Dog Days''

After literally years of waiting in eager anticipation, the third season of Dog Days is finally here! Once again we have Cinque, Rebecca and Nanami returning to the amazing fantasy world of Flognarde in order to pick up their duties as the heroes of their respective kingdoms. I'm not going to go into detail to explain the setting however since this is the third season of a series and thus you're pretty much expected to know all about that at this point. Now the second season of Dog Days was criticized a bit due to how plotless it was, but this time the story kicks intohigh gear immediately from the very first episode as it takes on a slightly darker tone with a more serious and demonic plotline. However this quickly proves itself to be a bit misleading as the entire season does not look like this. You can roughly divide it into three parts, where the first few episodes cover a more serious story arc, the middle episodes are plotless, episodic and just plain fun, and the last few episodes once again consist of a second story arc. But as far as entertainment value goes, all of it is very enjoyable. The simplest way to describe it would just be as "more of the same". Assuming that you've seen the first two seasons of the series (which you should have if you're reading this), then you should know pretty well what to expect, and I can only confirm that the third season follows essentially the same concept and atmosphere of a similar quality. Something that did change a bit this time around though was the level of fanservice which the show had during one or two of its more light-hearted episodes in the middle. The amount of skin shown definitely reached a new record for the series, but it still didn't feel forced or out of place to me, even though I can't really say it was necessary either. This is not an ecchi anime after all. The characters don't really develop very much (if at all) during the course of the show, which in a way might feel a bit disappointing but at the same time it's not really needed either. Dog Days has always been a series about pure and simple fun, nothing deep or thought-provoking. Hell the entire world of Flognarde itself is basically one big playground. Speaking of which, I also have to mention that the world itself is simply astonishing to look at. Flognarde is and always has been one of the most beautiful settings I have ever seen in anime with its magical floating islands, majestic castles, impressive landmarks, dinosaurs and every kind of fantasy creature you can imagine. It really feels like a Disney film when you look at it. All-in-all, the third season of Dog Days isn't really any different from the first two neither in script nor in execution. But as the saying goes, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it", and with that in mind there isn't really very much to complain about. It's an anime which is very easy to watch and which has a surprisingly high amount of entertainment value, and you can't really ask for much more than that in the end.

Ah, Dog Days. As a show that has received rather decent feedback on itself overall, one must wonder, with as of now, two, full, 12 episode seasons before Winter 2015, what does Dog Days" hold in store for us? Story (7.00/10): Similar to the last two seasons, Dog Days and Dog Days', Dog Days" doesn't really deviate from what the series has already established. Sink, Rebecca, and Nanami return back to the land of Flonyard, the world where all of their animal-themed friends in order to spend more time with them and play. As far as central plot goes, that's really all thatDog Days" has to offer. The setup for the anime is the same for the previous two seasons, so there's not really much to say there. However, apart from the two seasons, we do get some new content, something that Dog Days as a series always somehow manages to do. As a fantasy show, Dog Days spends a significant amount of time world building, essentially creating the world of Flonyard as we view the show, adding in more details and facts about the show than one would've known after just watching the first two seasons. I always found this to be a positive of the series more or less because of how crucial it is for a fantasy story to explain where and what is going on. As for actual story content, Dog Days" does a strange mix. From watching the first two seasons, the first season is more plot based, with an overarching story that goes from one end of the runtime to the other. While the second season is more slice-of-life based, with the story more focused on day to day life, rather than conflict. This third season however, does a mix of both, combining both the plot driven story and day to day storytelling together. The only problem I see with this style of storytelling is the fact that the series sort of pulls itself into two different directions. Because of this, the more episodic parts don't really stack up to the rest of the season in terms of quality and importance. Overall though, Dog Days" was an interesting addition to the Dog Days" franchise. Drawing in elements from the first two seasons and continuing with the world building that Dog Days actually does pretty well in, the show did pretty well with what it accomplished. While the show really isn't the most stellar in the grand scheme of things, with some parts of the show being lower in story quality than most, there aren't really that many things to say bad about this series. Overview: + World building + Continues where the story left off (kinda) +/- Both overarching story + episodic elements - Episodic styled episodes fall flat when comparing to ones of the other nature Characters (7.00/10): As a sequel series to Dog Days', the characters in Dog Days" don't really change all that much. The series features the exact same cast of characters that are featured in the second season, without really much change in terms of personality or any other aspect. A lot of them are quite one-note