Tate no Yuusha/Shield Hero Season 2 Anime Episode Discussion

[BWTraveller]

I’m pretty sure they’re still on the “mandatory loss” mindset (book had them argue this on the other Glass fight).

[GDB]

That'd make more sense and slightly redeem (or at least, not fault) their characters if Glass and the Pope had just f'd off after beating them up, but they were going to die if not for Naofumi. That's not a mandatory loss, that's just extreme denial.

[Chosen_Hero]

I feel like I missed some stuff in between the ending of the first season and the forst episode in this one... are there OVA or something that I need to watch?

[BWTraveller]

Originally Posted by GDB

That'd make more sense and slightly redeem (or at least, not fault) their characters if Glass and the Pope had just f'd off after beating them up, but they were going to die if not for Naofumi. That's not a mandatory loss, that's just extreme denial.

Well, it did make more sense in the LN since, as I recall, they were out cold. What they saw was huge, terrifying enemy appears, overpowers them, then they wake up in a hospital getting treated for their wounds. Technically speaking, that does resemble the "meant to lose" scenario you'd see in a game. Doesn't change the fact that it's mostly just them trying to cling to anything that makes them still the unbeatable hero who's always right and can never make a mistake.

[frubam]

An okay start to the new season of this series. Rishia is kinda useless, and Naofumi saying he will train her, but doesn't actually train her. I thought her "Fweh!?" was cute as an occasional side character, but its pretty annoying after a while as a member of the MC's party. Her lack of confidence is also annoying, even though 'young' Raphtalia wasn't annoying and had that same/similar problem at first. Meanwhile the pink-haired knight(?) at the beginning of the ep, who looks better and is probably less annoying doesn't get used at all, go figure.

Her level is 65, but her HP was only 285, and EXP to next level was only 7/35. She should have gotten, like, a bajillion levels when they went to Cal Mira, even on the lowest of monsters.

Its a small thing, but it bothers me seeing Naofumi's full name at the top of the status screen instead of just his first name.

The other three idiot heroes are just so bad; I'm surprised they are still so full of arrogance when they were beaten so easily in Cal Mira by L'arc and Therese, not to mention Glass. Guess one of them has to die for it to sink in how weak they are.

[Frontier]

Originally Posted by frubam

An okay start to the new season of this series. Rishia is kinda useless, and Naofumi saying he will train her, but doesn't actually train her. I thought her "Fweh!?" was cute as an occasional side character, but its pretty annoying after a while as a member of the MC's party. Her lack of confidence is also annoying, even though 'young' Raphtalia wasn't annoying and had that same/similar problem at first. Meanwhile the pink-haired knight(?) at the beginning of the ep, who looks better and is probably less annoying doesn't get used at all, go figure.

I want to see more of that pink-haired knight...

[Tactics]

Originally Posted by GDB

Their biggest issue is that, early on, they had a reason to be cocky assholes. They had OP weapons, and they were able to quickly min/max their skills and absolutely trash everything that came their way, so why change? Naofumi was only getting things done because he would be in the right place at the right time, or he'd protect people instead of fight, etc.

However, once Glass showed up (and by extension, the Pope) and their skills stopped being useful while Naofumi's "jack of all trades" approach to the skill tree showed itself to be optimal... they didn't change. Normally a min/maxer like them would go and grind all those skills once they realized they weren't useless, but instead they just became tropes instead of advancing as characters.

Its not about OP weapons but MC weapons.

S1 told those three logic is: 1) I got the spear/sword/bow, therefore I'm the MC (Ren and Itsuki being the most obvious); and 2) All media about isekai in my world told that I can solo.
Thus Naofumi state (using shield, need teamwork and menial task to get things done) is like a grave sin for them as time goes as it denied said ways of thinking; church feeding them with "shield is evil compare to the other three" doesn't make it better.

IIRC one of their argument when Naofumi told to accept their method is not working and cause problem to civilians is "there is no saying what we did is wrong in system".
Extreme denial became inevitable because for them its just Naofumi obtained better cheat code than cheat code from their world gaming experience and as MC of their headcanon there should be something better for them compare to that guy who use non-MC weapon.

[Frontier]

Naofumi's sure moving up in the world to be attending meetings with foreign leaders alongside the queen! This is what the other three doofuses miss out on by being absolute tools .

