The Rising of the Shield Hero: Season 1, Episode 19 “The Four Cardinal Heroes” – Recap, Review (with Spoilers)

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As Pope Balmus attempts to eviscerate the Cardinal Heroes, a few surprises appear and we’re clued in that Naofumi may get some reinforcements.

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Network
Crunchyroll
Director(s)	Abo Takao
Writer(s)	Koyanagi Keigo
Air Date	5/15/2019

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The Cardinal Weapon Replica: Pope Balmus, Melty, Naofumi

While the Rage Shield is able to protect everyone, Naofumi’s arms are becoming numb from keeping it up. Which makes Pope Balmus revealing he has found a legendary, and supposedly lost weapon which replicates the Cardinal Weapons of the heroes, dangerous. Especially since, between Melty and Pope Balmus, we see how much mana and power the weapon can produce.

Guess Who Shows Up: Itsuki, Ren, Naofumi, Myne, Motoyasu

Despite allegedly being killed, Ren and Itsuki show up and not the Queen’s punitive force is on the way. Now, as for how they survived? Basically, the queen’s shadows and Ren doesn’t provide much details beyond that. So all we know is someone setup Ren and Itsuki, they nearly died, the shadows of the Queen saved them, and assumingly told them where the other heroes are. Leading to the idea that now they will join forces to fight the Pope.

Problem is with that, Naofumi wants to be petty. He’d rather work with his team, and when called out on that, he lays out everyone. He calls out Motoyasu being a puppet for Myne and her using how trusted the heroes were for her own gains. With Ren, he notes him leaving that dragon half alive and thinking the world they are in is a video game where things just disappear when defeated. Lastly, he calls out Itsuki for overthrowing a local ruler.

This leads to the accused bickering amongst themselves, perhaps to lessen their role on the Pope’s rise and the situation they’re in. Which gives the Pope more than enough time to recover after the attacks Ren and Itsuki flung, which did so much more damage than Motoyasu did, even when he did a combo attack.

Keeping Promises: Naofumi, Fitoria

But rather than let them bicker until they end up killed, Naofumi honors his promise to Fitoria, and while noting his peers aren’t forgiven, he is now willing to work with them.

Highlights

Naofumi Calling Out Nearly Every Incident His Peers Caused

While this gathering of the Cardinal Heroes feels rather late in the season, at least considering there are 6 episodes left, you have to be glad it happened. For now maybe they can reconcile, Naofumi and his team can level up, and we can perhaps get to know the other heroes. Not to imply we have learned all that much about Naofumi’s life. Like the rest of the heroes, his life before being transported hasn’t been noted since the premiere.

Yet, with one less obstacle, there is hope that some of the things which we haven’t gotten to see are addressed. Particularly getting to know the queen and also seeing other countries since it feels like we’ve been waiting on that for at least 5 episodes, if not more.

On The Fence

Recognizing The Power Of The Rage Shield Is Beyond Naofumi’s Level, How Was He Able To Defend Against Those Attacks?

Here is my thing, the Pope likely is way beyond everyone’s level and between his followers and the replica weapon, how was Naofumi able to protect everyone? Especially against multiple attacks without going into that dark mode? And while, yes, they mention his arm was getting numb, you’d think more would be hurting after the onslaught of attacks he had defended everyone from. Unless this is an example of how cardinal weapons are weaker when amongst each other, making the shield a bit more formidable than it would be if Pope Balmus was using a separate weapon.

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