characters and don't really have much personality beyond what we know about them, but in the long run, it doesn't particularly impact the story in a big way more or less due to the fact that they're characters that are quite easy to remember and they tie in very well to the series that they're featured in. Following Dog Days tradition though, Dog Days" adds in a couple new characters that add in to the already expansive cast of the show with the customary one male character. (Grand total of recurring male characters is 4 everybody!) Each of the new characters gets varying importance and impact to the story, with the character known as Sharl sharing the role of Couverte in the last season, as being the cast member that was the most impactful. While the characters in Dog Days do work in for the series, there are a couple things about Dog Days's characters that really gripes me. For one thing, the expansive cast dumbs down a lot of character importance. In the first season, the characters Sink and Millefiore really took the attention and were the two main characters of the show, with Eclair bearing similar if not as much importance as the Hero and Princess. But as you get through the second season, and now the third season, character importance really falls flat. No one is considered a "main character" anymore because they all share the spotlight with each other. Because of this, a couple choice characters don't really do anything in this season, and that's a huge disappointment because you don't really get a feel as to who is above in terms of character importance in this series. (Hell, Eclair barely does anything this season, and the series actually acknowledges it!) Overview: + Easy to recognize cast + New additions that served well for the series - Character importance is non-existent - No real development because of lack of character importance Art and Sound (7.21/10): The art for Dog Days has been standard throughout its existence as a series. Giving off a moe style look with bright colors everywhere, Dog Days truly takes on its fantasy genre again with the whimsical and magical looking characters and scenery that is the world of Flonyard. The artstyle doesn't waver in quality over the course of the series, and stays rather stable throughout. The action sequences are great to look at, with the execution of the fantasy style of fighting looking quite fluid and very aesthetically pleasing. And, in classic Dog Days fashion, there is some clothes ripping and some ecchi. Not as prominent as the previous two seasons, but it's still there. A downside of this season however is the fact that there aren't any customary war games like what's been featured before. So, if you were looking forward to that, sorry, it isn't here. Sound on the other hand is a bit of a strange topic. For all three seasons, Dog Days has had the exact same people do the OP and the ED tracks for the series. (This is the first time I've ever seen this happen.) As a result of this, at the very least, the OP, sounds very similar to the style of the other two openings of the overall series. The ED on the other hand is slightly different with a happy-go-lucky style of music. Overall though, like the rest of the Dog Days tracks, there really isn't much to say. It's not memorable enough to get it stuck in your head, but recognizing the tracks becomes quite an easy task on account of how distinguishable this series can be. Overview: + Consistent art + Good battle scenes + Lack of ecchi. Still there, but a lot less (This is a good thing, trust me.) +/- Good, but not really memorable soundtrack Overall Enjoyment (7.21/10): Dog Days has been a series that I've known to be a relaxing show to watch. Because the show doesn't take its conflicts with the idea of the characters possibly losing or losing someone along the way, it's a nice fluff show that manages to be interesting regardless of whatever point you're watching it at. Did I like this anime? I did enjoy it, in fact. While not the most stellar series ever, Dog Days does manage to entertain with its laid-back style combined with fantasy action, which in turn, creates a rather nice viewing experience. What didn't I like about this anime? For one thing, the characters never really break their own boundaries. Because everyone is numbed down to equal ground all around, there really isn't much about them that is significant. This was a problem in the second season too, and it's a shame because harking back to the days of Dog Days the first season, the show did manage to make some of its characters more important, thus creating a slightly more gripping story that looking back, was better to an extent to this one. Would I recommend this anime? If you've watched both seasons of dog days and liked it, this won't be a bad experience for you. With its laid-back style, Dog Days has shone out to be a relatively good watch when one would want fantasy mixed in with action and slice-of-life. There really aren't too many bad points about this series, as it really grounds itself in the idea of being fluff above all else. Of course, if you're a kemonomimi fan, this is also a good watch because al but three characters are animal themed, so it also has that going for it. Overall Score: 7.11/10

