretty much any role he's in, but here Seto goes from the sassy, confident, and mature Mai Sakurajima to the adorable and emotional mess little girl that is Raphtalia, and sounds completely distinct from her Mai voice.

[Lukes YGO & WS on YT]

Spoiler for Episode 2 Comments/Feedback:

That is one awesome opening theme and video, I am a bit worried though but what looks like him going berserk and his power going out of control.

Making medicine is a great skill for him to have, helps the party but can continually give him a source of income.

Fight monsters, sell medicine, upgrade equipment, rinse wash and repeat, slowly but steadily they are making progress.

Naofumi was able to use Raphtalia's past to his advantage there to defeat that dog monster, kinda like using reverse psychology in order to help her overcome her past.

Either way that was an impressive kill, I wonder what LV those 2 were at the time, that dog was LV 15 so now wonder they got a lot of EXP for it, the rope skill also comes in handy, he can use that for many situations.

03 Wave of Catastrophe, that doesn't sound good for our hero. I hope that ore and whatever loot from the dog monster is worth a bit, they will need upgraded equipment very shortly.

Really looking forward to the next episode.

[Kinematics]

Originally Posted by Kanon

I found it interesting that the slave seller knew Naofumi was going to pick Raphtalia. We didn't see what the other slaves looked like but I guess the episode implied he chose her because as the Shield Hero, he is destined to be the hero of the demi-humans. Of course, the theory falls apart if the other cheapest slaves were also demi-humans, as they seemed to be going by your posts. If it's simply a matter of her being objectively the best choice because the other were worst, this line just seems odd. I thought there was some meaning behind it.

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. It feels significant... until you realize it couldn't be significant. The only thing I can think of that might make Raphtalia unique is that she was in the area that was attacked by the Wave, and maybe the other two weren't. But that's purely speculative, and doesn't really help make sense of things anyway.

Originally Posted by Klashikari

Also, the fact the author felt the need to make the "shield class" as the "most useless one" is sure laughable at best, especially if the series pretends it is common for at least 3 different versions of Japan. I refuse to believe practical skills like "shield bash" and so on would be considered as weak or "not available from the start", which is why I believe the author went too far with the conveniently hostile environment towards his protagonist, which feels quite artificial.

Motoyasu and the others didn't say that the Shielder class had no value at all; they said that "No high-level gamers play it." That's a very different thing.

I went over this in a post earlier in the thread. The tank is the party spot that all high-level players want to eliminate first, because it does not contribute to actually killing the opponent in any meaningful way. It soaks up damage, but having another DD in the same spot often means you take even less damage because the fight was shorter. As long as the DDs have a way to actually survive the fight for as long as needed, it's better to add another DD than a tank. Thus, high-level players will treat the class as a joke.

I would not expect this to change much across different versions of Japan, because it doesn't change much across games. The balance necessary to allow DD jobs to survive in non-boss battles (and thus enjoy all the rest of the game) tends to lead to them necessarily being able to survive against some of the toughest encounters without needing to depend on a tank. This is because the margin the tank has over the other DDs tends to, mathematically, not be sufficiently high to allow the tank to survive while the DDs would die quickly, since if the tank was that much tougher, that breaks the balance in the rest of the game.

Beyond that, though, we have another factor that biases the populace against the Shield Hero: the fact that the Shield Hero is very highly regarded by the demi-humans, in a land that considers demi-humans to be basically sub-human. So this goes beyond "just" hating the Shield Hero because it's a 'weak' class.

[wissenschaft]

Originally Posted by felix

Episode 2
Of course Naofumi, as far as the story is concerned, is just a nice guy canonically. And canonically Raphalias is of course not a victim of Stockholm syndrome. The problem is the script/story/narrative is completely equivalent to a brainwashing script: give her the carrot (clothes, affection, food; most of which you need to give anyway), give her the stick (pain), gives her "debts" she owes him (the ball), give her choices with only one right answer, make yourself the most important entity in her life, don't have her interact with anyone else (she never talks with the barman, or the blacksmith; and he makes no attempt to change this), etc.

By this logic, all parenting is brainwashing. I don't remember my parents allowing me to talk with strangers anywhere. I had to do what I was told and without any backtalk. Besides, slaves don't get carrots, they get beaten for disobedience and thats it. If that doesn't work, keep at it till it works. Having read first hand accounts of slavery, theres hardly any carrot involved.

Don't get me wrong, that slave crest is morally dubious, to say the least. But shield bro treats her like hes a guardian of a child than a slave master.

[felix]

Originally Posted by Kanon

I was a bit surprised they showed Naofumi forcing her to his bidding and hurting her (through the seal), cementing his status as a anti-hero. Even the weaponsmith was disgusted by it. Of course, in anti-hero, there's still "hero" so he's not all bad.

