The Third – Aoi Hitomi no Shoujo

Even if you are treated with kindness at night,
You must not be boiled
The long gone past
The undecided future
The light from a distant galaxy
The mirage in front of you
There is nothing that is certain

You are able to chase your dream
You continue to chase your simple dream
You are able to continue living on this planet

People
Proceed with your difficult dreams
Come and leave for a journey
With the sigh of the stars and the whispering wind
Be led by the night’s children’s blessings
No matter where you travel,
There is no end to the arrival of tommorrow

-By Dana Myfree as recited by Honoka, from The Third – The Girl Cursed with the Blue Eye

Ok I usually dl tons of anime and store them up but do not watch them, coz I’m 4ever thinking abt theories for Higurashi (currently tackling Shion’s apparently demonic behaviour) and do not want some other anime to distract me. However I managed to catch only HALF an episode of The Third when my sis complained she wanted to watch some Jap animation, and I was godamn hooked.

The poem above describes the world that is depicted in The Third quite perfectly. Its a post-nuclear war world where majority of the world is covered in sand.

The Third are a bunch of psuedo-humans that exist after the apocolyptic war. They do not tyrannise normal humans, but they forbid them from possessing technology beyond a certain level. Their purposes are not entirely known, but are generally accepted as good for the human race.

Honoka is our 17-year-old protonagist, and she is apparently excellent at swords. She loves weapons of all kinds including small arms (pistol/rifle/mg), big arms (anti-tank rifle, mortar) and even armoured vehicles and mecha. She spends much time carefully cleaning her small arms, which was kinda surprising for me coz its the first time I saw an anime, or movie for that matter, showing a character cleaning her weapons. Her love for cleaning weapons feeled me with disgust for awhile coz I didn’t like doing it, but it was a hobby for her. Well judging from her character, she is quite strange and does possess some powers which I will not list here.

There is some romance involved. Some of the third find Honoka a pest for interfering in their plans with observing an extra-terrestrial being. Others are after her for secrets she will not reveal. Its overall a very satisfying science-fiction anime that does much to revive the Seinen/Mecha genre. Not very realistic though compared to ultra-realistic science-fiction anime like Ghost in the Shell, but isnt as dry as well.