Ranked #1096

The Third - Aoi Hitomi no Shoujo

Story: In a world where a being known as The Third rule the land, we have our heroine, Hanoka. Hanoka, as a Jack-of-all-Trades travels the desert land with her tank doing various jobs. Somewhere along the way, she meets a mysterious man named Ikus. We then get to see their travels together and the interaction with the people they meet along with The Third. During the travels we start to learn more about Hanoka and many of the other people they meet and the mystery behind Ikus starts to unravel.

Fairly simple concept, but the story telling is well done. It is as if you were reading a book. What I like about the story is the interaction between the characters. You get to learn much more about the world through the interaction between the characters. Furthermore, while some people might not like it, we have this narrator that narrates the thoughts of the characters and explains the situations at hand. The narration allows you to learn more about each character and how they fell and why they act like the way they do.

Animation: I had a lot of mix feeling when deciding whether to give animation a 7 or 8. Overall, the animation was solid and there was a lot of detail. However, there were a few episodes that took a huge nose dive in the animation. Apparently it was because some other group of people worked on the animation for those episodes, but it was too big of change. It really stopped the nice flow that the anime had and at times I felt really disgusted. Think Yoake Mae Yori Ruri Iro Na bad for those who have watched or heard about it. The reason I gave it an 8 however, was because of the awesome use of colors and fighting sequences. I was in awe watching some of the fights.

Sound: This is probably the weakest aspect of the anime with the exception of the few bad animation episodes. I really didn't get attached to any of the songs. After the first few episodes I would just skip the op and ed songs. While I wasn't to fond of the songs, I thought the BGM was well done. It really made the anime more exciting.

Character: Would it be enough if I said that Hanoka was also the most badass sword-wielding heroine of 2006 and that the tank talked? This anime has a really interesting cast of characters. Not one person seemed to be normal, but thats a good thing. I loved diving into each character and learn more about them. Each character is just very unique.

Overall: It was a very good anime. The interesting cast of characters and the great story-telling made it a very fun ride.

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The Third, for me, is a very philosophical and poetic anime. And while I really don't want to say anything as corny as “It is a visual testament to the trials and endurance of the human spirit” It kinda really is just that. On the surface this may look like a regular shounen anime with swords, guns, and mecha granted the gift of speech by means of A.I., but really this show deals with some heavy hitting topics like: depression, rejection, abandonment and loneliness. That's what makes this anime so great, because it has layers like an onion, where you can enjoy the action, comedy, the art and mecha or you can look for some deeper meanings like the shows underlying theme of overcoming negativity, sadness and times of self-doubt.

~ Art Style ~
The art for this show is phenomenal [for the most part]. I love the art style and theme very much! I'm a fan of artworks that depict a lot of nature and natural scenery and with this series you get to see a lot of desert. And I don't mean just boring static hills of grainy yellow sand,no...this art is very organic, it's very alive and in constant motion and there is a soft, flowing and again, poetic aesthetic to it. This is a show that offers a perfect example of what CGI should be used for in anime! Whenever they show a flock of birds in flight or a herd of “Sand Dragons” in motion it can't help but evoke some sort of emotion from you. It seems almost kind of spiritual to see such grace and fluidity in their motions....even the way the clouds are drawn and the way the grains of sand flutter as the wind blows touches you in some 'spiritual' way, at least for me it did. Also the mecha battle scenes were “OUTTA SIGHT” if nothing else you HAVE to see episode 22's battle scene between TANK VS AIRPLANE, that was probably the most memorable mecha battle I've seen to date. One piece of warning though is that the art styles seem to fluctuate a bit throughout the series.

~ Audio ~
I watched this dubbed and I am not familiar with anyone from this voice cast. However I still enjoyed this English dubbed version, I think everyone did a good job, everyone's voice fit their characters' appearance perfectly. So I would recommend watching this in the English dub version [unless of course you hate dubs all-together, then feel free to watch the subbed version] However I did watched the subbed version and I was more entertained by the English dub.

~ Story ~
This show doesn't seem to have that very definitive overall plot that you'd find in most shounen anime [i.e. the underdog/under-achiever who's only dream is to get stronger and kick everyone's ass and then proceeds to do so with each battle getting much grander and wilder and each opponent bragging about how much stronger he was than the last guy who got his ass beat up]. No, the Third is really not about that at all, even though there are some very awesome battle scenes, this is a bit deeper than that but you can still enjoy it on that basic level of Honoka [the main character] and her sidekick talking tank, Bogie, go on these odd-jobs like transporting or hunting for stuff, serving as an escort/protector, rescuing kidnapped people and such....and while on the job she shoots and blows up enemy soldier robots set up by the Third [which are humanoids with a 3rd eye in their foreheads]. You can watch the anime for this reason and still be entertained too.

~ Cast/Characters ~
If you have a defective brain like I do, then the smaller the cast the better for you to remember them. Plus also with a small cast you get to spend more time with them and get a better understanding as they develop. And with having a narrator present throughout the show, this was even further achieved. All of the characters were likable and if they were not likable then they were either misunderstood or you wind up having sympathy for them. But I definitely like the main characters like Honoka, The Tank/Bogie, Iks and The Teacher because I liked the way they all related and interacted with each other...actually I like all of the characters because of this reason. It was less about shooting and blowing each other up and more about relating and sharing and depending on each other, which makes me wonder if this could really be considered a shounen anime.

~ Verdict ~
You have to love a show that starts out with a poem. That let's you know right then and there you are in for some deep sh--. I would recommend this show to just about anyone unless they just rather not deal with emo-crap and would rather watch regular shoot-em-up, blow-em-up anime then you can STILL watch this anime, LOL. But really if you are in the mood to be enlightened or feel emotionally connected and find a deeper meaning then you should definitely watch this. read more