Just as a side note, him being an "anti-hero" is a really funny pun since he's literally "against the heroes" (the other 3 stooges)

[Klashikari]

Originally Posted by Kinematics

Motoyasu and the others didn't say that the Shielder class had no value at all; they said that "No high-level gamers play it." That's a very different thing.

The series makes it very clear it is "for losers". Illustrating that no high level gamers play that merely confirms Motoyasu's claim. As such, this means that even early on, that class barely offer anything, which is actually "true" with what Naofumi could do with Myne as a pseudo party. Which doesn't make any sense since shield is notoriously useful in the vast majority of games for shield bash, shield slam, silence/stun and other things that are often vital for dungeons and instances.

I went over this in a post earlier in the thread. The tank is the party spot that all high-level players want to eliminate first, because it does not contribute to actually killing the opponent in any meaningful way. It soaks up damage, but having another DD in the same spot often means you take even less damage because the fight was shorter. As long as the DDs have a way to actually survive the fight for as long as needed, it's better to add another DD than a tank. Thus, high-level players will treat the class as a joke.

This kind of stuff doesn't make any sense when one of the version of the game was called a "VRMMORPG" by Ren. Meaning that it does follow the tennets of MMORPG. And in MMORPG, the vast majority of them have the tank as essential as a DPS or a healer, because the game would punish you by 1-2 shotting people that aren't a tank. The concept of aggro and so on are absolutely necessary for this to work.
If the game was an action RPG similar to God Eater or Phantasy Star Online, this may be a bit different for early and middle game. But for games like WoW, FFXIV and so on, you cannot clear high level content without a tank, period. That's why 3 games from different versions of Japan having the exact same logic of "the shield is useless for high end stuff" is something that is arguably not natural.

Tanks and Healers are "not popular" because players want 'action', but that doesn't mean games are "bad" because you need them. To the contrary, MMORPG are designed so diversity are there to catter different playstyles and to facilitate cooperation. And tanking doesn't always mean just soaking damage, but also forcing the target to stay to specific locations, disabling dangerous moves or attribute (i.e warrior's disarm in WoW) and so forth. Game balance is done so all 3 roles do something so they contribute to the party's success.
So your logic that "it doesn't contribute to actually killing the boss" is backwards: if it wasn't for the tank, the DPS would be unable to deal not even a quartert of the damage necessary before being killed. And several games do consider the tank damage output as well, and the notion of "offtank" and "offensive tank" exist as well.
As someone who played both tank and DPS in WoW, I don't remember feeling any role being "bad", and I don't remember people claiming one of the 3 roles is useless. Some class being weaker to a specific job? Sure, that happens in any game. But a complete role being useless and undesireable for high level content? Color me extremely skeptical at that notion.

[felix]

@Klashikari

To be fair, given there's no healer and no talk of one, unless the Naofumi is also a healer it's very likely this is more monster-hunter-esque.

I guess Naofumi is like the Hunting Horn user.

[Applehell]

Originally Posted by Rasty

And it also doesn't show to which length Naofumi is helping Raph. Like fighting the monsters her crying summoned through the night and hugging her so she doesn't have nightmares, while acting like nothing happened in the morning, while he clearly had almost no sleep (and doing this for days), or actually dumping dozens of potions he makes on her to get rid of her illness.

Okay? Naofumi being kind to her was never going to be an issue and ep 2 did good job of showing that. It's not as if as if there weren't kind slave owners in IRL that didn't care of their slaves. But even their weren't naive about expoiting people and were part of the problem. You can easily predict from yhe 2nd episode that Raph will eventually come like her position making everything A-OK. Anything is fine as long aa you have right mindset about seem more or less can easily become the message there.

Everyone has status menu, just the heroes have the super strong growing weapons.

So it's full on game-ike world. Noted.

He is kind in heart, but he believes (and not so mistakenly) that everyone is there for his neck and if he ever shows any weakness or gives them a chance they will stab him in his back with a smile (he is also bitter about the situation, but let's leave that for now).

He believes that whole word to be bad, though he does not necessarily lose empathy. A specific example, if a kid bumps into him, he might help the kid up and ask if it is OK, but the first thing he will do will be checking whether he still has his purse and when leaving he will make 2 steps backward before turning around, because he doesn't want to show his back too close.

But there is a difference between on guard for random pickpockets which still happens even today and thinking everyone is out to get you know matter what. The fromer simply acting in common sense with the least negative impact other person incase you are wrong.

His situation is basically a certain bearded german reincarnated (while everyone knows it), who also everyone thinks raped the Queen (princess in his case) on 2nd day from his appearing. For that world, he is the incarnation of "bad" guy, so everyone either stays away from him (normal people), wants to hurt him for who he is (the ones with a strong sense of justice), or want to hurt him because no one would care (the bad guys).

