The Rising of the Shield Hero S3 – 09 – Tripping the Light Dragon-tastic

Naofumi’s last shield just manages to absorb the Emperor Dragon’s attack, but he knows he won’t be able to stop the next one. Before it can charge up, Atla rushes into close range to use her pressure point attack. Because it becomes more powerful the tougher the defense, she manages to knock the dragon back, and it fires its breath at the ceiling, flooding the den.

The water washes everyone back outside. Atla is fine, and her actions not only saved everyone, but bought Naofumi and the rest of the party time to recover and regroup. That night, Wyndia confirms to her and Fohl that the dragon is indeed her father, and we get a heartwarming sequence of the dragon gradually learning how to take care of a demihuman infant entrusted to him by a dying man.

It’s while reminiscing about her childhood that Wyndia recalls touching her father’s one upside-down scale—his weak spot. Fohl makes sure Wyndia is okay fighting her dad, and she says she is; she wants to say goodbye to him properly. Seeing these sweet kids warms a drunk Sadeena’s heart.

Before the sun rises, the party gets organized: Sadeena, Wyndia and Melty will use choral magic to restrain the dragon while Raphtaia and Eclair launch melee attacks. Atla is eager to help, but Naofumi insists she hang back, as her unique power to undermine ultimate defense will be their last resort. This appeases Atla, who adorably tells Fohl she’s the ace.

As the skies begin to brighten, the curtain rises on one hell of a dragon boss battle. After luring him out with the Wrath Shield, the choral girls encase him in a giant cube of water, where Sadeena transforms into her orca form and gives him the business, supported by attacks from the swordsmen.

While his offense attacks, Naofumi distributes shields and buffs to everyone. Despite the large number of combatants, everything is kept nice and tight and the battle is easy to follow. When the Emperor takes off the kid gloves and zaps everyone with vicious beams of light, Atla senses her time has come.

Having built up magical energy back at camp, she and Fohl rush the dragon, only for her attack to bounce off a veil he has raised. Fohl keeps bashing at the veil until it shatters, allowing Atla to charge up her pressure index point finger of death, targeting the dragon’s weak upside-down scale. Her attack, which proves decisive, is presented with some decent sakuga along with one final flourish from Kevin Penkin’s boss fight music.

While Atla was committed to get the job done even if it meant sacrificing herself, she lands in Naofumi’s arms exhausted but alive. He may need to have a chat about her maybe not going so hard next time. The disabled Emperor coughs up Filo and Gaelion, who are none the worse for wear. All that’s left is to finish off the greatly-depleted dragon, achieved with one more round of choral magic, with Gaelion assisting in summoning a great orb of water.

Sadeena dives into the orb of water, which parries the dragon’s final breath attack, and she retrieves the Emperor’s core. Then Raphtalia delivers one final Mist coup-de-grace, atomizing the dragon just as the sun rises over the mountains. All that was missing from this satisfying conclusion to the battle was a good old-fashioned victory fanfare. Wyndia sets up a grave for her dearly departed father, and to her surprise, Ren leaves some flowers and prays beside her.

The villagers thank the Shield Hero for protecting them from the Sword Hero, but Naofumi calls them out for manipulating Ren and departs in a huff. Ren is deeply contrite for what went down and doesn’t believe he deserves forgiveness, but Wyndia forgives him anyway.

She actually knew he was manipulated all along, and that he really shouldn’t have been the target of her ire, but she made it so anyway. Both she and Ren have grown a lot, and are ready to move forward together as allies of Naofumi.

As for her father, he’s actually still around, as Gaelion is his new vessel. However, in the interest of allowing her daughter to carry on with her life, he’ll keep his presence secret, and asks Naofumi to do the same. Rather than give Filo her XP back (though he did absorb her curse), Gaelion grows big enough for Wyndia and Naofumi to have a celebratory dragon ride.

