Dungeon ni Deai wo Motomeru no wa Machigatteiru Darou ka IV: Shin Shou - Yakusai-hen

This DanMachi series almost took my breath away. It's a decent LEVEL UP, with a proper dungeon adventure, a very personal and emotional story, you connect with the characters like never before, and unexpected monsters appear. The fourth season makes good use of the previously mentioned/established things, but it goes its own way, has its own story to tell, and it's a terribly strong series in every way. The only minor problem I have is that the series teases several times that someone is at the bottom (literally has no strength or is on the verge of death) and in a few seconds the whole ... situation turns around... but otherwise it's really perfect!

The second part of the fourth season of Dungeon ni Deai wo Motomeru no wa Machigatteiru Darou ka does an excellent job of concluding what the first part began. Each episode is filled with gripping action and maintains a well-paced momentum that hardly wavers until the satisfying conclusion. The animation is well executed, although there are a few moments where the CG feels questionable. The series continues to deepen the established characters, amplifying the impact of heartfelt moments. In terms of quality, this season stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the third season and wraps up the storyline in a gratifying manner. Dungeon ni Deai wo Motomeru no ... wa Machigatteiru Darou ka IV: Fuka Shou - Yakusai-hen is a valuable addition to the series, demonstrating that there is still ample room for it to evolve.

Things happen because they need to happen to progress the story further. It seems the author had some general outline of what should happen and where the plot goes (and from the looks of it, heavily inspired by some other today's popular works), but execution turned out to be subpar at best. The dialogues are miserable, characters' actions and decisions make no sense most of the time, MCs once again defeat The Great Calamity through sheer power of friendship and plot conveniences — without them you can't explain how the protags finish off The Big Boss literally single-handedly once they "make up their minds" while ... being starved, sleep-deprived and beaten to pulp, but couldn't do shit in their peak form.

The adaptation itself pretty much matches the story: it's nicely drawn, the CG is ok, "inception-like" sfx are heavily overused, the music is very generic, the animation is inconsistent and a huge amount of still shots doesn't exactly feel like a high quality season.

Overall it's just bad. Danmachi used to be a little bit generic, a little bit naive, had a little bit two-dimensional characters, maybe aimed at a lower age audience but consistent and even logical in its story progression. That couldn't be said about this season: instead of seeming more mature and dramatic it degraded to a cringey circus of single-cell characters and ass pulls of a plot.