Tate no Yuusha/Shield Hero - Episode 12 Discussion / Poll

[Frontier]

The other Heroes are basically the Three Stooges at this point, getting ticked off at being called Naofumi's servants and then getting taken out in one second. They may as well be Naofumi's sidekicks by this point .

Man, Glass isn't anyone to be trifled with. Don't let her polite and graceful manner fool you, she's definitely a force to be reckoned with. Even Naofumi, who with his Curse Shield seems to be the strongest of the Heroes by this point, could hardly do any more then just hold out long enough for the timing of the Wave to run out. It definitely looks like it's going to be a journey for our heroes to get strong enough to go toe-to-toe with Glass .

Poor Raphtalia. Her sword breaks and Glass doesn't think she's all that impressive either. She really needs an upgrade .

It's interesting getting more insight into exactly what the Wave is from Glass's perspective. From her perspective it seems like she's fighting for her own side just as much as the Heroes are fighting for theirs, so is this less of a natural disaster and more a war between two different dimensions? Is Glass at all affiliated with the zombies and monsters our heroes keep dealing with during the Waves ?

Naofumi not taking any of the king's @#$% anymore was so satisfying. And then when he threatens Raphtalia and Filo Naofumi shoots him one of the biggest looks to kill I have ever seen .

So the King's hate for the Shield Hero (and Demi-Humans on-top of that) stems from something that happened to his previous family that he holds the original Shield Hero responsible for. Really, a lot of Naofumi's bad rep in the kingdom seems to stem from whatever the original Shield Hero did, which makes me wonder exactly what happened. Probably something Naofumi would be better off asking someone about if he was interested .

I never really took the king for the doting father type, but I guess my perspective of him has been mostly colored by how terribly he treats Naofumi. Melty putting him in his place was pretty satisfying though. I can only imagine how badly it would've been had it been the queen .

Malty saying the princesses don't have any command over the king was such BS when we know how much he bends over backwards to do whatever Malty wants him to do. But you know Melty is the proper princess when she puts down her sister in the most polite way possible .

Is that noblewoman who talks like she's from old-school Japan part of the queen's faction? She was shown talking to Melty. And it seems like she gave Naofumi a necklace with the church's emblem with all of the Heroes' weapons...

So we've got a Demi-Human kingdom that's welcoming to humans and named after the Shield Hero, and a more militant Demi-Human kingdom that might still be welcoming to Naofumi because he's the Shield Hero. Just in case, I'd go with the first option .

Does Filo really need super-strength gloves? I mean, she's already pretty overpowered. Give 'em to poor Raphtalia...

I feel bad for Melty. She just wants everybody to get along and do the right thing, but she has no idea why the king is so dead set against the Shield hero and why Naofumi is so justifiably against the royalty. On-top of that she also wants to make sure her parents get along, which is so relatable .

So now Malty has apparently stooped to trying to assassinate her own sister and framing Naofumi for it. As if I didn't think she could get any worse .

[thundrakkon]

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Originally Posted by Frontier

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I thought she was one of the Queen's masked spies, but with her mask off. Hence, the anime only showed her lower face and cut offscreen the eyes area.

[Kinematics]

Originally Posted by thundrakkon

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Originally Posted by Ichinotachi

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Well, I think the plan was to kill Malty in the presence of Naofumi to somehow frame Naofumi as the killer. Obviously it was Melty who sent her men to kill Malty. I'm just surprised that the Queen's masked spies were not around to protect Malty.


Also, I suspect that there is one of those spies around, who will eventually report to the Queen about the assassination attempt. I'm wondering how the Queen will react to one of her daughters trying to murder the other one?

You have them backwards. Melty is cute violet twintails, and Malty is red-haired bitch (Myne/Mein).


And speaking of, it was interesting how Melty tried to get Naofumi to apologize and reconcile with the king. Obviously she has no first-hand experience with the events that have occurred, so from her perspective it's just a couple stubborn old men refusing to play nice.

Also, from her perspective, it seems easier to get Naofumi to apologize first, with the assumption that the king would accept the apology and start behaving civilly as well. Given her interactions with Naofumi, it's easy to think that she'd come to the conclusion that Naofumi is just an abrasive personality, but decent enough otherwise, and thus removing that abrasiveness from the equation would make it easier for him and the king to get along.

