Several things immediately struck me about this series. You would thing such a saturated genre would be stale to the core by now, but the shows always have some way of roping me in. First of all, Digibro, a man famous for hating on light novel adaptations went out of his way to praise the source material, going so far as to hype up the anime release. Another thing that helped me get into this show is the strong main character. He starts out as the lame sort of protagonist you would expect in this sort of story, but after the twist in episode one, he starts down the road of a cynical antihero. Then I found out the composer was Kevin Penkin, the same man who made the Made in Abyss soundtrack.
Episode two doesn't do too much to distinguish the series, but there are plenty of quirks I was able to latch onto. First of all, these stories usually follow someone who either becomes a laughingstock (Re:Zero) or someone who is praised (Sword Art Online), but this story takes a different turn. The shield hero is looked down on by society, in part because of his perceived uselessness, and mostly because of the events of episode one. I'm not going to spoil it for those of you who haven't seen it yet. People are reluctant to deal with him, making him to use forceful means to have any shot at participating in anything. Having such a character deal with an antagonistic world he is meant to save is somewhat fresh. His experiences interacting with the inhabitants of the world will undoubtedly shape his perception of how (maybe even if) he should save it.
I like how the handling of backstories has been done so far. I generally dislike shows that wait until the action starts to build up before rudely interrupting it to give a backstory. So far, this show seems to front-load the backstories of characters it chooses to characterize in that way, making sure you know the context of their actions well before they become important. This gives me hope that the show will properly handle character drama once enough characters join the story, as currently only three matter.
There was one scene that made me question my trust in the show, however. The shield hero offered to put himself in great danger to help a person he just met, making me question his role as an antihero. A do-good hero is not what I came to this show to watch, so even these minor plot points take away from my investment in his character. I'm hoping that such events do not distract from the core themes moving forward, and if it manages to avoid them, I can see this becoming a great show!
