Tate no Yuusha/Shield Hero Anime General Discussion Thread

[Ichinotachi]

Originally Posted by Itlandm

I read the first of the novels and was not impressed. The misery dragged on way too much for my taste, and I got the impression that the author had some complexes he might have better worked out with a therapist before taking up a writing career. (But evidently plenty of people like this, so I guess I was wrong.)

Actually I was somewhat pleasantly surprised by the anime, probably because it moved much faster so I did not have to spend hours in the swamp of righteously angry self-pity.

Completely agree with you, the writing was so bad that sometimes I wished that I could skip everything about the drama but to understand the whole picture is needed to read it all. You're not wrong for having that opinion about the story, it is like that and lots of readers think the same, others just try to not think about it and as always there will be some in denial.

The anime is going pretty fast and thats a good thing, it makes the whole situation less cringy and boring. The animation was fine, the VA work was really good too. Personally I don't think the false accusation will lead to a lot of controversy unless the usual leftist SJW gets in here and complaint about it, in fact Naofumi's attitude will be the problem with the series.

[Kanon]

Is the story really that bad? I thought this was one of the most hyped show of the season so I'm kinda surprised by the recent comments from LN readers. I'll still watch a few more episodes and make up my own mind anyway.

[Tenzen12]

I would say story is indeed that bad and you are also right it's one of most hyped show of season. That's not mutually exclusive.

Tate Yuusha was pretty much first Isekai that used this outcast underdog narrative, evil backstabbing royalty incompetent/evil heroes and slave waifus. Teenagers loved it so it set one of most commonly used templates when it come to webnovels ever since.

[Applehell]

It's also the first modern isekai a lot of people at that age had read which helps bolster it's popluarity.

[zztop]

Originally Posted by Applehell

It's also the first modern isekai a lot of people at that age had read which helps bolster it's popluarity.

I understand it is also the first modern isekai whose original WN was fully fantranslated into English, which also gained it a lot of Western readers of that age.

Originally Posted by Tenzen12

I would say story is indeed that bad and you are also right it's one of most hyped show of season. That's not mutually exclusive.

Tate Yuusha was pretty much first Isekai that used this outcast underdog narrative, evil backstabbing royalty incompetent/evil heroes and slave waifus. Teenagers loved it so it set one of most commonly used templates when it come to webnovels ever since.

I think the slave waifu trend started with the ongoing WN series Isekai Meikyuu De Dorei Harem wo/Slave Harem in the Otherworld Labyrinth, which started in April 2011 (Shield Hero's WN started in Oct 2012, so there's a possibility Meikyuu may have influenced aspiring WN authors in Japan from that point).

Ironically, most of Meikyuu is about dungeon crawling and leveling, and the slave harem stuff was more SOL interactions and sweet consensual stuff IIRC.

[Magewolf]

Originally Posted by zztop

I understand it is also the first modern isekai whose original WN was fully fantranslated into English, which also gained it a lot of Western readers of that age.



I think the slave waifu trend started with the ongoing WN series Isekai Meikyuu De Dorei Harem wo/Slave Harem in the Otherworld Labyrinth, which started in April 2011 (Shield Hero's WN started in Oct 2012, so there's a possibility Meikyuu may have influenced aspiring WN authors in Japan from that point).

Ironically, most of Meikyuu is about dungeon crawling and leveling, and the slave harem stuff was more SOL interactions and sweet consensual stuff IIRC.

It may not have been the absolute first to run with all those themes but it was the first to be a breakout hit and became a template for a lot of later stories.

My problem with it, apart from how cringy and pointlessly stupid a lot of the "problems" were, is that times of adversity are when heroes are supposed to show their character and Shield Hero folds like a wet paper bag instead.

[zztop]

Originally Posted by Magewolf

It may not have been the absolute first to run with all those themes but it was the first to be a breakout hit and became a template for a lot of later stories.

My problem with it, apart from how cringy and pointlessly stupid a lot of the "problems" were, is that times of adversity are when heroes are supposed to show their character and Shield Hero folds like a wet paper bag instead.

Do you mean Shield Hero the story, or Naofumi the Shield Hero?

If it's Naofumi, I recall from the WN that he was forced to pick up the pace in defending the world, especially in training and preparation, because the other 3 were being difficult and self-centred. He was the only capable one IIRC.

