The Rising of the Shield Hero Volume 1: The Manga Companion (The Rising of the Shield Hero Manga Comp)

I've been reading this manga for a while via fansubs. I've been eagerly awaiting the official English translation so I could give the publisher my money. That's how much I love it. Doing the "trapped in a video game" thing but with an anti-hero is a nice twist. I think the writing does a convincing job of balancing gruffness and kindness in the hero as well as the innocence vs treachery of the rest of the world. You need to get these balances right to make a story like this work. I've read other stories in this genre where I find myself thinking, "I know what's supposed to be happening here but I just don't buy it." This story nails it, though, in my opinion. I think maybe the story rushes to drop the hero into the game, such that we risk forgetting a] it's not his world and b] he believes it to be a game. If you do forget that, the hero can seem unreasonably cruel. But if you keep it in mind, his acts of kindness seem all that much more remarkable. Have you ever felt real sympathy for an NPC in a video game? Would you ever put your own real physical well being on the line for a pretend character? Keeping that in mind is important for this story and I worry that the very brief opening to this book might cause some readers to forget. That's my only criticism so far. There is so much mediocre and bad manga in this world. The stuff that's good needs to be praised. This is good.

This manga series is absolutely amazing! I first heard about this series through Crunchyroll when I watch the anime. But to me reading the manga is just as fun as the anime. The story and characters drag you in and just keep you engaged to the point you can’t help but want to read more.

I started with the anime first and eagerly waited every week for a new episode to air on crunchyroll. But my brother bought the manga and showed me his copies. And I love both the manga and anime. But it tells the same story in a different way and while the anime is great, the manga is the uncenered/unfiltered version so you get the full rundown on every page. I recamend this to everyone looking to get it.

I watched the first season of the anime before I even knew it was book. But its amazing. Definitely more detail but I can see the anime in my head as I’m reading it. I highly recommend it I just recently bought the second book and I will be getting the other 20 books!

DISCLAIMER. THIS REVIEW IS BASED ON THE FIRST VOLUME OF THE MANGA ONLY, NOT THE SERIES OVERALL. IT IS ALSO ONE PERSON'S OPINION SO TAKE IT AS YOU WILL. I will just get the bad right out of the way. There are only two things I dislike about the manga version of "The Rising of the Shield Hero": The length of the first volume and the presentation of the English dialog within the speech bubbles. The first volume of "The Rising of the Shield Hero" is only 154 pages, while the first volumes of "Dr. Stone" and "World Trigger" are 200 and 192 pages, respectively. So, the first volume of "The Rising of the Shield Hero" is considerably shorter (about 25% shorter, actually) than most mainstream manga, namely Shonen Jump or Viz published manga even if some of the pages in all three are used for advertisements or summaries, which means you're paying the same price for a shorter first volume when you buy “The Rising of the Shield Hero”. The English dialog is fairly well written, with only one to two errors found by this reader, however it consistently bleeds out of the speech bubbles. While I know that Japanese text within manga like this is read vertically and is able to convey more information in less space compared to horizontally read English, many other manga that is translated to English is able to keep ALL of the text within the original speech bubbles by adjusting the font size and including hyphens to break-up long words. Maybe those other publishers adjust the size of the speech bubbles for other languages, I don’t know for sure, but what I do know is that One Peace Books did not try very hard to fit the English dialog into the speech bubbles. The volume uses maybe three different font sizes, with the most common size (the exposition and general banter font size) being way too large for many speech bubbles. It is not like it was every speech bubble, but it was enough for me to notice and start to be annoyed each time I read into the art. Thus, I took away one whole star from what should have been a five star rating. Now, with the all of that bad out of the way, time for the good! Despite being yet another isekai story where an otaku becomes a hero in a fantasy game-like setting, "The Rising of the Shield Hero" is able to pull itself away from others within its genre. The protagonist is treated like dirt right out of the gate and is practically shunned by all other characters (I will let you find out for yourself why), instead of being the center of attention, and he is unable to use some godly power to destroy all his enemies, unlike almost every other protagonist in this genre. Instead, he can just defend himself from someone who has the godly power to destroy all their enemies, hence his name the Shield Hero. Also, the side characters actually act like how people would act in the real world, for better or for worse, and the story does a good job of invoking emotion from the reader. I had a great time reading this manga and I am now greatly looking forward to reading more of the manga and watching the anime when it starts on January 9, 2019. Okay, final remarks! If you are already a big fan of manga/anime/light novels like “Overlord” or “That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime” then I cannot recommend “The Rising of the Shield Hero” enough. It has a pacing like those stories, though with a lot less of an emphasis on the monsters being the good guys (or all the jumping around; looking at you “Overlord”), and it has very interesting main characters (at least in my opinion). Even if you are not into “Overlord” or “That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime” but you are a fan of mature fantasy manga, then I would recommend this story to you as well. However, if you are a big Shonen fan, like if your first and/or favorite manga/anime is something like “My Hero Academia” or “Black Clover”, I might be a bit more hesitant to recommend this to you. This story is very different than those presented in those types of manga (typical Shonen manga, to be exact) so there is a chance that its darker story will not resonate well with you. If you are up for a more mature story, though, then give “The Rising of the Shield Hero” a try. You will most likely not be disappointed!

I have now gotten 1-13 of this series and I can say that it’s a great and captivating world. The book itself was in good condition just be sure you’re buying the manga instead of the light novel , you can tell by looking in the description on the amount of pages there are, 300-400 is the light novel 100-200 is the manga. The light novel has a lot more of the story out than the manga currently does so that’s something to think about if you’re just getting into the series. If you plan on collecting the full series like I did I suggest you buy it from here because the prices are better :)

I think this is an interesting take on the hero's journey. It's kind of of like a reverse One-Punch Man. Sure it takes place in a video game world, but I like video games so this is okay. I like the manga better than the anime.

Love it it had more details and is more interesting than the anime version i already finished the three books I bought and want to finish the series