I'll try not to make this too much of a tirade, but what once was a mastery of character depth and atmospheric development has suddenly been lowered to Sora no Otoshimono levels of seriousness. Basically, we return to the crescent-shaped island of Hatsunejima where a typical harem protagonist finds himself utterly surrounded by girls attracted to him, and utterly unwilling to choose one of them. This is basically a story of how he abuses everyone's feelings towards him with random sprinklings of magic and opaque hints of parallel universes. If you're looking for a typical fan-service heavy harem with boilerplate characters, look no further. If you're looking for a renewed series worthy of the Da Capo name, this series will be an utter disappointment for you.
Animation:
No doubt about it, the animation of the Da Capo series continues to improve. The island has never looked better with lush coloring and some really nice scenery. We have a brand new cast of pretty faces with some Da Capo roots including a Yume Asakura look-alike, yet another Suginami, and Sakura- in an even more childish form. There's a lot of additional supporting characters that not very memorable as well.
There hasn't really been much action in Da Capo, and that doesn't change here. There are some light hints of magic occasionally, though thank goodness much less of the android-spammage that occurred in earlier Da Capo works. However, rather than replacing this with some actual character development, they filled it instead with a lot of fan service. We're talking bouncy at the store, bouncy in bed, and bouncy in the bath tub. There's enough nudity and "sound effects" to seriously categorize this as soft core H- if you're into that kind of stuff.
Sound:
It sounds weird for a Da Capo series to launch without Yozuca, though she does make an insert song and ED appearance. Instead, the series starts with the cast singing "Sakura Happy Innovation". The title sounds like a desperate attempt to sell the series, and the melody is a bit plain as well. There are three EDs for the series, two by Da Capo regulars and one as a character ED. Aitai yo is a nice, if slightly dark Yozuca work while Meguru by CooRie is an upbeat work that I would argue sounds more like a typical DC OP. The character ED has a fair tune and, more noticeably, a lot of random nudity. The BGM is fitting with traditional DC pieces with a heavy emphasis on piano, xylophone, and flute.
The VA cast is quite interesting. Either DC ran out of funding or they're really going overboard with the "innovation" concept. All the lead heroines are pretty much unknowns, and none of them really stand out in particular for me. More annoyingly, all due respect for Hitomi but, Sakura is now pretty much a third grader. Especially that laugh...
Story:
A lot of DC3's story is shrouded in mystery, even after the series ends. So basically there's a dude named Kiyotaka who happens to be the only male in the school newspaper club. They decide to do a paper on the mystery of the giant Sakura tree, which stopped blooming, and unintentionally somehow revive it. Afterwards, a mysterious girl who identifies herself as Sakura appears, alongside a non-cat nyaa-ing creature called Utamaru. Who is this familiar looking girl and how does her fate relate to Kiyotaka?
DC's plot line is pretty much what you'd expect from a typical, brainless harem. By the time the series takes place, all the girls are already unconditionally in love with Kiyotaka. Irregardless, the story follows the girls in an arc-based approach where each girl spends an episode or two coaxing Kiyotaka with fan-service heavy scenes. Throughout all this, Sakura randomly appears and steals the ever-popular protagonist away so they can play. I'm not sure why Kiyotaka, a seemingly mentally-sound adolescent male, would choose to play with a high-pitched, annoying third grader over going on dates with hot chicks, though I can only hope he's not a pedo.
After the story runs out of girls to showcase, it finally gets into plot mode and throws a few dark episodes reminiscent of the mood in the majority of Da Capo 2SS. However, the series, thank goodness, quickly switches out of depression mode and jumps to a rather quick conclusion where some of the many mysteries are answered, though it actually begets even more questions than answers. Will there be a second season? Possibly, as they sure leave enough unexposed plot elements to do so. Whether there will be any fan base left to watch it is another question.
Character:
This was a painful show to watch. While I've made it quite evident by now that there were many elements that I was displeased with, the character interactions and development, by far, take the cake. While I got over the fact that all the girls were literally cookie-cutter characters with little exposition and static personalities, I just couldn't get over the fact that Sakura was relegated to a little girl who forgot who she was. While I never rooted for Sakura in any of the previous Da Capos, her role in his series is just plain humiliating. My other major qualm is character spammage. Not only do they randomly introduce unnecessary side characters, but they re-introduce some clones from previous Da Capo series. However, like the main heroines, they are also empty shells with cookie-cutter personalities. Don't expect any meaningful development in this show as apparently no one can sway Kiyotaka to their side.
Value:
When I typically watch a show, I tend to watch episodes in bundles. For really good shows, this happens right at the start, where as in other shows such as Koi to Chocolate, this happens latter on. For DC3, this never happened. I couldn't find anything to really hang on to in order to convince me to keep going. Either the plot was just not interesting or I'm just not interested in fan-service overload anymore, but I honestly just didn't enjoy this show that much. As with music, overuse of Da Capos only end up with bored crowds, this definitely rings true here as well. DC3 is just a plain harem that happens to have the DC badge attached to it. I really don't think this met my expectations for the franchise and I'm not going to even try to defend this one. Unless you want to see brainless fan-service and body-part rubbing, steer clear of this DC imposter.
