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I knew nothing of the plot going into this. The first three episodes were pretty solid and set it up to be a funny slice of life that was bizarrely framed. But this got really dark really quickly and it was pretty unnecessary how dark it got like the cannibalism plot twist for example or just repeatedly being shown how much people suck, especially in the harem girls backstories. There is a lot of competent stuff in here but it is so heavily drowned out that what should have been a 4 star out of five anime (or 7 stars out 10) quickly became pretty ... uncomfortable to watch by the end of episode 4 and just didn’t stop from there.

Out of the about half a dozen male idol anime that I’ve watched, this has turned out to be one of the best ones. Apart from maybe 2 episodes whose plots brought the overall score down, this was written intelligently with a good and diverse cast of characters and plenty of heart in its songs. Whereas a lot of these idol anime focus on flooding the screen with characters and can’t really develop them properly, this one takes the time to get to know our three idol groups. With Season 2 imminent, I’m hoping for a step up in quality to bring this anime up ... to the standard we know it can be at.

This season sure knew how to end the show on a low note, and give the best reasons yet as to why the Kao Council should have been disbanded. Whereas the childish naïveté of the protagonist was enough to get the characters through Seasons 1 and 2, it fully impeded character development this season because for the first time, they came up against a proper antagonist; a drunk on power narcissist who believes everyone should do everything his way. That led to a lot of moments that didn’t really make sense, like spending so much time trying to bring Team Hirragi into the company and ... then all of a sudden for them to turn around and want to compete against the others and then also struggling with who to support which includes supporting the antagonist. What every season of this show has needed, none more so than this, is someone who just goes around and knocks these people’s teeth in because everyone is clearly not smart enough to be realistic about this.

So this was my first venture into subbed Beyblade territory (as Beyblade X is still ongoing and I’m still watching that). And I see that despite X and Burst having two separate writing teams, the propensity for rage quit moments still existed all the way back in 2016. This show has enough decent Beyblading action to keep you satisfied-ish for 51 episodes but unfortunately what lets this show down is the characters are far too one dimensional. With a main character whose brains reside in his guts, the opportunity for characters to have good development is completely nonexistent with 11 year old children just being ... swollen balls of pride and ego, way more than is acceptable for children their age, and a main character whose brains reside alternates between being a talented blader and a complete idiot with the IQ of mud. The show’s writers also have no idea what audiences want because at least twice they took the completely wrong story direction which is disappointing. Still got another 5-6 seasons left to go of Burst.

I definitely did go into this series with high-ish expectations because I’m a fan of the genre. And there is definitely a lot of potential on display in this series, especially in the first episode with a great cast of characters that I can look forward to watching them grow. But where this anime fails to fulfill that potential with animation that is incomplete at best and pretty psychedelic so the visual look of the show isn’t very good.
I’m still going to carry on because I’m hoping that it gets better but it definitely got off to a rough start.

The end of Season 2 was a very natural end to the story as a whole. It didn’t really need to continue but I was on board for continuing the story provided that they fix the issues with the story. They didn’t, in fact they made it worse. Despite a very weakly written protagonist, the whole of Yowamushi Pedal is held together by the fact that the Sohoku team is a group of relatable average joes while all of their rivals are overconfident jerks who push them to be better. That is completely lost in this third season. Not only have they not developed Onoda’s ... character (he really needs to calm down and stop freaking out at every little thing) but they added a literal narcissistic idiot to the team which hurts the overall development of the main characters because they are forced to compensate for him. Plus the writing of the rivals has gotten worse with Hakone acting as if they are god given talents and guaranteed winners despite losing last season. For this franchise to survive long term, it needed to have completely reset itself post Season 2, wrote out all existing characters and started fresh.

This is simultaneously an improvement on the previous season and isn’t. Picking up right where Season 1 ended might have been a mistake in terms of pacing but it definitely doesn’t let up throughout 24 episodes. I definitely do like that it toned down the unexpected sadisticness of Season 1. But the protagonist is the weakest part of the show, he has zero chill and keeps freaking out in every episode for no reason. Just chill bro. I am looking forward to continue on with the franchise. But I think I definitely need to see some changes if I am to be convinced of any ... long term success beyond a typical shōnen first two seasons.

I’m so mortified that this is from the same writer as the A Channel anime, I want to put my head through a wall. The entire premise of this season seems to be based on the series compositor having taken a trip to London and sat in a pub listening to people talk. This season has no style, no substance, plot holes you could throw whole buildings through and utterly unlikeable characters with motivations that are more implausible than any conspiracy theory to ever exist. I’m so glad that G moves on to a whole new set of characters because I couldn’t stand to be ... with these characters any longer. Just as long as I don’t have to listen to anyone try to force British slang spoken in English into any more anime because repeatedly hearing them say mate was utterly grating.

This was quite the unexpected joy ride. What I like so much about this is that it feels like a breath of fresh air in a cluttered anime space. I really like shonen anime like this, especially multi-cour series with this series being paced quite perfectly. But what I find quite strange about this series is that it is surprisingly sadistic. Every episode, it seems to relish in bringing these characters down into despair, especially when sometimes it doesn’t make logical sense in the story. Would definitely recommend this series to others and I can’t wait to continue on to future seasons.

I have quite mixed feelings about about this one. For one thing, the writing and character development is phenomenally terrible, all the characters are so unlikeable, especially the protagonist, during the last arc of the season when the world is at stake and they keep going on about a time limit, whilst everyone else is fighting hard to save the world, the protagonist decides to go home, mope and sleep. Aichi has never been a great protagonist due to his lack of a backbone but this season seemed to make everything so much more unwatchable. And after spending all of Season 2 (Asia Circuit) trying ... to get his Royal Paladin deck back… he doesn’t even use it. Plus as I have primarily watched D Series, the slow pace of the older seasons and card fights really does drag out. I do want to find things to like about this and I do like how they progressed a lot more Kourin’s storyline during this season but I think you’ll find there are more negatives than positives.