Shy is a Superhero themed Anime.

[Superheroinegirl22]

Season 1 aired last year and season 2 is airing now.

It's pretty good.

[dajinx1]

Season 1 aired last year and season 2 is airing now.

It's pretty good.

Where can it be seen?

[shevek]

Season 1 aired last year and season 2 is airing now.

It's pretty good.

Where can it be seen?

Whichever service shows Crunchyroll. Or is that a service unto itself?

But you can find both seasons on the same place I watched Gushing over Magical Girls.
https://9anime.se/search?keyword=shy

Costumes look good. For fans of Kamen America and My Hero Academia I suppose.
The premise of each nation having its own superhero, thus keeping world peace, is a good one, but what happens to any extra superheroes - is a nation allowed to have two or three, or do all the rest of the unofficial ones become either banned or villainous? And they're not connected at all to corporations like they are in The Boys? I guess I'll find out!

SHY_Key_Visual.jpg (78.24 KiB) Viewed 5363 times

[ThatOnePervert]

I remember reading the first couple of chapters of the manga and it didn't really seem that interesting, setting seems designed to limit the number of heroes and just force random national stereotypes onto the ones who remain (I think the Russian heroine was always drunk?). Might go back and try to reread it before I commit to a show, but I'm not expecting much.

[shevek]

I remember reading the first couple of chapters of the manga and it didn't really seem that interesting, setting seems designed to limit the number of heroes and just force random national stereotypes onto the ones who remain (I think the Russian heroine was always drunk?). Might go back and try to reread it before I commit to a show, but I'm not expecting much.

You're not wrong. I've already finished four episodes, and the number of heroes shown has so far been severely limited to just five, as you've said, although China might have a sixth one called 'Mianlong'. And they definitely have national stereotypes - the Russian girl Spirit is indeed drinking vodka quite often. The German hero is a professor who looks like Einstein. And the Swiss heroine is a healer like a human Red Cross. The other hero, the British Stardust, might well fit a national stereotype as well? Do the Japanese consider the UK as somehow being 'devoid of empathy'?

A lot of this show so far is basically schoolgirl emotions and also the conveyance of deep concepts that you don't see a lot in Western cartoons - for example, there's a whole speech just about how your legacy lives on through those who remember you after you die. Which is simply a way of justifying the priority of good deeds in life without having to rely on religious doctrines.

On the other hand, the slow pace and 'philosophical' nature of the show does provide for slow and steady character development. I like how we get to see in great detail how Shy's new friend Iko is physically infected by evil. Iko is gorgeous, and it would be great if she eventually became part of the superhero group and got to wear a nice costume.

The situation with the main character, Shy, is that although she is a superheroine, she has absolutely crippling social anxiety. I gather that this is a thing which is common in Japan because they keep using the term "shut-in" to describe it, which seems like a common affliction pertaining to lots of young people in Japan, although in the West, it would be a lot more common to call an old person a "shut-in". It does, however, seem to be a good time to put this out as an anime, since it could ring a bell with the Alphas and Zoomers in the West who seem to have poor social skills due to technological isolation and now the pandemic. For those who don't have this crippling anxiety, however, it can be a bit tedious trying to watch Teru (Shy) navigate through every little social interaction in her life while shivering in self-doubt and fear, since most of us don't do that.

The status of the Unilord is a bit weird. First of all, she is called the "Unilord" instead of "Unilady"? is she non-binary? And she wears a mask all the time which covers all of her face so you can't see her emotions. With emotions otherwise being a large part of this character-driven series, doesn't that simply indicate that Unilord must have something to hide from her charges?

I'm also rather unclear about how the 'Shrimpy-Sans' (the little floating mascots) work. I understand that this is a trope often used in magical girl shows, such as the kwamis in Miraculous Ladybug. But the Shrimpies seem somehow different. Teru's Shrimpy doesn't have a high cute squeaky voice like the Kwamis - his presence is quite deep and masculine for a little guy. They're not very afraid of being seen, and they don't necessarily seem crucial for the hero transformations, yet it seems like they are reporting to, or somehow subservient to, the Unilord.

We also don't know anything yet about how the magical bracelet/ring transformation system works, where it came from, or why it suddenly appeared on Earth, let alone why only one hero from each country has one. A lot to be answered.

[shevek]

Finished Season 1.