The pink-haired knight lady is named Eclair? She's definitely a very stunning, chivalric, beauty...and not only is she a knight, but she's the lord of Naofumi's domain, having inherited the title from her father who died in the first Wave. And now she seeks to make it up to Raphtalia for what happened to her village by doing right by it now, even training Raphtalia and Rishia in the sword. I really hope we get to see her in action .

So there are more than just the Four Cardinal Heroes in this world, with the Seven Star Heroes...somehow, even though they're not supposed to be as strong as the Four Cardinal Heroes, I'm expecting they'll be more useful than the other three Cardinal Heroes .

Kana Hanazawa brings out her mature lady voice for Ost Hourai, who is more than just a pretty face and royal concubine/regent, she's actually an artificial human familiar of the Spirit Tortoise designed to manipulate nations in order to help harvest souls for the Tortoise. The matter-of-fact way she just tells everybody this and how she was basically using her own nation for the sake of the Spirit Tortoise was kind of surreal, like she doesn't quite understand the gravity of what she's saying/doing, and that she was just playing the "role" of an "evil consort." I'm not quite sure what to think of her. Although it was kind of funny how none of what she said about dealing with the Spirit Tortoise was anything they hadn't thought of at that point .

The queen seemed to know Hourai personally and was really thrown off by the truth, so I wonder what the relationship is there ?

So the Spirit Tortoise is like an anti-Wave weapon? Harvesting a bunch of souls for the sake of stopping the countdown and preventing the Waves from happening? And the Four Heroes are meant to basically find out about it, defeat Hourai, and then decide whether to use the Tortoise to stop the Waves? It just backfired this time because someone woke the Tortoise up earlier than it was supposed to. But while it seems like they've settled on killing it, is using it for its original purpose still on the table? But is it worth using it to sacrifice all those lives just to stop the Waves ?

Raphtalia is still Naofumi's conscience, helping speak to his compassion and willingness to help others, and leading Naofumi to spearhead the counterattack against the Tortoise .

So Naofumi's whole party gets new weapons from the blacksmith, including a Filo outfit for Rishia. I love how she even does Filo sounds when she puts it on, although is wearing animal costumes really going to be Rishia's main thing on this show ?

I guess Hourai wasn't a concubine for nothing in that she's in-tune with peoples' relationships and feelings to where she could bluntly point out that Rishia is in love with Itsuki, and give tips on how to seduce him into bed...and Raphtalia's listening in like she's getting tips for winning over Naofumi .

[stray]

I was wondering how HanaKana's mature voice would work but she's an airhead so it kind of works.

Do filolials actually 'kweh' or is Filo legitimately upset that Rishia thinks she's a chocobo? I sort of miss the 'fweh' though. Ost might have to tell Raphtalia about the birds and bees I suppose.

[grecefar]

So I thought this battle with the turtle was going to be all the season but they are ready for the fight in the next chapter, well I doubt is going to be that easy.

[Kanon]

Ost Hourai is great. I love how she just barged in and revealed the shocking truth without really giving a damn. And when they ask what kind of information she can provide to help... she can only state what they already know or the obvious
But hey, she's trying!

A pink haired girl called Eclair? I think someone liked FFXIII. Glad to see her join the fight.

I guess most of the new characters with weapons in the OP (I didn't count) are those Seven Stars Heroes. I bet they're actually stronger than the other three Cardinal Heroes.

[SuitUp]

The whole '7 Star Heroes' thing feels pretty strange to me, specially since apparently they got isekai'd too, why is there tiers to their isekai summoned heroes? They also haver never even been hinted at or anything, they just get name dropped 20 something episodes into the storyline lol

[Frontier]

Originally Posted by SuitUp

The whole '7 Star Heroes' thing feels pretty strange to me, specially since apparently they got isekai'd too, why is there tiers to their isekai summoned heroes? They also haver never even been hinted at or anything, they just get name dropped 20 something episodes into the storyline lol

I wonder what their purpose is? Like, the four Cardinal Heroes are supposed to stop the Wave and weren't even all supposed to be summoned in the same place, but what do the 7 Star Heroes supposed to be for ?

[Kanon]

Originally Posted by Frontier

I wonder what their purpose is? Like, the four Cardinal Heroes are supposed to stop the Wave and weren't even all supposed to be summoned in the same place, but what do the 7 Star Heroes supposed to be for ?

I don't know, but if they tell us they're supposed to support the Cardinal Heroes in fighting the waves, I'll be calling bullshit since they never showed up until now.

