Zero no Tsukaima (third season) - Total Series Rating
 

This thread is to be used for discussing the entire 12 episodes of Zero no Tsukaima: Princess no Rondo (aka third season) ... your thoughts about the show, overall impressions, expectations and hopes about the DVD only footage etc.

A few subjects you might want to ramble on about:

• General impression of the series.
• Opinions on the overall story, writing & plot devices.
• Thoughts about the animation quality.
• Characters/Character Design
  
  
• How did the anime compare with the manga?
• Which kind of footage (DVD only) you feel you'd really like to see.
• What the show meant to you.
• What could the creators/animators/writers could have done better.

And so on.

The poll represents your total series rating. In other words, how you would rate all the episodes combined (1-10)? If you'd rather rate the whole series by technical/artistic merits, you can do so. An example:

Animation Quality: 1-10
Voice Actors: 1-10
Script: 1-10
Editing: 1-10
Emotional Involvement: 1-10

Average = Total Series Rating

Or a combination of the two. Or your general gut feeling.

Feel free to discuss and more importantly, have fun :)

Animation Quality: 8

Nothing bad with it. Sometimes the art at places was off but in general - not a bad work. Not outstanding either. But you could watch it without being constantly reminded if the animation itself and thats a good thing.

Voice Actors: 9

Probably the best thing about this anime is a good team of voice actors. They really do a pretty solid work.

Script: 1

No questions here. Script writing was atrocious. Even season 2 had a few better moments. In this season they left too many plotlines unmemorable and abrupt, making the series look that it was only about fanservice without any real plot (which isn't true, but thats what impression you are given due to horrible script writing).

Random things like "Oops Louise feels insecure and she can't cast mgic" (though she always feel insecure) doesnt help either. Henrietta/Louise/Saito triangle was also left cut (in original the issue was more or less solved so the author did not rurn to that but in anime we dont see any real conclusion.). Weird changes of focus is also not very helpful. And a bad scene build up and the focus division between the scenes (makes look not plot connected scenes more important and memorable than the actual scenes).

So yes, for me, script writing was the worst part of ZnT. It's as if they were trying to make it as horrible as possible on purpose.

Editing: 4

Could be better, could be worse, but on the whole - still on the negative side. Needs to improve more here.

Emotional Involvement: 2

It is connected with bad script writing. Because of it the emotional scenes come so short and abrupt that you barely feel anything about it. In fact since fanservice scenes usually have longer and well paced build ups you might remember them much more than something that should have been the most emotional part of the episode.

I still think that character are cute and all, its just that terrible script writing makes one barely care about their sadness and happiness.


Total series rating: 4

It had its own moments (usually at the beginning of the season, the latest episodes were done badly) it is still not enough to make the series to be called good. Even calling it average is forcing it a little.

Maybe other script writers, director and what maybe even more important prolonged season (to 24 episodes) might solve things, but for now it is jus mostly an anime that has the potential but doesn't have the quality to bring it out.

I'll be honest this series should of simply ended with S1. it's just beating a dead horse now for some time and repetition = really bad. This series is meant to be a romantic comedy but there is a bit too much focus on questing and fighting both done very poorly.


the way i see it, S1>S2>S3. It just progessively gets worse and worse. I'm not even bothering with S4 if it comes out.

5/10

Finally this has been made....
Animation Quality: I thought the animation was awesome 9
Voice Actors: They still sound the same and i like so 10
Script: the killer rating :( i guess since im a die hard fan ill say 6
Editing: not sure what it means but if its what i think then a 7
Emotional Involvement: As for this im gonna view it as a saito and louise involvement and give it a 10 even though his balls are gone they have been more intament this seasons then the last two...

Zero no Tsukaima - Princess no Rondo. Final Thoughts
 

It's reality that season three was a vast and overwhelming improvement from season two, but, honestly, it still lacked the enough substance to go on par in the same level to the first season.

The problem I got with the third season is that I felt the writers misused or abused the fanservice in terms of attempting to lure in, as many viewers as possible who were not familiar with the novels.
Add that quite several elements in the story have already been used in the previous seasons, contributing to new nothing at certain scenes or for quite a few episodes.

Even more, season three was clearly affected by the pacing of the previous season.
They could have arranged for Joseph's introduction later on season two and to at least describe a little bit clearer about the void users.

There are still a lot of mysteries and unresolved quests that need answer to:
1. Who are the remaining void users?
2. What became of the ring of Andvari?

However, the appearance of new characters in this season open door to the possibilities of exploring the mage world even further.

With Tiffania's proper introduction it introduced the Elf race and hints the likelihood of other continents besides Halkeginia.

They also left pending the issue about Henrietta's shook feelings for Saito, which I do not doubt she'll be paid back for it, if there's a fourth season to conclude the story.

Other good things were the return to screentime of Louise's classmates, since their roles were downplayed to minimal in the previous season.

Guys, sincerely I feel dubious if the producers will want to aim for a fourth season. That's already been three seasons to the Zero no Tsukaima franchise, and if their was a need to heighten the tone of the fanservice content more so than in the previous two seasons combined, then I think this third series had troubles attracting attention for its demographic audience.

Anyways, I liked how the handled both the final episode and ending to season three allowing enough screentime for ocurrences and plot devices to develop in a similar as how they handled the ending to the first season of Shakugan no Shana.

Overall, even if Princess no Rondo was not able to garner the same level of success as the first series did, nonetheless, fix and surpassed the expectations of Futatsu no Kishi.

This has been the first series I concluded for the summer 2008 season.
Overall rating: 85.83%

P.S. Not only did Fouquet was absent again in this season, but also the Zero Fighter :(

9/10 for the animation. It's usually good (maybe needlessly so), especially the last episode's battle. As expected...

