Tate no Yuusha/Shield Hero Anime General Discussion Thread

[BWTraveller]

Another thing is that this point that the four heroes weren't all supposed to be summoned in Melromarc could easily mean serious political turmoil. I mean seriously, if several different countries were supposed to have individual heroes to represent them and help protect them from the Waves, I'm pretty sure these other nations are going to be out for blood. Which may also explain why this was done while the queen was absent. A truly wise monarch with a great deal riding on maintaining peace in her nation would not make such a stupid blunder. A shortsighted fool trying a play for power might. After all, the summoning of all the heroes would raise the morale and support of the public, as they have more protectors directly at hand, and said protectors would develop better bonds with the nation and their perceived ruling force, thus providing a powerful ally, and the immediate animosity of other nations would give the queen a lot of serious things to worry about, making it more difficult for her to gain control of the situation. It's really a rather clever first step in a coup.

EDIT: since this is indeed purely speculation and extrapolation from the conversation mentioned above, I've removed the spoiler tag. I honestly have no clue whether the hero summoning was done as part of some plot against the queen. It just feels right. It's logically obvious that stealing another country's heroes would incur their wrath and that this political turmoil could be used to obtain any number of goals.

[felix]

Originally Posted by Dengar

Oh damn. Don't take this the wrong way. But that analysis was like... I wish I were able to figure that out on my own, now I'm no longer able to. Again don't take this the wrong way I'm just expressing that I'm a little bummed out, not that you did anything wrong. It's not the same as being spoiled on something. It just kinda feels similar? Know what I mean?

That's because you kind of have been spoiled (I think).

It feels like a lot of people who during the (so called) "controversy" were up in the air about "you just need to wait for episode 2" or implying future events or reveals make it better are now also the ones with the "smart speculation" all of a sudden.

I haven't keeping track, but just a heads up (I don't think Kinematics read the source at least).

I don't know how I feel about this searching with a cheat sheet on what you're searching for. Technically it's in the episode (and not against the rules I think), practically you're going from preset answers to evidence, ruining some reveal or gimmick of the series, etc. It's fine if this is under a spoiler tag as "things you might have missed" or "things the anime didn't show" but hope this isn't a "look at my brilliant accurate speculation" if you're someone already in the know of some device in the series everyone else isn't. That's not cool guys.

Sometimes I wish this forum software had the ability to have threads under threads.

@Kinematics you should probably put spoiler tags around your analysis with something like "potential spoilers of why the kingdom hates Naofumi." Assuming nothing more then subs changed, haven't re-watched the episode to see just how obvious what you wrote is, it might be in everyone's best interest to get a warning.

[Sacredus]

Analysis is not spoiler.

[Twi]

BWTraveler, edit your post. It contains spoilers. I get you want to defend the series, but use what's available via Anime, not other context.

[felix]

Originally Posted by Sacredus

Analysis is not spoiler.

Just checked, correction on what I said earlier, it is against the rules actually:

Originally Posted by section rules

no guidance about how to interpret current anime events to hint at what is coming later

https://forums.animesuki.com/showthread.php?t=113517

Even if it isn't. It doesn't hurt anybody to put anydetailed analysis of obscure "hints" the show has in a spoiler tag with proper label.
Regardless of if you read or not the source. People have been doing this for years; it's good manners.

[Kuroageha]

Originally Posted by BWTraveller

...first step un a coup

So the king and the nobles might be looking to overthrow the current leader who is the absent queen ._.

[AC-Phoenix]

Originally Posted by Kinematics

Matriarchy, not matrimony. Matrimony is a marriage ceremony.

And I don't think people forget it. It just runs counter to the evidence shown in the show, so people are just like, "It doesn't make any sense.", and presume that it implies bad writing, or that it's just being used as a justification for the rape charge (and thus some sort of twisted misogynistic plot).

I know. What I don't know is why i typed mony instead of archy - was fun reading it in the bus earlier though and having no way of logging in from my smartphone to correct it :P.

As for the other part: Yeah it's my point.
Due to the Queen being absent/dead (I know which but I'm not gonna spoiler it) and the king sitting there people subconsciously dismiss this information as wrong.