[orion]

Originally Posted by xrick

And usually, Tank Characters tend to be more than mere meat shields, with some offensive skills and such.
In Naofumi's case, there seems to be none, going by the other heroes' definition of Tanks. Still, it sucks

Tanks are very much appreciated when it comes to big bosses in games. Whenever there's a big boss in the game I play, I use a tank plus heavy hitter and mage. (I find it funny when tank aggros and the big boss hits tank while heavy hitter kills the boss.) Those guys have it bad as those heroes can't be on the same team and have to build their own team which was why no one wanted to be on Team Shield Hero. The locals wanted an easier ride to glory on the coattails of an OP Hero.

Team Shield Hero has to be built on slave labor or sympathetic demi-humans as most humans don't like Shield Hero due to his particular circumstances.

[Magewolf]

Originally Posted by zztop

Do you mean Shield Hero the story, or Naofumi the Shield Hero?

If it's Naofumi, I recall from the WN that he was forced to pick up the pace in defending the world, especially in training and preparation, because the other 3 were being difficult and self-centred. He was the only capable one IIRC.

I mean Naofumi's decent into "hardcoreness". The other heroes are part of the pointlessly stupid "problems".

[BWTraveller]

Every series is going to have haters. There are plenty of people who disagree, including people who don't care for isekai in general. It's all a matter of taste I guess. Some may feel that some parts are too over-done or not explained well enough, and some may feel that things are emphasized just enough to create a compelling plot. What I can say is that this will definitely be far better than Smartphone and a lot of other recent isekai series (not that I disliked Smartphone, it's quite enjoyable even if it's fairly average). True enough, the other three heroes' initial attitude is a little contrived; I myself don't really understand why all of them were that quick to take the stance they took, though I don't find it terribly difficult to believe that they may take on such a viewpoint after the missing initial shock. And true, the story puts the hero in a very dark place, bad enough that some might feel it's contrived or hard to believe, bad enough that his survival depends on him doing things some may find repugnant (like owning a slave). I'd just say give it a few episodes, a few more than the standard three, and get a real feel for the series before buying into the standard batch of haters.

[Frontier]

Man, maybe they should've changed the name of this from "The Rising of the Shield Hero" to "Everybody hates Shield Hero" .

They cast Matsuoka as Ren because he has dark hair, wields a sword, and mentions VRMMO's (ending in an "Online" title), right? C'mon, you can't tell me that's not the only reason they cast him for Sword Hero .

All the heroes coming from alternate versions of Japan was an interesting twist. And did one of them come from a world where Japan won WWII? I kind of feel like it was Ren.

I'd just like to point out that Naofumi was the only one of the heroes who was willing to hear out the priests (?) without expecting a reward in return. On-top of establishing prior that he helped his little brother when he was "breaking bad" tells me that Naofumi was not only the most normal of the heroes, especially compared to the rest being more pompous and selfish, but may have had the more pure heart .

I kind of get the sense this series is going to explore what defines a hero and how people perceive them and their heroism, especially with our focal hero shunned and vilified while the other heroes get to go on and be treated as one would expect a hero to be.

So was Motoyasu in on it? Myne giving him that chainmail the day before was an obvious lie, and Myne didn't strike me as the type who would've physically degraded herself like that for an act to convince him Naofumi raped her. He did seem like a genuine nice guy, or as genuine as the high-handed other heroes can be, but then again so did Myne...

I did find it weird that a supposed matriarchy had a king in such a prominent role, but there was a purple-haired woman in some royal regalia in the opening, so maybe she's the queen ?

I'm glad the armorer was able to see the truth after he looked in Naofumi's eyes. I guess he could tell in his eyes that Naofumi was a man filled with hate at being unjustly accused and basically convicted for a crime he didn't commit. Although at least he has one person on his side now .

Maybe the moral Naofumi will take from all this is that "The One" isn't always the first attractive girl in a mini-skirt who throws herself at you, but the raccoon-girl who you see in your visions and then discover in another world as a slave. Which sounds really weird when I put it like that .

A main character who takes on a slave for his own can be pretty tricky, but I feel like they're probably going to re-frame it as Naofumi saving this girl from her bondage by taking her in, even if it's ostensibly for a selfish reason of getting him another body to help him level up.

[Benigmatica]

Watched the first episode and wow, they sure want to throw shit at Naofumi just because he's the Shield Hero, even as far as accusing him of raping the princes which he didn't commit.