[Lex79]

They mentioned vassal weapons, this gives me the impression that the new heroes are supposed to support and be in some way subordinates to the cardinal heroes.
We'll see in the next episodes if the author has a good explanation for why they were never mentioned, other than "I made them right now because I need some heroes that are actually competent ".

[SuitUp]

I can smell the excuse coming 'We couldnt help you because we were fighting another threat in another country', it wouldnt be the first time on this series, the Queen herself was like 'I was in another country taking part in an international forum on the waves' People on this series are like the Order of the Phoenix, tons of agents gathering intel but Naofumi has to do something really dumb or be in deep shit before they actually do something.

[Frontier]

Originally Posted by SuitUp

I can smell the excuse coming 'We couldnt help you because we were fighting another threat in another country', it wouldnt be the first time on this series, the Queen herself was like 'I was in another country taking part in an international forum on the waves' People on this series are like the Order of the Phoenix, tons of agents gathering intel but Naofumi has to do something really dumb or be in deep shit before they actually do something.

In the interest of fairness, if the Cardinal Heroes were supposed to be spread out to different nations, it makes sense the Seven Cardinal Heroes would be spread out too because that's apparently how it was meant to be.

[Dengar]

Since waves happen all over the world, and the four cardinal heroes were all in melromarc, it's safe to assume the seven star heroes had their own problems.

Reading this thread it seems skipping an entire arc just to get here faster has had its consequences. Anime only watchers seem very confused regarding the new characters as well as the four heroes. Shame. Can't really say if any of the developments of that arc won't be referenced later though.

[wissenschaft]

Originally Posted by Dengar

Since waves happen all over the world, and the four cardinal heroes were all in melromarc, it's safe to assume the seven star heroes had their own problems.

Reading this thread it seems skipping an entire arc just to get here faster has had its consequences. Anime only watchers seem very confused regarding the new characters as well as the four heroes. Shame. Can't really say if any of the developments of that arc won't be referenced later though.

To be fair, the arc that was skipped was filler and for pacing reasons its probably best to just skip it and get to the action. We don't need a whole season dedicated to the equivalent of a training montage.


I also found it funny that this season started off with making another girl into a slave. The writer really isn't shying way from that controversy. Overall its been a nice return to this setting. Naofumi seems in a much better mental state than he was in season 1. So thats nice. I'll be interested in seeing in what way the new girl can become a useful party member. Theres no point being in the party if she can do nothing useful.

[Frontier]

Time to take on a giant CGI turtle! And the Shield Hero and his party will be leading the vanguard .

The supporting cast are already in their battle-ready looks...the queen looks as stunning as ever in her armor, Ost is ditching her cloak to reveal a turtle-patterned black China Dress to better show off her figure and legs, Eclair's gone for a full armored knight look with a strong ponytail. Everyone is ready to go into battle and look good doing it .

Oh hey, Melty's Shadow! This time she's directly joining Naofumi, and we even get to see her eyes! She should take that mask off more often. Although I also appreciated seeing her in her tight ninja outfit again .

Even the scarred and young soldier who had Naofumi's back back in season 1 are here! And they thankfully survive, which is more than I can say for some of the other soldiers .

It really shows how far things have come that Naofumi can put up a flag for the Shield Hero and it makes everyone in awe and excited to see him joining them in battle. You can tell how much it means to Naofumi now to be so appreciated and idolized .

So Ost has gravity magic, which is especially useful against all the Spirit Tortoise familiars they have to fight, and Baba, Raphtalia, and Filo all get to show off against them .

Respect to that commander who was willing to blow himself up to trap the Spirit Tortoise .

Well, Rishia doesn't do much, but she's able to help Ost remember that the Spirit Tortoise has a long-range attack that's pretty decimating, meaning they have to take the more direct approach again .

If nothing else you have to respect Ost's dedication to stopping the Tortoise even at her own expense, helping the soldiers and doing her part in any way she can, particularly against a hybrid familiar the Spirit Tortoise siccs on them in desperation .

The magic team does their part to give Naofumi, Raphtalia, and Filo an opening to start slicing at the neck of the Tortoise, with magic boosts from Ost and Rishia, and they finally cut that things head off with impunity .

The battle seems won, everyone is cheering and happy, respects are paid to the fallen, and it seems like they're all sad about Ost having to fade away...until she just casually reveals she's alive, which means it's not over yet .