English Dub Review: Rising of the Shield Hero “A Parting in the Snow”

Overview

Naofumi’s party heads for the Dragon Hourglass of Mikakage, in order to get to Sikul, the country that summoned Kizuna. Along the way, he sells rare healing items to make a hefty profit. He hears a rumor about a genius mage…

Our Take

Our leads this time around are now strangers in another strange land. Given that this is Kizuna’s home-world, she serves more of a supplementary role in showing Naofumi and everyone how her world works compared to theirs. As this world resembles Feudal Japan and the things they did to introduce a little more of the new world while showing how there are different individuals like Glass and Therese being some of those different races and thus explaining how they were affected by things during the previous battles.

The inner “side-hustler” aspect of Naofumi has surfaced in this episode as he has to play merchant and sell those potions to get money. This “back to basics” approach to everything Naofumi has gained previously is nice because it lets us see these sides of him we haven’t in a while. Naofumi is the ultimate salesman, knowing exactly how to work for a crowd and drive the price up without anyone feeling shafted, while making tons of money in the process so they can all buy better weapons and armor. We’re also introduced to a powerful mage working with Kyo and predictably has a trick up his sleeve…

We’ve got some actual stakes going, something for Naofumi to fight for, that being to not just get Filo back, but now Raphtalia. Already everything seemed to be going well, and they were about to leave, but they were set up for that trap and Naofumi, without Raphtalia there and the idea of Kyo having her is very unsettling and not something anyone wants. Let’s see what will happen next!