English Dub Season Review: The Rising of The Shield Hero Season Three

After defeating the Spirit Tortoise, Naofumi has no time for rest. As an oncoming attack from the next Guardian Beast known as “The Phoenix” is imminent, but the three other Cardinal Heroes have gone missing. So, Naofumi and his party at Queen Mirella’s behest, set out to search for the legendary trio…

On the technical side, both seasons 2 and 3 were reportedly made at the same time, but this time around, we now have Hitoshi Haga (Made in Abyss assistant director) as the Season 3 director instead of Season One’s Takao Abo or Season 2’s Masato Jinbou which continues the pattern where each season having a different director. However, Haga. is no newcomer to the series, as he was previously an episode director and storyboardist for Season One. A lot of the main staff from the previous season returns including the Animation production company Kinema Citrus sharing series composition and scriptwriting credits with Keigo Koyanagi. Kevin Penkin is still the anime’s composer but now, with Alfredo Sirica and Natalie Jeffreys also joining as additional composers. The opening theme is “Sin”, performed by Madkid, while the ending theme is “Reasons why you shouldn’t fall in love” performed by Chiai Fujikawa.

Second chances are an extreme rarity within entertainment as a whole. Sometimes you take a gamble and strike gold, but it’s a natural process considering that creative (or creatively bankrupt) writers are always hedging their bets to gain their audience’s favor. And if done incorrectly, this could consequently result in audiences quickly distancing themselves and moving on to the next big thing. However, I can genuinely say that Season 3 improved significantly after the mixed bag that was Season 2. But nowhere as good as Season One…

To start with the basics, the story continues more or less from where it left off in Season 2 which mostly involved Naofumi and his crew fighting the Kaiju-sized Spirit Tortoise and being sucked into other worlds where they encounter new characters and threats. But it isn’t until Naofumi and his crew proceed to join an underground fight club to not only free more slaves but also end up encountering other new characters that join his team. Some either being reduced to “recurring character” status, or have major roles to play in later storylines such as The Whale lady Sadeena, The Tiger Twins Fohl and Atla, The weird speaking puppet lady Syne who fights with a giant pair of scissors, and Wyndia who has 3 episodes devoted to giving her a very unique and interesting backstory involving her connection to a very specific Dragon…

On the subject of the supporting characters, we also get to see the aftermath of what happened to the other three cardinal heroes and the plot starts to pick up in a couple of episodes when Queen Mirella orders Naofumi to find them in the hopes they’ll put aside their petty ego’s and battle an even greater threat. And it’s also here where the Season’s real theme comes at the forefront: Redemption for the assholes. In my past review of Season One, I previously stated that the three Cardinal Heroes Motoyasu, Ren, and Itsuki were anti-heroes at best and misdirected foes to Naofumi at worst. Aside from all three of them being so easily manipulated by Malty/Bitch (the very same egregiously reviled trollop who conspired with the King to ruin Naofumi’s life), the three obnoxious dolts carelessly made a series of bad decisions that had real and sometimes devastating consequences from their so-called “Heroic Deeds”. Which resulted in Naofumi having to clean up their messes while becoming the true hero that nobody expected him to be. The 2022 promotional material for Season 3 when it was first announced, even revealed a teaser visual on Twitter of a very specific character also getting a redemption arc, but the finished product never touches upon his particular character other than hinting at a small familial connection to Fohl and Atla, but that’s as far as it goes…

Where do I even begin with Bitch/Malty? She’s front and center now as a recurring antagonist to a few mini-arcs during the proceedings. And the worst part? Somehow the magical tattoo that curbed her nasty lying habit (which was an appropriate punishment) is gone and now she’s back with a vengeance. As usual, she takes no accountability for the many lives she casually ruins while getting whatever she wants out of her manipulated targets who are almost unworthy to sympathize over as she frolics in her wretched & chaotic antics. The fact that nobody else outside of Naofumi has made an effort to stop her yet either means this country is a joke or the writer thinks he’s setting up something. Yet at this point whatever it is he’s setting up wouldn’t matter, because her existence is merely dragging out the proceedings longer than George R.R. Martin’s writing process. And I’m left with too many questions I’ll most likely never get answers for regarding how she’s even free from her well-deserved punishment. Even worse, the Cardinal Heroes are made to look even dumber due to the forced plot contrivances of her manipulations. In particular, two of the main mini-arcs within this Season are repetitive to a fault and revolve around Malty being the Amber Heard of Anime at this point. And for longtime fans who have followed this show for years, It’s beyond blatant what kind of person she is, so seeing characters continue to fall for her problematic bullshit because the plot says so, leaves me both perplexed and greatly annoyed. Luckily those were only a few episodes.

Just when you think it’s all over, we get one hell of a twist at the end tied to Raphtalia’s past within the season finale. And much like that aforementioned bullshit with Malty and the Cardinal Heroes, the twist felt like the author just made shit up as he went along at the last minute without any sort of foreshadowing whatsoever. There’s nothing inherently wrong with the idea of exploring Raphtalia’s past before she met Naofumi, but it simply makes little sense from a narrative standpoint, and felt like they were jamming a ton of content into a small amount of time. The Animation is also improved with some of the 3D cel-shading being not as noticeable in some creature designs such as a Dragon that’s later introduced into the story, which doesn’t feel like a 3D animated Oil painting, and much of the dub cast remains the same since Season 2 which is another plus at last since Stephen Fu consistently continues taking the mantle of Naofumi and knocking it out of the park which remains one of it’s strong points.

Overall while this didn’t quite reach the same heights as the first season, it was a decent apology for the jumbled mess that was Season 2. I at least enjoyed most of it with the introduction of some new characters, especially Sadeena, Atla, etc. And despite the execution being a slight improvement, the whole season honestly felt like a bullet point rough draft of what the story would cover and mostly felt like nothing was going to happen because the plot was setting all the pieces in place for the next big thing. While a small part of me welcomed the redemption arc for the other 3 Cardinal Heroes, It did stumble in places which left me feeling indifferent towards the three douche monkeys despite being shown their backstories. I guess that it was attempting to stay true to the Light Novels it’s based on, but it could’ve been handled in a less cringeworthy way. With the recent announcement of a Season 4, I truly hope that all these unresolved plot threads that were left behind have some sort of proper payoff that leaves fans like myself satisfied.