Disclaimer: I'm still furry trash Having covered Dog Days and Dog Days Apostrophe in preparation for this new season, and having liked both of those seasons, I had some decently high hopes going in to Dog Days Quotation Mark. Did those hopes get fulfilled? Ehhhhhhh. Story: 6/10 Assuming you've watched the first two seasons, you know all about the world that this show takes place in. What you probably want to know is what the general feel is like. The first series carried a slightly darker, more linear plot than the second season, which mostly filled itself with fights of the day and lighter fluff. The thirdseason takes a middle ground, with 3-4 episode long arcs at the beginning and end of the series, and the middle full of fluff and/or backstory. While this sounds great on paper, and the first arc is fine, I couldn't bring myself to care about the last 4 episode's story at all. I'm somebody who weighs the later parts of series heavier than the earlier parts, so this leaves a damper on my story rating. Art: 8/10 One of the strongest suits of Dog Days has always been its art. With bright, gorgeous backdrops and cute characters, the show is at least nice to look at. There's even a bit of 3DCG on the castles, and it looks fine. Sound: 6/10 In my review for Dog Days Apostrophe (this is how I am going to refer to them, because that's how I believe Dog Days' should be pronounced), I gave the sound a 6/10 for being too generic. This time, it's not because it's not special, but because of roses and thorns. The OP was better this time around, and the last arc has some nice atmospheric music to go along with it. However, with this new positive comes the dreaded Lalalagate. In the last two episodes, there's an idol song with only la la las as lyrics. It was super disappointing and made it seem like Seven Arcs didn't even have enough money to pay their voice actors to sing. So it evens out. Character: 6/10 The other large difference between Dog Days Quotation Mark and its predecessors is that Quotation Mark balances out character times, possibly a bit too much. Basically, characters that didn't get much screen time before get a lot more, and visa versa. Do you like Cinque/Shinku/Shulk? What about the princess? And Eclair? Those old favorites get surprisingly little screen time for being some of the main characters. This season continues the trend of dumping new characters in, except unlike last season, I don't like these new ones. Enjoyment: 7/10 My hopes were high as I had a good time watching the first few episodes. It waned a bit during the repetitive fanservice and fluff episodes, rose back for the lore episode, and crashed in the last arc. Overall, it didn't feel as comfy to watch as the first two seasons. Overall: 6/10 Is the third time the charm? Nah. Dog Days Quotation Mark failed to entertain me as much as the first two seasons. Maybe it wasn't as bad as a standalone, but after three seasons of pretty much the same thing, Dog Days is getting hard in the tooth, and it may take some broad changes to make it as enjoyable again. If you too like touching fluffy tail (but only if you're a real fan of this series) I recommend this season.

*Warning - this review contains some mild spoilers* I must admit I came across Dog Days while preparing for my "Anime of 2015" presentation scheduled for next local convention. In order to do each show justice I try to watch it's earlier seasons - that is if it had any. That way I ended up marathoning first two seasons on two weekends before even starting with Double Dash. While I have some issues with the show as a whole and my first impression was somewhat bad the first two seasons managed to get me hooked up. The world is very, very beautiful and inhabited by lots and lots of characters- each one of them likeable and cute to some degree (yes - even the character voiced by Emperor Wakamoto fits in just fine in there). Thus - after finally being done with Dash I was eager to watch Double Dash as well. I was excited mostly to see the characters I came to like develop further - something that began in Dash and was done beautifully. Those expectations were further supported by anime itself - with the promise the Heroes will be summoned during peaceful time so they can spend more time with their friends. I was disappointed. With loads and loads of characters I've mentioned above there's more than enough material to work with in Dog Days already. I just can't imagine what the creators were thinking while writing the script for 3rd season. Instead of character development I've anticipated they gave me even more characters - all of them living too freaking far away to make it to regular cast. I understand the idea was to show us that the world of fluffy people is much larger and beautiful but still - some parts were rather unnecessary and led to nothing. All the development our regular cast received during season 2 was ignored painfully leaving my hunger not satisfied. And while I could somehow bear with new characters as they are - the fact they took valuable screen time away from the main cast is painfully felt in this season. Finally we were introduced to cliché "misunderstood" antagonist. Who wasn't even misunderstood in the first place - in fact: despite having good intentions he resorted to evilest possible means of achieving them at first opportunity. I cannot quite appreciate the creators' use of existing tools if they cannot use them properly... The good part of this season were the 3... 2,5 episodes actually focusing on the thing which was promised to us: Existing characters. Special note goes to one episode where certain characters reveal their past - which was by far the best one of the season and the only one which made me feel any compassion. Ehh... I've complained a lot with this review so I'll end it on a more positive note. The visuals and music were just as good (if not better) than those of the first two seasons - with the opening IMO much better than the one we had in Dash. The new locations (which I take were the focus of this season after all) look gorgeously and make you want to be there with the cast. We also (finally) get to see Nanami's 'Hero Mode' - which turns her into a beautiful young lady. Pity we don't get to see much of it. The fan service while increased in amount (seems to be a trend with each following season) is still performed in a pleasant, non vulgar way - this deserves a praise seeing the competition in this area. Still - I have high hopes. If this letdown doesn't kill the franchise the hypothetical Season 4 (Triple Dash?) might deliver what 3rd did not. Perhaps the writers decided to develop the world in order to come back with something grander yet?