Osomatsu-san 3rd Season

It saddens me to voice that Osomatsu-San Season 3 isn't really making it for me, Season 2 was already running dry with it's jokes and now Season 3 feels like a chore. The overall wacky feel Season 1 had is nowhere to be seen, jokes are a hit or miss and it's very, very dry. I admit I got some chuckles here and there, but other than that I find myself with a poker face, watching some perplexingly obvious bad jokes. I don't know what is it with me and recent anime comedy, but it just doesn't click with me.

Now, if you still had fun ... with Season 2 despite it's flaws, I'm sure you'll be able to enjoy this one just fine, I'm pretty sure this season will have it's good moments as well as those wholesome moments Osomatsu-San have gotten during it's air time. But if you're like me and didn't enjoy Season 2 that much, then I'll suggest you to spend your time on something else.

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS CERTAIN SPOILERS
It's so sad watching an anime so colorfull and enjoyable as osomatsu san, become the shadow of what was it before.
Everything about this season is souless.
In season two pierrot already squeezed everything that they could of season one, and add some boring jokes to it, nothing too special, some episodes were good at least. Also realising merchandising of "handsome" looking matsus for some reason on every media, games, posters, dakimakuras, everything they made fun of on season 1 on the first episode. They made fun of stereotypical handsome ikemen, but now, Pierrot converted them in that. In products.
Season three now doesn't ... even guides on the first wacky season anymore, they follow the season two and the movie, that focused more on some "anime drama" with handsome cartoons.
What happends with osomatsu san 3, is that is not fun anymore. Its filled of long seirous segments with sometimes bad repetitive jokes. Kinda sad when you see that the only two tags that is has is "comedy" and "parody".
And all the main characters are ruined too. They now are just some neets that f*ck around and do nothing for changing who they are, the only thing that they changed, is that they went from funny, wacky, gross, and expressive cartoon characters that hated each other to a bunch of annoying, family friendly hobos.
The only thing that is good is the opening, its like is the only good thing they know to do. The art is pretty colorfull and all that jazz, but i dont came here to watch pretty looking imagery, i want some dirty jokes god damn it, i dont care if the animation looks bad or good, i want the parodies and comic reliefs i came for.
Overall is just dissapoiting, i used to love this anime for being in such an unique way an anime so cartoony like, so expressive, so mean and yet so fun to enjoy with. You shared the cruelty of the characters because deep inside, you also want to smash annoying people to death, you want to murder happy people when your life is sh*t, you want your unpresentable family to dissappear, you laugh to their deffects because everyone has them too.
Comedy is a refflect of our society with exagerations, cartoon characters are supposed to be goofy, because the real world is goofy and the cartoon characters exist to show us how damn goofy we are, and as it seems, osomatsu san 3 forgot about this and accidentally take itself too seriously.
Plain and bad characters, repetitive jokes, bad stories. With only 9 episodes it made me lost all the faith that i had for the franchise and the future that could been.

lol spoiler review for half the season

Man, it really sucks to see Osomatsu-San go downhill like this. It's not like it's bad or anything, if this was just a stand-alone anime not connected to any established franchise, I think it could still be somewhat acceptable. Unfortunately, it's tied to two other seasons that set the expectation for what this season should have been. Even though Season 2 wasn't spectacular or as engaging as the first, it still had aspects of what made the series so good in the first place. The first two seasons were at least focused on comedy and dropped a few ... serious moments at times to balance out the story and make the sextuplets more unique from each other. So here are my biggest gripes about this season.

1. Characters
Unlike the other seasons where they set the sextuplets apart from each other with jokes and subplots that expand on their way of thinking, the third season barely does anything like this. The only moment I can think of off the top of my head was with Ichimatsu's suspicion of the riceballs and reluctance to accept them. I thought that the show was going to do what it did with the previous seasons: set up a subplot so that a character gets more, well, characterization. I kept waiting for that moment, but it never came. After that, there is barely any effort to remind the viewers of why the sextuplets were so loveable despite their shitty nature. There were a couple of jokes that played with the idea of characterizing the sextuplets, like with Karamatsu and his argument with his brothers over imaginary pizza, but a lot of those kinds of jokes fall flat or go against what the previous seasons had already established for the sextuplets. However, I really did like the development between Totoko and Nyaa's relationship. It had continuity from the movie and was actually kind of heartwarming to watch. It was one of the few moments in the season that stood out and had the same heart that the other two seasons had.

The side characters are pretty much the same from the other two seasons, so nothing much to criticize there. The Riceballs however, good god do they piss me off. I think what the writers were going for were a characterization of the audience that are looking in from the outside or excessively critical people, viewers that are always searching for a meaning in something, even in a dumb show like Osomatsu-san. It would have been an interesting gimmick for an episode or two, but damn the anime just decides to drop them in for the entirety of the first half of the season. It's a joke that drags on way too long; it's a joke that overstayed its welcome and now just makes people uncomfortable or annoyed. The punchline of the Riceballs becoming NEET AI came way too late and was dragged on for far too long. There was no need for these two to get so much screen time and characterization, because as far as I can see, none of it mattered in the end since it never amounted to anything worthwhile. If my first assertion about the Riceballs is correct, why the fuck does the 3rd season of Osomatsu-san even need these two? It would make more sense if they were in the 2nd season, where there might have still been some people around who wanted to understand what made Osomatsu-san good, but in the 3rd season, those people are gone and only those that enjoy the series for what it is are left. The target audience the Riceballs are trying to imitate are gone, so what's the point?

2. Sound
The sound is honestly about as good as the other two seasons. The openings and endings sound great as always, and the soundtrack is acceptable. More could have been done in this category, but for what it is, it's okay.

3. Story
I mean there's not really a story here, it's a comedy anime. If the subplots count as their own stories, then most aren't very good. This season is structured a differently from the other two seasons, where each episode is a couple of short skits pieced together. However, when this is done, it sort of eliminates the feeling of continuity between episodes, even though the other two seasons didn't have continuity either. It's hard to explain, it's as if the previous seasons kept a sort of consistent timeline, where the 3rd season is all over the place and everything is disconnected and unrelated.

4. Art
Art is the same as always, nothing special here.

5. Enjoyment
I don't think I have to say a lot here; as you can guess, I didn't enjoy this season very much.

6. Overall
I used to love this series back in the golden age of the community (and the whole Tumblr obsession I guess). The only reason I stayed so long is because I kept hoping that the season would get better and regain the same spark as the other seasons, but it never did. I never genuinely laughed watching the season, and I found myself doing something else instead of wanting to watch each episode. I should have dropped this season earlier, but I guess I was just nostalgic or something.

Basically, if you want to turn off your brain and watch something stupid, you could watch this, but I honestly don't even know if it's even worth that time. Just watch the first and second season if you're curious about who these six bastards are.