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dlamp-dictator · 2 years

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I know I said I’d talk more about Elsword, but has been in my drafts for a week now. Y’know, the only anime I’m watching this season aside from some Hi-Dive stuff is Kaguya-Sama season 3, Spy X Family, and In the Heart of Kunoichi Tsubaki. I tried watching a few other things, but aside from that Hi-Dive stuff two of those shows almost immediately fell flat for me. And I needed to vent about them for a bit. I won’t tag these aside from my usual personal tags since I don’t want to be that asshole tags my negativity without damn good reason and ruin every fan’s good time, but... I can’t watch Shield Hero anymore.

For a quick synopsis, The Rising of the Shield Hero follows Iwatani Naofumi, an otaku from our modern time summoned to a fantasy world that follows an RPG-like structure... like 85% of all other Isekai anime. The big twist in this one being that Naofumi is summoned as the Shield Hero, a rather hated and discriminated figure according to the past and lore of the kingdom he’s summoned into, and is harshly treated within the first season to an almost comical point by both the kingdom’s citizens and his fellow heroes. This treatment turns Naofumi dark and pragmatic, and as he goes about saving the world in his own pragmatic and blunt way he gains several allies, abilities, and resources to use.

And boy, did I get turned off after episode one of season 2.

For the short version of this whole venting essay: the slave girl party was barely tolerable in the first season and I only dealt with it because the plot seemed to be moving past that. As of episode one of season 2 not only is it continuing that trend, but the length it’s going to justify it is flat out stupid.

But, let me explain this in greater detail

So, Let’s Talk About Slavery

I’ll spare you all a long discussion on why violating human rights and a living, sentient being’s autonomy is, in fact, a bad thing and talking about slavery in the sense of a narrative, setting, and isekai.

Slavery, from the perspective of most isekai protagonists, is the aforementioned violation of human rights and autonomy I mentioned, but most tackle in the same way.

As being only one singular person in a society of thousands or even millions with differing views of slavery due to the culture and time period of the summoned setting, the protagonist either knows or quickly learns that they, as a single person with an extremely different mindset and background to the setting they’re in, likely can’t just overturn the slave trade without becoming a wanted criminal. They usually lament the slave trade and its terribleness, but know it’s safer to stay out of those affairs lest they run into further problems. Depending on the righteousness of the character or how much of a power fantasy the series is, the main character might stop a nearby slave trade with force or guile, and the more pragmatic of them might try to swindle the slave trader in a way that grants the slaves freedom without profiting the slave market, but the most common route I’ve seen is that they buy or rescue a specific slave girl that they specifically pitied.

This is often done as a way to not only show that the main character is sympathetic toward a specific slave, but due to that slave girl being moved out of the dangerous and harmful environment of the slave trade and into the care of the kinder and more generous protagonist they’ll often become a loyal follower that will love and cherish them no matter what as thanks for being freed from what would be a crueler fate.

I don’t think I need to say how this is disgusting on the part of the narrative, but I’ll give you all the brass tacks of it. In a nutshell, this is an insidiously cheap way of trying to frame the protagonist as a good person while also letting them have a slave at the same time. It’s more manipulative than kind on the protagonist’s end for a number of reasons and I’ll just give you all the small list version.

Purchasing slaves, even if one plans to immediately free them, allows the slave trade to profit and continue.

A protagonist keeping a slave under any circumstance, makes them a slave owner by default and it takes some extremely good writing or an extremely pragmatic setting to let that go unaddressed.

The protagonist rarely ever makes an effort to free the slaves in their circle or encourage them to move past them in order to keep them around (I’ve only seen it about twice).

The slave often gains either romantic feelings for the protagonist which is, frankly, not a good thing even with the proper context.

Mind you, all of these points have their own asterisks to them. Purchasing a slave can be done out of pragmatism of having a loyal helper that is familiar with the world to an extend. Being a slave owner within a setting that already accepts slavery isn’t as damning as it would be in our own, even if I, the reader, will judge the protagonist more harshly. The protagonist might be ignorant in their understanding that slave's constant affection is likely a pragmatic coping tactic to avoid beatings or abuse and as we often only have the protagonist’s perspective we never see the internal machinations of the slave in question. I’m not saying it’s impossible to make this work, but there usually needs to be a lot of internal justification and an honest exploration of the topic if that topic is going to be there.

