Kimi ni Todoke Season 3 Review – Worth the Wait!

Article at a glance:

• After 13 years, Kimi ni Todoke returns with a 5-episode season that feels equivalent to almost 15 regular episodes due to the hour-long episodes.
• The season focuses heavily on character development, particularly for Ayane and Kento, Sawako and Kazehaya, and Chizu and Ryu, offering satisfying resolutions.
• The season blends emotional moments with light-hearted ones, making it a powerful and heartfelt continuation of the series.
• The art style remains consistent with previous seasons, and the soundtrack and animation receive slight upgrades, maintaining the series’ charm.

I know this review is a few days late but I didn’t expect Netflix to drop all episodes of Kimi ni Todoke Season 3 at once! And despite the low episode count of 5, each episode is an hour long so it essentially equates to almost 15 episodes of a regular anime. So yeah, despite the deceptively low episode count, we got a lot in this season. And man, this season was well worth the wait. We waited 13 years for a season 3 and we’re finally here and I am so happy.

Yes, don’t even question it, this season is good. It is really good. This season made me break on multiple occasions all the while still having some heartwarming light-hearted moments here and there. It was everything I could ask for and so much more. We got character development and resolutions for so many characters. It felt so good to hear all of the old cast back together and man, Raiden Mei, I mean, Sawahiro Miyuki delivered such a fantastic performance once again.

So yeah, this will be a long one. There will be spoilers so please keep that in mind. I tried to make this review spoiler-free but there was so much stuff I want to touch on that keeping it spoiler-free isn’t possible. So welcome back another review and today we will be talking about Kimi ni Todoke Season 3! Let’s get started

Plot

Not much to say here. It is a slice-of-life romance anime. You don’t exactly come here to see some complex narrative unfold, you know? But there are things about the plot that I do appreciate. For one, it is paced very well. Just like Seasons 1 and 2, Season 3 is also a slow-burn but it never bores you. Because despite being a slow burn, something is always happening that helps build up toward that inevitable payoff. A setup like this makes the eventual payoff even more satisfying.

So while yeah, it is slow, it never does get boring and I’d like to commend the plot pacing for that. And aside from just Sawako and Kazehaya, this season focuses on other important characters so much as well. So let’s get into

Characters

I will split this section up into pairs this season focused on. Let’s start with

Ayane and Kento

Their dynamic stole the show for me this season. This is why I praised Sawahiro Miyuki at the beginning of the article. Ayane is a very subtle character, she doesn’t easily show her emotions on the surface. Sawahiro Miyuki is amazing with subtle vocal cues to portray emotions. And that’s what she did as Ayane as well. See, Ayane has been in a lot of troublesome relationships. So she has complex feelings towards Sawako being so pure towards Kazehaya, she thinks that she will never find someone like that because of the experiences she has had.

Kento realizes this. Kento is a very perceptive dude despite his behavior. This just doesn’t sit right with him. The more he sees Ayane, the more aware he becomes of his feelings towards her. And man, the way things between them work out and how much time it takes for Ayane to actually warm up to someone again and just let it out, it is so well done.

Sawako and Kazehaya

Most of the development between Kazehaya and Sawako takes place in the last episode but the build-up to that development is present throughout the season. Now that Sawako and Kazehaya are dating, they need to find and set boundaries in their relationship. They want to spend time with each other but spending time with each other makes things awkward because both of them yearn for affection but Kazehaya doesn’t want to take the plunge because he is afraid that he will go “too far”.

Both Sawako and Kazehaya are thinking of the same thing most of the time but can’t bring themselves to open up to their partner. But when all this finally concludes, it is amazing. I almost cried when Sawako and Kazehaya finally kissed in episode 5. That moment was built up so damn well. Their relationship dynamic and the awkwardness they felt were portrayed really well.

Chizu and Ryu

Well, the childhood friend won for once for a change in a romance anime lol. We have a whole anime in this season making fun of the childhood friend always loses trope in Too Many Losing Heroines. But Chizu and Ryu managed to make it work after a bit of trouble. See, Ryu always liked Chizu and he told Chizu about it back in Season 2. She didn’t think much of it back then but finds herself growing more and more conscious of Ryu after a while.

And their arc revolves around Chizuru setting her feelings in order. Chizuru values Ryu as a friend since they practically grew up together. She thinks that accepting his feelings would destroy their friendship and make things awkward. That does happen but they make things work and once again, it is handled really well. Their dynamic was always cool but now it has more nuance added to it and I love it.

Combine all this with the awesome friendship of Sawako, Chizu, and Ayane. They always support each other and hear each other out. And man, even Sawako’s father had a bit of character development as he realizes that his daughter is now grown up and learns to let her go. Simple, but is effective because of how tastefully it is portrayed. Kazehaya and Kento’s dynamic is also funny as hell.

Animations and Soundtracks

Not much to say here. The art style is consistent with the previous seasons which I appreciate and the animations got a slight upgrade which is also nice. The soundtracks are pretty good as well. Production IG did a pretty good job overall, not much to comment on other than that.

Summing Up

Here are my final review scores for Kimi ni Todoke Seaosn 3:

• Plot – 8/10
• Characters – 10/10
• Animations – 8/10
• Soundtracks – 8/10
• Enjoyment – 10/10
• Overall – 9/10

So that concludes my review for Kimi ni Todoke Season 3 and I loved this season. Let me know what you guys think in the comments. I will take my leave here. See ya!

Also, check out some Rent-a-Girlfriend tangential news here. God, I hate it so much.