Originally Posted by felix

Just checked, correction on what I said earlier, it is against the rules actually:

https://forums.animesuki.com/showthread.php?t=113517

Even if it isn't. It doesn't hurt anybody to put anydetailed analysis of obscure "hints" the show has in a spoiler tag with proper label.
Regardless of if you read or not the source. People have been doing this for years; it's good manners.

It being a matter of courtesy aside, I think that sentence is more targeted at LN and Manga readers rather than anime-only watchers analyzing what they have seen. An anime-only watcher couldn't tell you how to interpret stuff in the first.
So unless I missed that Kinematics is actually a Manga/LN reader it should be fine. - Would be nice if a mod could confirm either or though.

[BWTraveller]

Originally Posted by felix

That's because you kind of have been spoiled (I think).

It feels like a lot of people who during the (so called) "controversy" were up in the air about "you just need to wait for episode 2" or implying future events or reveals make it better are now also the ones with the "smart speculation" all of a sudden.

I haven't keeping track, but just a heads up (I don't think Kinematics read the source at least).

I don't know how I feel about this searching with a cheat sheet on what you're searching for. Technically it's in the episode (and not against the rules I think), practically you're going from preset answers to evidence, ruining some reveal or gimmick of the series, etc. It's fine if this is under a spoiler tag as "things you might have missed" or "things the anime didn't show" but hope this isn't a "look at my brilliant accurate speculation" if you're someone already in the know of some device in the series everyone else isn't. That's not cool guys.

Sometimes I wish this forum software had the ability to have threads under threads.

@Kinematics you should probably put spoiler tags around your analysis with something like "potential spoilers of why the kingdom hates Naofumi." Assuming nothing more then subs changed, haven't re-watched the episode to see just how obvious what you wrote is, it might be in everyone's best interest to get a warning.

It's not spoilers to be opposed to a "guilty until proven innocent" mentality. Especially since there've been FAR worse actions taken by protagonists in other stories utilized to make a point or provide commentary. Heck, I've seen a great story where the hero goes berserk and commits rape early on and spends the rest of the story sliding between certainty that he's just dreaming and desperation to atone for the unatonable.

If I have indeed stepped outside of any bounds I am sincerely sorry though. Two of the things I hate most are people who jump to conclusions before something's even remotely shown and people that jump in and say "it's jossed" or "that theory will be trash later". I saw a lot of the former here, and I dealt with a lot of the latter in others (although ironically I found out in one major debate I had with people who threw that at me that my assumptions were correct in the end). But as I've said before I do not believe I have said anything I wouldn't say under any circumstances, regardless of whether I've read a couple chapters or a few volumes, or even if it was a complete anime original where no one outside the studio knows what'll happen next.

[Kinematics]

Originally Posted by felix

@Kinematics you should probably put spoiler tags around your analysis with something like "potential spoilers of why the kingdom hates Naofumi." Assuming nothing more then subs changed, haven't re-watched the episode to see just how obvious what you wrote is, it might be in everyone's best interest to get a warning.

I put it in spoiler tags. Even if it's not against the rules, it's probably better to put long speculation in spoilers for space reasons anyway.

However, for reference, here's a take on the pre-release translation:

Spoiler for Prerelease version:

Originally Posted by Prerelease Episode 1

Voice 1: It seems that the heroes were summoned.

Voice 2: All in this kingdom?

Voice 3: Will it be okay?

Voice 4: That means that shield hero...

In this sequence, there's some implication that there's surprise about all the heroes being summoned in this kingdom, but it's not as clearly unusual as the official subs.

The second line has surprise, but it could just as easily be surprise at the successful summoning as anything else.

The third line is ambiguous, and I would probably interpret it as wondering whether the kingdom will be OK now that the heroes have been summoned, rather than concern about whether it was OK to summon all four heroes.

The fourth line, about the Shield Hero, is vague enough that nothing can really be extrapolated from it.

