STITCH!: ZUTTO SAIKOU NO TOMODACHI

DESCRIPTION

CAST

ANIME AdventureStitch!: Itazura Alien no Daibouken
SPECIAL AdventureStitch!: Itazura Alien no Daibouken - Uchuu Ichi no Oniichan
SPECIAL AdventureStitch!: Zutto Saikou no Tomodachi - Hero wa Tsurai yo
SPECIAL AdventureStitch to Suna no Wakusei
SPECIAL AdventureStitch! Perfect Memory

REVIEWS

• 

  MegaTheRealOne

  72/100
  Man, I Love Re-Runs So Much

  And now here we are. After what felt like a millennia since we covered season 2 of this show, we have now arrived at the third and final season of the Stitch anime, known as Stitch!: Best Friends Forever, and I hope you are one who likes change, because there is quite a lot of it in this season! First and foremost, with this being the biggest change of the bunch, this season takes place in an entirely new location, moving away from the quiet village of Izayoi and moving over to the big city known as..... New Town. Because I guess the guy in charge of naming things died the day before the show aired. So I hope you didn't like all of those characters that you got to know in the first two seasons of the show, because they are now completely GONE. Sure, the main group are here, such as Stitch, Yuna, Jumba, Pleakly and so on, but other characters like Yuna's Grandmother, Penny, Kenny, Taro, Kijimuna, Sasha, and all of the others have pretty much been removed from the show, and instead we now get a bunch of new characters that Stitch and pals interact with through the rest of the season.

  So yeah, things are quite different this time around when it comes to this season of the show. I guess the producers thought that they couldn't keep the simple premise they had for the first two seasons going for a third, so they just opted to move the important characters to a new place and go from there. I say that because, when it comes to the core elements of the show, everything remains the same. There is no more spiritual stones or good deeds or ultimate powers or any of that, and instead, it's just Stitch and Yuna going about their daily lives and fighting off the evil experiments sent by Hamsterviel every episode, which should be enough to entertain classic Lilo & Stitch fans, and it's all the show needs at the end of the day, really. So, with that being said, I though the season was pretty good all around. I wouldn't say that it is quite as good as Season 2, and there are definitely some problems that it has which does make it more boring to watch at times, but I still had a good enough time with what I was given either way.

  The stories are more of what you have come to expect, following along the same pattern we have had for the entire show at this point, while also treading a lot of familiar ground, but in the end, it is all just harmless fun for the most part, which I was able to accept most of the time, the characters are good, with all of the returning characters still acting just like they always do from the previous seasons, and as for the new batch of characters, they are....... ok, with the only ones of the bunch I really like being Delores and maaaaaaaaybe Hiroman, but honestly, I could've gone without most of the others, as they fit the particular roles they are meant to play and don't do much else to be that memorable or interesting, the voice acting is still pretty good though, with everyone still managing to play their parts really well, and the new voices for the new characters are also decent alongside them (when they aren't being loud or obnoxious), the animation is..... a little bit more of the same, with the animation studio being changed for this season from Madhouse to Shin-Ei Animation, and while you can definitely notice the differences when you pair this with the last two seasons, it all still looks close enough to where it does still feel like the same show, and while it isn't quite as action-packed as last time, the animation is still fun enough to watch play out and is pretty decent, and the humor and emotional moments are still about on the same level as that of the previous seasons too, so no need to go any further into that.

  Now, I have made it a point across this show to complain a lot about how this show likes to use tired old plots and tropes for the sake of storylines in these episodes, but this season feels very special in just how lazy it really is when it comes to the stories they tell here. Once again, they use very cliche plot elements that we have seen many different times in these kinds of cartoons, but what makes these ones much more annoying is that they actually REPEAT plotlines that they had already used from previous seasons, as if they hadn't used them at all! For example, you remember how there was an episode in the last season about Stitch and Taro switching bodies? Well, now there is an episode here that has Stitch switching bodies with Hiroman, like it was a completely original idea! The only difference between these two episodes is the fact that they take place in different locations with some different characters to work with too, but apart from that, that's it! That's not to say that the entirety of this season has bad and lazy plots like that, as there are some genuinely great ones like the two-parter "Stitch's Birthday" and, of course, "Lilo", but everything else feels like it is just going through the same shenanigans for the sake of having shenanigans.

  I think what else doesn't help this is the fact that, for the most part, there isn't really any kind of goal or overarching plot for this entire season, which is the first for this kind of series. The first two seasons of the show were all about Stitch trying to do a bunch of good deeds so that he can get ultimate power, which may have taken a very long time to reach that conclusion, but it was still a goal nonetheless, and even if we are to go further back to the original Lilo & Stitch: The Series, the main plot of that whole show was Lilo and Stitch going around and taming all of Jumba's experiments so that they can be used in non-evil ways. That may not be much, but there is a formula. There is something there! Here, we get...... nothing. It is just a bunch of random adventures for the sake of random adventures, and while there is definitely nothing wrong with that, and it works really well for a lot of other shows, this all makes this season feel..... pointless when compared to everything else. But hey, I at least had some fun with it, so that's all that matters, right?

  Overall, despite lots of repeating storylines and no overarching plot, Season 3 was still a pretty good season all around, and a decent enough way to end off the main episode run of the Stitch! anime series, with it giving us more of the typical fun adventures with everyone's favorite genetic experiment, giving us some pretty good episodes that definitely leave an impression amongst everything else, and even expanding this universe some more with more lore and new characters that are put there to further expand on said lore, which is pretty great. I would recommend it for those who loved the first two seasons, as well as those who love Lili & Stitch in general, because while it is a season that has no real reason to exist, sometimes all you need is a show to just vibe with and have a good time all around, and this season does manage to do that. But hey, at the end of the day, I'm just glad to say that I have finally covered all of these episodes, and that it is now all finally over............ huh? What specials?

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