And to be fair, there are a handful anime, light novels, and isekai that address this. Masters of Ragnarok explain that the main character can’t outlaw slavery yet due to his already meritocratic policies and harsher laws forbidding looting and pillaging during war time creating a lot of political unease among the slave-owning elites. Realist Hero has the main character slowly implementing laws and policies to encourage education among the lowest ranked citizens and slaves of his kingdom as a way to pave the way for former slaves to become citizens within the next few decades. Demon Princess Magical Chaos, for all it’s flaws and blunders, has its main character sharply criticize those that engage in the slave trade and spent the first portion of it’s third book outright annihilating a slave market. It can be done, it’s just that some care and acknowledgement is needed to make sure the fact that slavery is, in fact, a bad thing needs to be discussed as well.

But... let’s bring this back to focus.

What Does This Have to Do With Shield Hero?

For those unfamiliar with the events in the first season of Shield Hero, Naofumi spends the first portion of the show buying a slave girl known as Raphtalia to become his sword since the mechanics of the world he’s summoned to doesn’t give him much in the way of using offense. Through various events the two have less of a master-slave relationship and more of a father-daughter one instead, Raphtalia slowly becoming a skilled swordswoman and right-hand woman to Naofumi as she’s the one to keep his pragmatism in check and makes sure he doesn’t push himself too hard through his darker, riskier magic as the series goes on. The party increases with Filo, large bird-like creature that can change into a human form. Through various events she also gains more of a father-daughter relationship to Naofumi.

The latest girl, Rishia, is an archer girl with strong abilities in ki according to the martial artist in Naotfumi’s circle. To keep her story simple, she was left behind by one of the Cardinal Heroes for being too weak and burdening her old party. She finds herself joining Naofumi in order to gain the strength she needs to rejoin her old party and be accepted by them.

And... Raphtalia asks her to become a slave as a way to connect herself to Naofumi.

...

Look, I’m not going to go on a tirade about this, I’m sure other people already have. My main issue isn’t that Raphtalia has confused slavery to be a form of bond due to her being lucky enough to have a master that actually cares for her (keep in mind she’s, like, 12 and doesn’t know how her own mind works). It’s mostly toward Naofumi, who despite his pragmatism usually shows some pretty clear lines in understanding that all that aforementioned human rights violating and autonomy snatching is wrong. He bought Raphtalia out of desperation and pragmatism due to him being so few allies and so many enemies he had no choice but to buy an ally. And Filo, for as disturbing as her being a slave is, was an honest-to-god pet bird before Naofumi and Raphtalia realized she could obtain a human form. Everyone else in Naofumi’s circle is an independent, free person serving him out of their own free will after seeing his good deeds, or are professionals that were assigned (and likely paid) to help Naofumi under orders of the royal family.

Rishia... has no reason to willing lose her autonomy, especially at the behest of Raphtalia. And Naofumi only gives a nervous shrug and basically says “if you really want to...”

Naofumi. My guy. My dude. Why?

Didn’t you just call out the Bow and Spear Hero last season for ignorantly not taking the consequences of their actions seriously enough? I mean... we, the audience, know you aren’t going to do anything weird with Rishia, especially since pragmatic Naofumi mostly sees her as a hassle with small bits of potential, but... ugh, this really bugged me to the point of starting of losing interest in this series. I just can’t, man. I watched about 4 episodes of this, but it just isn’t working for me. My mind still looks back at that first episode with apprehension and annoyance.

The show has an honestly good hook and I like a lot of its themes, but... man, that’s a real dark stain on an otherwise decent series.

Conclusion

Honestly, that’s really all I wanted to get off my chest. I think I’ll binge this season of Shield Hero at some point, and I know the show has started its simuldub recently, so maybe I’ll keep up with the show that way once the dub pushes past episode 4. That one stain of a moment aside, I find this Tortoise Arc really interesting, as it’s showing off more lore about the world and at the point I stopped watching the other set of heroes are about to get involved, which means we might see Glass again, and she’s best girl of the series so far.

I don’t think this show is completely unwatchable, but I’ll definitely have my eyes and ears open a little more when I pick this series back up next month or so. Until then I’ll just stick with In the Heart of Kunoichi Tsubaki and Kaguya-Sama.

Anyway, I’ll see you folks later.

#your dictator is speaking

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