Shield Hero: The Rising of the Isekai Genre

this video is sponsored by book Walker helping burning coal fighters on the world to transform myself an event I'm just gonna jump into this one I'm sure you're now as bored as I am just wondering why the ISA Kaiser honour is still as dominant as it is in anime it feels weird to think that just a few years ago I'd never even heard of the word and nowadays are more like c.b.c fee see in and meet me cha me cha what were these make-believe genres that don't exist in anime and hot of the heels of slimey boy worming its way into all our hearts we now have the rising of the shield hero dominating in popularity both in Japan and here in the West showing us that Issei Chi is far from dead and you know I've just come to accept that you know Issei Chi doesn't die just reincarnates into another show but his popularity has got me thinking about the dominant journey Issei Kai's taken in this past decade and I wanted to use this video not only to discuss what could be appealing about shield hero to make it as popular as it is but also how it fits in with the evolution of the genre so far and what it could mean for the future the currently Sakai era was arguably started with the massive success of sword art online and has since then dominated anime with a big show coming out every year or two and lots and lots and lots of others in between without strongly the tropes in cliches have been established in each Sakai it's easy to forget the John Ray's existed for far longer than that and it didn't always have the same trademarks it does now but one important thing to know with the recent successful shows is that they seem to come from a place that understands the core appeal of modern Issei Chi and in a sense has taken that foundation and built on it in a different way connoisseurs basically a sitcom set in an essay Kyra Zira sets about deconstructing the overpowered otaku protagonist archetype overlord asks what would happen if we follow the bad guys slime refines all the tropes into a wholesome package and that brings me to shield hero which follows this evolution the genres taken see one thing that's definitely changes the general driving force that moves the plot early Issei Chi revolved around the idea of characters trying to get back to their original worlds but nowadays ISA Kai's fully embrace the inner self syrtis gave his fantasy a lot of people wouldn't have much interest from going home the overabundance of otaku protagonists is what lends itself to making this work the protagonists are happy to remain in the fantasy world because why would the hero want to return to solitude and boredom when they're living out the rock star lifestyle the author understands that this is what the audience would likely do themselves if presented with such a world shield hero takes his self-awareness a step even further and makes everyone just non should only accept that they've been transported to another world immediately except that they're on some kind of world saving quest and just know that this works like a video game despite the fact that he got sucked into a book is anyone gonna address that no all right which was actually weirdly refreshing to see everyone is so familiar with this ongoing concept that we as an audience aren't surprised anymore and thus having an in-depth explanation and an air of shock would just be jarring and dull like you know the moment in zombie movies when the undead star appearing and eating people and the in universe characters are like Oh what should we call them I know maybe we'll call them biters cuz ur they bite and you're they're shouting you say guys become so prevalent that if tomorrow any of you got transported to some fantasy world I guarantee your first reaction would be wait a minute is this is this it's like one of my Japanese enemies and that's basically what's happened here it's firmly establish a shield here that he's familiar with the trophy Sakai and that cuts out so much of the needless faff at the beginning and just get straight to the point non-god Arnold a meet I dunno and that starting point is that we have four Issei Chi heroes each from the different legendary weapon that's been tossed to save the kingdom from a wave of monsters that will attack periodically and see that's how you know the source material is written in 2013 because it's just II say Chi horde modes and if it was actually written recently we just have a bunch of hero summon for Issei Chi battle royale which I'm surprised doesn't exist yet wait a minute he's a guy at Battle Royale the gimmick this time is that our protagonist has a shield so he can only focus on defense and as far as gimmicks goes that's pretty standard compared to the other things we've seen but really the initial thing that makes shield hero stand out is how they handle our main characters starting point now Fumiya the shield heroes taken out a few pegs in the first episode and by taking down a few pegs I mean he tripped over fell down a flight of stairs found out those stairs led to an edge of a cliff plummeted off the cliff into some jagged rocks got swept away or was drowning in the ocean before washing up on shore only then to realize that he never even got laid he gets absolutely [ __ ] over and dict on left right and center and ends up hated by everyone yeah he quickly does become powerful but nothing's made easy for him he isn't this shining Prince that saves the day and gets adored by everyone around him he has to work harder than his peers to make ends meet and what makes the compelling is that he isn't always acting morally just he rightly lashes out and uses underhanded tactics against the world that hates him he buys slaves and every so often he'll act in a certain way that makes you think see I'm not sure if you're just being edgy or just being a dick yeah when push comes to shove he still acts more heroic than the other heroes and you do sympathize with the bitterness he feels from the situation he's been put in because he starts at such a deficit it's entirely up to him and his actions to prove to the people around him what his true character is and this is the perfect setup to see a really satisfactory hero's journey as he rises up truly winning the hearts of the people hence the title the rising of the shield hero and that's the cause for celebration people it's a light novel title of a short relevant and a cap slates what the series is about but I wouldn't be telling the full story if I said that seeing now moomies rise is the only reason everyone's watching this because I think equally important is the promise of seeing certain other people fall like