A practice where the third entry in a franchise shakes things up. The third place in any given series is in an awkward position, often either the ending of a trilogy or a half-baked attempt to capitalize on a now-proven phenomenon. Avoiding Sequelitis is a difficult task because you have to justify its existence as both a piece of media and a follow-up to something, and a good threequel has to do it yet again. Keep it too similar and your audience will ask "what's the point?" So many decide, "let's go big or go home."
The third installment is a chance to get radically different. Introducing new mechanics, radically altering the tone, go absolutely bonkers in ways nobody could possibly expect. Sometimes this will backfire horrifically, resulting in either a complete regression in number four or the complete death of the franchise. But you miss every shot you don't take anyway, sometimes shaking things up results in a brand new direction for the series, and the start of something new and beautiful.
Often a result of Third Is 3D or a Soft Reboot. Compare Franchise Codifier, Oddball in the Series, and Later-Installment Weirdness.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, REALLY Love You: Rentarou’s first four girlfriends, introduced over the course of the first two volumes, are classmates in his homeroom class. His fifth girlfriend, also introduced in Volume 2, is a third year student, and while she’s a Mad Scientist with a penchant for making Fantastic Drugs, she’s not outside what most would expect in terms of who Rentarou’s soulmates would be. Volume 3’s story arc is what officially ends what little pretense of sanity the manga had by introducing Hakari’s mother Hahari as one of Rentarou’s soulmates.
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: The Franchise Codifier for the series was Stardust Crusaders. The first two Parts, Phantom Blood and Battle Tendency, have the primary power system of Hamon, a martial art that uses The Power of the Sun. Hamon would be discarded after Part 2, as Araki introduced Stands. Stands are essentially the visual manifestation of life energy tied to the user's fighting spirit while possessing unique abilities. With a distinct lack of vampires that Hamon would help against,note the series would from then on focus on fights with unique and dangerous situations arising from Stand Users.
- The art style of Lupin III: Part III is much Denser and Wackier than its previous installments. Initially Yuzo Aoki wanted the characters to bear more resemblance to Monkey Punch's original sketches than the previous anime but over time, the characters' designs became looser and more simplified.
- Lyrical Nanoha: The first two seasons focused on Nanoha and her rival-turned-ally Fate. The third season, Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS, took place after a ten-year Time Skip and focused on a group of students being instructed by Nanoha and Fate, who were reduced to supporting characters, while many side characters from the first two seasons were reduced to cameos or absent entirely. Future installments would carry on the trend of Nanoha being Demoted to Extra in her own series, to the extent that the final anime season to date, ViVid Strike!, removed her name from the title completely.
- Pretty Cure: The first two series, Futari wa Pretty Cure and Futari wa Pretty Cure MAX HEART, both focused on Nagisa and Honoka and their adventures as Pretty Cure. The next series, Futari wa Pretty Cure Splash★Star would be the first to focus on an entirely different group of girls, powers, fairies, and enemies. While the fourth season, the third unique series, Yes! Pretty Cure 5, would be the first series to have a larger team, usually between 3 and 5 heroines, a trend that would stick around for quite a while.
- Pretty Rhythm: Rainbow Live is different compared to its two predecessors. It has a new cast of characters and takes place in a different city.
Film — Live Action
- Batman Forever: After Tim Burton refused to return for a third outing, and Michael Keaton opted to do Multiplicity instead of continuing on without Burton, Warner Bros. shook up the franchise by hiring Joel Schumacher to provide a new artistic direction. Schumacher ditched the dark, gothic ambiance of the first two films for a Lighter and Softer, comedic approach more inspired by the outrageous The Silver Age of Comic Books. Schumacher's follow-up, Batman & Robin, gets even goofier.
- Halloween III: Season of the Witch: After two slasher films focused on the killer/victim relationship between Michael Myers and Laurie Strode, the filmmakers felt that that story had played itself out, so they attempted to shift Halloween into an Anthology Series of horror stories only connected by the theme of Halloween. This film is about a psychologist unraveling an insidious conspiracy involving Halloween masks, with Michael Myers nowhere in sight except for a very brief cameo. Audiences rebelled, and the film bombed, so the filmmakers abandoned the anthology idea, and every Halloween movie since then has been about Michael Myers.
