27/09/23 Shield Hero (first two volumes, isekai japanese light novel)
What Aneko Yusagi does the best is a fast-paced succession of engaging adventures. Although not particularly original nor well-described, these adventures are packed with action and there's always a funny remark or a small character progression (as in level-up, new skill). What's even more surprising is that despite not having very original quests, The Shield hero is rather unpredictable and that makes me want to invest time on the story... On the other hand-.I have yet to see a single word about world-building except for the "racism against demi-humans" trope, the dialogues are basic to say the least and the characters are one-dimensional and franquely stupid. Some of them are meant to be that way, like Moyatsu or the Trash king (name pending), but Naofumi is so obsessed with money, in a petty, cartoonish way that the thought of leaving the country that falsely accused to the one that has historically revered the Shield Heroes never crossed his mind, or FIlo's every comment about food (a joke that got old before being pronounced), or the blunt suggestions of Raphtalia that doesn't seem to quite catch that Naofumi isn't interested. Regarding the rape accusation, I don't know who's more of a dimwit, Malty for compromising the Hero who's allegedly going to save the world in exchange of.. Some sort of benefit so small that I still don't see, Naofumi for falling into such an obvious trap, or the king/kingdom for believing such poorly thought lies. 6/10
7/10/23 Shield Hero vol. 3&4
Consistent in the inconsistent, Shield Hero continues to excel in action and fast-paced story telling, so fast indeed that sometimes I have to re-read sections in which there's zero transition until they arrive at a certain destination hours or days later, walk in and a certain character starts speaking. Raphtalia has improved somewhat in her character, but the heroes and especially Naofumi remain as airheaded as they always were, something that partly confuses me as if it is intended or not. Naofumi for once appears to be some kind of masochist and when the option of leaving the country to one of the places he's regarded as God, where they would give or do him everything he wants, where he'd be surrounded by a harem of beautiful woman, he answers "Ew!". Yeah better we stay here where they frame you twice, try to kill you at least five times, people either shun you or treat you like trash, I don't blame you who wouldn't miss the thrill of sleeping with one eye open after you've been assaulted by highwaymen twice in a week. The aftermath of the lucky/unlucky events of fighting three enemies way beyond Naofumi's strength and always surviving (Glass, T-rex and the Pope) leaves me with a sensation that the shield of rage/wrath is in the perilous border of becoming a hulk-like sayajin deus ex machina that levels up whenever is convenient to the plot.
07/10/23-06/11/23 Shield hero 5-13
Since the longitude of the content to be encompass is so extensive, I took the liberty to assist my memory with what the fans call "arcs", which is titles the main event, or at least the most recognizable element, under which smaller events happen.
-Cal Mira Island Arc v5-6:
The first half of the story is certainly one of the worst. The heroes ignore each other while grinding low-level uncreative enemies, battles which of course are as thrilling as you would imagine a vacation on the Caribbean look-alike can be. Naofumi continues to be annoying, and pretty much everything is the same until the wave arrives in which the appearance of the otherworldly (human-sized, for you dark souls players) enemies, and this time Naofumi and company stand their ground without relying on some overpowered external force to interfere. Starting from this point on every mention of the other heroes is a constant reminder of how much of an annoyingly useless and boring characters they are, but since the author decided to play the "heroes can't be killed, because the world and stuff" card, we're stuck with them.
-Spirit Turtle Arc v6-7
Whoever gave the idea to the author, even if it is himself, that an oversized turtle makes a colorful, interesting, complex, and overall great adversary should be punched in the gut. Several times. And whatever editor, since I read it wasn't like this originally, made it so that said epic battle lasts 600 pages should not only be stripped of his position, he should be stripped naked and covered in tar and feathers. But by far the greatest mistake of it all was this OST (original soundtrack?) character. While it might have been promising a battle against your possessed-self, this is not what happens and again it feels like the enemy got so many buffs that the author just had to rely on the enemy killing himself (plus Fitoria, poster girl for Deus ex).
-Otherworld Arc v 8-9
The disappointment this arc has supposed to me is even greater than the disappointment Qu Ten Lo Arc has been to others. I can't even begin to express how disconform I am of everything that happened; Naofumi relapses into his money obsessive behaviors, Raphtalia falls behind in character development to complete extinction, time which is instead devoted to dull characters we'll never see again and that could be easily merged with others who we already know, the otherworldly experience we've been promised simply never happens as the characters stay in a place that looks "just like Japan in Edo period", kind of like every single place that doesn't look like western medieval ages, and the "vengeance" they go to exert against Kyo is simply unrewarding given how bad of an antagonist he is. To quote one of my predecessors "A condescending bookworm weakling that we cannot pinpoint any good reason why he became a bad guy other than being an unsuccessful fat dude that played a lot of games". In fact, I started to see that antagonist fall into three categories: staggeringly stupid, as in braindead stupid like all the heroes, Trash king, Trash II (yes, really), Moyatsu II, Jaralis the lion, all the assassins from Qten Lo and its so-called heavely emperor; Stereotypical, needlessly evil nemesis whose evil actions tend to do them more harm than good, the kind that you can picture in black robes doing long monologues and laughing at their own bad jokes (all of which happens with the following) like Bitch the redhead, Kyo (ugh), Makina, the High Priest, Demon Dragon; and then there's the ones that are excessively powerful and either some external force (i.e Fitoria) comes and kill them or they turn out to be good and join the Hero force although there's always some reason they turn out to be weaker (Insert "when you unlock the boss as a playable character" meme) like S'yne, Sadeena, the otherworldly trio, Fitoria, T-rex, Spirit turtle, the Phoenix and the third beast whose battle we don't even see. This is an enormous turn down, when I saw the cover for the 14th volume, I instantly knew that whoever that evil-looking guy was. He'd be the next Kyo. He might as well be called Kyo II judging by the looks!
