Fitoria, Queen of the Filolial // Shield Hero Ep. 16 Review

Filolial Queen: Episode 16 Review

Otaku Voice Staff

I like how there seems to be two styles of dragon’s in the world of The Rising of the Shield Hero. First is the classic European fantasy style. They fit very much within the overall aesthetic of the show. Then there are the dinosaur looking dragons. We saw the Spear Hero ride one in an earlier episode, and then we have this behemoth threatening our heroes.

Shield Hero episode 16 kicks right of with the flight from the ancient dragon. I love the design of the dragon/T-Rex. It has such a fantastic ornate face-plate and it is a giant dinosaur. The eight year-old me is so happy to see it. It is also way too powerful for Naofumi and company to defeat single handily, and definitely impossible to handle within the city. I know there are still from friendly characters within Idol Rabier’s castle, but I don’t think the destruction of his palace much to cry over.

Queen of the Filolial

Filo gets some interesting focus this episode. The ancient dragon is drawn to her by the stone she consumed from the zombie dragon. There is an interesting connection there not much touched upon this episode. She draws the dragon and the rest of the party outside of the city to the edge of a large pond. There we meet the filolial queen.

If you remember correctly filolials hate dragons and dragons hate filolials. It seems like the overgrown chocobos have the edge over dragons since filo outran the Spear Hero’s mount, and the filolial queen herself dispatches the ancient dragon without hesitation. I wasn’t a fan of how quickly she was able to rip apart the T-Rex. Recognizing that the filolial queen is also absolutely massive in size, it felt like the enemy wasn’t really meant to take up this much time. At least we had some time with Naofumi’s party failing to kill it before the deus ex machina appeared.

The queen does represent more than a way to kill the dragon. She has more plot to uncover about the world of The Rising of the Shield Hero. For a walking talking bird that acts and looks like a small child she is actually really old. Old enough to remember heroes from many centuries before. When the waves first attacked.

The Heroes of Old

After the battle against the dragon Fitoria introduces herself to Naofumi, who she lovingly refers to as a Cardinal Hero. After they arrive at the ruins of a forgotten civilization they sit down for a delicious dragon meat dinner. Poor Naofumi basically foots the bill as he cooks for what is clearly a couple dozen filolials, including his own party.

Fitoria reveals a lot about the world and the Kingdom of Melromarc. We already know that there is a conspiracy afoot, and she confirms the human supremacist attitude the people of the kingdom hold. Because of that they are holding back the heroes from learning of the plight of the other kingdoms. Naofumi may know that there are other Dragon Hourglasses throughout the world, but he hasn’t seemed to connect the dots on the widespread nature of the wave. The King has been selfishly holding them all in his own kingdom, leaving Fitoria to clean up where the heroes have not ventured.

The final reveal of the episode is quite the cliffhanger. Fitoria sees the in-fighting of the heroes as the ultimate problem. She vows to kill all four heroes. If she succeeds in that, then she can re-summon the Cardinal Heroes. It may be starting them from scratch when the waves are getting harder, but them working together is a much better proposition in her mind. I am excited to see how Naofumi navigates this next episode.

[Sources and Further Reading]
[Episode 15 Review]
[Image via Crunchyroll]