The Shield Hero

The Shield Hero is the first episode of The Rising of the Shield Hero anime.

Synopsis
Naofumi Iwatani, a run-of-the-mill otaku, finds a book in the library that summons him to another world. He is tasked with joining the sword, spear, and bow as one of the Four Cardinal Heroes and fighting the Waves of Catastrophe as the Shield Hero. Excited by the prospect of a grand adventure, Naofumi sets off with his party. However, merely a few days later, he is betrayed and loses all his money, dignity, and respect. Unable to trust anyone anymore, he employs a slave named Raphtalia and takes on the Waves and the world. But will he really find a way to overturn this desperate situation?

Plot
Naofumi Iwatani is your average college Otaku who lives with his 'Good For nothing younger brother' and together they live off of their parents money. One day while checking out manga at the library Naofumi stumbles across a book called 'The Four Heroes Weapons Manual' and while skimming through it finds himself transported to another world along with three other people.

Naofumi soon discovers a shield attached to his arm and people asking him and the others to save their world. While Naofumi is confused about the situation he finds himself in the other three, Motoyasu Kitamura who is holding a spear, Ren Amaki who is holding a sword and Itsuki Kawasumi who is holding a bow are already negotiating payment with their summoners.

The summoners promise a explanation to follow as they lead the four heroes to the king of their country Aultcray Melromarc XXXII. Asking each of the four to introduce themselves, and pointedly ignoring Naofumi, the King explains that their world is under threat from Waves of Calamity, inter dimensional portals that open periodically and dump monsters onto their lands, and need the four to stop them.

They are Heroes chosen by the four Legendary Weapons as champions to defend them from the waves. In exchange for defending their world the Heroes weapons have the ability to send them back to their worlds to live under highly favorable conditions, or live in this new world where the King promises they will be treated as heroes for the rest of their lives.

However as they are now the four will not stand a chance against the incoming waves: thus come morning the King will have prepared volunteers to join the four of them to hunt monsters and increase their power. As the four retire to the room prepared for them they learn various things about both each other and the world they now find themselves in.

For starters they learn about Status Magic which tells them about both themselves and their weapons and the various abilities that they share. For another the Four heroes also learn that although they all come from Japan, they don't come from the same Japan. The other three have all played different games whose plot remind them of the world they're now in, but all on different systems.

They also confirm that their Japan's histories and cultures are different from one another via a round of trivia. The other three also confirm that in their respective games Naofumi's class, the Shield, was the 'loser's class.' While Naofumi can expect to have a easy time at first being invulnerable to low level monsters he has next to zero attack power and it won't increase as he levels.

When morning comes despite twelve adventurers having volunteered to join their parties, Naofumi finds that no one wants to join his party: Rumors have already spread about Naofumi's seeming incompetence and weakness, no one wants to join a legendary hero's party and expect to do all the work them-self. However one of Motoyama's party members, a woman named Mein volunteers to join Naofumi.

The four heroes are given an allowance by the king to live off of for the next month, 800 silver coins for Naofumi, and 600 each for the other heroes. Mein takes Naofumi to a blacksmith named Elhart who sells them equipment, a modest 100 silver coin chain mail coat for Naofumi and a expensive 600 silver coin set of armor and sword for Mein.

Naofumi also learns to his horror that he can't even pick up a sword to attack with, thanks to the power of his shield any one that he tries to pick up immediately flies out of his hand. Naofumi is taken to a field outside of the castle where he is introduced to Orange Balloons, monsters that resemble orange balls which fly around at high speeds.

Attempting to take a group of them on by himself Naofumi spends five minuets of continuous punching just to make one of them pop, further blows to his confidence come when he watches Ren chop more of the balloons to pieces with his sword. After a long day of punching the balloons Naofumi learns that he can feed bits and pieces from the monsters he's killed to his shield in order to unlock alternate transformations for the weapon.

Calling it quits for the evening Naofumi and Mein return to the Inn where they enjoy steak and wine together before retiring for the night. The next day Naofumi learns that the clothes he came to the new world with, the armor he bought and all the money he had left from the king have all been stolen. Checking in on Mein Naofumi is snatched by a group of royal guards and forcibly dragged in before the King and the other heroes.

There Naofumi learns that after apparently getting drunk last night he violently raped Mein who then sought safe refuge with Motoyama, whom it should be noted is wearing his chain mail. When Mein starts making faces at him Naofumi becomes enraged when he realizes that he's been framed for rape and all of his belongings but the under clothing he went to bed in last night were stolen by Mein.

Naturally Naofumi demands to be sent back to his world immediately, however the King can't do that: the heroes can't be returned to their own world until the waves are stopped and they can't summon new heroes until either this set of waves are stopped or all four of the heroes are dead. Instead Naofumi breaks free of the guards and storms out of the castle realizing that everyone from the start had been plotting against him.

Naofumi encounters Elhart who is about to punch him for his actions but stops after looking him in the eyes, instead he gives Naofumi some armor he had on clearance and tells him to pay him back when he can. A thoroughly enraged Naofumi goes out to the fields and takes his anger out on the Balloons there. After working through the night Naofumi finally reaches level two.

The next morning Naofumi gathers the scraps of Balloons he killed and brings them to a merchant to sell. After the merchant initially tries to rip Naofumi off the Shield Hero reveals numerous Balloons hidden under his coat trying to gnaw through his arms and legs, though they happily take their pent up aggression out on the merchant when Naofumi puts him into a choke hold.

Like that Naofumi successfully bullies his way into something resembling fair treatment by tossing Balloons at people who try to rip him off while at the same time fending off people who try to steal from him. After two weeks and two more level ups Naofumi frustratingly laments that he's trapped in a vicious cycle, he can't defeat strong monsters because he has no attack power, he can't get more attack power because he can't level up, and he can't level up because he can't defeat strong monsters.

After fending off another group of would be party members a strange short little man makes his presence known offering a solution to Naofumi's party member situation. Rather than some half baked companion who can turn on Naofumi at any time, what the hero of the shield really needs is someone who is magically bound to obey Naofumi's commands: a slave.

Characters

 * Naofumi Iwatani
 * Motoyasu Kitamura
 * Ren Amaki
 * Itsuki Kawasumi
 * Malty Melromarc
 * Aultcray Melromarc XXXII