This was, for all intents and purposes, the best way they could have adapted the source. After reaching the end, I can guarantee that as angry as you may get about the circumstances, the emotional buildup is required to frame the whole story and make it an adequate picture of what it was always supposed to be. Yes, this is a romantic comedy, but the tragic attempts to be prepared for reality hit youth a lot more than mere attraction. Without the emotional backbone for this series to be built upon, there would be no substantial take away from this series. It would simply be another show that you watched and forgot about. The characters and their growth would all be pointing to who is the best for so and so, why this person instead of that person, etc.
The story gets a 9. There are parts where they could have done better.
Art was horrendous for the first few episodes. They clearly had to breeze over some massive hiccups in production. I give it a 6, just because the level of absurdity in some of the scenes demands a lower score than "Very Good" or even "Good". Things got better towards the end, but all parts are equally important in this score.
Sound design was good. Great placements of the themes and the intro and ED were pretty clean. I will give it an 8.
Character gets a 10. Watari Wataru knows how to write well-developed characters and this adaptation didn't disappoint.
I enjoyed this show a LOT. 10.
Overall is a 9, there is a lot to be said both good and bad, but I can guarantee that the bad is only hypothetical considering for the most part that this adaptation does a pretty great job of at least remaining pretty parallel with the source material. You will hear a lot of people disagree, but the dynamics between the characters never changed from the source. The development of the characters didn't change. We may have missed a few scenes, and in fact one or two scenes that help knock this score down from Masterpiece. Overall, I found that season 3 of Oregairu was a great way to bring this main story to a close.
