Nah but seriously WTF happened? As someone who is a notorious hater of season 2... season 3 was so terrible it actually made me appreciate season 2 a little, which is something I never thought I'd say. Let's dive into this dumpster and see why it turned out so terribly.
I'll start off with arguably the most important reason which is the director. In case you don't know, it was reported that season 1's budget was comparable to that of your average anime and the reason why it looked amazing wasn't any Hollywood movie money, but rather the director Shingo Natsume. This guy was so goated he basically gathered the Avengers of animators to work on season 1, which resulted in the best 12 consecutive episodes of animation in the world. When season 2 went to JC Staff, although the studio change was concerning since Madhouse was known as the best anime studio at the time, no one really questioned JC Staff because people knew they made bangers like Food Wars. So inevitably when season 2 turned out to be a slap in the face, the main person who took the blame was the new director and his lack of connections, which made him unable to gather the all-star animator talent like Natsume did before him.
So when it was announced that the director was changing AGAIN for season 3, many people were initially hopeful until it was revealed that the new dude barely has any experience and he's mainly known for directing hentai... not ideal to say the least. Broski also had an official Twitter account (which is a big mistake in general) so by the time the Garou png sliding scene came out the type of fans that are the extreme death threatening kind already got to him and the dude deleted his entire internet presence. Obviously wishing death on someone over anime is insane and nobody should be so passionate about something to the point of doing extreme shit, but it was beyond obvious that the direction in season 3 was genuinely horrible. This also relates to the many bizarre artistic decisions like the 10,000 colorful neon shots with no rhyme or reason. The fact that none of this was present in the first 2 seasons made it feel less like a conscious artistic choice and more like a soulless Jojo ripoff.
Speaking of ripoffs... JC Staff everyone! Remember when I said these guys were known to have a few bangers back in the mid 2010s? Well they have tragically gone downhill since then with even the later seasons of their most known franchise Food Wars seeing a notable dip in quality from seasons 1 and 2. One thing I will say about anime studios that many people don't consider is that their main job is actually more managerial than what they're given credit for. We've seen a clear failure in that aspect even back in the days of season 2 which came out 4 years after the first season, which has only gotten worse with season 3 coming out 6 years after season 2.
Now of course it's not like they've been working on the series for all these years (more on that later), but they need to understand the impact such a long production gap has on the perceptions fans have for them and the expectations for the new season. Most fans don't care if you only had 6 months to work on an anime because of mismanaged legality and rushed deadlines, when in their mind they've been waiting 6 years for this project. The longer the wait, the greater the expectation and a large reason why JC Staff now has such a horrible reputation is because of the failure to deliver on those expectations. This applies especially to more casual fans who aren't as familiar with the intricacies of anime production and who will inevitable think "We waited 6 whole years for this garbage?!"
I'll mention Bandai's grubby little hands later, but it was also revealed that the budget for season 3 was allegedly on the lower end too, at which point JC staff (who should have learnt their lesson from the season 2 fiasco but clearly haven't) should have told them they are not interested as they realistically would not be able to deliver a satisfying product as such a cost. Instead they jumped at the opportunity to dig themselves an even deeper grave and have now completely ruined their reputation.
Now to fully address Bandai, long story short they're incorporating the "invest as little as possible to gain as much as possible" mentality except this time they fucked up royally. Not only was season 3's budget reported to be pretty low as I mentioned before, but the deadlines JC were given were straight up cut-throat. Again, ideally JC Staff should have declined the project under these conditions, but the fact that Bandai had the audacity to lay out these terms is enough reason for them to get shit on. This has resulted in JC Staff outsourcing various parts of the project to Chinese studios, which isn't uncommon in the anime industry, but seems to be a more prominent practice in season 3 than the industry average. Not a surprise considering the tight deadlines, but obviously the quality is going to suffer and MAN DID IT SUFFER...
Never in my life have I seen so many mistakes and animation errors within a 12 episode show... We're talking characters with 6 fingers instead of 5, opening doors without touching them, hair being cut off because it was supposed to be off screen, swapping genders in-between frames and the cherry on top of the shit cake... I kid you not... they left in a screenshot of the editing software they used IN THE EPISODE ITSELF...
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