Kimi ni Todoke 3rd Season

Is this a review? Is this my ramblings while high? Did I enjoy this season?

Yes.

Yes to all.

This season covers the arc where I dropped the manga 10 years ago. In manga form, to young ol' me, this was too much unnecessary drama for the sake of making the story longer. I gotta say, the medium added a lot in terms of watchability. In this instance, I was able to read the characters, what they were thinking, the stage of life they're going through, the type of people they are a lot more. It made it so much more enjoyable, it was cute.

I re-watched the whole ... show during the pandemic, and season 2 is still the series' biggest blunder. I hope it'll remain that way if this gets another season.

I’m gonna be honest, after a 13 year long wait I definitely expected more than what we got from season 3.

First of all, I just have to say that I feel played?

In essence, S3 definitely gives Ayane as well as Chizuru more spotlight and elaboration in terms of their character as well as their own (developing) relationships with their respective love interests, which don’t get me wrong I LOVE IT. However, Sawako and Shouta’s (NEWLY OFFICIAL!!) relationship on the other hand just ended up being pushed into the background which I’m incredibly disappointed by. I will elaborate.

Episode 1 starts off STRONG and exciting with them ... finally going on a first date as an official couple, and I squealed so HARD and loved every minute of it! I was like, “FINALLY, after 2 seasons of being teased and being frustrated this is the season of their fluffy romance and dating in full force!”
However, that’s about it in terms of their dates in the whole season…literally. There is one other time where they go on a ‘date’ but it’s actually meeting each other’s parents/family, and I don’t really count that as an actual date because it’s not with just the two of them?
Don’t get me wrong, I loved that they were excited to meet each other’s family, but I just expected WAY more romance especially considering the fact season 3 is only 5 x 1 hour episodes long? Which I did not expect either, I really thought they were going to release a 24 episode season as usual.

So yea, the disappointment started growing right after episode 1, however it was still somewhat bearable. The moment I got fully disappointed, which is also the reason why I rate this season a 6, is when S3 decided to go with the classic ‘misunderstanding trope’ again and create unnecessary drama between Shouta and Sawako to pull them apart nearing the Christmas party arc. I was legit SO mad about this.
To explain, when the last Christmas party took place in the previous seasons (which in the story took place a year ago) Sawako actually didn’t manage to go because she chose to celebrate with her parents because of her dad being sad about it (unintentional guilt tripping coughs), so she ended up not being able to spend that quality time with Shouta during Christmas. This year, they decided to celebrate it together as an official couple and make up for last time when she couldn’t give him all the presents she prepared either. I was excitedly anticipating this.

However, what happened was the class went on a trip together to Okinawa and during the trip Shouta almost kissed Sawako but then they got cockblocked unintentionally by Ayane and he then basically got embarrassed and ran away. After that ‘almost kiss’ incident he started acting super distant and strange. Sawako upon sensing him becoming distant, decides to ask him about it and so she pulls him apart during a class break and gently asks him if something is bothering him whilst even holding his hands. THE NEXT SCENE PISSED ME OFF. He legit removed her hand, and chose NOT to communicate, saying a mere ‘No’. Not even looking her in the eye and acting all cold, not bothering to explain anything. Honestly so much for a ‘boyfriend’ so far…
From then on, there are barely any interactions between them for the rest of the season, and when there are, it’s just Shouta being cold and distant. This just made me incredibly disappointed and bummed out. It didn’t even feel like they were boyfriend and girlfriend at all, and this thing felt very out of character for Shouta because he was always so open and proactive during previous seasons. Homegirl literally tried to communicate and he just rejected it essentially!

But wait, then it gets even worse. When this year’s Christmas party (during Christmas Eve) finally comes around, he ends up not even saying 1 WORD to her. That’s right, you read it right. I observed it, there were legit none. I get it, he chose to be the leader/organizer for this year’s party which makes him busy to an extent but that still doesn’t make it an excuse to not talk to Sawako at all?! It had to get to the point of Sawako once again pursuing him for an explanation, and then breaking out in tears for him to FINALLY open up to her and clear the misunderstanding.

Turns out, the whole reason he created the ‘distance’ and acted cold was in order to hold himself back from touching her physically because that’s more ‘gentlemanly’ to do. That’s it, that’s LITERALLY it. Which makes NO sense by the way. Why would you NOT kiss and touch each other if you’re DATING? That’s literally the point LOL. I get that this series is branded as more ‘pure’ and that’s one of the reasons Kimi ni Todoke is so popular, but taking it this far is just unnecessary and unreasonable now.
He then also said some shit about him feeling like he ‘isn’t that good like she sees him’ or something, which also felt out of nowhere and out of character to be honest? He’s legit always been a very confident and bright person and very involved with people, so it just felt unfounded to me. I don’t remember him ever showcasing that insecurity or having it at all in previous seasons? But then again it’s legit been a decade since I watched them so there might have been something hinting to it. But even so, I personally find that this just isn’t the right time to be diving into this insecurity. We fans have waited so long for the continuation of this series, and me personally as previously said, I was ACHING for their romance to finally romance!! It unfortunately just pissed me off and frustrated me again.

