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.