Dungeon ni Deai wo Motomeru no wa Machigatteiru Darou ka III

Did you know that the real translation of “Dungeon ni Deai wo Motomeru no wa Machigatteiru Darou ka” into English is “Is It Wrong to Seek Encounters in a Dungeon?” - “encounter” being the random encounter mechanic from the classic JRPGs like Final Fantasy. If you “seek” random encounters, you probably are deliberately grinding XP to get ahead, but you’re also risking to overexert yourself or run into something you can’t deal with. I.e. that is a meaningful question without one right answer, the risk versus reward deal. And then there is a double entendre on top of that, “encounter” can be a “rendezvous” with ... a girl - be it a Sword Princess or a blue dragon loli. This is just one example of this series having more substance than meets the eye, as Danmachi, for all of its mainstream popularity, still happens to be a pleb filter anime that your average wannabe connoisseur of arts is too low-IQ to like (while simultaneously believing in the opposite).

Season One was a straightforward generic isekai, being distinguished only by the high quality of execution. Since I can hear autistic screeching all the way from here, do note that “isekai” as an anime genre name means action-adventure fantasy with JRPG mechanics, or even more precisely, the “SAO clone” (the same way “first-person shooter” is the “Doom clone” genre). Any arguments to the contrary, particularly the ones based on the semantics of the words “another world” (which is NOT how “isekai” translates from Japanese) are an exercise in mental deficiency.
Anyway, the “depth” (quotes to emphasize the fact that many people that like using this word as a praise of anime shows they like wouldn’t recognize depth if it bit their ass and held on) of Season One of Danmachi comes from the fact that it took the building blocks of SAO and treated them as speculative fiction. The MC is overpowered and wins every fight. The MC has a harem. JRPG mechanics are a thing. That’s our baseline. Instead of using these elements mindlessly, or attempting to reject/subvert them, the story tasked itself with building a world where they make logical sense. E.g. the MC is swarmed by women because he is physically attractive, has a pleasant personality, and is a famous prodigy (“bElL iS gEnErIc sELf-iNseRt” - a low-intelligence wannabe critic). Add on top of that Greek Mythology, core ideas of which (the inevitability of fate; a hero’s place in the world; gods walking among men; etc) the author has managed to capture on a level that flies over the head of 99% of the audience - and you get the objectively best non-comedic isekai there is.

Meanwhile, Season Two tries to mix things up, managing to check a lot of boxes on a midwit’s list of things that make an anime series bad in the process. A dip in production values (especially the action sequences). Huge chunks of the source material content that didn’t make it into the adaptation. A story that actually tried to expand its horizons beyond the standard isekai template and do something original and thought-provoking (Ishtar’s “what’s wrong with being a whore” monologue in its 20 seconds has more “depth” than an entire 3x3 of an average pseud) instead of staying in its comfort zone and spinning the wheels - and as every midwit knows, “a show that confuses me by doing something I don’t understand is stupid and bad.”
In short, Season Two was better than Season One in concept but worse in execution (even if the pleb opinion would make you believe it’s the worst thing since cancer).

All this long introduction was necessary so that I could keep my actual Season Three review short - Season Three is peak Danmachi experience as it combines all the strongest aspects of the first two seasons.
More amazing action sequences on the level of Bell vs Minotaur fight - it’s not just that action sequences look good, it’s that they’re episode-spanning and tell a story instead of interrupting (or being interrupted by) a story.
More speculative fiction goodness (a comically evil mustache-twirling antagonist is driven to be comically evil by his hereditary magic schizophrenia).
More godly shenanigans continuing from Season Two - Yato’s Evil Twin (aka Ikelos) is my favorite new character by far, because he’s here to spell out loud what other gods like Hermes, Loki, or Freya are trying to hide under their facades and platitudes - that the gods are there to play The Sims irl, nothing more, nothing less.
More exploration and expansion of the story’s core themes - Wiene’s arc, which spans the entire season, is like Haruhime’s arc on steroids. What does it mean to be a hero? Sure, you want to protect the weak, but who exactly fits the definition of “the weak” here? How are you going to do “the right thing” if you can’t even tell what it is? How about when your close friends consider the right thing to be the opposite of what you think is right and go against you? These aren’t the questions you answer with just doing your best and trying really hard - Punished Bell has to do some serious soul searching.
The direction is as good as in Season One. I’ve seen too much anime for my own good during my lifetime. Too often I find myself watching a show that I can recognize as objectively well-made - but still struggling to finish an episode in one sitting because I kinda know what it is doing at every moment. DanMachi III is in the minority of shows that kept me engaged from start to finish and actually looking forward to new episodes - because new and interesting stuff just keeps happening. This is literally what it means for a series to be well-directed.

9/10 for a top-shelf action-adventure series.

If you do not know how to make your anime sell, just add a harem.

In a nutshell
After growing bored of their realms, the Gods of multiple pantheons descended to Earth, where they create groups called Famillia. The story takes place in a fictional city called Orario, which also has a tremendous net of catacombs. Many members of Famillias visit this dungeon to defeat monsters to earn money and to just become famous. Among many Famillias, there is the Goddess Hestia's Familia. Unlike other Gods, Hestia has only one follower, who has never had a desire to reach “the top.” However, everything changes when ... the only follower of Hestia, Bell, meet Ais Wallenstein, a first class adventurer. Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? focuses on Bell’s quest to becoming one of the strongest adventurers.