Voice Actors... Never have much to say here...
Louise/Kugimiya's voice really can prove to be annoying when she takes on roles like these.

Script... is the main problem, yeah... (-_-)
Plot holes like the magic revival thing (even though they clearly stated it is not possible last season), Jessica and Scarron being at the magic academy for some reason (...the distance...), Louise suddenly unable to use magic (er... why), etc. If only the script was better...
Then we have the incredibly odd pacing. They spend the first three episodes rushed. Now, if they had no time to spare, that's kind of okay. BUT, they then spend three episodes that go completely nowhere, meaning they can't really make that excuse anymore. Then the next episodes were decent, followed by two last badly done episodes...

Hah... JC Staff does like changing novel plots to something original, but for some reason, Zero no Tsukaima's anime adaption suffers the most from this...
Oh well, got to see animated Siesta again.

Total: 4/10 (for Siesta, and the few parts that were entertaining)
I'd like to say "Try again", but I don't want another season... Even though they probably are going to make another one, considering the way they ended.

for you people that like zero no tsukaima i urge you to take a look at toradora. First ep is out even on youtube.

The plot looks good for toradora.. I just need to wait for Subs.


As for Zero... You know what? I still loved season 3. As much as a lot didnt love it.. I did. Sure it was no season 1 or 2 but I like the series. I'll be sad if season 3 is the last.

It wasn't as good as the first 2 but it was still enjoyable for me. 7/10.

ToraDora is funny...but Aisaka Taiga is meaner then Louise... but i still like...

The Toradora main character gave me vibes of Shana/Louise because she's voiced by the same voice actor and she kept saying "ino" and 'urosai".

Anyways. Same problems as season 2. Plot was a jumbled mess. ZnT source material isn't exactly golden work but the adaptation is atrocious and does it no justice.

Besides the bad plot everything else was satisfactory.

5/10

Oh man.

Animation Quality: 8

Perhaps the only selling point for me was that Louise is still moe, which is huge. Overall, the animation quality was excellent, but the script never gave much else to be animated except tiring gags, so the score shall be an 8.

Voice Actors: 7

Voice acting was pretty good all around. There was nothing too special, or the script never gave the chance for this category to excel.

Script: 2

Here's how I describe it. Season one's plot was about two characters I cared about. Season two's plot was about a character I didn't care about. Season three had no plot, with the addition of a fourth character in the relationship polygon. Seriously, I was greatly interested in Agnes' story before they went overboard starting with episode 6. For season three, even though the last two episodes were good, it did not really save the other miserable ones. At least I can say that season three ended well, where I completely hated season two's ending.

Editing: NA

I don't get this category nor do I think the anime can get much better with improved editing.

Emotional Involvement: 3

Well let's see. The music was good. The last episode was good. Episode 11's scene where Louise and Saito was interrupted by Guiche was good. That's all.

Overall: 5

I actually rated every episode separately and the average came to this, so... Just for reference, I rated the first season an 8 and the second season a 6. However, a 5 is average on my scale, not below average.

EDIT: Actually, the average for the categories listed above came to exactly a 5 too... What a coincidence.

All I wanted was for it to be better than the second season, and it wasn't. Below Average.

There seemed to be a crapload in this season which was just a minor variation of stuff that happened in the first and second seasons, except executed worse. That's not good. Not only is this show being ruined by fanservice-y distractions which really hurt the pacing, as well as the show's tendency for resetting character and relationship development, but now it's starting to become repetitive.

i am a bit disappointed upon the third season.... Louise & Saito relationship should progress more then it did in the last two seasons and i was hoping to see more mature and reasonable and faithful Saito and also Louise... its like she is the only one working for their relationship, and he is just goofing off like a womanizer ... i hope they won't put the forth season on...

5/10

Season 3 was just really disappointing for me. Initially, I didn't expect much anyway... but the first episode got my hopes up, I guess. The show either introduced topics that were never further investigated (such as the other void user) or terribly rushed (Saito losing his runes, Louise losing her magic, Tabitha's mission, the final battle, etc). Furthermore, the amount of shameless fanservice was disgusting, and put meaningful Saito/Louise moments at an all-time low.

I'm still trying to organize my thoughts into a coherent review; whenever I do I guess I'll post again here.

On a comparative scale, it was definitely a lot better than season 2, but not nearly as good as season one. I rate it a solid 7 out of 10.

The fanservice was just unbearable at some points because it was the same tired stuff over and over again, but the plot was SO much better than in season 2, I feel.

Despite the last few minutes of the last episode, I also think the relationship between Saito and Louise took a definite step forward.

Aside from S1, S2 and S3 looked like they were fillers. They need to get back on track...6/10 for me for S3, as it was indeed better than S2. Fan service was most the most notable element, sry for stating the obvious but other than that, not much of a story going on...very shallow and I felt it was rushed. Although they did get to the past of Agnes

6/10. Average. No real dramatic scenes or emotional involvment throughout. A few funny ecchi scenes, but too much of Louise being emo and the entire premise of the series of saving a minor secondary character (the loli girl) was stupid.

Animation Quality: 9

nothing wrong here, always looks good and spot on

Voice Actors: 8

good voice actors, am guessing louise is the voice of shana...

Script: 3

well the script was pretty bad really, i watched all 3 seasons in a row after the final ep of 3 ended, and it did get worse


overall...i still liked it, i like to watch some stupid animes now and again ( ie this, rosario to vampire etc), but it could of been so much better

6.5/10 i guess

Overall I gave it a 9, mainly for the fact that I enjoyed it. Considering how the past 2 seasons have been progressing, I don't expect much from these episodes. My expectations are low so the anime pretty much meets them. So in fact I end up enjoying them than hating the episode for adding too much fan service or being a filler that never actually gets to the point. Been reading the manga recently and they both seem pretty good.