So yea, in conclusion, literally nothing happens between Sawako and Shouta except for that first date at the start of the season and their ‘make up’ kiss during the last episode when he finally opens up to her and explains his weird illogical ‘cold’ behavior. That’s it, this is literally their ‘romance’ in a nutshell in the entirety of season 3. I wish someone could have warned me for this because I’m just left feeling incredibly played as I said earlier.

Now as for Chizuru and Ayane however, that’s a whole other story (both figuratively and literally), and I loved every second of it!
For Chizuru, they really dived deep into her history with Ryu and their childhood together. We really get a deeper look into the close bond they developed since they were kids. It was very touching for me to see Chizuru announcing she would be his sibling and take care of him after his mother passed away in a car accident. I wanted to cry when she started learning how to make onigiris and bringing it to his doorstep every night through the snow, because it was his favorite food. You could see in the beginning they looked really shitty but day by day they started looking better and more neat, and now in present day it’s become a tradition for her to give him food regularly like that.
Ryu also wasn’t the most outwardly expressive since he was a kid and was misunderstood by classmates sometimes because of it, and I loved that Chizuru was the one who understood him because they’d spent so much time together and she just knew him.
I also LOVED Ryu’s confession to her (finally) in present day, as well as his romantic Christmas gift to her and them finally being open about their feelings with each other!

As for Ayane, I was touched by the fact she finally opened up her heart and took a leap of faith to give Kento a chance to show her that she CAN DO and DESERVES better from guys. As someone with a (suspected) inferiority complex, she’s always thought low of herself but never showed it to people as she always showed up as warm, helpful, encouraging and assertive outwardly. As a result of low self-esteem and image, she never had a serious relationship nor had ever fallen in love with someone, and always just ‘settled’ for casual hookups or ‘casual relationships’ with guys because she thought that was all she deserved or could ever get. Thus, her ending up with Kento was not only touching in a romantic sense, but also in a therapeutic sense. This just reminds me that sometimes it really just takes meeting and opening to the right person for you to start healing and transforming inside, to see that different (in a positive way) IS possible.
Which by the way, I just need to take a moment and comment on KENTO. We all just need a Kento in our lives okay. He’s so warm, understanding, observant, funny and shameless (in a good way lmao) and him being voiced by Miyano Mamoru just makes it even better LOL. He’s one of those few ‘therapist friend’ examples that I don’t mind, because often those can get borderline invasive and also overly self-sacrificing, but in Kento’s case he balances both looking out for others as well as himself really well!
And also, THEIR HUG MOMENT AT THE END AAAA I CAN’T. Him gifting her roses was so romantic too! Seriously, what’s not to love about him? She was bound to give in sooner or later lmao.

In all seriousness though, as I said, I really loved that Ayane and Chizuru got their own spotlight this time round, so I have to give the show kudos for that. It’s refreshing to see because they’d played the ‘supportive’ role for Sawako (in relation with Shouta) majority of the time in previous seasons. I don’t know whether they will make a season 4, but if they don’t and this is the last one, I really have to rate it as just ‘okay’ overall. Ayane and Chizuru’s developments carried and saved this season plot wise, and that’s where I will leave it at.

Art wise, I was surprised and delighted by the fact they kept the art style quite consistent since S1 and S2 at first, but towards the end, especially during the last episode, the art style suddenly looked very different? Additionally, when characters were further away or the scene zoomed out the art got super lazy and people’s faces became so derp and I’m shocked by it. They had literally over A DECADE to make things good and they still slacked off, WHY?

Nevertheless, I like that this season ended on a happy note of everyone celebrating Christmas Day at Sawako’s house, and the fact that they cleared the misunderstanding, but all in all there’s definitely a lot left to be desired. I might just pick up the manga at some point.

If you want to see the official sequel of the story you will not get it and you just waste your time. This season only consists of filler, the only not filler scenes were the repeated scenes from the older seasons. There is no character development and get unnessesery drama which makes kazehaya look very bad, I really started hating him in this season.

If you watched kimi ni todoke for the comedy ,you may like it, so go for it.
But if you liked the character development of sawako and also development in the partnership + liked the beautiful verses told by sawako, you will not ... get it here.