Yes people were alreadly biased against him for being the Shield Hero, but not to the degree where they wouldn't talk to him, serve him, buy things off him or randomly trick him. The first episode shows a contrast between the pre and post false rape accusation for a reason. Myne have even need setup that whole thing if just being the Shield Hero was enough.

Firstly, he believes her to be in a better social position than he is if she got released, not the way you said it. Secondly, he has no trust in the people of that world. His take is, that if he were to release her, she would leave him immediately (or worse) thus making him waste all of the money and time, while he has neither the leeway (still trying to survive and under stress, because he is so far behind), nor obligation to do so. Him having gone through exactly this case (with the princess) certainly doesn't make him too eager to try it again.

This just further hits on my point about his preception being justifying everything. Again this wouldn't a problem introduced a little nanuce to point his own degency and cut-down his righteous fury a bit. But the story 100% on his side without much room for that. As said awhile back in the thread good anti-heroes stories aren't afarid to go "What The Hell, Hero? when needed.

In the end Shield Hero is what is everyone can agree with that, but just has some explanations do not necessarily mean their are adequate when it jump into something as very evil as slavery.

[BWTraveller]

Originally Posted by Klashikari

The series makes it very clear it is "for losers". Illustrating that no high level gamers play that merely confirms Motoyasu's claim. As such, this means that even early on, that class barely offer anything, which is actually "true" with what Naofumi could do with Myne as a pseudo party. Which doesn't make any sense since shield is notoriously useful in the vast majority of games for shield bash, shield slam, silence/stun and other things that are often vital for dungeons and instances.
This kind of stuff doesn't make any sense when one of the version of the game was called a "VRMMORPG" by Ren. Meaning that it does follow the tennets of MMORPG. And in MMORPG, the vast majority of them have the tank as essential as a DPS or a healer, because the game would punish you by 1-2 shotting people that aren't a tank. The concept of aggro and so on are absolutely necessary for this to work.
If the game was an action RPG similar to God Eater or Phantasy Star Online, this may be a bit different for early and middle game. But for games like WoW, FFXIV and so on, you cannot clear high level content without a tank, period. That's why 3 games from different versions of Japan having the exact same logic of "the shield is useless for high end stuff" is something that is arguably not natural.

Tanks and Healers are "not popular" because players want 'action', but that doesn't mean games are "bad" because you need them. To the contrary, MMORPG are designed so diversity are there to catter different playstyles and to facilitate cooperation. And tanking doesn't always mean just soaking damage, but also forcing the target to stay to specific locations, disabling dangerous moves or attribute (i.e warrior's disarm in WoW) and so forth. Game balance is done so all 3 roles do something so they contribute to the party's success.
So your logic that "it doesn't contribute to actually killing the boss" is backwards: if it wasn't for the tank, the DPS would be unable to deal not even a quartert of the damage necessary before being killed. And several games do consider the tank damage output as well, and the notion of "offtank" and "offensive tank" exist as well.

People, including myself, have repeatedly commented on this on multiple counts. First, as some who are experienced in MMORPGs have said, there are individuals in the high areas that prefer to be able to say that they managed without a tank, that they didn't need someone taking damage without dealing anything because they were tough enough to take some punches and strong enough to crush the boss before the damage got too strong. Second, not one of them said that the role of tank was absent or useless, only that the shield CLASS was seen as insignificant. And this is hardly that strange. It's certainly not the first story where a particular class or development path has been poorly constructed, resulting in them only proving effective for low levels.

Also, I don't get applehell claiming that Naofumi's trauma is not that bad, or claiming that he "interacts normally" with others. Just when has he interacted normally or shown empathy to anyone except Raphtalia? He's always cold and distrustful. He treats anyone and everyone with clear belief that they're hateful people who want to take advantage of him. He only shows kindness toward Raphtalia. This is like people claiming that Sagiri from Eromanga Sensei's social anxiety wasn't that big.

Basically, the difference the trauma makes is rather than just "justifying" negative behavior he chooses to be bad because he legitimately believes it to be the only choice. He doesn't excuse his keeping her as a slave by saying "she'd leave me otherwise", he legitimately buys her and keeps her a slave because he actually can't imagine her staying with him otherwise.

[Klashikari]

Originally Posted by BWTraveller

People, including myself, have repeatedly commented on this on multiple counts. First, as some who are experienced in MMORPGs have said, there are individuals in the high areas that prefer to be able to say that they managed without a tank, that they didn't need someone taking damage without dealing anything because they were tough enough to take some punches and strong enough to crush the boss before the damage got too strong. Second, not one of them said that the role of tank was absent or useless, only that the shield CLASS was seen as insignificant. And this is hardly that strange. It's certainly not the first story where a particular class or development path has been poorly constructed, resulting in them only proving effective for low levels.