- Home Alone 3 follows the formula of the first two movies but with a completely new set of characters and virtually no connection to the previous installments. This also applies to subsequent sequels, though the fourth would feature In Name Only versions of the original characters.
- Jurassic Park:
- Jurassic Park III deviated from the first and second movies by demoting the iconic Tyrannosaurus rex to an extra which is swiftly killed and replaced as the movie's apex giant theropod antagonist by the new Spinosaurus, a move which was not well-received and was completely reversed by most of the following movies. Jurassic Park III also gives the Velociraptors a slightly more expanded role and screentime compared to the first two movies, and it starts elaborating on the raptors' capacity for reasoning and potential for diplomacy with the humans they previously slaughtered; both of which are trends that did continue into the subsequent movies, particularly the fourth movie.
- In the reboot Jurassic World movies (movies 4-6), the third World-specific movie, Dominion, doesn't feature a single fictional hybrid-dinosaur as the Big Bad, with one of the movie's humans even deriding the concept of hybrids that permeated the previous two, and Dominion is the first movie in the entire franchise to feature scientifically up-to-date feathered dinosaurs.
- In the first two MonsterVerse movies Godzilla (2014) and Kong: Skull Island, Godzilla and King Kong are the sole two kaiju to return from the parent franchises, and the other monsters including the big bads are exclusively Canon Foreigners. The third movie, Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), adapts three of the Godzilla franchise's four most iconic kaiju of all (King Ghidorah, Mothra and Rodan) into the MonsterVerse all at the same time, as that movie's big bad and other major characters respectively — this trend continued in the fourth movie with Mechagodzilla as the main kaiju antagonist, but it petered back out in both the subsequent MonsterVerse TV shows and in the fifth movie as they reverted to using canon foreigners as antagonists (presumably due to the difficulties in gaining permission from Toho to use their trademarked kaiju in an American blockbuster franchise).
- When The Neverending Story movies ran out of book to adapt, the result was The NeverEnding Story III: Escape from Fantasia, which had Bastian dealing with a new family, while high school bullies discover the book of Fantasia and attempt to grant their own wishes with it.
- Scream 3: After two films in which the main twist was that Two Dun It, film three has its Ghostface be a lone wolf with no accomplices. All following films continued with the formula of having at least two Ghostfaces going on a killing spree.
- The Terminator franchise's founding two movies' protagonist and the franchise-central character, Sarah Connor, is killed off via Bus Crash in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, and John Connor takes her place as the third movie's protagonist while gaining a new female love interest. This trend continued into the fourth movie due to it being a direct sequel to 3, but the fifth and sixth movies, which both ignored 3 to form their own respective continuity reboots, undid (Genisys) and even inverted (Dark Fate) Sarah's bus crash and the dynamic shift it had entailed.
- Thor: Ragnarok: Taika Waititi took a "nothing is sacred" approach to the first two Thor films in the MCU. Ragnarok is much more comedy-focused than Thor and The Dark World, with a lot of '80s worship and appreciation for campiness. Love and Thunder would proceed to run with Ragnarok's interpretation of the series.
Literature
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban breaks with much of the formula that the first two Harry Potter books followed. The first two books both have an adventure in the Forbidden Forest right before the climax, but this doesn't occur in Azkaban. The climax itself doesn't feature Harry confronting any version of Voldemort, and it also ends with a very clear loose thread, making this the point at which the books start becoming less self-contained and more serialized. Azkaban's film adaptation magnifies the changes already present in the book by bringing in a new director who brought stylistic changes as well.
- Skulduggery Pleasant: The first two books had Valkyrie and Skulduggery deal with Mevolent's generals looking for revenge. The third book detours from Mevolent and his generals to deal with the Diablerie and their plot to bring the Faceless Ones back home so that Batu may merge with them and ascend to godhood.
Live-Action TV
- Battle Fever J: Super Sentai started out as just "Sentai," a retooling of an idea for a Kamen Rider series with a team of 5 Tokusatsu heroes. That series went on hiatus while Toei produced other Tokusatsu shows, in particular, Spider-Man (Japan). That series gave Spider-Man a Humongous Mecha, and there were plans on making a sequel series based on Captain America, giving him his own giant robot. Those plans ultimately fell through, but Toei retooled them into a Sentai show. From this point forward, giant fighting robots would become synonymous with the series, and the show was officially renamed to "Super Sentai."
