English Dub Review: Rising of the Shield Hero “Shaking Land”

Overview

The Spirit Tortoise begins its march once more, appearing at the border of the kingdom bearing its name. Naofumi volunteers to lure away its familiars while the army tries to bring it to the mountains. The Spirit Tortoise’s familiar, Ost, fights alongside the humans…

Our Take

As expected, we got an action-packed episode featuring Naofumi and his allies trying to stop this Kaiji-sized threat. with some some flashy attacks, calculated strategies, etc. And I’ll admit, this episode kept me at the edge of my seat considering anything could’ve happened. Much of the battle looked kinda like something out of a video game boss battle you might see in JRPGs or along the lines of “Shadow of Colossus”.

While Raphtalia, Filo, and Nafofumi did some pretty good work on this. Eclair also deserved some credit for keeping the morale high. Also, Ost seems to have a bit of a mentor-like role for Rishia more than Naofumi based on observation as she’s seemingly bonding with her more despite being in those giant wacky costumes that are supposed to increase her stats…

Overall this was a surprisingly well-paced action-oriented episode that went down to the nitty-gritty aspects of the battle while also showing how much Naofumi getting the praise he deserves now compared to the shit-storm of fake accusations he experienced in “Season One” and has definitely come a long way. As for the ending, I knew something wasn’t right and part of me felt like the strategy they had to instantly take out the creature was too easy, not to mention a few loose ends have yet to be tied so let’s hope the next one actually reveals who’s been pulling the strings…