There's a tried-and-true formula in Hidamari Sketch, and one of the reasons for its success: "A day in the life of Yuno and her friends". Season 3 is no different in this respect (iyashi sitcom based on a comic strip) but it expands on this in several ways. Season 3 introduces 2 new characters, Nori, the assertive, tech-savvy art student from (presumably) Osaka, and Nazuna, the shy, dojikko "regular track" student who also happens to be a local. I gotta say, Nazuna is one of my all-time favorite characters, because she gets herself into all kinds of silly situations, like her move-in day (it helps thather parents are sillier).

They did a neat thing for the opening animation during the broadcast of the show, partly because it wasn't finished (the final cut is used in the disc release), partly to poke fun at their own penchant for using still frames in these situations, and partly because they wanted to make the appearance of Nori and Nazuna a pleasant surprise. For the first couple of episodes, the "animation" consisted of still frames with 3 stars flying overhead. This wasn't bad (it got a good laugh from Japanese viewers), and it was well within the animation quality of the first 2 seasons. But when Nori and Nazuna were officially unveiled... Everyone went "WOW". The animation quality and detail were cranked up to 11, introduced the icons used for each of the 6 girls, and perfectly matched the fantastic new opening song.

A staple of the series is the creative "film leader" that precedes every (sub) episode. Season 2 improved upon the original "sun" leader by incorporating a flower representing which season (as in "spring, summer"..., not as in "television season") the episode takes place in. That was cool, but season 3 took that up a notch: here the film leader is a planetarium which (I presume) has the constellations visible in the Northern Hemisphere at the time the episode takes place in. A little too detailed, but nevertheless shows off Shaft's mad animation skillz. If a sub-episode precedes Nori/Nazuna, it uses the season 2 leader, which is cool.

Season 3's episode chronology is a bit of a transition between x365 and Honeycomb: There is always one part of the episode that is chronologically in-order, but it often comes with another part that has a story from "last year" and out of order (but related to the in-order part). It's still very much a "Plot? What plot?" kind of show, but this time there's some chronological progression. This becomes more important in season 4 with Yuno, but at least now we're starting to see the girls start down a journey.