- Prehistoric Planet: The first two seasons were set in the Maastrichtian epoch, showing animal life at the end of the age of the dinosaurs. The third season shifts, rather dramatically, to the Pleistocene epoch, focusing on animal life during the recent ice ages.
- Primeval: The third season permanently killed off the series' original and crucial protagonist Nick Cutter within the first few episodes (due to the actor wanting to leave the show), it started the trend of portraying the destruction of humanity in a post-apocalyptic Bad Future which persisted for the remaining two seasons, and it featured the very first instance of the Anomalies enabling people from the Earth's relatively-recent, humanian time periods to cross into the 21st century.
- Robot Wars: In the first two series, the robots in each heat would have to clear a hazard-filled obstacle course called the Gauntlet, then a Trial that changed every week, before reaching the actual battle phase. Series 3 scrapped the Gauntlet and Trial, turning the series into a straight knockout tournament, and it would remain that way (albeit with minor format changes) for the rest of its run, including the reboot. Series 3 also happened to include two massive Game Changers in the form of Hypno-Disc, which was capable of tearing opponents to pieces, and Chaos 2, which was capable of ejecting them from the arena entirely - almost every successful robot from that point onwards would copy one of their approaches.
- Supernatural: The third season marked the start of the show's shift away from the first two seasons' more folkloric roots towards exploring the origins and true nature of the demons and Hell with its own spin.
- Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, a sequel series to the first two Terminator movies which ignores Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, still features Sarah and John Connor as main characters, but it also has a significantly more domestic theme than the above two movies, and it also deals far more than they did with the future timeline constantly changing as the story goes on and with both sides of the future war sending far more agents to the present on differing missions.
- Torchwood: Series 1 and 2 were largely episodic and featured the team battling a Monster of the Week in each episode in the city of Cardiff, as well as having a centralized Hub. Series 3, Torchwood: Children of Earth, was in comparison a heavily serialized miniseries that told a singular story, and blew up the Hub to force the team into a different setting. Series 4 of the show, also known as Torchwood: Miracle Day, maintains the changes introduced in the previous series.
Video Games
- While both Altered Beast (1988) and its sequel Guardian of the Realms were 2D side-scrolling games based heavily on Classical Mythology, Altered Beast (2005), the third game, was instead a 3D Beat 'em Up, alongside taking place in the modern day and having a biopunk aesthetic.
- Unlike BioShock 1 and BioShock 2, BioShock Infinite isn't set in Rapture, an undersea city during The '50s, but in Columbia, a flying city during The Gay '90s.
- Civilization III introduces many now-core mechanics to the series, such as strategic resources being required to build certain units, each civilization having a unique unit, and the concept of splitting the Tech Tree based on the era.
- The Curse of Monkey Island: This part of Monkey Island changes earlier pixelart graphics to more detailed cartoon animation. Also earlier verb command interface is replaced with "Verb Coin" on which you can choose is reduced to three options.
- Dawn of War II: The second expansion's (Retribution) campaign (finally) gives you the ability to train units on maps rather than relying solely on Hero Units.
- Dead Rising: Dead Rising and its sequel are set in public establishments such as a mall and casino respectively, and generally play the zombie apocalypse scenario for camp value reminiscent of B-Movies. The third game, however, goes for a much darker tone and a grittier story, and is a Wide-Open Sandbox set in the sprawling city of Los Perdidos as opposed to the previous, smaller areas.
- Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening is the Franchise Codifier which introduced gameplay mechanics (such as Dante having at least four Styles) that would be consistently used in most of the next installments, and a Soft Reboot prequel which retconned some plot points from Devil May Cry 1. It's mostly due to the game being the first to be fully directed by Hideaki Itsuno (previously, he was only assigned as the director of Devil May Cry 2 when that game was already in the middle of a troubled production). Among the notable changes include the revisioning of Vergil's character and the Yamato being retconned as Vergil's keepsake katana (so much that the mainline continuity games from DMC3 onwards give him and/or his katana significant plot relevance), and the introduction of Lady (who would later on become a recurring ally of Dante).