Still, I hope that he'll rise up again and prove those haters wrong on the next episode!

[The Green One]

Well if a woman says a man raped them, and you don't know a single thing about either of them, who do you instinctively believe? Let's be clear, don't answer that as I'm not interested in hearing it. I just want you to think about the first answer that comes into your head from that question.

[~Yami~]

Originally Posted by The Green One

Well if a woman says a man raped them, and you don't know a single thing about either of them, who do you instinctively believe? Let's be clear, don't answer that as I'm not interested in hearing it. I just want you to think about the first answer that comes into your head from that question.

the problem is.... the kingdom is matriarchy... which means that crime against women would bring a huge bias to the law system
it is not that comparable to what we think

in several upcoming episodes, we would see more explanation about the system in the kingdom.. There are several issues about why this case is handled like that

[RDNexus]

Those who know a bit or a lot of the story already may have the answers to many of the questions raised by this Ep01 alone, but that's not the case to those who are coming into this kinda or totally blind about it, so of course they'll discuss stuff that has yet to be answered.

I can easily say that in a matter of episodes the answers will be coming up, but that's up to the newcomers to find out by themselves. They also tend to prefer it that way, as to not detract their enjoyment of the story.

[felix]

Hm. The director seems to have taken the material and slowed it down.

Fundamentally I feel that the framework is actually solid but the way it was used in the source was just poor. If this is going where I think it's going with "creative liberties" then it should actually be a pretty good adaptation. Like others have mentioned the concept and characters are the best part. I'll also add that the world isn't too shabby either. The plot is just not very imaginative in it's presentation, though it does have plenty of good ideas.


As for the other details...

Everyone seems to be talking about the rape accusation. Personally more annoyed by the NTR event that happened.

Secondly, there's the slave thing.

Let me just start by saying I honestly am completely insensitive to it in fiction after so many series used it.
So don't really care too much if slaves are in a series or not so don't take what I say as being overly negative,
That said, I do have some shit to say about it.

For one, is Slave Girl Harem and "raising (easily impressionable) girls" now just a characteristic of Isekai?

Because it is very very damn common (either one, the other or both). I'm almost surprised when it's not there now. If it's not in the hero party it's something like enemies abusing them like in GS or some kind of psedo slavery though contracts, breeding or "permanent service" (ie. how maids are treated in anime).

I find this annoying because this is one of the big reasons in my opinion why isekai tend to have such trashy plot. If not THE biggest reason. Lets just put aside the obvious hentai tease of it all, that's whatever, the biggest problem is that if you have 3-5 of these slave girls you've already bloated the roster, so cant have more characters or have problems when you add more characters. Add to that the fact that they by definition can not have character development in these stories with out the main character "guiding them" and you end up in a situation where you don't have some healthy story with 6-7 characters getting developed, you have 1 character and his 6 female slave appendages. That's just too weak cast wise!

In many of these the slew of slaves also makes for boring dialog since it's generally used just for the purpose of making the main character "look smart" by placing a lot of big-boobed legal-age children around him. And I kind don't want to call them foils because even a foil would have their own unique personality traits, which in a lot of cases the slave girls don't. It's really mostly like watching the main character talking with a sock puppet or two (only the sock puppets have boobs and a vigina).

I don't want to come off too negative since there are cases where they work fine. In "That time I got reincarnated as a sword" the focus is mostly on the girl, and the main character is more like a interactive narrator, so there it works, even though she's a slave and they do the "master" thing (which people with taste translated to Sword-sensei so as to make it less shitty).

And as for why it fails here in particular: (1) he chose her (2) she's clearly weak as shit (3) it's very clear why she's written/designed as is. Tasteful ways this could have been handled: he's forced into a contract, he becomes her slave, he chooses some other useful dude but encounters problems, she has the exact looks of some girl that was kind to him in the past, she's sold to him as a boy, she's actually super ugly, et cetera. Also he has to immediately breaks the slave seal or breaks it after a day or two to get out of creep-land. Really, so many other ways, but it always the weak "this here is totally not my sex slave, she's my lewd daughter that's totally not sexually attracted to me, that's all!" plot.

---

Originally Posted by Kanon

That was not too bad, but I have quite a few problems with the first episode.

All your problems are not shortcomings of the series. They're covered later.

