English Dub Review: The Rising of the Shield Hero “Emperor Dragon”

Overview

Naofumi’s party regroups and plans another assault on the Emperor Dragon. While their plan of attack comes together, Wyndia explains her connection to the dragon. This causes Wyndia to remember something very significant…

Our Take

Picking up immediately from the previous two episodes, we now have a proper final battle of sorts against the Dragon. At the same time we also get a bit of backstory regarding Wyndia’s past as she was technically the adopted daughter of the Dragon despite being a Demi-human child which makes more sense. However I’m left with so many questions such as wondering how the hell could a towering monster get her clothing exactly her size as she got older. or help her tie her shoes? etc. When the battle commences against this towering creature, it’s an incredible display by the entire squad, as they all all tried their best together to stop this threat and save Filo. Naofumi decides to unleash his “Wrath Shield” technique to draw the dragon out then has Sadeena/Nadia, Melty, and Wyndia trap it.

As Eclair and Ren proceed to strike with Sadeena in tandem. Naturally, things don’t go that easily, Even Raphtalia tries to jump with an attack that looked spectacular with some detailed animation, sadly it didn’t stop the dragon right there. Atla then jumps in with her crazy attack, with even better animation that was incredible to see complete with a series of unexpected twists that even caught me off guard in a good way…

Overall this was quite a decent ending to this particular story-arch that I’m not sure will be important in later storylines, but it’s certainly wasn’t dull. The animation was great and all the CGI dragon designs blended well with the animation style. Not to mention the pacing in this episode was phenomenal. Everyone got a moment to shine, and I mean everyone. In the post credits, the title for the next episode suggests we’ll see what’s become of Itsuki, the Bow Hero and I’m genuinely looking forward to it!