The Rising of the Shield Hero

 The latest anime me and Noshi have been watching, and another "isekai" to that, Rising of the Shield Hero or Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari comes highly rated on MAL.

Because even with an overabundance of that genre currently, ever since the popularity of Sword Art Online, we still enjoy that for some late evening after work watching.

Naofumi Iwatani is an otaku, who one day in the library finds a strange book with blank pages.  He gets transported to the kingdom of Melromarc, where he turns out to be one of the four legendary heroes, the Shield Hero.  While frowned upon by his fellow heroes (Sword, Spear and Bow) for his personality and the fact the Shield Hero has no offensive powers, he needs to get stronger.  

The kingdom is besieged by Waves of undead, and as he is framed the very first day by a set-up companion, he loses all his stature and honor, and sets out alone.  He saves a demi-human raccoon girl, Raphtalia, from a slaver, and together they start training to be able to aid in the defence of the kingdom.

 

But Mein in particular keeps trying to make his life sour, forcing him into a duel with the spear hero to "free" Raphtalia from her "enslavement" by him.  He loses after Mein intervenes, but the other heroes step in, as they noted the foul play, and Raphtalia choses to remain at his side.  He also wins an egg, which should be hatching into a carriage animal, but instead turns out to be a mythical birdqueen that can shapeshift into the form of a small girl, and he names her Filo. 

But when facing a zombie dragon, and before with the duel with the Spear hero, it seems there is a curse on his shield, which can unleash great power, but at great risk for those surrounding him.  When he meets Melty, the heir to the throne and set out to scorn the king as to his treatment of Naofumi, as well as gaining more and more people routing for him, it seems he is indeed rising as a hero of the people.

But Mein frames him through an assassination plot on her little sister, the crown princess Melty, forcing Naofumi to take her along and see to it he can prove his innocence.  Learning more about Raphtalia's past, the party has to decide wether to visit the queen, or go into demi-human country to be able to use the Dragon Glass and advance their classes.  In their fight with Glass in the second wave, they learned they where far underpowered and only survived by stalling for time!

He meets with the filolial queen Fitoria, who insists he must reconcile with the other heroes, as it wasn`t supposed to be that they where summoned all to the same country.  She duels Filo, who grews above herself and becomes the named successor of Fitoria.  In the meantime, the Bow hero and the Sword hero discover a hidden archive below the Church of the Three, causing them to slowly be convinced Naofumi was right after all.

But as Naofumi meets up with the Spear hero, he is framed for killing Ren and Itsuki.  The Pope arrives, and reveals that the Church of the Three Heroes have been playing them all along, thinking them weak, and that Mein was an unknowing puppet.  As Naofumi and Motoyasu try and defeat him, they are saved by the Bow and Sword heroes, who weren`t killed after all.  Together they hold out until the Queen arrives to relieve them, as Naofumi unleashes a powerful attack leaving him on the brink of death, slaying the traitorous pope.

This results in the queen clearing his name on a public trial, where she sentences the king and Mein to death, but at the last moment Naofumi intervenes, exiling them instead.  Filo and Raphtalia get their upgrades, as they travel to an archipelago event to level up.  Here they meet with L'arc and Theresa, two fellow adventurers, just as another wave is about to happen.

It turns out their new friends are allies of Glass, and heroes from another world that can only survive if this one, and it's four Cardinal Heroes in particular, fall.  Naofumi beats them, and as a reward becomes lord of the region where Raphtalia's village is located, making it his capital and rebuilding the region...

A truly good series, with some very hard moments in it (Raphtalia's past) and humour (how he orders the king to grovel before him, I should try that on my boss one day!) making it a real 25 episode rollercoaster.