While this only makes the wagon-pulling Filo more jealous. However, as Naofumi says, all’s well that ends well, and they’re in a good place with the Phoenix drawing closer to its awakening.

The Rising of the Shield Hero S3 – 08 – Daddy Issues

Naofumi is deciding who will stay in the village and who will accompany him on the hunt for Gaelion when a new crisis crops up: Filo is gravely ill. Gaelion appears to be sapping her XP, resulting in her level gradually lowering. Atla can slow the decline, but can’t stop it, which means they need to do something about Gaelion if Filo is going to survive.

Naofumi takes Raphtalia, Eclair, Ren, Sadeena, and Wyndia to the neighboring village where Ren had previously defeated a dragon. They tell Naofumi there’s a new dragon in the den located in the nearby mountain. Wyndia doesn’t seem to particularly like these people.

While on their way to the den they encounter a porcupine beast, which Wyndia handles all by herself using magical power drawn from the dragon veins beneath the earth. Her power comes as a surprise to Naofumi, but Sadeena says one day Wyndia will be able to use Jamming and Choral magic.

Back in Luroluna, things go from bad to worse with poor Filo, who becomes covered in the same marks of red light as Naofumi when he was consumed by the Wrath Shield. Eventually her eyes turn red and she goes berserk. As the Gaelion search party pauses for a fire, Wyndia shoots an ugly look Ren’s way as well.

Whatever beef she has with Ren, when she slips and almost falls down a sheer cliff, he saves her life and tells her he’s glad she’s not hurt. Now that he no longer sees this world as just a game, he’s trying to be a better hero.

When Raph’s magical light can’t reach a particularly huge cavern, Wyndia taps into the dragon vein and illuminates the entire den. Shortly after that they’re ambushed by the berserk Gaelion.

As they defend and counter his attacks, the berserk Filo suddenly appears, ridden by Melty, Atla, and Fohl. The dragon possessing Gaelion lets out a breath that converts Filo to human form … then swallows her whole. This results in a transformation in Gaelion from a small red Wyr to a much stronger and more ancient-looking dragon.

According to his HUD Filo is still alive, so the party launches an all-out attack on the dragon to rescue her. Their efforts bear fruit as the dragon is grounded, but when moving in for a decisive blow, they’re stopped by Wyndia, who begs them not to hurt her dad anymore.

That’s right; Wyndia can sense within this dragon the soul of her father, who was the dragon Ren killed some time ago. She tries to talk sense into her father, telling him that while the other heroes were bad, the Shield Hero has only ever been kind.

The dragon responds by trying to kill Wyndia, but fortunately Ren is able to block its attack and save her again. This dragon is no longer Gaelion or her father, but the Emperor Dragon from the Hunting Hero’s world. He opens his breast armor to reveal Filo is now a part of his core.

Now that he’s resurrected he intends to subjugate all humans. Naofumi re-buffs everyone, but even their best attacks, so effective before, are useless against the Emperor Dragon’s tough skin.

When Naofumi discovers the dragon is somehow drawing its defense from his own shield, he prepares to fail a power-up attempt on his Wrath Shield. But to his dismay, the dragon is also capable of hacking his HUD. Instead of failing, he successfully powers up the Wrath Shield several times, thus gaining terrifying amounts of power.

The dragon turns red and its power discharge pretty much KOs everyone. Naofumi manages to get in front of Atla, Fohl, and Wyndia and sets up every shield he has, but the dragon’s breath blasts through nearly all of them, which brings us to a cliffhanger ending.

Mind you, all of this could have been avoided if Naofumi hadn’t kept the soul of the Emperor Dragon on his bedside table. I mean, do safes not exist in this world? Like the slaver attack on the village Naofumi left inexplicably undefended earlier this season, this is a dilemma of his creation. Hopefully he can fix it before Filo and the others pay an irreversible price.

The Rising of the Shield Hero S3 – 07 – How Not to Train Your Dragon

With two months until the Phoenix arrives, normalcy and peace washes over Luroluna village. This is an episode that runs largely on vibes as we observe along with Naofumi how the vast and diverse community of colorful characters he shepherded fares on a daily basis.