Essentially, she's assuming that she has a good grasp on the situation, but without actually taking the time to listen to Naofumi's side of things. Despite her being the 'good' daughter (compared to Mein), it still shows her privileged upbringing, and that she's not above making mistakes of her own. They're not unreasonable assumptions, but that doesn't prevent them from being flawed.


And now we have a direct attack on her, by her own escort guards. This does bring to mind how she "got lost" before, when Naofumi found her. It seems pretty contrived to have a guard escort for a princess mysteriously lose track of her just because she was playing with some birds. One might think it was for cheap narrative sake to get her to meet Naofumi, but now it seems more likely that the guards assigned to her lost track of her "accidentally-on-purpose", with the disavowable tragedy of the crown princess being killed by wild animals after she'd wandered off on her own while traveling back to the capital. No one could possibly prove it wasn't an accident.

However after the little confrontation between Melty and Mein in the throne room, Mein's temper gets the best of her. Wanting to get rid of both Melty and the Shield Hero, she concocts a plan to kill two birds with one stone: frame the Shield Hero for the murder of the crown princess. The only question is whether they can alter the recording of the crystal ball, Photoshop-style. Well, it has to be possible, as that's the only reason they would have it on hand like that. Even if the assassination failed, they might still be able to make it look like Naofumi attacked Melty, and that the guard was trying to protect her (or something like that), and maybe tack on kidnapping charges if Naofumi takes Melty with him (since he clearly can't safely leave her with those guards).


As yet another aside, it seems that the castle soldiers have quite a number of different factions. There's:

Crown loyal faction: The guards who do what they're told, even if it's clear that they don't like it. See nose-scar from the Lute Wave fight, and who supported Mein during Motoyasu's street fight challenge. This might be the Queen's faction, but with the Queen absent, default to the royal family in general.

Mein's faction: Those who are willing to do illegal, and even traitorous, acts in support of Mein. See the guard planting evidence on Naofumi, and Melty's escort attempting to assassinate her.

The King's faction: Those willing to act like assholes against Naofumi on the King's say-so, even when blatantly trumped up. Possibly related to pompous knight who's trying to garner favor in the court by riding on the other Heroes' coattails, and strong loyalty to the King's approach to things.

Naofumi's faction: The handful of guards who are willing to fight at the Shield Hero's side.

Melty's faction: Doesn't have one. Has guards assigned to her that aren't loyal to her. Doesn't seem to grasp the fractious politics that governs who controls the military loyalty of the kingdom, and nearly pays for it.


And then there's the Queen's spies, but aside from clear loyalty to the Queen, it's hard to say how they influence the political power struggle.

[thundrakkon]

I forgot to mention a point I noticed.


Glass realized that she was out of time, and then the Shield Hero notices that there is a timer counting down in his corner vision. This made me think that like the Heroes, Glass is a summoned character from another dimension. But instead of working on the side of humanity, she is one of those players that likes to play the evil faction characters. Hence, she was possibly summoned to the demon and monster side and built up her levels like the Heroes do. Except, she really took her position seriously, and leveled up really well, or that she has been around for a very long time, possibly multiple Wave events with past heroes.

[Galaxian]

Spoiler for Comparison to the manga:

The scene between Naofumi and Melty was changed for the anime.

In here, Melty starts off the conversation very composed and diplomatic, only getting rattled after Naofumi continues to shut down and reject her please. Meanwhile, Naofumi seemed to be getting a kick out the whole situation.

On the other hand, in the manga, and much more so in the web novel, Melty comes off a lot more petulant, seemingly thinking that Naofumi was the one that did not want to work with the king (the scene between Melty and the King is anime only) and almost demanding he go back and apologize. For his part, Naofumi was not amused at all in this version.

[Frontier]

Originally Posted by Kinematics

You have them backwards. Melty is cute violet twintails, and Malty is red-haired bitch (Myne/Mein).


And speaking of, it was interesting how Melty tried to get Naofumi to apologize and reconcile with the king. Obviously she has no first-hand experience with the events that have occurred, so from her perspective it's just a couple stubborn old men refusing to play nice.

