To get the ball rolling once again, I thought I'd talk a little about a new anime I've found; the fantastically named, The Third - Aoi Hitomi no Shoujo (which according to the infinite wisdom of Wikipedia means 'The Girl with the Blue Eye').
Released back in 06, The Third follows the adventures of Honoka, a young, seemingly homeless, sword swinging adventurer who lives in a giant tank, piloted by her awesomely named robot friend, Bogie.
I've only seen the pilot episode, and thus it's still far to early to comment on the overall quality of the anime. Nonetheless, here's what I think of it so far.
Home sweet home. HOME SWEET FUCKING HOME!
STORY
So far, there's not been much of a hint on the greater story yet. We do know however that some vaguely defined catastrophe occurred, killed 4/5ths of the human population and fucked the earth up the ass so hard that almost its entire surface has become an inhabitable wasteland.
Also, there was the generic Ominous Evil Council at the start of the episode, whose cryptic discussion included someone called The Third, which is probably where this anime got it's dumbass name from.
Like every other Evil Council of Doom, they had to cut the budget on the lighting; having spent it all on Cryptic Vagueness.
The setting might prove to be rather interesting if it's executed well; it's a bit of your typical post apocalyptic world with vast stretches of desert. However, the anime has yet to explore how the people live and interact with this world.
From what little the first episode has shown however, it appears that there are some remnants of civilisation that are gathered in cities, which with all things considered, are strangely comfortable looking for a post doomsday world.
Floating disembodied heads; a common sight out in the desert.
ARTWORK AND ANIMATION
The character designs are rather reminiscent of older animes. To be honest, when I first saw the dvd cover for The Third, I honestly believed it was a lesser known title from the late 90s. Personally, I'm not particularly fond of the characters; they seem overly simplistic and uninspired, in particular the heroine Honoka, who looks like the kind of amateur designs I sketch on the margins of my university notebooks.
Like the character designs, the animation seems to be rather...mixed. Whilst the fight scenes are beautifully animated (though rather lazy; most of them just involve Honoka swinging her sword, the screen flashing, and baddies dropping dead), other sections are so mindfuckingly poorly animated, I must wonder if the animators were high while working on them.
Quality animation!
Thankfully, the backgrounds are consistently well designed and drawn. Unlike the other aspects of the show, I can sit back and enjoy the scenery without wondering to myself if someone had to sleep with their bosses not to get fired for their lackluster work.
Awesome.
Fucking lazy.
Back to being awesome.
CHARACTERS
Honoka
The main character, not much is known about her yet except that she's a mercenary or something, she's fucking good with swords, and she lives in a tank, which is quiet possibly the coolest house in the history of media.
Behold the singlet of heroism!
Bogie
Honoka's little robot partner/stalker with a crazy deep voice and a name so stupid, it's awesome. Serves as the show's narrator by talking to himself about recent events, thus proving robots can also go insane.
One day, I shall name my first son Bogie.
Awesome name aside, Bogie is fucking creepy.
Toy Joey
Pathetic little mechanic with an insurmountably dumb name. Has a crush on Honoka.
I feel sorry for this man. I honestly feel sorry for a fictional character. That's how fucking retarded his name is.
Ikus
Freakishly tall man with a plastic smile, and inhuman, soulless eyes. The guy smiles all the freakin time. ALL. THE. TIME. Oh, and he has some mysterious power to heal people. Honoka also seems to want to get into his pants; the girl's got horrible taste in men. Seriously, I'd sooner do Toy.
Goddammit girl, if you're gonna be into men like him, you'd be better off being a virgin the whole of your life.
You were just nearly killed! STOP FUCKING SMILING!
CONCLUSION
To be honest, The Third really feels like a half assed job to me. It's not bad, and it's got quite a few good things going for it, yet at the same time, the animation is haphazard and at times even lazy, and the characters seem like little more then stock anime archetypes.
Honoka's sightseeing trip proved to be a colossal waste of money when she found out the resort looked nothing like it did on the ad.