Basically, I really wouldn't have been able to gain anything meaningful from the prerelease translation. It just seems more like general gossip among the staff spreading the news of the summoning, rather than anything meaningful to the plot.

[Kinematics]

A whole lot of math work that has only a small bit of usable conclusions. Only read if you're interested in meandering mathematical speculation.

Spoiler for Math:

Experience points

So, I was looking at the experience gains, and considering what that means about level progression. This may not actually be reconcilable, but I'm still going to try.


Known events:

• When Naofumi purchases Raphtalia, he is level 4, and she is level 1 (and 0/20 XP).
  
• Raphtalia's first kill, in the armor shop. She gains 15 XP. Naofumi gains 15 XP.
  
• Raphtalia kills a red balloon. She gains 7 XP. Naofumi gains 5 XP. (Raphtalia does not gain a level, implying that she's already level 2 at this point.)
  
• Raphtalia kills three mushrooms in one swing. She gains 3, 6, and 8 XP. Naofumi gains 2, 4, and 5 XP.
  
• At the campfire, Raphtalia increased from level 2 to level 3, and Naofumi increased from level 4 to level 5.
  
• When Raphtalia killed the level 4 rabbit, she gained 15 XP, and reached level 4. We don't see how much Naofumi got for that kill.
  
• When Raphtalia killed the level 15 two-headed dog, she gained 430 XP, and Naofumi gained 340 XP.

Implications:

Based on the rabbit, killing a monster that is 1 level above you gives you 15 XP. Raphtalia gained 15 XP as a level 3 killing a level 4 rabbit, before leveling up.

However it doesn't make sense that Naofumi gained 15 XP from the first balloon that Raphtalia kills (since later kills show him getting less XP than she does), nor for Raphtalia to gain 15 XP for a mob that 'should' be the same level as her, nor for Raphtalia to gain 15 XP compared to Naofumi's 1 XP for killing balloons (comparing Naofumi's first kill to Raphtalia's first kill).

While I can't explain all of that no matter what (since the first and second points contradict each other), for the last point, the only thing that makes sense is that Naofumi's XP gains are suppressed in the same way that his attack stat is. That is, not only does Naofumi basically have no ability to attack, even if he does attack he gets garbage XP from it. So the entire design of the shield is to force him to use companions to do the killing for him. He flat out cannot progress without a party.

However, that still doesn't explain why Raphtalia always gains more XP than Naofumi for all other kills, but not that first one.


Based on the experience gained, it looks like a 2 level gap (Naofumi level 4 and Raphtalia level 2, while killing the red balloon and mushrooms) means the higher player gains about 72% as much XP as the lower player, and at a 1 level gap (what I assume they've reached by the time they fight the dog), the higher player gains about 80% as much as the lower player. These are not clean fractions, though.

However, it's also possible to look at it the other way around. Rather than Naofumi gaining a smaller fraction of the XP due to being higher level, what if Raphtalia is gaining bonus XP? In that case, +50% works very well for most of the early stuff. 2 ⇒ 3, 4 ⇒ 6, 5 ⇒ 7 (or 8, possibly due to fractional bits remaining and rounding). However that's clearly not the case with the dog. Instead, the dog appears to be at +25% (340 ⇒ 425, with an extra 5 XP from I-don't-know-what), or perhaps +26.5%.

Regardless, it's a much cleaner result than the first method.


In addition, there might be chain bonuses. In FFXI, when you killed another monster (of a certain minimum level) within a certain time period after killing a previous one, you gained bonus XP due to an "Experience chain". Chain 1 gave +20%, chain 2 gave +25%, chain 3 gave +30%, up to a max of +50%. In Shield Hero, it might be that the first mushroom gave the base 3 XP to Raftalia and 2 to Naofumi, the first chain gave +100% (6 to Raphtalia, 4 to Naofumi), and the second chain gave +167%–+199% (maybe +175%) (8 for Raphtalia, 5 for Naofumi).

Alternatively, working from the bonus system math, Naofumi's XP increased from 2 ⇒ 4 ⇒ 5, implying +100%, then +150%, for chains 1 and 2. Raphtalia's results come from her +50% XP bonus, with a possible fraction of a point carried over when Naofumi got 5 XP (+50% = 7.5, so Raphtalia got 7 on the red balloon, and 8 on the mushroom).

