PurplePeopleEater

This is a review for all the seasons but focuses mostly on this season. I think I gave a 3 for the first season. The second season I give a 4. For XTen I give about a 4 and for this one I give about a 6 since it was considerably better and more interesting, but cannot fully escape the the previous seasons.

I personally was disappointed with this series as a whole, especially since nearly everyone seems to think it's a great series. It has some really good parts to it and some great characters with out a doubt, however, it doesn't quite make up for everything about it that I dislike. This season wasn't nearly as bad as the others though. It actually kept my attention for most of it.

For me, how the story is written is the big problem. Yes, it is unique instead of the same old same old. Yes, as far as writing goes, it's more clever and complex than the average anime. I can respect it as an example of good writing skills, but that doesn't mean I am going to like it or be entertained. Sometimes simple is better than complex and simple done well can be really good. 

I will go ahead and say this now: the first time I tried to watch this, I turned it off after the first episode. It seemed slow and uninteresting. I only came back to it because I continued to see excellent reviews and praise and figured it had to get better after the first episode or else it wouldn't be so well liked. So I tried it again and stuck with it all the way through. Besides, I don't like declaring my dislike for something if I haven't seen all of it. 

Story and Characters:This is one of those stories that sort of changes main characters often and goes off into side stories constantly trying to develop every character as if they were a main character. That is what put me off the most. I am the type of person who won't read/watch a sequel to a story simply because it follows a different main character and I can never seem to get into it when they switch, so changing characters every episode isn't going to go over well with me. I liked the main concept of the three friends who, unknown to each other, were leading groups that were basically enemies and the one guy who isn't really special but basically self-destructs with power. What I don't care about is the little details about every characters past. Sometimes, it felt like I knew more about the less major characters than the three friends! Sorry, I'm getting off track. See, I can go off into side topics too.......ANYWAY...the first 24 episodes follow different characters and their seperate stories in far more detail than was ever necessary. In other words, I was bored. BORED!! Every once in a while something would catch my attention for a few moments but then I was back to half paying attention while thinking "can we get on with it already", "I don't care about all that just get back to the regular story,""Pick a story and stick with it," and "I really don't care about this persons whole life history, please move faster!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Those were my general thoughts through most of it. This last season was the only time I only had those thoughts a couple times, aabout as often as I would with most stories. The first season was when these were my thoughts for almost the entire 480 something minutes it took to watch.....

I don't want to calculate the total amount of time I felt was wasted watching this because it would probably be depressing and I'm not good at math so it's too much trouble. The ending of the last two seasons was probably when I was into the story most because it mostly read like your average story instead of jumping around all over the place and barely being coherent at times. 

The character were good, although they weren't all so interesting I was dying to know their backstory in detail, but they were good. Right away I told myself I would pick a character other than Mikado to like. Normally I end up likeing the main character, but it was easy to tell he was a bit of a whimp with no special ability really which would eventually disappoint me. I couldn't bring myself to like Kida either though so I chose Izaya. Yes, he is a trouble maker to put it lightly but I liked his way of thinking. I can't be quite as indifferent and uncaring as him (thats the best way I think to put it) but I like how he views humans as play things because I'm kind of like that too. That's why I'm in the field of psychology. So even though he was a bit jerkish, I would love to have a conversation with that guy. In the end though, I really only cared much about the parts with Mikado, Kida, and Izaya. Shinra and Celty and Shizuo were interesting sometimes too, but the rest of the characters, I liked as side characters but not when they were in the spotlight for hlaf or a whole episode. Then I was bored.

Sound and Animation: Animation was average. There were times when different angles would have been better or it was a bit too dark, but for the most part it was fine. I liked the opening songs for all the seasons except this one (And I rarely like opening songs) and the soundtracks were interesting. They used some rather classical music at interesting times. It was maybe slightly above average.

OVERALL: I would reccommend this series because a lot of people like it, but I wouldn't reccommend it based on my own experience watching it. It had good moments, but it lost momentum with all the switching characters and side stories which resulted in an average. maybe slightly below average, impression and response. If it cut most of that out....it would be a lot shorter and I would have liked it more, not that I prefer short animes because it's the opposite, but I don't like long animes with a bunch of uneseccary stuff either. My main complaint is that I spent most of my time bored and wishing it would hurry up. The story was good, but I didn't like how it was told. The ending of this season was good, but the last episode kept jumping around so much (as many episodes do in this anime) that it took away from the story a bit. Anyway, I give it a 6 because it was better than the previous seasons and I did sort of like the ending, but it might be more of a 5 in reality. The show as a whole including all the seasons would be a 4.5.