Okay, so, the past few days, I started watching an anime called Dog Days to take care of the wait between the few seasonal shows I'm waiting to finish out. It has three seasons, and apparently the last season was actually part of the previous winter anime season after a 2.5 year hiatus. I find I have a lot to say about this particular show, so here's a full mini-review that covers each season. I apologize in advance for the wall of text. There are no plot spoilers, so no spoiler tags necessary.
As a note, Dog Days is an anime first and foremost. It is an original work made for television, and that means there is no source material it is working off of. There is no material to draw a comparison to, so I'll simply talk about each season individually kind of as their own volumes.
Season 1: WOW. SERIOUSLY GOOD. Season one was very well done. Not top tier stuff, but definitely worth watching. I was surprised at how good it was. The season is strongly focused on Cinque (later Shinku) who gets transported from modern day Japan to a fantasy world, his growth as a hero in a world that treats war as an athletic festival, and his budding romances with several of the animal girls of Biscotti. The season ends on a high note with a dramatic battle, and has a nice plot woven through it from beginning to end. There is a goal, and that goal is reached in a great way. It finishes out with an emotional yet happy ending, opening the door for future seasons.
Season 2: Okay. At this point, we start introducing more characters into the mix, and the now spelling changed Shinku taking more of a backseat. He's still somewhat prominent as his budding romances become numerous enough to be considered a harem. Overall though, he is around less to a noticeable degree, the season is sillier, and even with the main goal, it doesn't feel important. It does get credit for still having a central plot though from beginning to end. I just wish there was more focus on Shinku and his fighting. This is also the season where fan service becomes less of a side thing and more of a focus.
Season 3: Shinku? Where did you go, Shinku? Our first hero takes too much of a backseat in a season with no central plot to push it along. The season starts with a bang, then quickly fizzles down to a decent mix of action, comedy, and fan service galore, by far trumping the amount in the first two seasons combined. Some episodes were certainly better than others, and the final arc seriously disappointed me for basically being a rip off of other material. Seriously though, I missed having Shinku be a central character, and one of the primary supporting characters that fought alongside him, Eclair from seasons one and two, is all but completely gone. The season was too directionless with new characters and fan service attempting to make up for a lack of plot.
Season three is really only bearable because of the foundation from seasons one and two. Without it, season three never would have stood on its own. Honestly, even season two is only really bearable because of the foundation from season one.
For an overall rating, I'd say that 7.3 is fairly accurate. If I had to rate each season individually-
Season 1: 8/10
Season 2: 7.4/10
Season 3: 6.8/10
As an original work, it started off with a lot of promise, but the fact that only one season was ever really planned becomes increasingly obvious as the show ceases to have any real direction past the first season. They begin inserting more characters and fan service to make up for the lack of a season long plot that can exclusively focus on the once primary MC. These new characters aren't nearly fleshed out enough for me to really care about them, and only make me more disappointed that the main hero gets relegated to support character levels of screen time so that these useless characters can have screen time instead.
Ultimately, if there is a season four, I hope, I really hope, that they change direction, focus more on Shinku, and get a good central plot going that actually feels like it has some impact and relevance. There is definitely a downward slope for quality and enjoyment, but they haven't completely pushed me away yet. If they make a season four that is as lackluster, or somehow even worse than season three, they will have completely lost me.
Maybe it's best if they quit before they're too far behind.