Also, from her perspective, it seems easier to get Naofumi to apologize first, with the assumption that the king would accept the apology and start behaving civilly as well. Given her interactions with Naofumi, it's easy to think that she'd come to the conclusion that Naofumi is just an abrasive personality, but decent enough otherwise, and thus removing that abrasiveness from the equation would make it easier for him and the king to get along.

Essentially, she's assuming that she has a good grasp on the situation, but without actually taking the time to listen to Naofumi's side of things. Despite her being the 'good' daughter (compared to Mein), it still shows her privileged upbringing, and that she's not above making mistakes of her own. They're not unreasonable assumptions, but that doesn't prevent them from being flawed.

I think the only thing the queen told her was that the king is being unfair to the Shield Hero, which she pretty much told him off for in this episode.

She does assume Naofumi apologizing as well would be enough to fix the current situation without fully grasping how unfair that is to ask of Naofumi, granted I don't think Naofumi would care enough to actually educate her on what some of her family has been doing to him because he wants nothing to do with her.

Originally Posted by thundrakkon

I forgot to mention a point I noticed.


Glass realized that she was out of time, and then the Shield Hero notices that there is a timer counting down in his corner vision. This made me think that like the Heroes, Glass is a summoned character from another dimension. But instead of working on the side of humanity, she is one of those players that likes to play the evil faction characters. Hence, she was possibly summoned to the demon and monster side and built up her levels like the Heroes do. Except, she really took her position seriously, and leveled up really well, or that she has been around for a very long time, possibly multiple Wave events with past heroes.

That might explain why her outfit is so Japanese compared to the more Western-style of the kingdom. Because she's actually from some version of Japan like the Heroes are.

[Wandering Soul]

Naofumi got some much-needed payback for the way the king treated him after and even before the previous way. Though it seems that the king has actually does have his own reasons for hating the shield hero.

Melty can handle her family but is apparently reduced to acting like a child when it comes to Naofumi. You'd think she would realize by now that attitude is not endearing herself to him.

[The Green One]

If she's under a "time limit" perhaps it ended more prematurely than she expected? Or maybe she didn't keep as close an eye on the time as she thought and got overconfident and played with her food too much.

[Obelisk ze Tormentor]

Originally Posted by The Green One

If she's under a "time limit" perhaps it ended more prematurely than she expected? Or maybe she didn't keep as close an eye on the time as she thought and got overconfident and played with her food too much.

So...pretty much her blunder then, right?

[BWTraveller]

She did seem kind of surprised that the time limit was already up.

[frodonk]

Didn't notice that this is 25 episodes in total, thought it would end this week.

Ren was complaining about how OP the wave boss was. dafuq? He really is a noob isn't he?

My prediction about how the 3 stooges were too low levelled to face the second wave monsters turned out to be correct, although I didn't expect them to be this incompetent.

The theory that Glass is summoned character from another world is intriguing. We'll probably know more when she appears next time.

Everyone's pointing out the time limit thing, nothing's been revealed about that yet but I'd guess that the limit only appears a minute before the wave ends, that's why everyone's surprised that the wave was about to end, and Nao didn't notice it before.

Melty's acting like a brat, well, she's royalty, what do you expect from a princess her age?

Not only that, she doesn't know what happened between Shielddaddy and the King, she also thinks Nao still gets his royal allowance, and that Myne doesn't have anything to do with this situation. She also revealed to Nao that a higher power than the king is at play here, and then suddenly the stakes got higher with an assassination attempt and then framing the murder on Nao.

You'll have to wonder if the Secret Service let these events play out this time, I thought they were always around. You'd think stopping a group of soldiers trying to kill Melty is very easy for them.

Also, seeing how the King adores Melty when they were talking, he couldn't have planned this one, so it's Myne again huh, I'm still wondering how did she turn out to be this evil

[Sheba]

Originally Posted by frodonk

Didn't notice that this is 25 episodes in total, thought it would end this week.

Ren was complaining about how OP the wave boss was. dafuq? He really is a noob isn't he?

My prediction about how the 3 stooges were too low levelled to face the second wave monsters turned out to be correct, although I didn't expect them to be this incompetent.

