Date A Live was the first anime I reviewed that was currently airing at the time. Looking back on it, as much as I did like certain aspects of the show, I could not remember a thing about what the plot was or who the characters were outside of their beautiful designs. Tsunako's awesome character designs can save a character's worth even with the generic development that goes with them. Granted, there were genuinely funny moments sprinkled here and there that I look fondly back. But other than that, Date A Live Season 1 was mostly too generic for me to give it any more cred. Once Season 2 came along, I was so flabbergasted by how the quality dropped significantly on almost every aspect that I didn't care enough to review it. That's how bad it was. Now, does Season 3 elevate the quality just a little?
The answer is: Yes, but very very minimally by a decimal point.
The animation is still not as flashy or colorful as Season 1's, which I still consider being that season's most definite highlight. It is a step above 2's because the colors aren't as muted on the character designs. But I noticed a lot of character movements that feel stiff, many instances of using still images, and action scenes not being that interesting to look at. I mentioned before how J.C. Staff weren't giving this to their A-team, and it is clear that they were not showing off their animation prowess compared to their other more significant projects. It's sad because I am a fan of Tsunako's artwork, and to see her creation not being given a big enough budget to see her art in motion is saddening.
There are two main story plot points in the 1st and 2nd half of the season; three if you count the 12th episode, but we'll get to that later. One involves a "witch" named Natsumi that Shido has to smitten for her not to turn evil. The main problem with this story is the character of Natsumi herself. She is not particularly likable, and we are supposed to feel some empathy towards her torment because of how she sees herself in her true form. This true form of hers does not make her sympathetic for all the evil deeds she's done and comes off utterly selfish to the point where I could not care enough for whatever would happen to her. The episode that involved the other girls turning into little children's version of themselves was entertaining in its own dumb, superficial way. But as a whole, it was not the best way to start the season with.
In the plot involving the quiet, stoic, white-haired angel Origami, this one was at least better than the previous story. However, I was mostly bored and uninterested in how they made Origami grow as a character instead of being annoyed. My problem with the cast in Date A Live has been: I like their archetypes but not their characters. What I mean is, I love their personalities and how they clash with one another in hilarious circumstances but not necessarily their character arcs that get involved in the main story because the story itself is so drab and barebones. With Origami's plot, it was interesting to see her with long hair and a more expressive personality later on in the season. Nevertheless, nothing about her is interesting due to the nature of the generic writing prevalent throughout the season.
Now we have got to talk about the dreaded 12th episode. To sum it up briefly, they wrote an entire episode to adapt the volume as a whole. The result is a hilarious, rushed episode of anything I have ever seen. It was like 1/3rd of the episode was adapting a few chapters of the volume and then quickly switching to a completely different story in the next 1/3rd of the episode. It almost felt like an OVA episode that they didn't even bother to put out separately. They just put it as the last episode to fill in that 12-episode gap in broadcasting to milk in more TV viewers because they had no faith that this would sell as an OVA.
This is the worst season, but it's a toss-up between this and the 2nd season for me. In plot, it is worse in how it is structured, but from a technical perspective, it wasn't a complete disaster like the 2nd season was in some aspects. It is such a shame because I genuinely wanted Date A Live to at least be a solid harem anime that I would enjoy. However, it suffers from the same problems many ecchi/harem anime go through. They try to put a serious story to it: they do not put enough effort into making a cohesive story that engages to experience and instead focus on flashy action and ecchi fanservice. Which, again, I'm not against whatsoever. However, if you can't do both right, make an anime that does one thing great rather than one thing decent and another terribly.
Grade: D+
