The Rising of the Shield Hero, Volume 1

First off, before you read anything else, this is the only English version of this book. If you want to read it, the issues I talk about are just things you're going to have to put up with. I'm giving this 4 stars for the story, not the execution. The execution is horrible. What happens to the main character, how he deals with it, and his unique "dark" take on everything happening around him is what makes or breaks this story. Get past the main character's uniqueness, and everything else is about what readers of the genre (otaku gets thrown into a game/fantasy world) will expect. Aside from that, Aneko Yusagi has some very poor writing habits. Any time there is a detail that they feel the reader needs to know about, but which wasn't mentioned earlier, instead of editing things so that that information shows up where it should, the author just has Naofumi break into whatever else he was doing to say: " By the way, such and such means such and such" or "For your information, I did this other thing earlier." Another thing that really bugs me is that whenever anyone says anything are there ever any direct indicators as to who is saying what. There's no He said,"blah blah blah" or She asked,"What the blah?" You have to infer who is saying what every single time. This is manageable with two people or less, but becomes impossible in most instances where three or more people are talking.Also, for some reason the publisher decided every instance of "Naofumi-san" needed to be changed to "Mr. Naofumi", even though the book is rife with Japanese-isms. Also typos. Plenty of them. A quick read-through by a fluent speaker before sending the book to the printers should have caught them. Guess they couldn't be bothered.

I got into this LN due to having read some of the manga, which gave the impression that some of the content was condensed or left out due to time/space constraints. There's also the consideration that I just wanted to know what happened next and the LN were further along than the manga was.What stands out most in all of this is that our protagonist has an incredibly hard time of things due to certain events and rather than keep a chipper outlook, he actually goes the opposite direction. He goes dark. Super dark, to the point where he's openly cold to others - and that's not even counting the people that he actively hates. It's pretty understandable given that he was coming into a world that at best thinks he was a joke and at worst thinks that he's a criminal or useless.The plot here moves along pretty quickly and while at times this does feel a little clunky, it doesn't take long to immerse yourself in the world. My only notes here would be that if people think that this book was fun, they should check out the later volumes, which are definite page turners. I ended up getting the Kindle version of these despite normally preferring my LN in paper format, so I just want to say that the books are pretty well adapted. The images show up wonderfully, if you were curious.

My husband and I got the book after really enjoying the anime. If you're expecting some great, classic novel, it's not this book, however if you're already a fan of the story and OK with mediocre writing, this is a wonderful source to satisfy your craving. The first book we got had 16 pages ripped out of the middle, so we sent it back and it was replaced quickly. The new one that was sent to us, while it had all the pages, the binding was obviously coming off. I have attached pictures of what I'm talking about for the first and second book we got. I don't know if there's a quality control issue since these are supposed to be new, but as long as I can continue reading and exploring this world, I'm not complaining...overmuch, anyway.Edit: The binding completely came off the second book they sent while about 50% through it. They have declined to replace it stating that the third book will probably also be damaged, though they are refunding me. I've never had an issue buying a *NEW* book online before, so very disappointed with that. I get used and ex-library books from Thrift book all the time without these issues! Star rating is for the lack of quality control and not the quality of the book, despite some questionable writing choices...

i have been getting into light novels and thought since i love the manga and anime of this id give it a shot, i can 100% recommend it, i will say tho dont go for the kindle version as they have a weird spacing problem through out the volume they keep s eperating the first w ords throughout the v olume and tbh it gets r eally annoying and it really t akes you out of reading it, i w ould suggest getting t he books as this is really does get a nnoying but aside f rom that one problem i would defo recommend the book series

Ever read a story about someone summoned to another world, so that they can help save it, and whilst having adventure after adventure everything goes their way easily and people adore them and sing their praises?Sure you have. I've read hundreds like that.This story is not that story.Without giving away spoilers, if starts off similar to those other stories but then quickly takes a darker road, as the main character has to struggle against persecution on a daily basis. This is a main character that ends up hating everyone and anything in this world he has been summoned too.His hatred and need to survive leads him to resort to choices that your traditional hero from other stories would never even contemplate.The difference and believable scenario was excellent, and I loved every minute of binge reading volume 1 and 2, begrudging every moment I had to put down my tablet to do something else (like go to work, eat, sleep etc).Now I am waiting for volume 3 and 4 to be released on digital.Please give me more!

A great twist on the transported to another world fantasy sub-genre, not too heavy and fun in the way it plays with some of the tropes. The novel adds a little more depth than the Anime series.

Definitely one of the better light novel translations I've read recently. At first, this seems like just another 'stuck in a fantasy world' type stories, but it's the warmth and detail given to both the world and its characters that really help mark this book out as a level above a lot of the similar fare out there at the moment. A really distinct, old-school adventuring vibe that far exceeded my expectations.

8/10 Good stuff.Last side story had me in tears.Anyway characters are interesting and fairly well developed, to the extent that you still support the main character even when he is being a horrible person. That's another thing that make this novel a bit more interesting, while the main character is a good person at heart, he isnt one of the usual cookie cutter guys that is good and nice 100% of the time. This makes him somewhat relatable.Anyway tldr; good characters and interesting plot that could lead somewhere great.