English Dub Review: Rising of the Shield Hero “Flowers Offered in Recollection”

Overview

Raphtalia recalls having to buy clothing for her smaller self. Kizuna remembers being alone for so long. Rishia remembers Ost trying to give advice…


Our Take

Long after the battle with Kyo Ended, this mostly served as either a pointless filler or to possibly fill in gaps of unanswered questions regarding certain characters. Including flashbacks of Kizuna’s time on that Infinite Labyrinth and her efforts to escape complete with talking to a Wilson-like makeshift ball similar to the Tom Hanks movie “Cast Away”, up until Naofumi and his crew came into the picture.

Unsurprisingly, there’s nothing of major character growth here other than comedic hijinks and fanservice moments such as Raphtalia trying on different outfits to win Naofumi’s affections and failing hard. Or the fact that Naofumi’s crew just so happen to also be Fishing at the same thinking about Kizuna, and later Filo attempting something incredibly stupid and then reminisce about something “Ost” said to them in regards of “Being Intimate” which makes Raphtalia weirdly curious despite Filo instantly knowing what Ost was talking about…

Overall, this was a weird way to end things. Fill in some of the blanks left along the way with Kizuna, Ost, and Yomogi getting more moments of characterization. Probably should’ve had these moments in chronological order and not shoved to the back but whatever. It was more or less an “Epilogue” episode that feels like it would’ve fit better as an OVA, rather than the final episode of the second series, much in the same way “Kill La Kill” did as a DVD extra or something else I covered a while back. Purely this felt like a series of side stories, at least for me the real finale was episode 12.