KAKANLen09
February 17, 2025
Mixed Feelings
Arifureta Season 3 — The penultimate calm before the storm that's the midway point towards the climax of the adaptation of its final volumes. It's both good and bad at best (at this point) really... It's safe/tumultuous(?) to say for a few years running now that novelist Ryo Shirakome has had his series being lambasted by the overall planning of its absurdly poor and lacklustre adaptation, that it will still feel the same regardless of how many seasons have gone in the years since it first arrived on the anime scene back in Summer 2019. But with 5 plus years gone by and 2 seasons downthe drain with a 3-year gap in between each of them, does Season 3 at least redeem some of the misconceptions the anime community had for Arifureta as a whole?
With the newest season of Arifureta being a rather lengthy 16-episode season, this, at least to me, is a blessing for the series up to this point, because the AniManga industry has, for years, "perfected" the art of compressing LN adaptations, so much so that content can be taken out of context if you never (or don't bother) to read the source material. At least for this case, it's more of being the exception to the rule, that the producers somehow saw the error in their ways and attempted to do some damage control to the series to bring back some of its glory and finally give the people what they want: an honest-to-goodness adaptation of a work that has been heavily criticized in many ways that we could not think that Arifureta would recover from such missteps. But here we are, and at the very least, the redemption arc starts from here onward.
Anywho, with Season 3 covering Volumes 7 to 10 of the LN, we're at the midpoint mark heading towards the climax that Ryo Shirakome has been cooking in the process, which is just as you'd expect: the fight between good and evil in this rather large Isekai adventure to save the weak and make them strong, and kill the narcissists who know no better. But instead of going straight to the Final Boss, we take a breather for the training arcs that have been brewing since the very beginning: the rabbitwoman of Shea Haulia, as well as Hajime Nagumo's own classmates in becoming strong as they face the endless labyrinth trials. Tackling Shea's worries is the easiest matter of the two for Hajime and the gang to counter, because it literally involves her entire Haulia Tribe and the postmortem of events that led to their tribe being ousted by their own demihuman group still reeling from the effects of their fight against the humans, and the liberation of redemption that the rabbitmen under Shea's father Cam's leadership are not as useless as they think. Once that is done and dusted, then come the trials of the Great Tree as Hajime and the gang attempt to surpass and overcome their weaknesses and insecurities in order to save those worth Hajime's time to be brought back to Japan.
Once again, to survive in the ever-so-unforgivable fantasy world is to never ever underestimate Hajime Nagumo, for his exploits at this stage of the game are now more serious with his non-BS attitude, alongside his harem of Yue, Shea, and Tio, as well as the remainder of the classmates whom he deems are worth at least salvaging and useful to his endeavour of eventually going back to their original world. At least on the end of his classmates with Kaori, hero Koki, and the rest together with him, they've seen the bad and should expect even worse going deeper into the rabbit hole, because anything and everything could smear life or death throes at any time should they ever be even the bit careless. Hajime is not a man who'll spend time needlessly; he has places to go and execute his plans at the soonest because, to him, time is opportunity, and this saying rings true when he has the responsibility for keeping everyone together, safe and sound. He's not the edgy character that we've come to know since the very start, (no) thanks to the barrage of betrayals he's suffered from the get-go, which teaches him to only value the people that see him otherwise...which in turn, earns the affections of not only Yue and Tio in prior seasons, but greatly to much effect for both Shea and Kaori, especially for Season 3 here.
I need not re-emphasize the elephant in the room that is the overall production of the series, and even I'm tired at this point to say that asread. will never honour what Arifureta was supposed to be animation-wise, even when support studios like White Fox (for Season 1) and studio MOTHER (for Season 2) were there to help the lacklustre studio achieve a somewhat presentable look to the series, even by the slightest details of mediocre to average animation. If anything, don't ever count on the animation to help elevate the series' climax whenever it comes.
The music...is somewhat also another point of uninspiring. Somehow, every season's OST just gets even worse than the last, and at least on the point that Void_Chords always have the time to shine collaborating with MindaRyn for the 2 OPs this season, which are decent songs at best. The EDs, on the other hand, are a whole other story, with DOBERMAN INFINITY's K-pop and iScream's J-pop songs just being plain forgettable at best (though the latter is the better of the 2).
Overall, Season 3 is just the stopgap measure right before the very climax of the series to date in terms of Arifureta's adaptation, and I completely understand if the minimalist of efforts are done here just so to push the heavyweight of the tank onto the final leg of its journey, because "it's not (just) how you start, (but) it's how you finish". If (I believe) this is (to be) so, the staff team better be ready to deliver the epic finality to the series and give its all to give Ryo Shirakome's work its much-needed redemption from its horrible start to the polish it woefully deserves for its final season.
As of this moment, Arifureta is palpable and no longer the bad apple that it once was in its own infamy, so much so that if you've been wanting to give this series a go, it's still not too late to do so.
The wait now lingers upon the final descent...
