The Rising of the Shield Hero Season 2 Episode 5 aired on Wednesday revealing who has been controlling the Spirit Tortoise all along. Despite some mishaps, the episode was arguably the best of the season by keeping the suspense high and answering previous questions fans have been wanting answers for.
The ultimate reveal of Kyo being the one who is controlling the Spirit Tortoise ended up being slightly underwhelming. However, hearing Ryohei Kimura (Kotaro Bokuto – Haikyuu!) voicing Kyo was a nice surprise. And he did a wonderful job of giving us the feeling that Kyo was a serious antagonist for this season. One that would prove to be a problem from here on out. But as to what he can do specifically besides just controlling the Spirit Tortoise is still up in the air. His menacing laugh and overconfidence gave fans a feeling that an antagonist we can finally be excited about has shown up.
Most of this season so far is revolved around Ost, who was introduced to us at the end of the first episode. And it’s only right she took the spotlight in an episode that was titled after her name, “Ost Hourai”. The inner conflict of her past clashing with the new friendships she’s developing with Naofumi, Raphtalia, Filo, and Rishia is molding her into an interesting character, not that she wasn’t interesting from the jump already.
But she’s now going through personal development and questioning everything she once believed in. And now that she’s regained all of her memories of who she truly is, the bombshell that dropped on us at the end of the episode tells us that she is basically the Spirit Tortoise itself. While it wasn’t necessarily clear after Kyo told Naofumi and the others, it seemed like it was pretty much set in stone after Kyo said regarding Ost, “It’s connected to the Spirit Tortoise’s core. You could say it’s the Spirit Tortoise itself!” Now, this creates an interesting scenario that Naofumi is going to have to think about.
Rishia already told Ost that Naofumi probably thinks of her as one of them already. So the groundwork set in this episode seems like it could be leading to an emotional decision regarding Ost’s life in the near future. Let’s hope we get an exciting resolution to the current situation. But if Kyo controls the Spirit Tortoise, and the Spirit Tortoise is actually Ost herself, it’ll create plenty of conflicting moments to keep this rest of the season interesting. We already saw how powerful she was in episode 3.
The one thing that The Rising of the Shield Hero Season 2 has managed to do on a consistent basis is ending each episode on a well-executed cliffhanger. I’d go as far as to say it’s actually excelling on this end. While the episodes themselves haven’t lived up to par with what fans enjoyed in the first season, this week’s episode yet again got us hyped for what’s to come. Now that Kyo has revealed himself and the identity, basically, of the Spirit Tortoise, the season can finally get the ball rolling after that disaster of episode 3 and the setup with episode 4.
But one has to wonder when L’Arc, Therese, and Glass will actually help Naofumi and company to defeat Kyo. We know Naofumi said he doesn’t want to work with people he’ll have to kill later. But Kyo could provide an exception to that, especially seeing as how three big characters from the first season would just show up and not have a big part. And after an emotional moment in this episode between Raphtalia and Ost, could she be the one who actually saves Ost when it’s all said and done? It would be a sight to see since fans know Raphtalia always puts on a spectacle when she starts fighting.
Episode 6 of The Rising of the Shield Hero Season 2 will air on Wednesday, May 11, on Crunchyroll. Make sure to vote for episode 5 in our weekly poll to get the series back into the top-10! The Rising of the Shield Hero Season 2 ranked 12th in our week five poll. What was your favorite moment from this week’s episode?
Screenshots via Crunchyroll
©2021 Aneko Yusagi / KADOKAWA / Shield Hero S2 Production Committee