D.C.III: Da Capo III

In all honesty, the anime ended and I was confused. The story didn't really go anywhere, and there was hardly any character development, if any at all. I've been a fan of Da Capo as well as Da Capo II and had some decent expectations from Da Capo III. I wouldn't say my expectations were too high, considering I was very much turned off from episode 1.

Story: 3/10
As I stated before, the story really didn't progress until very late into this series. There really wasn't much development as a Da Capo series, and I personally was disappointed. For those who haven't watched and were hoping ... for the drama shown in D.C. and D.C.II, don't.

Art: 8/10
Fairly enough, the art of this series was actually quite decent. The characters and settings were all drawn very nicely, but unfortunately many episodes had some rather confusing shots. They would zoom in on breasts for no apparent reason, and just sort of keep it there even though characters were having conversations. Like, seriously?

Sound: 2/10
Nothing to hear here. Keep moving along.

Character: 3/10
No development whatsoever, and all of the characters are very stale. It is very apparent that all the girls like him for some apparent reason, and the protagonist has about zero backbone. I typically don't like this kind of character, hence my low rating. The girls -do- have some of their cute points, but nonetheless still stale.

Enjoyment: 2/10
As a Da Capo series, no.

Overall: 3/10
I don't know why I finished it. Probably obligation.

Story
While the original Da Capo and Da Capo II are perfectly fine and if not considered a classic of the harem series. Da Capo III fails to deliver any of that. The original series had interesting characters and managed to squeeze in character development, then further suck us into this world that also happens to contain the existence of magic. From the very start the main character is already actively pursued by the heroines in the story with no reason why or how it happened. The episodes that followed rather than stretching each character and their development throughout the series they ... essentially sum each character by episode giving us a very tip of the iceberg view of the relationship. The main character is completely standard the most generic abomination of all the harem genres (especially ones based off visual novels like this one)

Art
Despite what I might have said earlier the artwork is absolutely up to par with fantastic coloring and interesting scenery

Sound
Nothing stands out about this. Carry on

Character
The characters in Da Capo III suffer from a lack of development and as far as I''m concerned, they even lack human emotions.

Enjoyment
Chances are by the time you get through an episode you will look back and summarize the episode in four words. The amount of plot that happens in each episode is infinitesimally low and while it's beautiful to look at it will feel like a waste of your time. Akin to watching a trainwreck.

Late to review but i still wanted to put my two cents in. The show seemed to be lacking in plot and played up the harem a lot. I even think "a lot" is an understatement. To be honest i haven't seen the first two shows in this series and if they have some sort of relation this might make more sense but all in all i feel that this one alone lacked plot and was one of those shows that will slip my mind for the rest of forever. I'm really into character depth and the was no depth present here so it made ... it hard to care about anything the characters were doing. The quality was great and it had some goofy moments that made me laugh but overall it was very forgetful.

... I have no words to make for an introduction for this anime. I'm just solely disappointed with the animators who thought that this was good enough to appease the fans of Da Capo (including myself) who were waiting for this new season of Da Capo to come out for three years! Then what do we get? This sloppy anime with a fist full of disappointment for three years of waiting.

Story:
This isn't really the worst part of the anime, nor is this the part that really makes the whole anime bad. I think the story could have been good if the writers made their characters ... do something in the anime. It's not like the characters don't have anything to do either. They have stuff to write, a mystery, a protagonist who could possibly get a girl, but what did the characters do? Nothing. Nothing, but walk around aimlessly doing nothing. The story as frustrating as it can be did keep one thing straight, keep up the fan service.

Art: This is easily the best part of the anime. Hands Down. If something can be admired from the anime is that it takes a page out of Kyoto-Animation's book with its very moe characters and color. The color palate of this anime was very nice and bright, and the animation itself was very fluid throughout. But, this anime is heavy on the fan service so expectations on the the art are pretty high and it pretty much delivers on that expectation. So good job Da Capo III, you didn't completely fail out.

Sound/Character:
I can clump these two together because they will have the same reaction and same review. They are nothing spectacular and nothing stands out of these two categories. In hindsight, the only thing that sticks out is the computerized twinkles, and the female character's breast that take up about half of the screen. Nothing was good nor was it bad. It was pretty underwhelming.

Enjoyment: I didn't enjoy it. I hated it.

What do I say about this anime? I hope that you grasped it from the frustration in my opening. If you didn't, here is my response: Don't Watch This Anime. There are better anime around like TWGOK, Sukitte ii Na Yo, Ano Natsu De Matteru, ef - Tale of Memories. This anime isn't worth your time, and might end up like me regretting watching this anime when I could've spent that time other ways. Please don't this anime.

Many have critiqued the Da Capo series of past, but I've always defended it as a series with merit. With the latest Da Capo, however, I'm not so sure I can continue to do so. I truly thought Da Capo was done with Da Capo 2SS, but true to the title, it's back once again. However, this time there is no pretense for drama or character development, the franchise has officially gone for the full harem approach, and the fan-service heavy type at that.

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.