Even after 36 episodes have aired, many of the characters are as bland as they were in the first episode of the first season. I was able to overlook this in season 1, and 2 because I don’t expect the author to be able to completely characterize and develop the personalities of four main characters in the span of 12 episodes, but I do expect that, or at least half of that, to happen within 36 episodes. If I don’t even know or understand the characters, and if I’m not even the least bit acquainted with them, how can you even expect me to give two shits about their romantic feelings for each other?
All the female characters (and I do mean all) are basically reskinned versions of Yukino. Yuigahama is a dumb-dere, Iroha is a chad-dere, Yukino is a fucking stupid-dere and Komachi is an annoying-dere. The female characters have no personalities of their own, but have inherited their dispositions, if you can even call them that, from stereotypes. Yui's character is just to be “cute”; I prefer the phrase obnoxiously irritating but whatever. The entirety of Yukinoshita’s character revolves around Hichigaya; if we were to remove Hichigaya from her life all that would be left is an empty husk of a high school girl. Indeed, if this is what the anime intended for her character to be, then I would’ve had no qualms with that, but that is definitely not the case. She’s supposed to be one of the leads, and all we know about her is that she loves Hichigaya and has mommy issues. Do we know what caused her mommy issues after three cours? Nope.
Yuigahama has been YukinoSHITa’s friend since ep1, and that’s her character done for the series. I did feel myself liking YukinoSHITa initially when she was introduced, because she was actually given a purpose, a purpose that wasn’t relied upon any other character, until that very purpose was "distorted" into oblivion. She was an interesting character and her struggles – CODEpendency – were well established. These are complications that I’m sure most of us could related to at some point in our lives. I was invested. I wanted a resolution for her character, not some sort of catharsis but something that would be satisfying and relatable, but all we got was a 5-minute scene where she overcomes it all through nakama power. I wish I was making this up.
A small pep talk from Hichigaya is all it takes for her to overbear her fear of Code pendency, fear that has cultivated in her mind since her elementary school days, and all it takes for her to overcome it is a debate about why why you should not code pendency. Yeah, BS.
That episode made me question something. Does this show want to be a romance with cool moments, or does it want to be a cool show with romantic scenes; because neither of the two seem to fit the show’s agenda, yet the show still tries its hardest to juggle the two topics. The coolness is all miss. They are predictable, 90% of them rely on some sort of cringe misunderstanding between the characters, and frankly, though not a chore to watch, were a bit out of place at times. The scene about Hikigaya being not very good at communicating, and Yuigahama having to teach him tirelessly worked in Season 1, but here that very same premise is repeated two different times; once with seaon2, and once with seaon3.
There would be a moment or two where it feels like the show is actually trying to progress the characters’ relations, but then out of nowhere S Y K E, nothing happens because Haruno walks in on them. The actual witty Haruno moments of the first few episodes were lost somewhere on ep 10 where she just break her character and decide to be dumb.
The side main character, Hayato are what carry the show because he actually have friends. The show WANTS us to believe that the main quad are friends but shows nothing to instate said relationship between the characters. Let me give you a rundown of how the characters treat each other –
1. Hichigaya, with
a) YukinoSHITta – nothing
b) Yugahama – nothing, but with titties
c) iroha – nothing
Zamazuka (white hair fat guy) is the same with everyone because she’s got no personality. Hayato and Haruno are the only ones who show some sort of realism in their emotions. I know that it’s an anime and all and it doesn’t need to be that realistic, but what gets on my nerves is that the show tries to conceal the lack of depth in the characters and tries to swindle the viewer, using poorly constructed recurring codependecny joke, into thinking that maybe the characters aren’t just ink droplets on a piece of paper.
There’s a scene in this season where the Service Club is disbanded and the characters may never get to spend much time together, but the only thing I could think about is how much I don’t give a shit. The author tries to employ various techniques in order for the viewer to feel sad, which include but are not limited to – crying characters, other characters joining in on the crying, walking into the sunset and more crying. The characters also keep reiterating about how “nostalgic” the past year was as if to convince the viewer to feel the same. If you need to explicitly ask the viewer to have a poignant feeling during a scene, then you need to redo that entire part from scratch.
Show, don’t tell. That’s one of the main philosophies in writing, but unfortunately the show believes in “Dont show, dont tell”. The show doesn't tell, nor it show anything
The highlight of this season definitely was the handling of Iroha’s character. The way hers character arc was structured is praiseworthy. All the foreshadowing for her character, in Season 2 and the first half of this season, are finally compiled into the last episode and they were magnificent. The resolution was fantastic, the build up was fantastic, everything was fantastic. If only the author cared as much about the male cast as he does about the female counterpart.
The animation is as mediorcre. We have Yukino, Teacher Yukino, Sister Yuikino, mother yukino, all doesn't look at good. There is not a sense of fluidity in the characters’ movements which go hand in hand fantastically with the poor lighting and directing of the skits. There is never something in motion, be it in the foreground or the background, and if we get a still shot it’s usually accompanied with bad music and bad lighting. In terms of animation, there are plenty of corners cut and there is always a dull moment.
The music is meh. I just skip the new Opening and Ending songs this season, so I don't know how it sounded.
I said it at the start of the review, I’ll say it again, “Oregairu (I forgot the long name) Season 3 is a disappointment”. It has 1 high (ep 12 when I was high on weed and finally was able to understand what the character is saying), the rest are lows. This is probably why people say this show is deep