He cooks a hearty breakfast for everyone after their morning exercises. Rishia continues to improve, Atla can easily beat her brother with martial arts, Keel can transform into a therianthorpe thanks to Sadeena, and Ren is learning proper swordsmanship under Eclair. Also, S’yne digs Naofumi’s cooking.

Even with all of these established characters to juggle, she episode still feels the need to introduce a few more, from young Wyndia, a villager who excels at beast handling, and Ratotille Anthreya, AKA Rat, a mad alchemist sent by the queen to help Naofumi level up his monsters.

A quick visit to the paddock and Naofumi learns they’re one caterpillar monster richer. They discover eggs beneath them, meaning more will be on the way. Naofumi accepts Rat into the tribe, but doesn’t fully trust her, so insists on a crest, which she accepts.

Wyndia shows Naofumi a chest full of gifts from Siltvelt, including a black dragon egg. For the entire middle of the episode henceforth, Naofumi must carry the egg on his back to keep it warm and safe (he asked Ren, but the effects of the curse would have an adverse effect on it).

Naofumi and Raph stop by the Elhart, who has completed a siderite katana for her, but are otherwise in and out in a jiffy. That night when Atla can’t sleep, she asks Fohl to sing her the lullaby their mother sang for them. He does, and it’s lovely, but it ends up putting him to sleep, which is what Atla wanted.

The next morning, we learn why: Naofumi wakes up not only with the dragon egg in bed (which he put there) but Atla as well (which he didn’t). This is apparently the third time she’s snuck into his bed, and she butts heads with both Raph and Fohl about it. She insists that the Shield Hero’s shield be with him at all times, but Raph in particular ain’t havin’ it.

I couldn’t help but notice the Raph-chan plushie S’yne made; she later presents Naofumi with a plushie resembling Keel in dog form, which she uses as a translator to speak clearly and without distortion. In the battles sure to come, better communication will be vital.

In the library, Ren is studying and writing in Melromarc language, and blushes when Eclair suddenly draws quite close to him to make a correction and pat him on the shoulder. Looks like our boy is in puppy love once more, but Eclair’s a much better recipient of his affection than Bitch…even if she’s oblivious.

While Naofumi is inspecting a “camping tree”, a fast-growing shelter developed by Rat, the egg suddenly cracks. Raph, Rat, and Wyndia are present for its hatching, and Naofumi is as surprised as I am to find the newborn red wyr is a dead ringer for a Pokémon.

Wyndia names the cute little guy Gaelion on the spot, a name he seems to like, so Naofumi allows it and entrusts Wyndia with his care going forward. Wyndia and the other kids keep a close eye on Gaelion, who soon learns how to fly and breathe fire, which comes in handy during training missions.

Gaelion’s growth montage is accompanied by a stirring piece by Kevin Penkin that I feel really captures the warm, kind, happy vibes of Luroluna village in its current state.

It’s so light and lovely that I was completely unprepared for something to finally go wrong and spoil all the vibes. Naofumi learns that an ongoing prank of someone knocking on his door and vanishing turned out to be Gaelion wanting to play with him.

Raph suggest he keep Gaelion around as a “guard dog” to keep Atla out of his bedroom, but while he’s in there he discovers a jewel made from the Emperor Dragon’s core Naofumi had made in Kizuna’s world. Gaelion, who was established earlier as capable of eating anything, swallows the jewel, grows to immense size, and suddenly turns wild.

He blasts another hole in Naofumi’s house with his fire breath, then takes flight, much to Wyndia’s dismay. I suspect they’ll be going after him next week, but will he want to go back?

This was certainly a grab bag of different and not-yet-interconnected vignettes, but I made sure to savor this (mostly) peaceful outing because I know a lot of hardship to come in a couple months, and there’s no guarantee everyone will survive it.