- Doom³: The first Doom game is a nonstop action shooter with horror elements, and the second installment is a slightly augmented version of the original, with some new weapons, monsters, and maps. Due to a Sequel Gap, Doom³ was radically reimagined with a brand new engine and updated gameplay. Overall, the game leans far more into Survival Horror than the first two games. It has a slower pace and introduces darkness as a major gameplay component, forcing the player to constantly switch back and forth between their gun and a flashlight. The game also features a much stronger emphasis on story.
- Dragon Quest III sets itself as disconnected from the first two Dragon Quest games by taking place in a different world, with Alefgard nowhere to be found and the proceeding hero being the protagonist's father Ortega rather than Erdrick. Until you get to the World of Darkness anyways, as that place is revealed to be Alefgard some time before Dragon Quest I, with the protagonist eventually revealed to be Erdrick, obtaining the title after defeating Zoma. The game also introduces the franchise's take on a Job System, which would resurface in later games.
- The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind: The first two games in The Elder Scrolls series, Arena and Daggerfall, both have absolutely massive game worlds but use significant Procedural Generation and Randomly Generated Levels to fill that world out. It wouldn't be until the third installment, Morrowind, that the series gained its "meticulously handcrafted" reputation, with every inch of the world created by hand. Though much smaller than its predecessors, its use of Space Compression and environmental detail bring it down on the "Density" side of the Sliding Scale of Content Density vs. Width (while still being far larger than most contemporary game worlds). Oblivion and Skyrim swing the series back toward the middle of the scale. Both increase the size of the game world compared to Morrowind, but also bring back elements of random and procedural generation to fill out those larger game worlds.
- Etrian Odyssey III: The Drowned City: The first two games in the Etrian Odyssey series were standard Wizardry-styled RPG adventures with little story and few distinctive gimmicks and themes for the dungeons (strata). The third game has a stronger narrative focus (it even has Multiple Endings based on certain critical choices that can be made as the story progresses), becomes the first game to add sub-classing for the party classes, and more standout themes for the strata (as a comparison, only two of them are forest-themed, with the others exploring settings like Under the Sea, Lethal Lava Land and Temple of Doom). It also features a playable overworld, which was later expanded upon in the fourth game.
- Fallout 3: The first two numbered Fallout games are isometric RPGs with point-and-click controls and turn-based decision making, similar to a Tabletop RPG. The Bethesda era, Fallout 3 forward, transforms the series into real-time first-person shooters with RPG elements.
- Final Fantasy III: The game introduces what would become future franchise staples, such as the Moogles, who would become the series mascot moving forward; Summon Magic, which gradually displaced the elemental Crystals as the core thematic element linking the various Final Fantasy games; and jobs such as Dragoon, Summoner, and Dark Knight, which would return and be referenced in future games.
- Five Nights at Freddy's 3: The game takes 30 years after the first game in a horror attraction based on Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria and pits you against Springtrap, with Freddy being one of several hallucinations you can encounter. Compared to the previous game where you had to juggle your attention between the animatronics and keeping The Puppet at bay; your main threat is Springtrap who is actually William Afton merged with the Spring Bonnie suit that killed him due to the spring locks malfunctioning.
- Gothic III: Not only does this part work on a new engine and sends you from a small island to a much bigger continent, but it also makes serious retcons, like with the way in which Orcs are shown, from primitive tribes worshipping an evil god into a civilized Proud Warrior Race associated with the god of Balance Between Good and Evil.
- Grand Theft Auto III: The first two games have a top-down perspective with simple 2D graphics. The third installment brings the game into three dimensions, with an isometric perspective. This radical shift transformed what was once a novelty series of games into one of the most popular and critically acclaimed franchises of all time.
- Just Cause 3 marks a significant departure from the first two games in the franchise, both in aesthetic, gameplay, and theming. The black humor and semi-serious tone of Just Cause 1 and 2 take a backseat, exaggerating Rico's character into a Deadpan Snarker with Living Legend status. Gameplay emphasizes constant and creative usage of Rico's tether ability, a significant departure of previous entries' reliance on more conventional weaponry.
- The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past not only broke ground by introducing the gameplay mechanic of teleporting between two overworlds instead of having the player adventure in one, but by introducing an entirely new Link and Zelda from those that were in the first two games. Moreover, Ganon is not merely an Unseen Evil or a Greater-Scope Villain, but an active participant in the story via his offshoot, Agahnim.
- Max Payne 3: The third game of the Max Payne series ditched the City Noir setting and feel of New York City, where the first two games took place, in favor of a Sunshine Noir set in the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo.
