The Rising of the Shield Hero, Volume 1

By: Aneko Yusagi

Narrated by: Kurt Kanazawa

Naofumi Iwatani, an uncharismatic Otaku who spends his days on games and manga, suddenly finds himself summoned to a parallel universe! He discovers he is one of four heroes equipped with legendary weapons and tasked with saving the world from its prophesied destruction. As the Shield Hero, the weakest of the heroes, all is not as it seems. Naofumi is soon alone, penniless, and betrayed. With no one to turn to, and nowhere to run, he is left with only his shield. Now, Naofumi must rise to become the legendary Shield Hero and save the world!

©2015 One Peace Books (P)2021 One Peace Books

Great story

But I just can't get past the narrator's voice. I really wanted to see how the books were different from the anime, though it doesn't seem I'll be able to this way. I guess my poor decision on not selecting the sample.

Excellent story, questionable excecution

love the story, enjoyed the audio format. young raphtalia voice however was....rough and very much took me out of the story with how jarring it was. please get a female reader for these parts moving forward.

Hire a female voice actor for the female characters

The voice of female characters such as Raphtalia is NOT a good voice to have for them. They need to hire a second voice actor for the female characters.

Honestly a great story…

To be perfectly honest I am writing this in hope that another volume gets written because the amount of detail put into this book feels like the guy is reading from a dnd setting and it is amazing! It absolutely sucks that it’s been 6 months with no follow up at all! Kurt, if you’re reading this, you started out great but it definitely sounded like you did long and drawn out reading sections. When I got to the part where Naofumi was accused the emotion sounds like you just read for 5 hours already! I don’t blame being tired and reading, I get it, but take shorter session, don’t be afraid of multiple takes and all of a chapter. I hope all of our honestly doesn’t drive you away but instead helps you pursue and endure.

Very interesting Isekai concept.

The concept definitely hooks you in very well and keeps you hooked with the first major conflict. From there the relationship with the hero and his new companion was done very well. definitely a good choice for Isekai fans.

So Close!

The only real negative about this is any time the narrator tries to do a female voice. It took me out of the experience. I know I couldn’t do one myself so I don’t blame him for this at all. He’s great as Naofumi & Erhard the shopkeeper though. And I do enjoy his Naofumi much more then his dubbed counterpart.

Copy vertical’s genius approach to light novel audio books and do a version with a partial cast. Even if it’s only two people the experience with be a thousand fold better.

To the future

I picked up this book for the express purpose of showing there is a market for light novels to be made into audio books.

I hope the narrator gets some more practice, the female line came out really rough.

Distracting

The single person reading the lines gets annoyingly distracting especially when he does the female voices, it felt like a chore to listen to. Would have rated it higher if they did dedicate voices for the other characters

good but

it was good but the narrator dose the worst girl voices that I've ever heard.
He literally says the words he-he when a female character laughs.
His girl voice sounds like that joke girl voice that some guys do.
It literally sounds like the ones from those old movies were a male character would dress up like a girl as a disguise, and they would talk in a fake super exaggerated cartoonishly high pitched sounding voice as a joke.

Close but no cigar

The story it’s self is interesting especially when it focuses on the human side of things. Like when noufume is betrayed by mine and lost all trust with the world. But I was un able to immerse myself into it do you the reader. I listened to this right after listening to overlord and the starch contrast between a professional voice actor and a normal person is quite clear. I would have liked to her the main characters voice actor from the anime to read this but oh well.