The Rising of the Shield Hero Cliffhanger Sets Up Another New World
The Rising of the Shield Hero is setting the stage for Naofumi Iwatani's journey into a whole new world with the cliffhanger from the newest episode of the series! The first season had surprised fans when it was revealed towards the end that the waves that Naofumi and his party had been fighting against were actually full of invading enemies from another world. In fact, these other invaders were heroes from their respective world tasked with destroying Naofumi's world in order to save theirs. Now this has all come back in a pretty surprising way in the second season.
The newest episode of the second season officially puts a cap on the fight against the Spirit Tortoise, and with it officially ended the first arc of the new season as well. It was revealed that the Book Hero from L'Arc, Glass, and Therese's original world was trying to gather souls for some nefarious purpose, and while he was defeated for now he had retreated back to their home world before Naofumi could truly defeat him. With the final moments of the episode, Naofumi and his party begin their invasion of this new world.
The first season had revealed that Naofumi and the heroes' real enemy were actually the heroes from another world, and these heroes surprisingly made their comeback in the second season in order to help take down the Spirit Tortoise. Despite wanting to destroy Naofumi's world. they believed that forcibly activating the guardian like the Book Hero has was something their respective heroic weapons didn't want. They want a heroic type of victory, and thus ended up helping Naofumi and the others to defeat the Book Hero and save the world for now.
When the Book Hero retreats, he leaves behind a portal to L'Arc and the other heroes' world, and Naofumi and his party decide to follow them because the Book Hero still has all of the souls he gathered in his possession. Surprisingly, it's revealed that Naofumi wasn't allowed to invade another hero's world (something that will likely come into question considering the nature of the waves), but thanks to some final help from Ost Horai before her death, Naofumi's party was able to jump into this portal as the episode ended.
Soon we will get to see the other heroes' world, but what do you think? Curious to see how Naofumi handles being in an entirely different world? How are you liking the second season so far? Let us know all of your thoughts about it in the comments! You can even reach out to me directly about all things animated and other cool stuff @Valdezology on Twitter!