Of course, it's still far too early to call, so here's hoping that The Third picks up. In the meantime, I'm going to wonder why the fuck no one mentioned that The Third, Bogie, and Toy Joey are all mindbangingly stupid names.
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I remember watching the series a while back, I like the throw back to 90's in terms of character designe, my favorite series of games was grow lancer BECAUSE of the character design.
ReplyDeleteHeh, I remember the Growlancer games; good stuff.
ReplyDeleteHrmm... I'm in the middle of watching this, but haven't had the time to continue yet. I remember somewhere in the middle the quality of the character design just dropped. It was awful -.-
ReplyDelete@ Lightning Sabre
ReplyDeleteReally? There's a further drop in quality??
God, I'm not even sure I'm going to watch this to the end now >_>
Right! First things first, Merry Christmas to You, Your friends and family, hope You're having a wonderful time..
ReplyDeletenao, let's get down to serious business. i've just read your fist impressions and you said you've only seen the pilot episode. let me have a wee go at this, then! ;] i've watched 'the third' about a couple years ago. i do rememeber it pretty well though. you've said something about the characters looking rather uninspiring. mate, this anime has one of the most complex characters i've seen, ever. don't judge the book by it covers, honestly. give this one a go! the setting is one of my favoutire as well. i love the apocalyptic stuff, reminds me a bit of bubblegum crisis as well. the story telling is tremendously executed, brilliantly narrated and voiced (i know there were folk who didn't like the narrator, but i loved it). it is on par, or even better i would say, with gurren laggan. really by not watching this you'll be missing out on a classic! somebody've said something about char design dropping in the middle?! i call it utter bollocks! don't let that get in your head! really! watch it! i'd recommend you marathon it (it's what i did) and you'll see why it's easily one of my three favourite animes of all time!
@ Paul
ReplyDeleteI see. Well, I've watched up to episode 4 so far, and to be honest, I'm still not all that impressed.
Still, I've got all 26 episodes sitting in my hard drive, so I'll definitely watch it in its entirety at some point.
Just please, please, please tell me the fight scenes get better; so far it's just been Honoka swinging her sword, and bad guys falling down.
Oh, and merry christmas to ya too ;)
to be really frank with you, i don't consider the third as an action anime really.. it's more adventure/journey kind of one for me. i can't tell you from top of my head now if they're getting better. i think it's because of different reasons i had this anime in my head for. there's one particular scene that've stayed in my mind to this very day. i think it's about sixth episode.. there's this little girl called millie. her father is a skillful mechanic who helps honoka a lot. one night they get ambushed by the third.. i don't wanna spoil it for you, but what comes after is my most memorable scene of the anime. it's really emotional. and i think that's what my message is. it might not have the over-the-top fight scenes of gurren lagann, but it does make up for it in different parts. that said i don't remember the fight scenes being that bad as well. you can't blame honoka for being such a skilled swordsman she is ;].
ReplyDeleteanyhow i got quite sentimental here. sorry if i didn't answer your question tho.
ps. come to think of it i just remembered this one big fight. i think it is at the beginning of the final arc (i am not to sure), when honoka and the team (i won't say who exactly, again as not to spoil it) get to raid the enemy's base, and bogie gets to fight this bad ass helicopter. that was one hell of a fight, really well drawn and executed. i'm even gonna try to find and watch that episode now ;].
that said, you've really put me in a mood of rewatching the whole thing again!
i hope you get to see this sooner or later as well! cheers!!
The "coolest house in the history of media?" You do realize that it has to compete with the Dai-Gurren, a battleship with legs which for some time served as the home of the Dai-Gurren-dan?
ReplyDeleteAnd your references to The Omniscient Council Of Vagueness just made me think of the Evil League of Evil. :P
For what seems to be lesser known production its not bad at all. The story sometimes moves a bit slow, but I've certainly enjoyed what I've seen. I hate the narrator though, it makes the anime feel cheap at times (which it probably is).
ReplyDelete