Date A Live III is the third season of anime based on the light novel series. After the shorter second season, this season is back to being twelve episodes long. It is set in a world where the appearances of spirits causes the natural disaster known to the masses as spatial quakes. The spirits take on the form of girls and apart from eliminating them, the other way to seal their powers is to make the fall in love. Thus enters Itsuka Shido, our protagonist, and also the only one with the ability to seal the powers of the spirits by kissing them. As interesting as the premise is, it ends up becoming a typical romantic comedy interspersed with some battle scenes here and there. The series has long since given up on trying to make it seem that an effort is made on hiding the truth and the damage from the general population.
The season begins with another typical arc. A new spirit appears and Shido must go ahead and make her fall in love with him in order to seal her powers. This has the additional benefit of keeping her safe since with her powers sealed, the AST and DEM will have no interest in capturing or killing her. The new spirit brings with her, her own unique power and this is what makes this arc different from the rest. However, the events leading up to successfully sealing her powers ends up becoming a retread of the movie. Shido will go on dates with all the characters thus far and it is starting to become unwieldy. This is because the anime is trying to give each character equal screen time which means less time is spent on average per character overall.
There is very predictable plot development where it doesn’t even try anything to spice things up. The spirits often overreact and misunderstand what is currently happening. Shido makes them fall deeper in love thanks to his (cringey) self sacrifices. All the spirits vie for Shido’s affections and attention but it is hard to see what makes Shido so special such that everyone likes him. Shido’s personality is becoming more and more generic as time goes on. The anime goes through the well worn themes of being there for someone, supporting them no matter their appearance and that everyone can make friends.
The second arc that starts from the middle of the season is where the events get quite a bit more interesting. It focuses on Origami, who is a subtle yet impactful character thus far. She’s devoted to Shido but has always been on the other side of the battle, being the enemy to spirits. However, a compromise or resolution is achieved in this season, which also sheds a bit of light on the spirits themselves.
The arc involves a classic story using Kurumi’s powers. It’s interesting because of the conundrum it presents and what Shido can possibly do to rectify it. The situation starts to get messy, in a good way, because this is probably the best arc that the anime has had thus far. You go into it as confused and disorientated as Shido as he slowly tries to piece together what happened. It sheds a lot of light into Origami’s past and her inner feelings but the resolution is weak.
While battle scenes were never one of Date A Live’s strong points, they remain as average as ever in this season. What usually happens is that the spirits transform into their spirit forms, meaning they’ll get some fancy armor and waves their weapons around. The group known as the AST will have flight gear allowing them zip around in the air and the mysterious third faction DEM Industries will talk a lot as they continue their hidden agenda. The battles don’t actually have much action in them since it likes to have the characters move around before cutting to when they’re hit and then a lot of close ups with dialogue.
The last episode of the season is a weird episode in that it is not serious at all. It felt like that after the season finished with its second major arc, the animators still had one episode left and thus put in a filler type of episode which has no consequence to the story. There are times during the episode where you’re left thinking if they are serious since it is so cheesy.
Overall, Date A Live III could possible be the best season in that it has an interesting second half. It focuses on Origami who was one of the first characters to pair with Shido and yet she never really got the spotlight before now. One of the bigger negatives of the season though is that despite DEM Industries being the focus point and such a big threat in the second season, they have done nothing this season.
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