The Rising of the Shield Hero Season 2 (Limited Edition Blu-ray & DVD) Unboxing

The Rising of the Shield Hero (盾の勇者の成り上がり, Tate no Yūsha no Nariagari) Season 2 is a 2022 television anime series based on Aneko Yusagi’s light novel series of the same name with illustrator Seira Minami. The series was produced by studio Kinema Citrus, and the staff credits include director Masato Jinbo, screenplay writer Keigo Koyonagi, character designer Masahiro Suwa and music composer Kevin Penkin. The season was first aired in Japan on April 2022.

Background:

The Rising of the Shield Hero is one of those light novel isekai titles that had a lot of people interested in its concept, about betrayal, revenge and of course overcoming those troubles throughout. But it wasn’t without its faults as it wraps up the idea within its first major story arc which was covered in the show’s first season. The story keeps going with various obstacles throughout, but the hype essentially dwindled because the first arc was what made the series popular to begin with. There was of course the whole slavery concept but I’m not going to go on about that here.

Now despite these criticisms, the anime did well enough internationally to which Kadokawa immediately announced Seasons 2 & 3 of The Rising of the Shield Hero at Crunchyroll Expo 2019. The second season covers two story arcs and they both have their ups and downs which is mostly due to pacing. A lot of readers apparently hated the Turtle arc because it went on for too long in the source material, so the anime essentially sped up the pace. Overall I did think the season was an good time but hopefully Season 3 which airs very soon will be much better in quality.

Crunchyroll also has the home video rights to The Rising of the Shield Hero Season 2 and released a limited edition box set to go with it. They also produced an English dub during its simulcast, though Naofumi’s original English VA Billy Kametz (JoJo’s Josuke, Promare’s Galo) sadly passed away in June 2022, around the time that Season 2’s dubbing was being worked on. Stephen Fu (Dumbbell’s Machio, Yamada-kun at Lv999’s Akito Yamada) voiced Naofumi from there on.

Under the Crunchyroll branding and name, the UK release was also released by them and was a rare case to which it received a limited edition and a standard edition with a slipcase. Surprise.

Limited Edition Contents:

As mentioned, Crunchyroll provided a limited edition release to go along with its first season for The Rising of the Shield Hero, but the UK has been skipping a lot of them over the past year (this can be due to poor sales caused by high pricing and silly decisions). It was very fortunate that they did release this one over here and in affordable pricing considering the US version’s SRP rose to $94.98 (£77.65).

The limited edition box set features a rigid box that houses an Amaray case and a slipcase as well as an 80-page booklet and a spare cardboard box that includes 6 art cards and a fabric poster. While limited editions from Funimation sometimes have exclusive artwork, this is just the same as the regular edition which also features different artwork for the main Amaray case – so for once Crunchyroll UK didn’t ruin the release which is a rare W (for context they have replaced the main Amaray artwork with the slipcase artwork in previous limited editions like ARIFURETA Season 1 and OVERLORD II which were insulting). The artbook offers character designs, background and prop designs and interviews with the staff members.

The rigid box artwork is free of any information and the info sheet covers the information and specification like previous Crunchyroll limited edition releases. The SRP for the limited-edition set was £59.99 and there’s no exact unit count.

I had originally ordered the US version but instead changed my mind and went for the UK limited edition version which was available on MVM’s Anime-on-Line store for £44.99. A standard edition Blu-ray release was also released on the same day as this edition.

Physical Contents:

• Rigid Box with slipcase, Amaray packaging and clean artwork
• Info sheet for specification
• 80-page Art Book
• 6 Art Cards
• Fabric Poster

On-Disc Contents:

Distributor: Crunchyroll UK
Released: 25th September 2023

The limited edition release for The Rising of the Shield Hero Season 2 contains all 13 episodes across two Blu-ray discs and two DVD discs. All the discs were encoded and authored by Crunchyroll.

Audio options include Japanese audio with English subtitles and the Bang Zoom! English dub commissioned by Crunchyroll. The white subtitles are unlockable during playback and the regions are compatible with Blu-ray players set to A & B and DVD players set to 1, 2 & 4 with NTSC support.

Blu-ray Specs:

Languages	English, Japanese
Audio	English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Japanese Dolby TrueHD 2.0
Video	1080p High Definition Native format 16:9 aspect ratio
Region	A B
Subtitles	English
Locked Subtitles	No
Discs	2 BD-50s

DVD Specs:

Languages	English, Japanese
Audio	English Dolby Digital 5.1 Japanese Dolby Digital 2.0
Video	Standard Definition in NTSC format 16:9 aspect ratio
Region	1 2 4
Subtitles	English
Locked Subtitles	No
Discs	2

Blu-ray On-Disc Extra Features:

Disc 2:

• Promo Videos
• Commercials
• Textless Opening Song “Bring Back”
• Textless Closing Song “Yuzurenai (Unyielding)”

DVD On-Disc Extra Features:

No extras across all discs

Unboxing Photos:

Final Notes:

The Rising of the Shield Hero Season 2 is available to order through multiple retailers across the United Kingdom. The limited edition Blu-ray & DVD release is available to order on Amazon UK, Anime Limited’s store, MVM’s Anime-on-Line.

(Disclaimer: Amazon links are also included when available. They are affiliated so if you decide to order them, I’ll earn a small percentage if they ship which will help me with any hauls or small bills. United Publications is retiring from home video sales so they won’t be listed here)