English Dub Review: The Rising of the Shield Hero “Where You Point Your Strength”

Overview

Ren is haunted by the deaths of his party members in a failed attempt to defeat the Spirit Tortoise and doesn’t want to believe that he might be responsible for what happened. Myne seems ready to take his side and support him, but…


Our Take

In a minor flashback sequence, Ren recalls the day shit went down on his end in regards to the Spirit Tortoise massacre, with the logic that he operated on proven useless mixed with PTSD (Partially because up until this point, he stupidly believed that this world he was zapped into was just a video game with zero consequences). He ends up being screwed over by Myne/Bitch later on after she duped his ass in a “previous episode”, in a very different yet fucked up way. In combination with this, the townspeople are less than thrilled to see him for disappearing during the Spirit Tortoise’s attack, and the otherworldly assailants who have been harassing S’yne are now out to kill Ren which mentally spirals the poor bastard into further madness, causing him to unlock his Curse series, and take on a new persona…

When we cut back to reality which picks up from the previous episode, Naofumi takes over the battle from Motoyasu, where Ren is not only revealed to be the masked bandit, but also that the Sword Heroe’s Greed and Gluttony abilities, ranting about his desire to become the strongest. The rest of the party members arrive and Eclair decides to fight Ren head-on, with her superior sword skills in conjunction with his erratic behavior eventually allowing her to win the fight. The otherworldly assailants return to attack everyone, but Motoyasu effortlessly kills them, revealing his power increase as a result of taking Naofumi’s advice and Raphtalia destroys their souls to prevent them from reviving again. Eclair brings Ren back to his senses, saying she will help him find a purpose to get stronger, as he remembers the specific events that led up to him dying in his old life…

Overall, this was quite a satisfying episode. Either because Ren’s rude awakening felt earned, or maybe because we got to see him struggle to reach a point where he understands that all this time, Naofumi was only looking out for him out of the experience with the bullshit Myne previously put to him through. And despite Motoyasu’s comedic nature, he surprisingly managed to eliminate the two adversaries, showcasing an unexpected level of competence and brutal efficiency under Naofumi’s guidance. It’s almost as if the “Curse Series” that got unlocked from their previous betrayals from that unrepentant cunt became an unintentional blessing. The question right now is, what happened to Itsuki during all of this? and what kind of scheme is Malty trying to accomplish screwing over the other three?