The Rising Of The Shield Hero Season 3 Release Date, Cast, Trailer, Possible Plotlines And More

There's a unique trend in anime and manga of regular people being magically transferred to another reality. The genre is known as isekai in Japan, meaning "different world" or "otherworld." The hit anime series "The Rising of the Shield Hero" follows this storytelling trope, but it distinguishes itself in one unique way: The central character, Naofumi Iwatani, is almost immediately despised by the fantasy world that he's supposed to save due to a false accusation of sexual assault. While that stigma eventually fades for the titular hero, a different kind of controversy settled around the second season of "The Rising of the Shield Hero."

The first season of the anime was widely regarded as a beautifully animated and addictive tale of adventure and intrigue, but Season 2 did not measure up to the high benchmark that the dark fantasy series had previously set. In fact, one fan went as far as calling it "absolute garbage" in a Reddit post that received hundreds of upvotes. "Whoever defends Season 2 by saying 'it's a bad arc so it's okay' is fooling themselves," u/Aquarius_IC added. "Bad arc or not (which the arc isn't even bad, it's pretty decent), this is an absolute outrage."

Though fans were largely disappointed with Season 2, a third season is just around the corner, and it could go a long way toward rectifying the problems with the sophomore outing. However, "The Rising of the Shield Hero" Season 3 is going to have an uphill battle ahead of it as it attempts to recapture the magic of Season 1. Here's everything you need to know about the upcoming third season.

If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).

Minor light novel spoilers ahead.

Season 3 of "The Rising of the Shield Hero" is set to adapt the Rebuilding Arc and the Fallen Heroes Arc. The former is the basis of the tenth volume of the light novel, while the latter plays out across volumes 11 and 12. This won't come as a surprise to those familiar with the light novel series, as Season 2 of the anime covered volumes 6 through 9 — or, at least, it covered parts of them. The biggest issue fans had with the second season is that it skipped over a lot of stuff from those volumes in order to cram everything into 13 episodes, so the fact that the third season will seemingly draw from fewer volumes is probably a good thing, especially as it's only 12 episodes long.

In the Rebuilding Arc, the queen of Melromarc decides that Naofumi should be rewarded for his part in saving the world from the Spirit Tortoise. He asks for some land, and he sets about building a settlement where his partner Raphtalia's hometown Lurolona Village used to stand. The trouble is, there are no people to live there — those who used to inhabit the village are long gone. Further issues arise when Naofumi discovers that Eclair (the governor in charge of this territory) has no interest in building and only wants to train.

The Fallen Heroes Arc sees Ren, Itsuki, and Motoyasu struggling to cope in the aftermath of the Spirit Tortoise catastrophe, with all three losing sight of what it means to be a hero in this world and subsequently vanishing. After having successfully located and freed some slaves that used to live in Raphtalia's hometown, Naofumi attempts to track the missing heroes down, but his task is made more difficult by the fact that he's being tracked by assassins.

"The Rising of the Shield Hero" has had a new director for each season thus far, and that trend is set to continue. The first season was directed by Takao Abo, who had helmed odd episodes of shows like "Black Lagoon" and "Macross Frontier" but wasn't known for taking charge of full seasons. His tenure on "The Rising of the Shield Hero" was received enthusiastically, but he was still replaced for the second season, with Masato Jinbo taking the reins.

In an interview included on the Blu-ray release of Season 2, Jinbo said that his main goal for the season was to cast doubt over whether Naofumi actually wanted to return to his world or not. However, fans of the light novels have pointed out that this doesn't cross Naofumi's mind in the source material. "Naofumi never once seriously considers staying," Reddit user u/pathfinderlight said. "His only motivation for rebuilding [Lurolona Village] is to give Raphtalia a place to live after he's gone."

Other Reddit users questioned how much of the light novels Jinbo actually read. "The director should have read the LNs beyond what these seasons cover to include setups for future seasons," said u/TemeroHimitaki, while u/drm186 claimed that Jinbo "read the LN but didn't really understand it." Elsewhere, u/Ustar1000 said that they hope the director of Season 3 "will read the source material beyond season 2 and salvage as much as possible." But who does this responsibility fall to?

Season 3 of "The Rising of the Shield Hero" is being directed by Hitoshi Haga, who is no stranger to the property — he worked on a number of Season 1 episodes, creating the storyboards for five of them. Haga has been a key animator on everything from "Pokémon" to the Satoshi Kon classic "Perfect Blue," but in terms of directing, he's best known for his work on the critically acclaimed survival fantasy "Made in Abyss."