- Paper Mario: After two turn based RPGs with similar mechanics, Super Paper Mario completely overhauls everything. The game now takes place on a 2Dish plane, combat is now real time with no action commands, there are multiple player characters besides Mario, no badges, no flower points, and a revamped experience system based on your score. Further Paper Mario games would continue to completely overhaul the formula, with only the remake of The Thousand-Year Door having similar gameplay to a prior installment.
- Persona 3: This game introduces the calendar system and social links to the Persona series. You only have a certain amount of actions you can do on a given day, and you don't have enough to do everything, forcing you to make tough decisions like whether you prioritize the dungeon crawling or your social life. These mechanics would become synonymous with the series as it went on and became more popular.
- Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire: The first two 2D generations are directly connected and cross-compatible with each other via the time capsule, but technical limitations would not let this extend to Generation III. Ruby and Sapphire establish the formula of each gen having its own brand new villainous team story, added in Abilities, effort values, and Natures to diversify team composition, and introduced double battles; the battle style that would eventually manifest into one of the biggest ongoing E-Sports events, the VGC.
- Przygody Reksia: Third part of the series Reksio and the Wizards introduces more Adventure Game mechanics, like option to walk in clicked by your place (earlier you were always standing in the middle of stage with no option to change your position) and own design of cursor replacing generic one. Also main menu changes from chapter-based one to new one pausing game with option to save game on one of four save slots.
- Punch-Out!!: The first two games in the series, originally released on arcade machines, were Endless Games starred by an unnamed boxer participating in single-round fights, no music played in them, and no unlockable opponents. The NES game marks a major shift in presentation, starring promising boxer Little Mac who participates in a tournament tiered by circuits and featuring three-round fights; it also features a secret opponent unlocked after obtaining the champion belt (either Mike Tyson or Mr. Dream, depending on the version). Music is also played during the fights, and the opponents are introduced with special fanfares.
- Although Quake I and Quake II had no connection storywise, they still followed a similar formula as First-Person Shooter games, focusing on the Player Character having to kill attacking monsters as he makes his way through levels. Both games also had deathmatch versions as bonus features. Quake III Arena is the first Quake game to have deathmatch as its primary focus. Arena has a single-player mode, but it has a very basic story and otherwise functions as deathmatch with bots.
- Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal: Unlike the previous two games, this one introduces a multiplayer mode and is more focused on combat missions. The story also involves a war against Dr. Nefarious and his Mecha-Mooks, with increased focus on Captain Qwark (who even gets several 2½D-styled vid-comics dedicated to him)
- Parodied in Retro Game Challenge. Robot Ninja Haggleman 1 and 2 play like Ninja Jajamaru-Kun. The third is darker and edgier and plays like Ninja Gaiden.
- Rome: Total War serves as the third overall game in the Total War franchise, and not only serves as the Video Game 3D Leap of the franchise, but also introduces a free-roam campaign map instead of the node-based "Risk"-Style Map of the first two games (Shogun: Total War and Medieval: Total War), as well as more involved settlement management mechanics.
- Saints Row: The Third is the installment where the Saints Row series dove headfirst into the Denser and Wackier territory, after the original Saints Row 1 very down-to-earth gangster drama and Saints Row 2's oscillation between over-the-top action and horrifying brutality. 2 was also the last game to prominently feature The Place that the series was named after, and all subsequent games were set in other cities.
- Sonic the Hedgehog:
- Sonic 3 & Knuckles started a trend that would carry over into other games. The first introduced a bigger storyline by continuing from the events of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and giving bigger precedence to the Death Egg and the Chaos Emeralds. This would be the first game to introduce a rival for Sonic, in this case, Knuckles the Echidna, also the first of many who would ally with Eggman in some way. While Tails was playable in Sonic 2, this game gave him unique aspects, including actual flight and swimming. Sonic himself would have his own new gimmick, the Insta-shield. As well, the basic shield was replaced with three elemental shields, each with their own gimmicks.
- Sonic the Hedgehog Chaos would be the first Game Gear entry to allow Tails to be playable. Sonic would also gain abilities ported over from his console entries. This was also the first game with Sonic and Tails using new gizmos and the first game to only involve five Chaos Emeralds in special stages instead of six hidden somewhere in a stage.
