Archive for the 'The Third' Category

Simoun and the end of summer

Aaeru

It’s the end of summer season. I can’t keep track of much of the last year of my life to even believe that it is time to look for new things to watch soon. What that really means is that I have no idea what to watch come this fall season, but I hope it’s better than the host of vampire shows there were last fall. So with that said, I will now throw some words at you about the stuff I have been watching, with one new one thrown into the mix, which is…

Simoun

I’ll be real honest. Here’s a show I knew nothing about. Then Jeff Lawson said he was enamored with it. Now I don’t mean to sound silly, but when Jeff says a show is good, I usually take his word for it. So I checked it out. Fired it up one night, and was immediately confused at the fact there were girls kissing all over the place. Honesty part 2; I don’t have a lot of experience with Shoujo Ai. I persevered and really like the show. The funny part was trying to explain to my wife, what this show was about. We didn’t get too far from the girls kissing part. I guess I should keep some things to myself.

The show has lush character designs and good voice acting. I have a little trouble with the adult males of the show as they all look very feminine, and I don’t mean feminine in a shoujo kind of way. I think it has to do with the fact that they all started as female. The computer animation seemed really out of place at first as well, but I’ve gotten used to that as well. What started out as an action show, has turned in some rather nice dramatic chops along the way, and is quite the surprise this year.

Aria

They could animate Akari doing anything and I’d watch it. I haven’t ever said anything about Aria or Aria The Natural here, but it’s the show that has the purest heart of gold amongst the crop. A true slice of life, with characters that are all worth something. I am unfortunately backlogged about 10 episodes on this one. I watch most of my anime at night, and this would just wipe me out. It’s not boring, it just brings you to so much peace that you can’t help but relax to every core in your body. With that sleep is not far behind.

Bokura ga Ita

I love everything about this show,from the mediocre animation to the mediocre character designs. I revel in its mediocrity. What’s nice about it, are the situations that somewhat ring true. Yeah, it’s a soap opera, but it’s a watchable soap opera with great heart. The fact that its two leads are doing such a fabulous job don’t hurt this one bit at all, either.

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni

Blood and guts, blood and guts. I’m captivated. I just want to see more of those special facial contortions. Seriously though, the last arc was brutal. It really made the time wasting chapter feel like a waste of time.

Ouran High School Host Club

I had stopped watching this. After 11 episodes I was still struggling to find anything worth laughing at. I mean, I loved the homo side character joke, but that’s about it. I feel that someone will come in here and tell me I’m stupid for not continuing this.

The Third

The fansubs are slower than molasses on this one. Yet everytime a new one comes I watch. I’m still amazed at how familiar this show feels to me.

Welcome to the NHK

Satou, you bastard. I really like this show. Sadly, the social commentary freaks me out a little. I mean, here I am blogging about anime, being lazy and all. I have a job, it’s not bad, but I wonder if someday I’ll be taking off a figure’s skirt just to check out the pantsu. Hopefully I’ll learn something from Satou and his merry band of friends.

Keroro Gunso

Gero Gero Gero. I know for a fact that the manga is far better than the show. After reading the manga the show seems all too sanitized, yet it’s still fun to watch. At least when 556 is not part of the plot. Keroro, kill him off already, if only the tofu did him in. *sigh*

Kamichu!

Kamichu is love. I’m all smiles when I watch this one.

The Third: Aoi Hitomi no Shoujo

The Third: Aoi Hitomi no Shoujo

I really don’t know where to begin on this one. How about, “Just what is this show about?” Episodes one to four:

The Third is about a 17 year old girl named Honoka and her artificially intelligent sand tank Bogie. Honoka is a “Jack-of-all-trades”, but she’s a little better looking than Bruce Campbell. Basically, she takes jobs as she can get them and uses the money to support herself, keep her tank in good running shape, and buy cool power suits when the opportunity arises. See Honoka lives in a post apocalyptic Earth where something horrible happened in a war and pretty much everything on Earth is now a desert. The rulers of earth seem to be The Third, a humanoid looking race with a third red eye in the middle of their foreheads. The governing power keeps a tight rule over the use of technology, lest the human race become wise to using it in a destructive fashion once again. They’re still a little mysterious right now.

One night, Honoka runs into a guy just poking about in the desert, and dispatches the ants that are about to eat him for late night dinner. The guy’s name is Ikus, and he has really great hair, it’s just nice hair, not spiky for once. Honoka saves him, and they go on their way. Along that way, Honoka makes arrangements to purchase a PSP, because she gets bored with Ikus and needs to play some video….oh wait, not that kind of PSP. Actually it’s a mobile armor suit.

During a battle to save the people that helped her restore the PSP suit it’s revealed that Honoka also has a third eye on her forehead as well. Hers is blue though, and that’s all they’ve told us so far.

There are a lot of elements of other anime in here that may or may not have been intentionally similar. I’m kind of feeling a little bit of Appleseed here, maybe it’s just me. The show is actually one of my favorites this spring season, and it has nothing to do with Honoka actually killing a ton of spiders in the first episode. The action is all well done, the mystery of the main characters is intriguing, and I like the exposition so far. The turnkey episode is the fourth, which is a little later than most, but late enough to get to know the characters well before the meat of the story takes place.

The animation is well done, the character designs are lovely, and the voice acting is also executed nicely. Very interested in this show. I guess I really like swords and tanks.

Update
I actually thought about this some more during work today. While doing so, it strikes me that there are many anime that seem to have influenced this show. The satellites/colonies that fall from the sky remind me of the colony drops used in Mobile Suit Gundam. The desert earth and jack-of-all trades aspect reminds me of SunaBozu, just less perverted. I’m sure there are more that are escaping me right now. I guess the bottom line is that maybe this is not all that original, but I still enjoy the premise and concept of the series.