This show has been thirteen episodes of frustration for me. It stars the Shield Hero, one of four heroes summoned to fight off the waves, swarms of monsters that will seemingly destroy the world. After a false allegation of sexual assault is levied against the Shield Hero, he is treated poorly by the society around him. The Shield Hero, for reasons not explained, was not viewed highly by the rest of the society, to begin with, but due to laws regarding the summoned Heroes, they cannot just punish him, leaving his punishment the negative view of him by the rest of the world.
The World also seems to operate under the mechanical rules of an RPG, and the people of the world are aware of this. Levels, class upgrades, and things like that are all part of this place and acknowledged by the people. The Four Heroes, while coming from different universes, all seem aware of this and are able to more easily adapt because of their gaming knowledge.
At first, I thought this would be an Isekai show I'd be able to get into because it had circumvented the biggest problem I have with the genre, a protagonist who is so much more powerful then everyone else it drains all the tension out of everything. The lead character actually isn't all that powerful in a fight at first. He has to rely on his party for combat, and when he is on his own he finds unique and, at times, underhanded ways to try to fight and get ahead. It's not his power that was making him potent, but his quick wit and creativity.
The longer the show goes on though, the less that seems to hold true. It's honestly not long before the show has pretty much established that The Shield Hero is the strongest of the four. Between the insane number of abilities at his disposal, the 'Cursed Shield' power up, it may not have hit the point he is overwhelmingly strong compared to everyone else, but he certainly is compared to the other heroes.
That ties into an overall problem I have had with the show over the first thirteen episodes, and that is the show have some absolutely horrible pacing and atmosphere, we'll start with the pacing. Less then half way through the show is when you see a duel between the Shield and Spear hero, where the Spear hero wins after someone interferes and cheats for him. It's pretty much immediately after this fight that the Shield Hero, who had to win the fight with the aforementioned creativity, starts feeling like he is jumping up rapidly in power. In almost no time at all the sense of creativity in his abilities begins to diminish.
Then you have his party member Raphtalia, who at the start of the show is scared stiff of blood. We find this out, and within minutes she overcomes it in order to move the story along. The moment an interesting element was added to her character, she overcomes in at it's never brought up again. This sums up the storytelling in these first thirteen episodes, there is no build up to the emotional moments. They just happen and disappear just as quickly without leaving much of an impact.
As for the atmosphere, it's almost non-existent. We are expected to believe that the Shield Hero is shunned from the rest of society due to the false accusations, but outside of the King, his daughter, and one or two instances we never really see the Shield Hero shunned past the first episode. In fact, he very quickly becomes a fan favorite of the citizens and a countrywide hero. At no point do you ever really feel that there was any weight to the accusations, and it really makes his transition from the overall good guy to a bit of a cold-hearted, calculating person to feel entirely hollow. That really is the major issue I take with the show is its inability to build anything up. There are a lot of good ideas here, but the execution of them leaves a lot to be desired.
To the shows credit, the cast is pretty interesting. Outside of some obnoxious clique dynamics, like the little girl being someone the shows main love interest views as a romantic threat for reasons I will never understand (Seriously, why is this a trope? Maybe I don't understand because I”m not a woman, but do you, ladies, constantly feel like your relationship is under threat because of a ten-year-old girl his kind of flirting with your man?) the characters are enjoyable, and the love interest aspect between The Shield Hero and Raphtalia doesn't come across as forced at all, something a lot of other shows can't say.
And the fights can also be a lot of fun to watch. Yeah, it's a bit dull that even the hero has forgotten all the different ability he has, thus giving them a way to pull pretty much anything they want right out of their ass at the last minute to explain a win, but typically there is some enjoyment and creativity to the fights. Using the Air-Shields he can create in order to allow for his Kung Fu Chocobo companion to bounce around mid-air, alternating between using Shield Prison to either shield allies or contain enemies and others.
There is also an issue that many parts of the plot move forward because so many people are really stupid. By the sixth episode, the Sword and Bow heroes learn how crooked the princess is, and how corrupt the royal court is. They even plainly see they have it out for the Shield Hero. Yet, come episode thirteen, when accusations the Shield Hero is brainwashing girls to follow him, they just blindly believe she is telling the truth. And there is the premise that the very religion of the country is dedicated to the Sword, Bow, and Spear Heroes. Somehow, despite being a traveling merchant through much of it, the Shield Hero doesn't even know this religion exists. And it's not hidden, he'd already met the pope prior to all of this and knows people look to this man as the pope.
In the end, I just can't bring myself to really care about the conclusions of anything that happen though. The longer the show has gone on, the less The Shield Hero's Creativity seems to matter, it can barely follow through on its own ideas and themes, and the characters are all almost universally stupid to keep the plot moving forward. It frustrates me because, like many of these shows, there are a lot of things to like about it. But while it may have partially circumvented my main problems with the genre, the rushed pace does a lot of damage.
As I said in the title, this will be my last Isekai review, there are just too many things that are part of the genre itself that doesn't sit right with me. I say this because while I think there are valid points I make, I do come in with a bit of a bias against the genre, so it's something to take into account when deciding if the show is for you based of the review.