Iruma-kun was an anime that worked very well as a wonderful “Saturday Morning Cartoon” type of show. Decent comedy, action, and the lovable characters shaped what were two solid seasons. While this season did have some decent moments, it ultimately got hampered by staying in the same setting for most of the season, surrounding the Harvest Festival, which felt a very long, drawn-out arc. It moves away from the school setting, which was where the charm for me was, and into a competition of sorts between the classes. The season jumps around between characters, and balances development out for them, but it forgets what the main enjoyment point was, which was seeing Iruma and his two best friends, Asmodeus and Clara, interact and have fun with each other.

The animation and production overall was fine, as it was around the same quality as the first two seasons had. The big scenes looked good, and the meaningful ones were well executed. As for the OP a bit disappointing, and the ED was quite awful.

The biggest problem though, was that even though each character had their own developments, they didn’t feel very meaningful, rather, they felt quite shallow. Sure, each of them has their breakthroughs and good moments, but they were unfortunately quite forgettable. This might just be a me thing, but the characters that most people love most (Ameri, Clara, Asmodeus), just didn’t show up enough, and I just didn’t care about the other characters to really be invested in the story. One new character who I did enjoy watching was Bachiko, who was quite the funny mentor for Iruma, but I wish she got more screen time as well.

Ultimately, the season simply starts out too slow for me to care for what happened at the end of the arc, and I wanted it to be over. I did enjoy some of the season to an extent, but nowhere near the level I did for Season 1 and 2, which delivered entertainment at more of a consistent quality than this season, which felt comparatively boring.

Let’s face the facts though, Iruma-kun provides NHK with quite the return of funds, and unless something major changes, I doubt this will be the last season of the show. Is it a lack of passion from the staff? Just poor direction? Or something more? It just felt something was missing from this season. I’m not gonna lie, it felt a little lazy, with the constant recaps shown, and the dragging with the needless cliffhangers. I really hope that this season was a one-off, and Iruma-kun can get back to being the charming show it once was. Let’s hope the money didn’t get to their heads.

I will say this though. If you haven’t watched this season of Iruma-kun yet, a binge might function better and make you enjoy it more than how I watched this, which was in a weekly format. If a Season 4 is on the horizon, I hope it can get paced better, with more intrigue than this season provided.