The first official trailer for "The Rising of the Shield Hero" Season 3 dropped in April 2023, and it confirmed that the third season will be a mixture of the Rebuilding Arc and the Fallen Heroes Arc. It opens with Naofumi being informed that his fellow heroes have gone missing, and then he's shown talking to the slave trader Beloukas, who tells him that he should head to Zeltoble. A country of mercenary clans, the vast majority of Zeltoble's inhabitants are slaves. Its main landmark is its colosseum, which features heavily in the trailer. Naofumi's hunt for the missing heroes has led him here, so he announces his intention to hide his identity and enter the gladiatorial tournaments held in the colosseum.

The trailer ends with the sentence "our regrets make us stronger," which tallies with the theme of the season — one of the key visuals for the upcoming third season is adorned with the words "heroes and their regrets." In the comments section of the trailer, fans seized on the theme of regret to poke fun at the fact that the second season was such a disappointment. "Yes regret what you did in season 2, learn from it and make this season even better [than] the first season," wrote @kuramakitsune16.

A second trailer released by Kadokawa covered some of the same ground but it also gave fans a first look at some new characters. The Orca therianthrope Sadeena (Ami Koshimizu) is shown in battle, and the demi-human siblings Fohl Fayon and Atla Fayon (Kohei Amasaki and Konomi Kohara) can also be glimpsed. The trailer also mentions the Phoenix, one of the Four Guardian Beasts and the next big threat in the story following the Spirit Tortoise. The most recent trailer is the grittiest of the lot, with more blood and the battles in the colosseum looking extremely intense.

The third season of "The Rising of the Shield Hero" is being written by Keigo Koyanagi, who has worked on the previous two seasons. Koyanagi penned four episodes of Season 1 and was credited as a script assistant on six episodes. He stepped up his contribution for the second season, providing the scripts for all 13 episodes. He's in charge of scriptwriting and series composition for the upcoming third season, a dual role that he previously held on the 2016 mecha anime "Regalia: The Three Sacred Stars" and 2018's "Sirius the Jaeger," a supernatural thriller about vampire hunters. Koyanagi is also known for his work on "Blast of Tempest," "Killing Bites," "The Lost Village," "Classroom Crisis," and "Angel Beats!"

Koyanagi was recruited to work on "The Rising of the Shield Hero" when he was busy writing a couple of episodes of "Made in Abyss," another Kinema Citrus anime. Speaking to Crunchyroll, the screenwriter revealed that the studio's CEO Muneki Ogasawara was the one who introduced him to the property. "Ogasawara-san randomly handed me a bag full of the 'Shield Hero' light novels and asked me to read through them," he said. "I had no idea what that was all about at first, so I focused on 'Made in Abyss' instead. But as we kept going back and forth with 'Did you read it?' and 'Not yet,' I somehow found myself taking part in the 'Shield Hero' pre-production meetings at some point." Koyanagi added that he was "very grateful" to be considered for the job and that he "jumped on the chance" to work on the show.

The ending song of "The Rising of the Shield Hero" Season 3 is performed by Chiai Fujikawa, and it's called "Suki ni Natte wa Ikenai Riyū" (The Reason I Cannot Love You). Like MADKID, Fujikawa is not a newcomer to the franchise, having contributed songs to the two previous seasons. Her songs "Kimi no Namae" (Your Name) and "Atashi ga Tonari ni Iru Uchi ni" (While I'm Still by Your Side) were used for endings in Season 1, and her ending song "Yuzurenai" (Unyielding) was one of the best things about Season 2. Fans have reacted well to her latest song, which was previewed in a Season 3 PV released on Kadokawa's YouTube channel. "This looks way better than Season 2 and that theme song was beautiful," YouTuber @eniggmaaincognito7215 said after seeing the PV.

It's also been confirmed that music composer Kevin Penkin will be returning for Season 3. The Australian is well-known for bringing something different to the anime shows he's worked on in the past, but this was one of his biggest challenges to date. "With 'Shield Hero,' I focused a lot on a few different areas where I could get some inspiration from," Penkin told Anime Trending. "First off, the core emotions Naofumi is going to be feeling throughout the series, such as rage, loneliness, desperation and dark negative feelings, and trying to, in their rawest form, translate that into music."