Originally Posted by FlareKnight

I think the only thing for me is how crazy fast the MC goes into the dark. But who am I to judge when I haven't been teleported to another world, kicked around for having a shield, and being framed for rape. Maybe a person really would go from being fairly reasonable to not being willing to trust a single soul.

He was pretty gray zone kind of guy in the real world bits so I think the "goody goody" parts were an act (which is not surprising given his circumstances and the "pretty girl" going with him around). Basically what you saw was him in dating mode. The dark parts I interpreted as just the pissed off version of his normal self from earth.

Originally Posted by FlareKnight

Also...do none of these people have games with tank characters? Did they manage to pluck people from different versions of Japan that just never figured out how a person who can take a hit is valuable to a fighting force? Who does the archer guy think is going to keep the front lines busy so he can fire at the enemy safely?

I've seen this mentioned a lot. I think the answer is very simple, it's closer to a mobile game then normal mmo. If I were to push it, maybe I'd say it's more like a turn based SRPG, but that doesn't make sense of course since it's a mmo.

Personally I kind of see all MMO-ish anime the same. Think most authors who attempt them are more familiar with the mobile mmo genre (given how popular it is in jp) and less familiar with the desktop version, but lean on the desktop version because it's just easier for the narrative (VRMMOs, mana, bosses etc).

Tanks are actually among the weaker classes in mobile games. If it's not hard content nobody likes them.

[Magewolf]

Originally Posted by felix

Personally I kind of see all MMO-ish anime the same. Think most authors who attempt them are more familiar with the mobile mmo genre (given how popular it is in jp) and less familiar with the desktop version, but lean on the desktop version because it's just easier for the narrative (VRMMOs, mana, bosses etc).

Tanks are actually among the weaker classes in mobile games. If it's not hard content nobody likes them.

It could be based on something like Guild Wars 2. It does not really have a trinity(tank,healer,dps) setup since all the different classes can do all 3 to an extent. This has lead to groups being all class cannon dps-ers or maybe having one healer because you can use active skills and dodges to mitigate damage. However that does not really line up with the rest of the class system of the other world which seems to be rather rigid.

Honestly, the real reason for the tanker class in game being useless even though it seems to be bad game design is to give the other heroes some "reason" to not band together at the kangaroo court. If he was the only tank from a more balanced set of games they would have the choice of siding with him or going out to get slaughtered.

[BWTraveller]

Originally Posted by felix

Hm. The director seems to have taken the material and slowed it down.

Fundamentally I feel that the framework is actually solid but the way it was used in the source was just poor. If this is going where I think it's going with "creative liberties" then it should actually be a pretty good adaptation. Like others have mentioned the concept and characters are the best part. I'll also add that the world isn't too shabby either. The plot is just not very imaginative in it's presentation, though it does have plenty of good ideas.


As for the other details...

Everyone seems to be talking about the rape accusation. Personally more annoyed by the NTR event that happened.

Secondly, there's the slave thing.

Let me just start by saying I honestly am completely insensitive to it in fiction after so many series used it.
So don't really care too much if slaves are in a series or not so don't take what I say as being overly negative,
That said, I do have some shit to say about it.

For one, is Slave Girl Harem and "raising (easily impressionable) girls" now just a characteristic of Isekai?

Because it is very very damn common (either one, the other or both). I'm almost surprised when it's not there now. If it's not in the hero party it's something like enemies abusing them like in GS or some kind of psedo slavery though contracts, breeding or "permanent service" (ie. how maids are treated in anime).

I find this annoying because this is one of the big reasons in my opinion why isekai tend to have such trashy plot. If not THE biggest reason. Lets just put aside the obvious hentai tease of it all, that's whatever, the biggest problem is that if you have 3-5 of these slave girls you've already bloated the roster, so cant have more characters or have problems when you add more characters. Add to that the fact that they by definition can not have character development in these stories with out the main character "guiding them" and you end up in a situation where you don't have some healthy story with 6-7 characters getting developed, you have 1 character and his 6 female slave appendages. That's just too weak cast wise!

In many of these the slew of slaves also makes for boring dialog since it's generally used just for the purpose of making the main character "look smart" by placing a lot of big-boobed legal-age children around him. And I kind don't want to call them foils because even a foil would have their own unique personality traits, which in a lot of cases the slave girls don't. It's really mostly like watching the main character talking with a sock puppet or two (only the sock puppets have boobs and a vigina).