- Splatterhouse 3: Unlike the previous two entries, which were linear side-scrolling games, the third game introduced a new, semi-isometric perspective allowing Rick to move up and down, more maze-esque levels, a heavier emphasis on Timed Missions, and Multiple Endings depending on the player's performance throughout the game.
- Tekken 3 distanced itself from the first two games in the Tekken franchise by taking place after a Time Skip, ditching some of the old cast in favor of new characters. It also introduced central character Jin Kazama, whose conflict with his family and turmoil surrounding his inner demons would become a driving force for all of the following games.
- Warcraft III: The game is a huge step up from the previous two, greatly expanding the world and lore, introducing two new factions and countless new species/races, Hero Units are now an integral part of the game, RPG Elements have to be managed, etc.
- Wolfenstein 3-D: Muse Software's Castle Wolfenstein and sequel, Beyond Castle Wolfenstein, were top-down stealth games about infiltrating a Nazi base and escaping after accomplishing your goal. id Software completely reinvented not just the series, but video games in general with Wolfenstein 3D, the game that pioneered the First-Person Shooter genre. B.J. Blazkowicsz has to escape from a Nazi Prison, and unlike the agent from the first two games, will do so by riddling every last Schutzstaffel with lead and gunpowder. Stealth is now a complete non-option, with combat being your first and last answer for any situation.
Western Animation
- Amphibia: The first half of Season 3 inverts the first two seasons' Trapped in Another World formula by having the main characters become trapped in Anne's world on Earth instead of the Plantars' alternate world of Amphibia, relying on new human supporting characters. The second half of Season 3 returns the cast to Amphibia, but the entire land and the first two seasons' denizens are now a post-apocalyptic version of their former selves due to the villains' actions. Season 3 marks Sasha's Heel–Face Turn finally being cemented after she spent most of Season 2 merely feigning such a turn.
- The Owl House: Season 3 featured an inversion of the Trapped in Another World formula, followed by the cast's return to a now apocalyptically-warped version of the franchise-central other world (the Boiling isles of the Demon Realm). Furthermore, Emperor Belos, the series' Big Bad who ruled the Boiling Isles as an autocratic regime throughout the first two seasons, is completely deposed and now operating mostly on his own throughout the third season. It's also worth mentioning that due to the series getting abruptly cut short, Season 3 abandons the 22-minute episode format in favor of 3 44-minute long specials.
- Total Drama: After 2 seasons set in one primary location, World Tour takes the campers on a... World Tour, with challenges themed around the location where the episode takes place. Also, this season and this season alone is a musical, with each episode having a designated singing segment.
- Transformers:
- Transformers: Animated: The third season sees the show's main human character Sari permanently transform into a human-Transformer hybrid Action Girl-Robot Girl, with an accompanying Overnight Age-Up, after the previous season's penultimate scene revealed that she wasn't quite as human as she'd always appeared to be. The majority of the third season also sees Megatron and Starscream, previously based on or near Earth with other Decepticons at their disposal throughout the first two seasons, stranded in deep space and cut off from the other Decepticons, and the season places greater focus on Cybertron-based subplots and characters.
- Transformers: Prime: The show's third season sees several main characters — namely Optimus Prime and Bumblebee — undergo story-relevant design changes on a permanent basis, and it introduces the new Predacon race/faction to the board as a game changer. It even has its own season-specific title, Beast Hunters, to accentuate the point that the show's status quo has changed.
- Wakfu: After the first two full-length seasons (the second of which was almost a direct sequel to the first) and after a short series of interim OVAs, Wakfu's third season took place after a much longer time skip; with major overhauls to the main cast and status quo including the introduction of Tristepin and Evangelyne's children whom they had during the interim, Yugo and Amalia's Ship Tease hitting a new obstacle as it's become apparent to them during the time-skip that Yugo's kind physically mature a lot more slowly than Amalia's do, and Adamaï having made a very nasty Face–Heel Turn in addition to being all grown up. Season 3 also reveals Oropo as the Greater-Scope Villain of the series, which starts Yugo's arc of trauma which persists into the fourth and final season as it's revealed that, by unwittingly creating Oropo in the past, on top of his having already accidentally freed Qilby during Season 2, Yugo is indirectly responsible for every calamity that has occurred across the first three seasons.
