The Shield Hero’s rise continues — The Rising of the Shield Hero TV anime, which aired its fourth season during the Summer 2025 anime season, is set to continue its journey with a fifth season.
There’s no word yet on when that new season will arrive. The first three seasons had their premieres in 2019, 2022, and 2023.
For now, fans will have to contend themselves with a fiery ultra teaser visual and a teaser video. Expect sand, dramatic music, a mysterious figure on a throne, and protagonist Naofumi’s anguished face in the latter.
©AnekoYusagi_Seira Minami/KADOKAWA/Shield Hero S5 Project
Beyond Season 5, Shield Hero fans will also have a game — coming to PC and mobile globally — to look forward to. Current details for these are also scarce, but there’s a teaser visual with Raphtalia.
The Rising of the Shield Hero is an adaptation of the MF Books light novel series written by Yusagi Aneko and illustrated by Seira Minami. The isekai fantasy sees Naofumi (voiced by Kaito Ishikawa) being summoned to another world to be the Shield Hero, which turns out to be not as glamorous as it sounds on paper.
©AnekoYusagi_Seira Minami/KADOKAWA/Shield Hero Game Project
Crunchyroll and Bilibili are streaming Season 4 of the anime. That season’s staff credits include:
• Director: Hitoshi Haga (since Season 3)
• Series composer: Keigo Koyanagi (since Season 1, co-credited with Kinema Citrus in Season 3)
• Character designer: Franziska van Wulfen (since Season 3)
• Character designer: Sana Komatsu (since Season 3)
• Character designer: Masahiro Suwa
• Assistant director: Takanori Yamamoto (previously involved as episode director and animation director on Season 1 and 3)
• Music composer: Kevin Penkin
• Music composer: Alfredo Sirica (Season 3 sub-composer)
• Music composer: Natalie Jeffreys (Season 3 sub-composer)
• Animation production: Kinema Citrus (since Season 1, shared credit with DR MOVIE for Season 2)
The Rising of the Shield Hero light novel series began in August 2013 and has 22 volumes as of June 2019. There is a manga adaptation and spin-offs as well. The story started as a web novel on Shosetsuka ni Naro in 2012.
Here’s the light novels’ synopsis from One Peace Books:
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!
Cast (currently)
• Kaito Ishikawa as Naofumi Iwatani
• Asami Seto as Raphtalia
• Rina Hidaka as Filo
• Ami Koshimizu as Sadeena
• Kouhei Amasaki as Fohl
• Konomi Kohara as Atla
• Takeo Otsuka as Werner
• Jiro Saito as Jaralis
Source: @shieldheroanime
