Brigadoon: Marin to Melan

Brigadoon was a series I wasn't sure what to make of it considering it doesn't entirely following a specific genre or appeal to a targeted viewer demographic. The art style, Marin's manic behavior and bizarre comedy would have one think this was a light-hearted comedy geared for children, yet the show's dabbling into some pretty dark territory with Marin's tragic past, portraying humanity at its worst in dire circumstances, the occasionally brutal violence from Monomakia and humans, Marin and other girls frequently being nude and the things Marin puts up with in both her family and her connection to the Monomakia would be things you ... would expect to be geared for older viewers. I found this mish-mashing to be a bit of a mixed bag throughout my watch of Brigadoon.

What I did enjoy with Brigadoon was how effectively it went into its more serious elements. Marin is portrayed as a believable tragic heroine whose tragic past, current upbringing and connections to the Monomakia regularly put her at odds with classmates and others among the human populace throughout the show. She gets regularly bullied for her social status as an impoverished orphan and this worsens throughout the show as her bond with Melan Blue against the Monomakia threat leads classmates, the police and citizens to lash out at her at points thanks to personal tragedies and thinking she has something to do with the problems humanity is struggling with thanks to Brigadoon. Melan also makes for an interesting character as well as he adapts to living life on Earth and tries to maintain his loyalty and growing bond with Marin as he comes at odds with other Monomakia, a few of which being former comrades he used to coexist with before going rogue.

Brigadoon is also good at keeping you hooked on its plot developments as the merging of Brigadoon and Earth leads events to worsen throughout the show. The series slowly reveals more about the world of Brigadoon, Marin's possible connections to the world and characters taking their own different routes with trying to manage the problems between both worlds. Mood whiplash happens quite frequently throughout the show as Brigadoon juggles between light-hearted moments and shocking plot twists that worsen the situation faced by Marin and other characters. The series isn't afraid to kill off major characters or put said characters in life-threatening situations stemming from the Monomakia threat.

Still though, my praises for Brigadoon's serious elements still suffer from the title's more comical elements. I found the show's attempts at comedy as a breather from the more serious moments to be quite hit or miss as I much rather enjoyed the light-hearted moments of bonding Marin had with other characters over the show's comedic moments. With its comedy, the show quite often gets in the annoying habit of fooling the audience with Marin have a bizarre dream over her thoughts of any serious moments that take place throughout the show, and they are quite often a mood killer following the show's serious moments.

Brigadoon's more serious elements are also not safe from criticism from me. Many of the shows' early episodes tend to follow a "monster of the day" type plot that do nothing to advance the title's plot and I did often find myself getting creeped out with the frequent occasions of seeing Marin and a couple other girls around her age being nude. The final episode of the series was quite a letdown as well, having a good amount of deus ex machina to undo any major character deaths taking place, leaving Marin's connections to Brigadoon unclear and any details concerning the major foes of the series rather vague.

Visually, Brigadoon is rather average as character designs are on the simple side with details and look a bit rough with their lining with the childish-like style to many designs taking away from the seriousness of the series. Scenery is well designed having vast shots and a nice amount of detail applied to them. Animation shortcuts happen rather frequently throughout Brigadoon with speed stripes, still shots and reused frames being the norm with it.

Musical tracks do their part in accompanying the show's calm, comical, serious and dramatic moments. However with exception to the anime's OP musical track "Kaze no Ao, Umi no Midori", the soundtrack to the series isn't too memorable for me.

Overall, I felt Brigadoon's mixture of comical and serious moments in exploring Marin's ordeals with her everyday life and the Monomakia to be quite hit-or-miss for me. While I did enjoy much of the show's serious approach to its story, the comedic moments were too much of a mood killer for me and the final episode felt too convenient and open-ended with how it resolved its major plot elements. I suppose your mileage will vary with how well you warm to the series since it looks like Brigadoon has a cult following among anime fans.

The series starts off really well- but slowly goes downhill from there. It starts off as a school story with action mixed in, and then slowly turns to pure action. But that's not the bad part. The action was alright. However, around episode 15, the series went from having a plot, to complete and utter nonsense. The plot becomes incoherant at this point, and the only thing that would save this series would be the sweet tale of friendship between Marin and Melan- if the series itself wouldn't have become borderline pedophilic at this point.(Just trust me on this- it does. >_<;.)
Avoid this at all ... costs- the anime, anyway. If you're interested in the plot, read the manga. It's the same thing, only without the pedophilic parts, and with a coherant plot.

Mecha anime is often known by the majority of anime fans as a visually impressive yet formulaic genre, having little to no variety of settings and plot points among its many related series. Brigadoon, a series made by the quintessential mecha studio Sunrise, breaks nearly every single established rule of the genre.

With a premise similar to shoujo anime (young girl meets a mysterious companion with special powers) and a female protagonist, Brigadoon might seem similar to magical girl anime during the first episodes. This is soon proven wrong, due the unusual post war setting and its high stakes, the protagonist Marin needing robot Melan´s power ... and abilities to protect her city and loved ones from an apparent alien invasion.

The relationship between Marin and Melan is the show´s biggest strength. Marin, a naive young girl and Melan, a fully sentient machine with a serious yet caring personality rapidly establish a beautiful bond that transcend friendship, immersing themselves in the multiple battles and challenges brought by their foes, this being the main point that makes Brigadoon stand out from any other series.

The juxtaposition between the optimistic and innocent personality of Marin and the gruesome battles fought by Melan, often with extremely tragic consequences, is extremely jarring. The show´s tone can be almost bizarre, changing abruptly from the naive Marin attempts at humor to terribly violent fights with death tolls and destruction, the next episode returning to the usual playful tone. Due to her struggles during the series, Marin grows as a character alongside Melan, who progressively learns about human emotions in order to understand Marin´s struggles.

Regarding the overall quality of the show, Brigadoon is decently animated, its visual standout being the mechanical design of Melan Blue and other mecha present later in the series, battles between mecha being the best animated scenes as expected from studio Sunrise. The moe character design for the humans and creatures is forgettable yet does an effective job at presenting the setting as cutesy and cozy in contrast to the struggles faced by the characters.

Brigadoon can only be regarded as a wild ride, an unpredictable series to first time viewers, being a (not so smooth) blend of genres: humor, mahou shoujo, mecha, tragedy, romance... all mixed in a truly weird series. I would only recommend Brigadoon to viewers with an open mind, do not expect a traditional mecha from this anime.