Anime Spotlight #47: SHY (2025 Update)

Article by Sean Wilkinson,

a.k.a. the fiery, introverted Animeister

As I did for the last full week of February 2024, I think I've decided to theme the month of my birth around heroes this year, as last week, I updated my thoughts on the two SSSS anime by talking about the Gridman Universe movie, and next week, I'll do the same a new Spotlight for My Hero Academia ZENSHU because that has heroes in it, too, its a gorgeous anime, and I am multiple kinds of not ready to update MHA yet.

Insert "read the title, look at the thumbnail" joke here because I'm reviewing the second season of SHY, following this excerpt FROM February 19, 2024 (Anime Spotlight #27: SHY & Love After World Domination) with an update to the call to action: Everybody loves heroes, and everybody needs a hero, whether they are super-powered, peak-human, or merely inspirational. Whatever the case, it all comes down to what's in your heart and how strong those feelings are.

So don't be shy; use your power by remembering to Become A Ticketholder if you haven't already, fire off a comment at the bottom of this post, help out my ad revenue as you read, and follow your heart to my socials on BlueSky, Tumblr, Reddit, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest news on my content.

It's Anime Spotlightin' Time!

If the post title and theme of the month didn't give it away, SHY is a superhero anime based on an ongoing manga by Bukimi Miki. You may be surprised by the lack of "novel-turned-light-novel-turned..." that you'll often see in these reviews, unless you realize that the anime's title is way too short for that.

The main setting is Japan, because anime, but SHY takes place on a global scale on a fictionalized Earth where a masked alien/goddess/something named Unilord (which is totally not a villainous-sounding name at all) made certain humans into magical girl/Ranger-esque superheroes to prevent World War 3 (remember when the goal of every 80s and 90s action movie villain was to start World War 3? And when we didn't have to worry about our 45th and 47th president triggering it by opening his mouth?). The series begins in the period of peace after the heroes stopped the war, and they are now tasked with living their lives and doing domestic heroics like public appearances, stopping crimes, saving people from accidents and natural disasters, and coaxing old ladies' cats out of trees. And because each country has its own hero, there's some satirical stereotyping going on like Australia's hero being macho, Russia's being an alcoholic, Switzerland's being a nurse, and Japan's being...SHY.

Which is a great place to start for a hero's character growth. The titular Shy is a timid high school student named Teru Momijiyama, who has her first "failed" rescue attempt when a girl named Iko Koishikawa suffers a leg injury in a roller coaster accident that Shy prevents, leading to Shy pondering a "Spider-Man No More!" scenario for herself, which causes her transformation bracelets to stop working because they run on Heart Power (or for those who recognize anime and fiction tropes: the Power Of Friendship). But her instincts and strong feelings draw her back to heroics when she saves someone from a fire and Koishikawa is later infected by the series' main villain, Stigma. Shy manages to turn Koishikawa back to normal (making her both "the friend who knows the hero's secret identity" and the only person to survive being Stigmatized--that's my term for it, but I'm sure that if 4kids still existed, they would have beaten me to it when they butchered the localization of this series), and her journey of growth and self-discovery begins in earnest. There are parts I didn't like (such as the episode where Shy gets beaten powerless and nearly unconscious by Australia because he doesn't believe in her; it goes a bit too far even though it serves a narrative purpose), and parts I loved (like the episode after that where Shy develops a passion for calligraphy that gives her pyrokinesis, and the story arc in Russia where we learn that Stigma leads an entire group of villains looking to remake the world into one of "freedom" and "security"). The animation is great, the fights are great, the character work is great, the various tones of the series are well balanced, Brittany Karbowski voices one of the villains, and SHY is a good omen of how far the magical girl genre has come since the days of Sailor Moon. Highly recommended.

I also gave the second season a brief, first impressions look in Anime Spotlight #41: Spotlightning Round (Part IV) FROM August 5, 2024 as follows:

Our favorite introverted pyromancer and her supporting cast of eccentric, stereotypical heroes are back for another season...now with ninjas. As a child of the 90s, I am sold on that combination alone, but the comedy, action, drama, and animation are also still on point from what last year's season had to offer, and with the major character stuff handled in the previous season, it looks like we'll be getting right to the action only four episodes into the new season.

And now, I continue my second season review by saying that, yeah, Shy befriending a ninja princess and helping her cleanse her twin sister (or the expunged dark half of her own soul?) of Stigma's influence was a near-perfect formula. The two girls gushing and gawking over each other's contrasting (or are they different approaches to the same energy?) powers, with the Heart Bracelets being more technologically derived and based on the qualities of each hero, whereas Princess Ai's ninjutsu magic is more inspired by Eastern philosophy and religion, and draws from a greater, more external life force. Their chemistry is immediately compelling, and once the action cranks into gear (the heroes are forced to engage with a time-sensitive, city-wide threat by Ai's corrupted sister and other members of Stigma's group, Amarariruku, by the fourth episode), this feeling of juxtaposed philosophies between characters fuels the context of the intermediate fights. For example, China's hero and the emotionally volatile villain Doki have a weird but socially relevant friendship based in the gender-coding of cuteness (tomgirls can kick ass, too; manly men can like plushies and dolls; etc.) that's challenged by granular differences in their perspectives and the mandated polarity of good and evil, and Russia's hero (Spirit, whose mother was the villain of the first season's big battle arc) and the reality-warping prankster Kufufu (her name is just a Japanese onomatopoeia for laughter, she's the villain voiced by Brittany Karbowski, and she had some kind of intense kinship to Spirit's mother so she holds Spirit responsible for her death in the battle) have drastically different interpretations of what it means to bring joy to others, as well as the obvious personal animosity between them. Meanwhile, Stigma is doing the My Hero Academia Season Six thing by casting doubt on the effectiveness and morality of heroes in the world so he can steal the public's hearts and Stigmatize them like he did to Koishikawa last season, but on a global scale because social media can be the worst.

I'd say the weak point of the season is the final fight with Princess Mai/Utsuro. The flashback twist of "you thought this twin became the villain, but it was the other one all along because fanaticism has fluid morality," and the "final boss gets a new form because magic and twins and I wanted you to kill me so I could absorb you over to the Dark Side of the Force and become the ultimate edgelord Sith ninja," were predictable and unnecessary ways to fill out a season, even if everything else around it landed solidly enough, including how the season as a whole serves to demonstrate Shy's growth as not just a hero, but a leader.

So far, the anime is shown to be concluded, though the manga seems to still be ongoing. I hope the production staff are just waiting for more of the source material before announcing a third season, because there's a teaser that Shy has a long lost sister, who is (was?) also a hero.

Shine on, Ticketholders! And please remember to Become A Ticketholder if you haven't already, fire off a comment at the bottom of this post, help out my ad revenue as you read, and follow your heart to my socials on BlueSky, Tumblr, Reddit, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest news on my content.

Animeister,
Out.