That would explain why there are three different experience values for monsters that only have a range of two levels to work from. IE: The mushrooms can be level 1 or 2; if they were level 3, I'd expect them to grant 15 XP, like the rabbit did.


However there are still aspects of the entire system that don't make sense. Which party member's level is being compared to the monster, if relative level determines XP? How does that first balloon killed in the blacksmith's shop make sense at all? (Maybe it wasn't a level 1 balloon?) Per standard game mechanics, XP scaling will almost inevitably be a thing, which calls into question whether XP is truly based on relative levels, or on absolute levels. (EG: Would Naofumi get 340 XP from the dog no matter what, or would he only get like 10 XP if he were level 14 as well?)


Summary:

I think we're working with the following factors:

• If Naofumi kills a monster, he takes a significant penalty to XP (minimum 1 XP).
• Naofumi's party can receive XP chain bonuses, with the first XP chain giving +100% XP, and the second giving +150% XP.
• Raphtalia receives XP based on what Naofumi gets, but with an additional bonus added on top. It's +50% early on, and +25% by the time they reach the dog monster.
• Fractional XP is carried over, though not displayed. If Raphtalia gains 7.5 XP two times, the first time will indicate she gained 7, and the second time she'll gain 8.

Anything beyond that is uncertain.


Known XP tiers

When Naofumi first opened his status screen, his XP meter was 0/20 for level 1. Itsuki's was the same. Raphtalia's was the same. (I made a mistake in my earlier speculation and forgot to check their screens to get actual XP values, which means my speculation had serious errors in it.)

When Naofumi was level 2 (Ep 1), his XP meter was 7/28.

When at the campfire, Raphtalia's XP meter goes up from level 2 to level 3. It's difficult to read, but it looks like it goes from 26/{27|28} [Lv. 2] to 7/{34|36|39} [Lv. 3]. I'd assume that Raphtalia's level 2 is the same as Naofumi, and the number should be 28. I would expect level 3 to be at least 36 (at least as much increase from 2 to 3 as there was from 1 to 2), so 34 should be discarded.

Naofumi's XP meter also goes up at the campfire, from 25/52 [Lv. 4] to 11/67 [Lv. 5].

If the XP to next level increased at 8 per level for the first few levels, it would go: 20, 28, 36, 44, 52. 36 is believable for Raphtalia's text for level 3, and 52 is a real value — except that it's for Naofumi's level 4, rather than 5.

However since that skips too much at level 4, it doesn't add up.

After a bunch of guesswork, I came up with this progression:

Level 1: 20
Level 2: 28 (+8)
Level 3: 39 (+11)
Level 4: 52 (+13)
Level 5: 67 (+15)

Other than the second level, the amount of additional XP required for a level goes up by 2 points each level. However that can't continue forever. If it did, Naofumi would need just 292 XP to go from level 14 to level 15, and killing the dog monster gave him 340 XP. That amount would guarantee he went up a level, yet he didn't. Perhaps they're already higher than level 14? That seems pretty unlikely, though.

It does seem to imply that XP can't be based purely on relative level, so there has to be an absolute level component. However that also means that XP per level has to start increasing more rapidly soon.

It's possible that the first five levels are deliberately easy to complete.



Implications:

The kills that we see on screen, given the XP granted to Raphtalia, would be enough to take her to 19/28 [Lv 2]. That means only an additional 16 XP was needed to take her to 7/39 [Lv 3], which is basically three monsters.

From a game design vs plot pacing perspective, I don't like it. The cuts of Raphtalia fighting seemed to imply that they spent a pretty good amount of time out fighting stuff, but the numbers indicate that it would be a stretch to call that even a half hour of fighting.

The total XP Naofumi must have gained by the time he purchased Raphtalia would be a minimum of 87. Based on 5 minutes per balloon, that's 7.25 hours. While that's quite a lot of work, it doesn't feel nearly long enough to match the implied time he spent trying to level.

