Let’s not waste time and talk about the major issue we’ve noticed in season 2 of The Rising of the Shield Hero, the animation. Still produced by Kinema Citrus, there is now also another team that apparently helped out with season 2 in the form of DR Movie and we can notice this season isn’t being completely handled by one team. While character designs and animation still look similar to season 1, the animation hasn’t looked as sharp with visuals feeling a bit weaker than in the first season.

This worries us here at Honey’s Anime as we are avid fans of the light novel for Shield Hero and hope that some of the better parts coming up will look good and be handled properly. Season 2 still has a bit to go before completion obvious so it is possible the animation quality will increase but after three episodes, this definitely feels a bit like a downgrade from season 1.

There was one extremely admirable element for season 1 of Shield Hero as it did an amazing job of following the source material without skipping a lot or altering too much. Season 2 is clearly trying to mirror that but we have noticed the pacing is a bit extreme. There are moments we swear feel like they were sped up to reduce some of the light novel fluff but for anime-only watchers, this will still be noticeable as characters just suddenly make appearances without little setup. We won’t spoil some of the bigger moments to come but if they are handled like these last few episodes have been…many light novel fans will be quite frustrated and anime-only viewers will be sure to also notice.

As far as isekai protagonists go, Naofumi still is one of my absolute favorites. Cool, tough and a bit mean when the need arises, Naofumi still retains what we loved about him from season one of The Rising of the Shield Hero. The rest of the gang too has returned and it’s like they haven’t been gone long! Were excited to see the newest trials our heroes will have to go through and how their attitudes will change—especially the other heroes as they undergo some of their harshest challenges yet—but we will keep those revelations to ourselves for now.

Be honest readers, when you first heard about an evil turtle being the main threat crushing the lands devouring souls, did you really think of a strong main enemy? We doubt many of you did but after witnessing what the Spirit Tortoise could do, your opinions probably underwent some extreme changes. The Spirit Tortoise is a solid first main threat for Naofumi and the kingdom and there are some more threats to come that we can’t wait for anime fans to see firsthand!