At The Rising of the Shield Hero special stage event at Crunchyroll Expo 2019 on Sunday, Kinema Citrus producer Junichiro Tamura announced that not only season 2, but also season 3 of the popular isekai anime are indeed in production. As a follow up, music producer Hiromitsu Ijima announced that they are in the early stages of planning a live performance of the music of The Rising of the Shield Hero with Kevin Penkin, possibly at Crunchyroll Expo 2020.
The 90 minute special stage event kicked off with a performance by Madkid, the pop group behind the openings to both cours of The Rising of the Shield Hero: “Rise” and “Faith.” That bit included a fluffy question and answer session with the boys, during which I swear I heard the mic pick up a producer coaching them on how to answer. That was kind of funny.
But the main meat of the event was a panel discussion featuring the aforementioned producers, Tamura and Ijima, as well as the voice actress behind the villainous Princess Myne, Sarah Emi Bridcutt, and character designer Masahiro Suwa.
In addition to the typical fluff about how excited they were to have worked on the anime and how much they appreciate the outpouring of support from fans, we got some fun stories from Bridcutt about performing such a universally hated character. She kept going back to episode 21’s trial at which Myne finally got her comeuppance, and how she prepared for the climactic moment by standing behind Kaito Ishikawa, the voice of Naofumi, shrieking and panicking in character.
Of particular interest to me was character designer Suwa and producer Tamura discussing how the characters changed over the course of the 25 episode run. Suwa talked about how the original design for Naofumi emphasized that he was not supposed to be cool. As a sort of nerdy college student, he was meant to look like a nerdy college student. But as he kept doing more awesomely badass things, Suwa forgot to not make Naofumi look badass, and he gradually came to look more and more awesome. Similarly, Tamura spoke about the protagonist’s progression from a fresh-faced college kid to a mature, grizzled hero, as well as Raphtalia’s growth from a child into a woman.
While other panelists were surprised or impressed with the show’s incredible popularity outside Japan. Tamura said he expected it. He had personally done extensive market research and helped plan the series with the intention of attracting a large overseas audience. “I’m pleased,” he said, “but not shocked.”
He must be very pleased indeed if the show is popular enough to merit two more seasons being produced immediately. I noticed music producer Ijima was eagerly answering as many questions as he could in English. It seems making anime with an eye to the overseas market is paying off.
