How to Craft a Thrilling Battle Scene

Warning: The following contains spoilers for The Rising of The Shield Hero Season 3, Episode 9, “Emperor Dragon”, now streaming on Crunchyroll.

The latter half of episode 8 and the first half of episode 9 focus on a massive battle between Naofumi and his companions against a raging Dragon Emperor. A boss raid, so to speak. Unfortunately, the battle has to be split into two episodes, but it was likely done to create a cliffhanger so the audience could be excited about seeing what comes next.

Anyway, this battle is without a doubt one of the best action sequences that this series has ever produced. Out of the countless interesting stuff that happened in this battle, this article will focus on one simple thing. Some of the tricks and techniques used by the animators and showrunners to craft a thrilling battle scene. So let’s take a look at some of the novel things and decisions that were made in order to create such a dynamic and exhilarating battle.

Hyper Cuts, Hyper Movements

One of the simplest things that can be used to dictate the pace of a scene is the movement of the characters. If they walk in a leisurely way, then the pace will feel rather slow. If they run, then the pace will pick up a bit. The faster and the more intense the movement is, the faster the pace will be. An action sequence in anime usually means close-quarter combat that requires the characters to move their bodies. So by adding speed and intensity to the movements of the characters during combat, the scene will feel so much more thrilling to the audience.

Rising of the Shield Hero uses this principle heavily in this battle. Throughout the fight, there’s hardly any character that stands still. Everybody moves. Raphtalia and Eclair run towards the Dragon to land their signature stabs and slashes. Ren and Sadeena jump, dodge, and hurl towards the enemy until they find the best chance to unleash their strongest attacks. Even Naofumi and Melty who usually stay in the back as support also move around quite a bit during the fight, either to evade the Dragon’s brute force attack or to provide multi-layered protection against the Dragon’s fiery breath.

To complement the dynamic movements of the characters, the showrunners placed tons of cuts in the scene. These hypercuts provide a sense of speed and urgency to the scene. By the way, just like movements, increasing the number of cuts is also a common technique used in filmmaking to speed up the pace of the scene.

Thanks to the heightened sense of speed and intensity achieved through dynamic movements and hypercuts, the audience feels drawn into the scene and also makes us stay at the edge of our seats. Furthermore, it also increases the effectiveness of some rare moments where the characters are forced to stay still. After all, when characters who constantly move around the battlefield suddenly stop in their tracks, the viewers will be forced to pay close attention to what they do or say.

Extreme Angles

Another tool that is used in this battle is extreme camera angles. Normally, the camera lens will either capture the scenes from the front or the side of the characters, with some shots from the back from time to time. This clear and steady camera angle is by far the most pleasant for our eyes to see. After all, this angle allows the viewers to be roughly on the same eye level as the characters on the screen, which makes it so much easier for us to focus on what the scenes want to highlight.

However, this kind of conventional camera angle is extremely unsuitable for an action sequence. After all, rather than making the scene feel tense and exciting, this angle ends up making the scene look boring and uneventful. That’s why most action scenes utilize a tracking shot where the camera follows the movements of the characters. This is precisely what happens in this particular battle scene.

However, that is not the only thing that the showrunners have done. To enhance the intensity of the battle even further, they used extreme angles in certain climactic moments. Such as an extremely low angle to make the dragon look even bigger and more menacing or placing the camera at the fingertips of the characters as they are about to unleash their attacks to make the scene feel even more intense.

Related

Rising of the Shield Hero: Waves of Calamity, Explained

The concept behind the waves of calamity is actually a lot more complicated than you might think.

Flashy Effects

Rising of the Shield Hero is a fantasy series with swords and magic. As such, hyper movements, cuts, and the odd camera angle are not enough to support such massive action sequences. The last ingredient needed to spice everything up is none other than super flashy effects. The explosion, the sword and magic attacks, and the impact caused by each attack, everything is brighter and much more intense than a usual fight scene.

Not only that, but every character also has their own distinct colors to represent their attacks. Such as the dragon’s body that glows purple as he unleashes a purplish destructive breath, Atla’s energy attack that emits a reddish-orange light that gets brighter as she puts more energy into it, or even Naofumi’s greenish air shields that he creates not only to protect his comrades but also as a stepping ground to help the vanguards jumping through the air.

It goes without saying that there are tons of other tricks and details that the animators and showrunners used to craft such an intense and electrifying battle. However, these three are the most notable ones that immediately jump out of the screen the first time we see this boss raid.

More: The Rising of the Shield Hero Season 2: Success or Disaster?