Story
Despite what appears to be a fairly basic Dungeons setup for the story, Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? does manage to offer some good originality. Or so it was in the two previous seasons. Unfortunately, unlike the first season, the third season lacks originality and does not look like something even remotely similar to it. The story used to focus on Bell Cranel journey to becoming the hero. However, now it is more of a Bell Cranel, collecting waifus for the harem. And the problem is that it does not help you to take the story seriously, because the third season ‘tries’ to touch upon some interesting details, monsters’ evolution and their desire to stop fighting with the adventurers. This idea is not bad at all, yet, it just does not work, when you see Bell and the harem.

Characters
As for the animation and the sound, there is nothing worth mentioning. However, character wise, this is when another problem arises. Unfortunately, supporting characters are getting less and less screen time, however, Bell has plenty of it. Most of the characters are just joining Bell’s waifu army for no reason and while Hestia does not appreciate the fact that she might lose monopoly on Bell, it does not worry her that much. ‘Yes, Bell is the best, let us just join the harem.’ And the problem with Bell is that he no longer struggles, as he used to in the first season, now you know he wins no matter what, one shots no matter who and gets all the waifus.

Overall
All in all, as a fan of the anime, I really miss what it used to be, the first season was great. What it is now is hardly enjoyable, there is no tension, and the result is always the same. Things could have been much better. If I were you, I would watch the first season and stop on it. However, the rest if for you to decide.

I use to think that all pieces of media had some merit to them and that it was my fault if I didn't like them. However that is then, this is now. Danmachi is a bad show, it uses dumb plot devices, random harem events, and bad character writing to make a show that kids enjoy.

Now what does a kid enjoy? As Scamboli said it: Kids love stories that they could plug themselves into, "if I was Bell I'd save that girl and MARRY HER" or so the thought would go. Or "I have to save everybody these kids are counting on me" type deal. ... Well as I've grown I've realized how awful this plot device can be, don't worry about your actual writing skill just think about the kids and maybe they'll eat it up. Going back even more, when I loved Danmachi I use to hate the comparisent of Danmachi and Sao. "ONE IS GOOD" I said, "Don't compare garbage too good" I continued. No, these shows are near identical in some unbelievable ways, even more so in how they make me feel. They both got the protaginist who gets random powerups when he needs to save a girl. The plot has no depth whatsoever in any sense. Everything about the writing is bad. There always has to be a villain for the sake of there being a villain. It's so similar that I wouldn't even be suprised if they were written by the same person.

Danmachi s3 focuses on the Monster vs Human debate, they explore the deep in-world discussion between the relationship between the two sides. The humans enter the dungeon, the monsters fight back, etc etc. This could be a good idea if the author could give me a goddamn reason to care. This whole season we are thrust upon a scene in which we have no reason to care about. Bell is our plug in character, he cares because he wants EVERYBODY to be happy. Alright at least he has a reason to care but what about ours? We don't have one... The only reason we are suppose to care about this shitty show is that there's a cute loli who smiles and acts like a stereotypical loli. I cannot remember anything about her and I finished the goddamn show 10 minutes ago. Going back to that kid mentality, a kid would eat this shit up. "I would save that little girl everybody must be happy" or some garbage like that. I'm not a kid, you're not a kid considering you ain't mad about this review so what's the deal?

The characters of this show were honestly pathetic, the charm that everybody once had is gone, everybody is just annoying now (More on that later). But you wanna know what makes it even worse? The stupid jokes we are suppose to laugh at. Guess what, I ain't gonna lie, sometimes I did laugh, the jokes were funny every once in awhile. But if I laugh at 5 of the 100+ jokes then something is wrong. I'd describe Danmachi as that little kid who keeps following you around, he says stupid jokes trying to make you laugh but none of them do, but once in a lifetime you actually laugh and maybe you think "this kid ain't so bad" but then he tells more shit jokes. You don't know how much times I'd pause during episodes because I hated everything so much.

The harem shit is actually getting annoying, there are too many girls, too many to care about. What makes it worse is that there are TOO MANY OF THEM that they all have to share screentime. Thinking about this made me die from laughter after realizing how stupid the thought of it actually was. Also what doesn't help is that none of them have a personality trait worth mentioning aside from your standard run of the mill stuff.

Everybody in this show had their arcs completely destroyed and forgotten about in replacement for the stupid monster arc that nobody cared about. The people of the red light district had no stake in the show whatsoever and the only time they were shown was to alleviate the pain of the people who liked them. But it's done worse in the Hermes and Sword Princess characters, Hermes was once this mysterious figure who felt as if he could control the world, nope he's just another loser as well who is nothing compared to Bells beautiful light. The sword princess officially only has two traits, kill monster and kuudere.

Ok I have so much to say but I would spoil the whole show and at that point what's the purpose of the review. Danmachi is appalling, there's nothing good about it, it perfectly represents peoples distaste modern anime and its focus on target audiences. I do not recommend for the life of me that you watch this show unless you're trying to get your mean score down. In the event that you do watch it I hope you enjoy it in the way that I didn't

To sum it all up
Story: 1/10
Art: 5/10
Sound:4/10
Character: 1/10
Enjoyment: 2/10
Overall: 1/10

Thanks for the read