The Third: Aoi Hitomi no Shoujo

In the distant future, because of an interplanetary war that had continued on for centuries, civilizations were ruined. Human beings have lost everything, and only 1/5th of the population survived. A strange breed of humans, ''The Third'' is said to have appeared just after the war. They possess a third eye, as their name suggests, that appear as oval-shaped red pupils called "space eyes'' over their conventional two eyes. Using them, they can control computer systems and so on, and as such, rule the world by their superior power over technology.

In this world, there is a young woman named Honoka; she is a "jack-of-all-trades" sellsword, and she accepts any job except murder. One day, she happens to find and rescue a young man named Ikus in the desert. Entering his world, and accepting a job from him, the adventure begins for Honoka and Ikus.

(Source: BestAnime, modified)

Honoka Main

Toyoguchi, Megumi Japanese

Bogie Main

Ishizuka, Unshou Japanese

Iks Main

Namikawa, Daisuke Japanese

Jouganki Supporting

Koyasu, Takehito Japanese

Paife Supporting

Kobayashi, Sanae Japanese

STW-9000 Supporting

Shimura, Tomoyuki Japanese

Narrator Supporting

Kosugi, Juurouta Japanese

Millie Supporting

Sakata, Yuki Japanese

Kevin Supporting

Miyake, Kenta Japanese

Zankan Supporting

Tanaka, Masahiko Japanese

Noto, Takashi Producer

Chino, Takatoshi Producer

Takechi, Tsuneo Producer

Kamiya, Jun Director

Reviews

Feb 21, 2007

Faust721

Recommended

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.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Jun 12, 2008

Emilio_Rodo

Mixed Feelings

Well, that's the first anime that motivated me to write a fairly negative review.I may be a bit biased, because I was really expecting it to be more interesting, mainly because one of my favorite books is about a guy who drives around the desert in a tank...In any case, here's my $ 0.02

Story:
Girl drives around in the desert in a tank...That pretty much sums it up.The anime is divided in several substories, each lasting 2-3 episodes.Unfortunately, none of them managed to grab my attention.What annoyed me the most was the one before the last: girl goes in the middle of nowhere, ... accompanied by her worst enemy, to rescue a guy who does not need rescuing and fight a woman that doesn't want to fight her... Plausibility was thrown right out the window ( example, last episode's 'battle scene') It think that the idea was that the show was supposed to be more character driven, rather than plot driven, which brings us to the

Characters:
That's the weakest point of the series.You are unlikely to dislike them.Most probably you just won't care about them.And why should you? They don't change throughout the series, and all have single-layer personalities.You have the optimistic hard working one, the kind mysterious one, cynical mysterious one and the loyal one and the "wise" one.Another annoying thing is that instead of revealing their personalities through their expressions and dialog, the creators of the series decided to use an annoying omniscient Narrator , that explains what's going on in their heads

Art
Not bad overall, only it's quality went down dramatically at 2 or 3 occasions.That being the terrible 3D geese and episode 13 mainly.There are a few other occasional drops in the quality of the character animations, but they are pretty minor.Also, the Third look remarkably like the generic elves from any 80s anime.Apart from those points though, everything was decent

Sound

Not bad, but unremarkable.

Enjoyment
Straight in the middle,watching the series was a nice way to kill some time, but I definitely won't remember much of it in 2 weeks.


Overall:

It left me with a sense of wasted potential.Although not particularly bad, the series just lacks character: the story is standard, the charterers are cliche, the messages we've already heard a thousand times before.I would guess that show was aimed towards a younger audience who hasn't had the chance to see all the cliches of the genre over and over agains.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Sep 23, 2023

karioka-

Not Recommended

I wanted to like this anime. It looked pretty interesting at first, but instead it did the exact opposite of interesting me and put me to sleep.


Story - 4

The story was honestly pretty interesting at first. You have this girl Honoka who travels around a desert in some kind of tank. She meets a bunch of people along this journey and also happens to possess a third eye. Only problem is that the story goes absolutely nowhere for what is probably half of the series.

Almost every episode is some boring dialogue nobody wants to hear, or a basic fight with no build up or hype.
I ... would’ve enjoyed this show if it weren’t for the uninteresting and repetitive dialogue for about half of the series, if it weren’t for that I could’ve actually had a fun time watching this.
It actually then picks up the pace near the end but delivers a pretty boring and forgettable experience at most.

Art - 5

The art and animation were alright for 2006. Just really bland though. They didn’t really do much to make the show look that good.
They did an alright job on the actual animation. But did nothing to make the show look visually appealing with lighting, backgrounds or anything.
It has a boring and generic art style with not much character at all in the art.
This show would also have the tendency to add some ugly looking CG and some stock photo looking images as the sky in some parts. Overall though, it has really bland and lazy art but not ugly by any means.

Sound - 6

The sound in this show was good, just forgettable.
The opening and ending were a tad bit good but definitely forgettable and not the kind of song you would listen to on repeat. The voice acting was good and they did a good job at fulfilling their roles.
Now the background music on the other hand was as bland as the show. Sometimes there would even be none. Paired with the boring, bland feel of the show and it would be extremely boring to watch and get through.

Character - 3

The characters were definitely the worst part of the show. That really sounds harsh but they’re some of the most cardboard cutout characters I've ever seen in an anime.
They all provided some of the most boring dialogue. And it was hard to care for most characters when they would barely do anything interesting. They all seem to do the same things over and over again until it’s dry. You never see much character development in this show even when they try to develop them.
They’ll always be dry characters and I did not feel any attachment to them whatsoever.

Enjoyment - 3

It’s safe to say I did not enjoy this series that much. It has bland uninteresting dialogue for most of the time you are watching the show. Generic fights with absolutely nothing special about any of them. No buildup to anything, no enjoyment for half of the series and characters drier than the desert they journey through.
I know some people could enjoy this show if you can handle repetitive actions and dialogue. But this show just isn’t for me, sorry.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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