Last season was a little lacking for good shounen. Having missed Noein and Black Lagoon, I began to watch the bloated Kiba and the bland Jyu Oh Sei. But then there was The Third, something a little bit different, and while it’s by no means on my all-time favourites list, it was certainly one of the better shows of recent months.
However, I’m beginning to suspect that Xebec’s adaptations of ongoing series of manga or novels will always suffer the same flaws – despite nice art and pretty, likeable characters, they will always produce series that are overly episodic and have an unsatisfying ending.
Honoka is a spirited young girl who possesses incredible skills with a sword. In the company of Bogie, the sardonic AI unit of her massive tank, she works as a mercenary-for-hire. But her world is one divided, between humanity and The Third, elf-like beings who control and regulate the technology of their world through the use of a third eye. When a mysterious young man named Iks appears, we gradually learn more about Honoka, more about the secrets of her world.
There’s not much that’s new or especially gripping about The Third, and it does deal with its plots in a neat, pat sort of way that doesn’t really leave you desperate to find out what happens next. Many of them fall flat, too, with silly stories about The Third and mystical fairies and wolves, often crucially lacking in human emotion. It’s actually the episodes between these adventures that are best, for what The Third really succeeds in is its characters and their designs – although the off-model disaster of episode 13 will live in infamy forever more, and I hope an animation studio went out of business because of it. Honoka is my idea of moé – a pretty girl, more than handy with a sword, with a boyish face and genderless clothes, who gets very embarrassed and blushes adorably when contrived circumstances make her wear a form-fitting bodysuit, and whose sense of right and wrong and selfless attitude to others show her decency and compassion, yet who is a little naïve and not above silly jokes. Toyoguchi Megumi pitches her voice perfectly, finding a great balance between the hyperactivity of One Piece’s Nami and the stately but rebellious Sei from Marimite. Great protagonist, and the supporting cast was also excellent, especially the fatherly yet perpetually indignant Bogie (Jet from Bebop’s seiyuu), the teasing, confident, more sexual older mercenary Paifuu (Kobayashi Senae: the Akiras in Hikago and Mai-HiME, Allen in D.Gray Man etc) and the ultra-cute loli Millie, who sadly doesn’t complete the interesting plot arc that starts to develop in her last few episodes.
One irksome thing about the series is its narrator, who earned the name Captain Obvious from me, his intrusive tones cutting in at very inappropriate moments to describe what we could all see anyway. It may have been an attempt to make things more epic, but it was just silly.
Honoka and Millie made this a series I was happy to have watched. But I feel sure that while I will remember them for a long time yet, the finer details of The Third, desert wolves, alien Observers and robotic Blue Breakers will fade away and not be missed.
(Originally written 23.12.06)
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