I don't want to come off too negative since there are cases where they work fine. In "That time I got reincarnated as a sword" the focus is mostly on the girl, and the main character is more like a interactive narrator, so there it works, even though she's a slave and they do the "master" thing (which people with taste translated to Sword-sensei so as to make it less shitty).

And as for why it fails here in particular: (1) he chose her (2) she's clearly weak as shit (3) it's very clear why she's written/designed as is. Tasteful ways this could have been handled: he's forced into a contract, he becomes her slave, he chooses some other useful dude but encounters problems, she has the exact looks of some girl that was kind to him in the past, she's sold to him as a boy, she's actually super ugly, et cetera. Also he has to immediately breaks the slave seal or breaks it after a day or two to get out of creep-land. Really, so many other ways, but it always the weak "this here is totally not my sex slave, she's my lewd daughter that's totally not sexually attracted to me, that's all!" plot.[/I]

OK first off, we only now have evidence of one single slave girl, and one girl does not make a slave harem. Second while I have heard of maybe two or three series with slaves (not tons, more without than with actually), what series are you talking about where the hero "raises" impressionable young girls? Seriously, I've not seen any of this at all and I'm curious; feel free to PM me a list. I'm not "into" that sort of thing but it feels weird hearing people talk of "common clichés" that I haven't seen, especially when it's in a genre I've read so much of.

Also, it should be kept in mind that there's also no evidence that he does or would have even the slightest sexual or romantic interests involved in his selection. A guy who'd been accused of sexual violence wouldn't likely be looking for a girl he could "raise" or a girlfriend of any sort. I'd say it's not so much that she was made a slave in order to satisfy some sort of fetish or allow a "raising" story (which again I have not seen), but rather a predictable outcome of the hero's situation and mindset as well as a convenient method to demonstrate the state of the society: what better way to show how little hope or faith he has left than to have him willing to take slaves just for the assurance his comrades can't possibly lie or betray him, and having just about all demi-humans shown as slaves gives a fair idea of the degree of disregard the world has for human rights. Basically, it doesn't feel to me like the world was twisted to give the hero a slave girl, but rather the hero got a slave girl as a natural outcome of the world that was created.

[felix]

Originally Posted by BWTraveller

Second while I have heard of maybe two or three series with slaves (not tons, more without than with actually), what series are you talking about where the hero "raises" impressionable young girls? Seriously, I've not seen any of this at all and I'm curious; feel free to PM me a list. I'm not "into" that sort of thing but it feels weird hearing people talk of "common clichés" that I haven't seen, especially when it's in a genre I've read so much of.

It may be I'm mixing novels with series in my head, but off the top of my head: from last year How not to summon a demon lord and Death March are literally slave harems. In goblin slayer the priestess is "raised" by the goblin slayer character, and the globins "raise" slave girls to reproduce (typically heroes), but I have no problem with the narative, it's solid regardless if people feel it's too edgy. In SOA I believe they have a "daughter" ingame at some point. In conception anime pretty sure it's a slave harem from what little I watched. Completely forgot what the smart phone one was even about. Overlord the main character literally just programs the females to be his slaves in episode 1.

Counter examples: Re:Zero (even tho I hate it) the main character doesn't really have any harem; the show does have contracted girls (the house loli, rem and ram) but they don't belong to main character so guess they doesnt count. Think restaurant in another world doesn't count... probably. Gate doesn't count probably. And pretty sure none of this crap is in Log Horizon if I remember right.

Hm. Maybe you're right and it's not very common in anime, or at least wasnt until last year when we got a lot of them.

[Random Wanderer]

Originally Posted by felix

I don't want to come off too negative since there are cases where they work fine. In "That time I got reincarnated as a sword" the focus is mostly on the girl, and the main character is more like a interactive narrator, so there it works, even though she's a slave and they do the "master" thing (which people with taste translated to Sword-sensei so as to make it less shitty).

Gotta argue with this one. She's not a slave: he freed her from the slave contract within a few chapters of meeting her. The contract he uses to do so is not a slave contract. It's a "dispel the slave collar's contract" contract. Also, the word "master" she uses for him is "shishou" which means "master" in the sense of a martial-arts teacher, not "master" in the sense of a slave's owner.