Village Rebuilding Arc v10
I don't think I have to tell the fellow reader how disruptively vexing Naofumi's disposition towards romantic relationships is. The dull protagonist trope was born dead, an abortion if you will, and Naofumi takes it to a whole new level. It is my firm belief that he's either gay and still on the closet (like when he is under Moyatsu Lust spell and says "What a hunk, I'd gladly bend over for a man like that") or that the holy weapon perceives his penis as some sort of short weapon like a shiv or a blackjack and thus forbids him from using it. Maybe each time he gets an erection a sharp pain strikes him and that's why he says "I'd rather DIE than intimate with a woman" since in that case intimacy would be akin to torture. More and more inconsistencies pile up on top of his character. Why is he obsessed on looking like a bad guy, if he clearly prefers being loved instead of feared? Why after being betrayed once, and mostly because of his own stupidity and child-like naiveness he decides going to the opposite extreme, building strange conspiracies that undermine everything he does? Why is he so eager to return to Earth if he's yet to say ONE good thing about his past life? Why does he keep whining about how hard a life he has and what difficult choices he had to make being that the sucker lives surrounded by luxury, pigging on food while his unwavering faithful followers kiss the ground he steps on? Why being so "untrustful" as he is he trusts wholeheartedly the queen of Melromac, meaning the ultimate responsible for all the misery he went through that he keeps crying over? Did he suddenly decide that working together for the sake of a world he doesn't even want to be in was more important than all the alleged convictions he keeps blabbing about?
Fallen Heroes Arc v 11-12
Maybe the same way he suddenly decides that he should put up with all the other's heroes crap, and even pay their bills. You know, for the world. And Rapthalia, of course. Raphtalia whose character has been diminished to the extent of an old bitter housewife always getting on your back, hassling about something. I can't be completely sure but I think that in all her 20 lines across the past three volumes, 19 were her just yelling "Mr Naofumi!" no elaboration or anything. Risha, the vindicated girl that's gets superpowers whenever is convenient to the plot but that always acts like the submissive girl everyone bullies at school, finally achieves her goal of winning back the Bow hero, the guy that treated her like a handmaid or a lowly thrall for about three months, same guy that confessed to kick her out of the party over some trinket that she didn't even break, but that he felt obligated to frame her because just expelling someone out is rude. How chivalrous of him. I can understand declaring undying love for someone like that, totally realistic. I think that rather than "fallen heroes" this arc should be call "Heroes: recharged" because rather than falling from grace or whatever attached concept fans put in there, it seems that is the same dim-witted gamers, screwing things up like they always do but now the kingdom is "persecuting" them. I mean, the same way the U.N. prosecute war criminals and terrorists, by carefully observing them and removing economic incentives. This all happens because once again Naofumi's lack of determination comes to bite him in the ass and Redhead, the one that was supposed to be publicly executed ten volumes ago and yet here she is, stirs the "heroes" complexes which makes them run amok under the influence of the curse series, something which COULD be interesting if the base characters weren't so bland and plain. Their "Dark" form is just them in a tantrum, sobbing about being weak but still not willing to do something about it. At the end of the arc they return to normal, but the puaj savor that Lust Moyatsu left on me was the beginning of the end of my interest in Shield hero. It's not an overcompensation for Naofumi, it's obscenely poorly written, so infuriating that such garbage acts as one of the main characters. I remember that at the end of volume three there was a side story about Moyatsu's companions bad-mouthing him while the guy remained oblivious to the matter, which was supposed to make us feel sorry for him (I guess) and then the author explicitly promised that the time would come that Moyatsu would redeem himself. WELL AUTHOR. I'M STILL WAITING.
Q'ten Lo Arc v13
But the drop, or rather the downpour that spill the glass was that not content with the display of unoriginality in the past volumes, the author rushes through Siltvelt which leaves it as a cartoonish place where the inhabitants are so, so stupid they comically worship whoever claims to be the "shield hero" completely oblivious to the plots their government have and end in this "Q'ten Lo" which is basically Japan, same as the "other world" that was also Japan, same as the western parts of Shield hero world which also happens to look a whole lot like... Japan. I'm not saying it's not right to be a little uncreative with descriptions and landscapes but try not to do it so obvious, please! The characters in Q-ten Japan (place that has never been mentioned before despite being so "important") are a bunch of cliché, cardboard flat figurines that the reader figures out in few pages like the sister of the whale character that was clearly the sister despite having three "mysterious" appearances and "cliffhangers" as to who it might be. The resolution of the arc is also one of the most disappointing in the book so far, which speaks a lot. It manages to make a battle against some kind of deity (that we never heard of before) so drag out, so dull that I had to make stops just to read through it, and the decisive end decides nothing, it's back to square one. The arcs decrease the scoring by pairs, so to this point Shield Hero is a 0/10, unreadable!