alright I consider myself a pretty chill and laid-back guy it's hard to get on my nerves and even if you do I'm sure we can talk it out and move past any problem we have I believe the world would be a much better place if we could solve our issues in a civilized manner they're gonna hope this [ __ ] [ __ ] dies in a fire your hero is a rare instance of Nisa Kaiser has an actual antagonist in it mine and the King make you question whether this kingdom was worth saving or burning everything to the ground and Chad Spears wound is so frustratingly naive and has that kind of face only a fist could love sure they aren't exactly the deepest and most unique characters out there but they feel their purpose very well it's been a while since I've seen characters mothers brought up genuine anger and frustration in me halfway through episode 4 I thought I would actually need to take some anger management classes or at least print out to cut out mine and taper to a punching bag but as weird as that may sound that's one of the biggest strengths of the series these are characters we love to hate and seeing any kind of victory no matter how small is extremely satisfying Marissa I'm not the Hansa coin it's either o'kiku Stangl disco Oh to address the elephant in the room there's been a lot of controversy around her mind turned everyone against now for me in the first place what I will say is that it was a very quick and effective method in making you absolutely despise this one character and establishing the setup for the show and I don't think it's trying to do any more than just that so I think that's pretty much all the main reasons everyone's watching this it wouldn't be a proper easter chi without some seasonal girls to fight over and this time we of course have the token lolly character in phyllo she's not a 200 year old vampire this time though so to be safe will refer to her by codename thick chick and what more can i really say about Roth Talia except I'm considering starting a cryptocurrency around Rafa Talia Appel faces because dear God this is worth pouring my life savings into anyone want to get in on that no weather is the alternative [ __ ] coin she does have this strange crush thing going on with now for me but it's cute you know it's not weird at all no matter how crafty Talia acts towards now for you me because now free me just sees her as a daughter and that's completely fine cuz she could still call him daddy well so I don't really understand how she transformed from a cute lolly to grown woman in the span of a single episode but you know what it's probably best not to think about it too deeply I mean you know it's it's it's anime so they play by their own rules so I'm just gonna leave it there it's not worth looking into so I'm going to do the sensible thing and just move on and that's so far what I can say about why people are being drawn to this show but as revolutionary as I wished I could say shield hero is it's really not because to put it in a nutshell shield hero is basically what happens when a character enters the ISA Kai loading screen and is like what do I want to do this time I've done that done that front doing that again I'll just Jubilee it has a subtle differences but is essentially the same package we've all seen before he'll kick some arse impress some girls everyone's gonna get really excited to see what happens next and then we're gonna be waiting for a season two that's never gonna happen and to me its immense popularity shows that despite how saturated si Kai has been over the years now we still apparently aren't bored of it yet yes as much as we complain we're still Issei Kai trash so the question that comes to mind is what's going to be next if we think of the modern roofs of the genre of 90s si Kai and stuff like escaflowne being the first generation and the big breakout hit setting the trend on fire like Sao being the second then what I found is all these big si Kai from these past years would be the third and current generation re0 Overlord no game no life cannot see burst slime shield hero every single one of these bigger shows were familiar with began publishing as light novels around 2012 and 2013 hot off the heels of Si OS adaptation blowing up the community they are Issei Kai that have essentially been inspired by Issei kind have each taken their own spin on the genre well very much daring to the core foundations that were laid out some satirized and subverted tropes some refined the tropes and some were a mixture of the two if there is gonna be a fourth generation of Issei Kai anime from some of the newer light novels I've seen floating around concepts are gonna get even [ __ ] weirder if we look further for this year there's gonna be ISA Kai scattered in every season and if we look at the light novel world the genre still completely dominates new titles coming out so however you look at it I think the message is loud and clear ISA Kai is here to stay and right now it's still stronger than ever to a much lesser extent this almost feels like what happened with comic book movies and Hollywood I remember when the Dark Knight came out there was a consensus that this was the peak of comic book movies and audiences were going to slowly start to lose interest because of how saturated the genre had become and just as that happens Marvel came along and I don't think I need to tell you what happens next so as long as it's here to stay let's just all embrace the east like I trash within us because even though it's overwhelming right now if you're bored of it there are plenty of other genres you can watch in anime because not everything is a nice a car why would you do this why no one asked you can can you just go away and you know what I'm gonna let it slide this one time but can we just please stop doing this hey guys hope you enjoyed that thank you to book Walker for officially sponsoring this video you can read ahead in the manga or light novel and shield hero on book walker in the link below I know this is a bit sudden but the first volume is available for absolutely free right now but you only have about two days to claim that so if you want that go get it right now or if you just want to find out all the spicy things that I'll go to happen click the link below and get reading also every si Kai I mentioned in this video from sio2 rezero ii cannot see but overlord is also available on their platform so if you want to further your si Chi fix and you're a new user you can use coupon code to get for $5 off which basically means you get another volume for hardly anything anyway that's it for me though I've been gig ugh and I'll see you all next time

