The Rising of the Shield Hero Season 3

Episode 9

*taps on the mic* Fairy Tail did the whole "being raised by a dragon" thing a million times better!

Now that I've successfully angered at least someone out there on the internet today, let's talk about the episode. The CG didn't look terrible; it was nice to see everybody working together in a coordinated fashion, and the occasional touching moment felt earned. I like how the relationship between Ren and Wyndia was handled. However, a lot was trimmed to fit this whole thing into two episodes.

I have a lot of questions about some logistics that felt like legitimate distractions during major points in this episode, and I'm genuinely curious if I'm missing something. First, there is a whole reveal about Wyndia being raised by a dragon. It's nice that the episode answered my biology question from last week. What I don't understand is how this little girl was raised with fluent speech and etiquette. This feels more like a Tarzan situation where an animal raised her without knowing how to care for something from a different species. Why didn't she grow up as a wild child who doesn't understand English? Many dragons can communicate telepathically, like what we see at the end of the episode, but we don't see that in the flashback.

I can understand the idea of needing to teach kids about things like death, but this girl has been lamenting her father's death for a while. She needed to look inside herself to thank Ren for saving her, although she still held anger towards him for killing her father in the first place. I think she's been through enough that it is unnecessary not to let her know about the truth. It's dumb that he's still alive at all, but can we reward her for all of the stuff that she has gone through?

Speaking of Ren, did I miss the part where the village explicitly lied to him so they could get the Dragon's treasure? It has been a while since I watched season 1, but that was never mentioned. That fact should exonerate Ren from the guilt he was supposed to be dealing with during this season and make Naofumi look like a jerk for reprimanding him so much. You can get on his case for treating this like a video game, but when the townspeople lied to him and coerced him into killing an innocent animal, that should free him from a lot of blame. I thought this episode was okay, but aside from the animation and combat, the story ticks me off the more I think about it because it's filled with a lot of weird, random narrative notes that affect the story negatively. Throw away the line about Ren being manipulated, and you could get a better story.

Based on the title, next week we're dealing with the Bow Hero, which will probably make up the remainder of the season. It probably won't be the same as what happened before, but I am not looking forward to seeing Bitch and the stupid way she manipulated the Bow Hero.

Rating:

The Rising of the Shield Hero Season 3 is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.