Yes, the show is called 'Shy' and it's about the slow evolution of a timid and socially anxious girl into a confident heroine (and no, she doesn't totally achieve that by the end of Season 1, but she makes a whole lot of progress and there's a lot of internal monologuing about it).

But the last five episodes are also a sad tear-jerking Russian saga about a mother and daughter and their love. It's like they took apart a 19th century agonizingly long Russia novel and turned it into a story about a superheroine and supervillainess. Luckily there is redemption but it takes forever and there is a lot of ice and cold and snow, and alcohol being drunk along the way. The positive part of this is that the two Russian characters (Pesha and Tzveta) are definitely the most beautiful in the series to look at.

So yes, this is a superheroine anime, and there is some action and fighting. But most of what takes up the footage time are these endless emotional beats repeated over and over for emphasis. So just look for a lot of that.

One thing I did notice quite strongly is that this series clearly displays some of the reasons the Hollywood creator class hates anime and wants to control and change it so much:
- The cast of characters is the absolute opposite of 'diversity' in Western terms. Only European and Asian characters exist. There is nobody from Africa, Latin America or Middle East, and not even an American anywhere. There is a Chinese hero (Mianlong) who is at first assumed by Shy to be a girl because of his flowing costume and his effeminate face, but he is not TG or NB, just a boy who wishes to be more manly, actually.
- The messages delivered by the content are constant reminders of quite traditional values, for example:
The love and inspiration you give to your child is passed on as they grow up and express their love for others.
Selfless acts of heroism for others are to be admired and respected.
Respect elders and treat them with reverence.
If you succeed at something, it's because you did it yourself. If you fail at something, it's because you failed and you cannot blame others, or society, for it.
And a bunch of other strong messages about emotions and self-growth that I can't remember right now.

I've already mentioned that the emphasis on extreme levels of alcohol consumption is weird, but there's one other thing that bugs me: the almost total lack of male figures of authority, as well as parents. We never see Shy's parents even once, and just a tiny glimpse of her older sister in the final episode. We also never find out where Pesha's Russian dad was this whole time - why did she grow up for twelve years without a father? It's never explained. Also in the flashbacks explaining the origins of the other heroes (such as Lady Black and Stardust) we don't see any adults, either.

I also still don't understand where all of these people got their powers. There's a spaceship headquarters, there are Shrimpy-San magical mascots, there are rings and bracelets, and there's a certain point in history several years ago where everyone got these powers. But it's never explained how that happened or what force is behind it. All the heroes look up to the female Unilord whose face is entirely masked and whose identity is a complete mystery. What role does she play in all of this?

Would I recommend this? Sure. But as a warning: it's both very kawaii (cute) *and* an extreme emotional tear-jerker, and as I've said, there is an awful lot of the worldbuilding which remains unfinished and unexplained.

I'll be checking out Season 2 soon, when the true villainous plans of Stigma and his Amarikuru allies come to fruition.
Their goal is that they want world peace and harmony by forcing everyone to live in the exact same dream, and that sounds quite a lot like
that 'Myriad' plot from the Supergirl TV series, if you remember that.

[Superheroinegirl22]

I'm watching the Dub so for me episode 19 is the most recent episode, it had some good content.

[shevek]

I'm watching the Dub so for me episode 19 is the most recent episode, it had some good content.

Good to hear. I was entertained so far, as well, but it was a little slow during the Russian story.

9anime, however, which allowed me to watch Season 1 pretty much uninterrupted, decided to attack me with a viral attempt at screen-freezing when I tried to click on Season 2, so I'll have to figure out something else.

The thumbnail for Season 2, however, did say that there were 12 episodes in it, so that means you should be able to watch up to Episode 22, not just 19.

[Superheroinegirl22]

I'm watching the Dub so for me episode 19 is the most recent episode, it had some good content.

Good to hear. I was entertained so far, as well, but it was a little slow during the Russian story.

9anime, however, which allowed me to watch Season 1 pretty much uninterrupted, decided to attack me with a viral attempt at screen-freezing when I tried to click on Season 2, so I'll have to figure out something else.

The thumbnail for Season 2, however, did say that there were 12 episodes in it, so that means you should be able to watch up to Episode 22, not just 19.

12 is how many there will be total, but not all of them are out yet even in the Sub. From looking at MAL the Sub is only two episode ahead of me.