I personally feel like this series actually gets better with each season. The studio did a wonderful job of combining all previous seasons and movies into this show in such a short period (12 episodes). That being said, if you have not recently watched the movies/anime it might be hard to keep track of which character is which as this season incorporates many more characters compared to previous seasons. As someone who has participated in sports in High School, a lot of themes were very similar and I often found myself reminiscing about past sports experiences. They did a good job of balancing what actuallyhappens between friends and people who are not necessarily close but are acquaintances due to playing the same sport while also dramaticing some parts to make it more interesting.

I'd like to end off that I prefer this style of focusing on the races and competition than the friendships/rivalries that previous seasons/movies had. This season still had that but included many more races and explored different styles of swimming as opposed to the typical medley relay that we often saw in previous seasons/movies.