Its not that the 3 guys were too low leveled, it's that they never learned HOW to use their weapons' abilities. Remember that the key difference between Naofumi and the 3 heroes is that they still think its a video game, as it have been explained in episode 10 or 11. Whereas Naofumi had to make do with what he learned, while grinding at a snail's pace.

[The Green One]

Originally Posted by frodonk

My prediction about how the 3 stooges were too low levelled to face the second wave monsters turned out to be correct, although I didn't expect them to be this incompetent.

I don't think level is the issue here, Nafoumi is significantly lower level then the other Heroes but did better. Something else must be a factor here.

Or perhaps it's Main Character privilege .

[ShadowSamurai365]

Originally Posted by The Green One

I don't think level is the issue here, Nafoumi is significantly lower level then the other Heroes but did better. Something else must be a factor here.

Or perhaps it's Main Character privilege .

What about something so small like skills/abilities and bonus stats (like +1 Attack permanently) like you tend to see in RPGs?

[Frontier]

Originally Posted by BWTraveller

She did seem kind of surprised that the time limit was already up.

Naofumi seemed surprised too. Maybe the time limit only shows up when the Wave is about over? I'm not sure if anyone's quite figured out if there's an exact time limit for how long the Wave's last, just how long it is between them.

[Mad Pierrot]

As long as the heroes fight, I'm happy. Also, I liked more how they handled Naofumi today especially when he simply stated he prefers travelling rather than being associated with the other heroes and the king. Which is what bothered me about the ending. Feels like reseting the same scenario once again. However, if there is another unknown group behind this, this might turn out to be more interesting than I thought

[maximilianjenus]

The melty assassination part is what I liked after the first raftalia arc, it looks like the plot is oigng to move a way in this case, naofumi and company peacefulyl traveling , then something unexpected happens , like melty's assassination attempt and events completely change compared to what was expected.

[Dengar]

I would say it's because Naofumi is the only one not treating things like a game and therefore has always been using real world logic in tandem with game logic, rather than simply going by game logic. Even if you could reduce a real world person's ability to simple numbers, there's more to real life than just those numbers.

[frodonk]

Originally Posted by Sheba

Its not that the 3 guys were too low leveled, it's that they never learned HOW to use their weapons' abilities. Remember that the key difference between Naofumi and the 3 heroes is that they still think its a video game, as it have been explained in episode 10 or 11. Whereas Naofumi had to make do with what he learned, while grinding at a snail's pace.

From experience any sufficiently levelled character can steamroll over whatever skills the boss monster has, this is not clearly the case here.

Also, Glass was the true enemy in that wave, everything else might be considered as just "mobs", and the 3 did have problems with the higher levelled mob monsters.

Even Nao's flashy new skill wasn't enough to stop Glass, and he's the lowest level of them all, so I'd think they were all under-levelled this time around, with Shield having a slight advantage because of his unlocked skills.

Maybe I'm also thinking like this is a video game



The King mentioned something about "you possess power unbecoming of the shield hero" which might mean that the previous shield heroes were too low levelled to have mattered in any fight during the previous waves, as the shield has always been very weak.

Maybe everyone's acting based on a predetermined script (the shield hero has always been useless) and the shield hero is bucking the trend because he knows nothing about how he's supposed to act. Maybe that's why they all hate the shield hero. Still says nothing about why Myne is so evil though.

[Kinematics]

After the end of the second wave, during the Motoyasu-Naofumi fight, Motoyasu was level 43. During the fight against the Soul Eater boss, we see that Ren is level 65. Meanwhile, Naofumi has gone from level 21 to 38. So the other three heroes have gone up 20-25 levels between the waves, while Naofumi gained 17 levels.

Given that the boss of Wave 2 (the chimera) was a pushover for the the other heroes, and that they've leveled up more than Naofumi has since that time, blaming this on them being underleveled is a misdirected criticism.

It might be that they haven't developed the secondary/utility/versatility abilities to an appropriate extent, and thus can't apply their power appropriately (eg: using lightning instead of wind against the Soul Eater), but given Glass's vastly OP showing, there is very little that could reasonably have been done to make the Glass fight anything but a curbstomp.