The Third: The Girl with the Blue Eye

[Munsu]

Well, for me I don't care about "thinking", in fact I would rather not think. I preffer to have things thoroughly explained to me, so that I'm 100% sure that I have a grasp on what's going on. I mostly watch anime, tv shows, and read manga solely because I want to learn everything possible about the world and characters portrayed in the story. I want to learn about them, not "imagine" what they are all about. This is mainly why I don't like open ended stories, I like being told what really happened rather than letting my imaginiation run about.

So it's not really the style of narration that bothers, it's the reason for watching something that's bothering.

[masamuneehs]

I throw my hat on Kraco's side on this one.

I like to see characters' emotions/thoughts/whatnot, but I much prefer when the characters themselves express these things. Facial expressions, tone of voice, dialogue, body language, there's lots of ways the viewer can get a sense for what's going on. Some disembodied voice using overly flowery language, telling me what to think is not my idea of good narration. If the narrator provided more info about the world, about the history or places or even standard info about people and things no character will directly speak about, then I'd be happier.

100% clarity is nice, but I do like to make my own thoughts about things. One of the reasons I enjoy Eureka 7 so much is because there's so many things in that show that I have to read into, that a viewer can make connections with in his/her mind. The 3rd is good and still keeps me wondering about the future, but I don't need to have the characters' personas spelled out to me all the time.

As such this show has not began to even scratch my top 5. Heck, it's not even in my top 10... Although i'd attribute that more to the sheer amount of shows I'm watching over the quality of this one.

[Ryllharu]

I'm with Bud on this issue, I fail to see even after the explainations why it's a problem in this series. It's an unusual touch we almost never get to see. It does detach us breifly from the world, but we get insight into Honoka that we might not normally discern from just watching their expressions and waiting it out.

Honoka is incredibly contemplative, we saw that from the first moments of the series. She doesn't always emotionally react to a situation right away, rather, her real feelings are told to us through the narration while she's blankly staring at the stars.

It's a different approach, one I'm happy to see get some time. It's like reading a book written in the third person that only focuses on a single character.

[Apraxhren]

FnT has released episode 6. Their video quality is a bit lower than Ayu and the timing is a little fast but the translations seem to be better.

Edit: About the narration, the original work was a novel so the narration in the book would tend to be overly descriptive since there are no pictures. It seems the producers either wanted to reference the narration in the book or keep the original feel of the book through the narration. As Ryllharu said "It's like reading a book"

[Kraco]

The fifth of the Third, from Ayu:

Episode 5 - Ayu

[Ryllharu]

So, Thirds are just regular mutations, and Honoka is simply a mutation of that mutation. There goes my theory from the last preview.

Anyhow, I'm guessing now that since the normal red Thirds interact with technology and information, essentially non-physical commodities, Honoka's must be able to sense and control all matter. She can find the invisible robots, sense the flowers, and cut anything to ribbons.

[Kraco]

Yeah. Sounds like a plausible theory. I was thinking this series was a bit more realistic, thus the fact she uses a kind of spirit blade was a surprise to me, although it of course explains why those robots were so weak against her.

Well, I guess it might be more interesting this way, if also more traditional.

[Ryllharu]

She was saying she using the katana as a focus though, so its really more like applying a super fine edge to the blade (like the molecule thin Damascus Blade from Battle Angel Alita or you can pick your favorite cyberpunk monofilament). It generally doesn't extend beyond the edge of the katana, but ensures that the katana goes clean through anything. (Exceptions being the end of eps 4 where the one of the Blue Breakers exploded after she got out of the PSP)

From this eps and the last one where they showed a flashback of her master, it seems fairly difficult for her to concentrate on the cutting ability, thus the typically need for a focus object. Its not some unconquerable combat ability, she really has to give it her all and visualize whatever being sliced in half. It's still samurai-esque skill based, but the 'spirit blade' is like the Zen concentration.

[Apraxhren]

Ayu released Episode 06

[Yukimura]

Fansub no Tameni - The Third - 07

Interesting, more of Honoka's teacher, and Chibi Hono was so cute!

[Board of Command]

I didn't like this episode. This series is supposed to be sci-fi, not magical sword techniques.

[Apraxhren]

Episode 08 by FNT

[Yukimura]

Very nice, I was thinking about how this show didn't have anything that really grabbed me and made me want to watch it, beyond the charachters anyway, and finally they drop a plot into our laps.

EDIT: Unessecary Rambling Removed

[Board of Command]

Seems like this new woman is the same "race" as Iks.

[Munsu]

Tried episode 7 and 8 from FnT, didn't like them much. Their timing is pretty bad, it was giving me headaches. I'll probably keep watching them when they come out though.

That aside, episode 7 was fairly boring, but episode 8 was pretty good with the introduction of that new character. She's pretty hot, and lesbo at the same time, hope she sticks around.

[Apraxhren]

Well FnT just released episode 09

[Board of Command]

That aside, episode 7 was fairly boring, but episode 8 was pretty good with the introduction of that new character. She's pretty hot, and lesbo at the same time, hope she sticks around.

I don't know. Maybe she's not lesbo but instead that waitress girl is lesbo.

[Munsu]

She doesn't have to be a lesbo, but you still get a lesbo vibe from her... that's enough.

[Yukimura]

Well, in ep 9 there is plenty of lesbo hinting going on with our new friend, and did I perhaps detect a hint of jealousy towards Iks?!?!

[Board of Command]

That guy transforming into a monster was kinda weird.