I really don't think I can accept the numbers they use for the XP meter. I'd have to multiply them by probably 5 before I'd find it reasonable. (IE: 100, 140, 195, 260, 335 XP to go up levels 1 through 5.) As such, I'm just going to ignore the XP-per-level values from now on.

[Grifis]

This anime has not too high review rating on ANN (not that I care for their ratings) and I'm a bit tired out of the isekai theme but I found myself enjoying it a whole lot. It kept my attention the whole time. It's my second best of this season. (I kind of thought about Fushigi Yuugi while watching this for a little bit.)

[Kinematics]

If anyone is interested in the alphabet used in the series, this reddit page was made by someone who has mostly transcribed the letters.

Image of the letter correspondances.

Web page that lets you translate latin characters to Shield characters.

Some nice work there.

Summary: The language of Melromarc is literally English, using a different alphabet.

[relentlessflame]

Just to clarify...

If you are posting speculation, and you don't actually know the source material at all, do not call it a "potential spoiler" because this is just confusing. Otherwise, any conceivable speculation is a "potential spoiler" if you're right. That's not what a spoiler means.

Now, on the other hand, if you know the source material and you pretend to "speculate" on things when you actually know the truth, you'll probably get banned. Do not play that game.

Speculating = I truly don't know = Not a spoiler.
Spoiler = I know = Not Speculation = Never in anime threads (behind tags or not)

All cryptic hints or "guidance" from source readers that alludes to future contents is also forbidden.

If it's about something that has already aired and you want to provide more information about what was shown that does not give hints about the future (e.g. little tidbits they missed, comparison to how they presented certain things), that can be placed behind spoiler tags.

But basically, if you are a source reader, you are not allowed to in any way "bias" an anime-only viewer's interpretation of the show. If someone wants this bias, they have to go to the source thread. That's the intention of our spoiler policy. I know it's called a "spoiler tag" and some people might think that means any spoiler is okay as long as it's behind it... but that's not how we use it.

I hope that helps to clarify.

[BWTraveller]

New episode out, very nicely done. Again the action seemed a little slow at a couple spots and for some reason there seemed to be a couple unnatural pauses in conversation during the battle against the wave, but it still picked up before long. Naofumi clearly doesn't get that Raphtalia's grown up (which the blacksmith and the preview beforehand noted is natural for demi-humans: they age when they level). And of course he cannot believe that Raphtalia would ever believe him if she knew, or, judging from his level of animosity, that she'd even choose to stay with him over the Spear regardless.

[Stark700]

Ah, I can't stand that Spear guy.

On the other hand, glad to see Raphtalia growing up both physically and mentally. She's much more confident compared to the previous episode and seemingly improved in combat skills too.

[BWTraveller]

Yeah, she may be a "slave" but this girl's learned very quickly just what actually qualifies as "defiance" and managed to seize a fair amount of control over the relationship. Even as a slave she's no pushover.

[Kuroageha]

Direct orders can be avoided by ambigious actions then. Or just Naofumi's being careless.

[Haru00]

I hear anime Naofumi's probably the nicest ver of himself.
Im no novel reader but in the manga he wasnt this nice at all, he doubted Raph the moment he realized she's just with him cause she's his slave and during the wave he was legit pissed at what he was doing. Oh well.

[BWTraveller]

True he hated himself for what he was doing. And I think even the anime made it fairly clear that he was convinced Raphtalia would never believe him just like everyone else. Thing is that, like was mentioned a while ago, the guy is always making excuses. Excuses in both directions too: explanations of why he's doing good things so he can continue to think himself a jerk as well as explanations of why he's justified in being a jerk. It's an internal battle and those excuses help keep the conflict under control.

[frodonk]

Originally Posted by Grifis

(I kind of thought about Fushigi Yuugi while watching this for a little bit.)

Ahh finally another one that gets it! This is just the genderbent version of Yui's arc!!!

About Raph though, do they age as they gain more levels, or is it just Raph? Do loli raccoons age faster than humans? she's definitely older compared to last week!