Channel: Gigguk

Views: 2,383,975

Keywords: Anime Zone, Gigguk, Top Anime, OP, ED, Shield Hero, The Rising of the Shield Hero, Isekai, Shield Isekai, Top Isekai, best Isekai, Top 10 Isekai, Top Isekai 2018, Shield Hero OP, Shield Hero ED, Shield Hero Episode 1

Id: 74jNvMw-FLc

Length: 12min 13sec (733 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 26 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/mikealwy]

Talking about 90's isekai and doesn't even mention Digimon

[u/Couldnt_think_of_a]

All I want from life is a good isekai where instead of going to a medieval fantasy land the protagonist goes to a space opera type setting instead.

[u/DanielYates225]

If I get sucked into an Isekai, I better not get stuck with a useless blue haired goddess.
Also, the only red hair girl I ever disliked.

[u/elmagio]

OK so when's Reborn as a Vending Machine getting an anime? Soon right? Right?

[u/Aerohed]

Ultimately, I don't think Isekai are inherently bad, but the overwhelming abundance of them makes it very likely that there will probably be a lot of awful ones, made by talentless people just doing it for the money or just trying to emulate their favorite series without the understanding of what it did well. Even so, the stronger ones, like Shield Hero, will probably always rise to the top.

I'm more curious as to what the next big thing is going to be. Time for the dementia category to thrive!

[u/mcgravier]

Chronicles of Narnia is isekai too you know...

EDIT: And Harry Potter as well

EDIT2: Witcher 3: Wild Hunt too xd

EDIT3: Oh god, am I living isekai too?

[u/Alqtrkappa]

I’ve realized I won’t get tired of isekai. Time to find out if I’ll get tired of Gigguk isekai videos.

[u/hfahid96]

Gigguk I like you , your review made me discover it in the first place, but for the love of god

NEVER CALL FATE/ZERO AN ISEKAI AS LONG AS I'M ALIVE.

NEVER!

[u/Valentinee105]

What are all the Isekai shown @1:19?

I Recognize some of them but not all.............

• Sword Art

• Log Horizon

• No Game No Life

• Devil is a Part Timer

• Konosuba

• Re:zero

• Overlord

• Death March

• Smart Phone

• How not to summon a demon lord

• Shield Hero

There's 5 I don't recognize.

I really like the genre and I ran out of shows I know of.