Circumventing the need of tank and healer is not something new, but certainly not something usual, let alone common to the point it is a "common sentiment" in the playerbase. This is where I drew the line and why I explicitely stated I have hard time to believe that notion in tate no yuusha, because it is something that is shared by 3 different version of Japan. From my perspective, it begs the question how a game like this could fare if the high end playerbase would completely disregard the tank role at large. That's actually bad level design if a role/class is rendered useless because of game design oversight.

The reason why I insisted on the shield class too is because of the inherent common aspects of the shield that contribute to such games in general: bash, slam, reflect, wall, and so forth. It goes without saying that shield actions are more often defensive by nature, but it can also range to offense, most notably reflect.
That's yet another reason why this dismissal by all 3 other heroes feel incredibly alien to someone who actually played MMORPG. If it was the personal opinion of those guys, that would be fair. But the way how it was presented, it is basically the common opinion of the high level playerbase of the respective heroes' game, which is fundamentally irrealistic by MMORPG standards.

[Applehell]

Originally Posted by BWTraveller

Also, I don't get applehell claiming that Naofumi's trauma is not that bad, or claiming that he "interacts normally" with others. Just when has he interacted normally or shown empathy to anyone except Raphtalia? He's always cold and distrustful. He treats anyone and everyone with clear belief that they're hateful people who want to take advantage of him. He only shows kindness toward Raphtalia. This is like people claiming that Sagiri from Eromanga Sensei's social anxiety wasn't that big.

Rasty, literally just pointed out an example with child which is someone other than Raph. Naofumi for his part in wasn't cold to anyone who wasn't obvious trying to take advantage of him. His generally business like, but he's not taken certain actions completely without reason or acted purely on impulse all the time. He's can judge people as individuals, he's just too cowardly to do so even under stringentest requirements.

[BWTraveller]

Originally Posted by Applehell

Rasty, literally just pointed out an example with child which is someone other than Raph. Naofumi for his part in wasn't cold to anyone who wasn't obvious trying to take advantage of him. His generally business like, but he's not taken certain actions completely without reason or acted purely on impulse all the time. He's can judge people as individuals, he's just too cowardly to do so even under stringentest requirements.

That was a hypothetical was it not? I don't recall seeing that in the show... And even if so, aside from children he most certainly IS universally cold unless it's made clear to him that they mean no threat. Sure, he's not going into every store with his balloons already drawn, but he's always vigilant to ensure that he can bring them out. He's always on guard. He's not "too cowardly" to give people a chance; he is legitimately on constant guard. Basically, he's looking at the world now the way that many people seemed to look at him up to now: guilty until proven innocent. Hypervigilance doesn't meant you're impulsively jumping at every person, it means you're ready to jump at a moment's notice.

[Ruki0089]

Pre Summoned/Betrayal Naofumi : He is gentle, nice, trusting and believe everyone is good people.
By the way, he is so gentle that even bear won't attack him (From WN)

Post Summoned/Betrayal Naofumi : He learned the reality in the most hard way. Everyone judge him as rapist and no believe him. He become wary, cautious and bitter. He believed everyone has motive.
As time passed, his anger and hatred grew especially how people he hated so much won't stop bothering him.
Well, he become much better later.... Especially after...

[Applehell]

Originally Posted by BWTraveller

That was a hypothetical was it not? I don't recall seeing that in the show... And even if so, aside from children he most certainly IS universally cold unless it's made clear to him that they mean no threat. Sure, he's not going into every store with his balloons already drawn, but he's always vigilant to ensure that he can bring them out. He's always on guard. He's not "too cowardly" to give people a chance; he is legitimately on constant guard. Basically, he's looking at the world now the way that many people seemed to look at him up to now: guilty until proven innocent. Hypervigilance doesn't meant you're impulsively jumping at every person, it means you're ready to jump at a moment's notice.

It wasn't in the show, I assumed something cut out in the adaptation, but looking at that part of post again you're right. The rest of what I said still stands though. I'm not saying he's bern going around and opening his arms, but unless he starts acting hostile everyone who see him (which hasn't happened even to least trustworthy looking guy in the show) without clear due cause. He's not as nonchalant as like to think he is and that will be proven time again the future as it is has been shown Raph. Espeically because there no special reason for hom to be nicer to her than anyone else unless his trauma not extreme and is being used as convenient way to maintain the his master-slave relationship with Raph. In anycase it is still running from his problems and shackling her with an unfair burden on top of her own issues, so I feel the most for her.