It's hard to believe that Time Bokan was produced in the 21st century. The entire show is hand drawn with every cheesy little cheat that fans love to hate in shows like Speed Racer.

Special features are pretty sparse on this one. The DVD has no insert and no other art other than what is on the DVD jacket. On the actual DVD, there is a special feature section that contains the OAV trailer that really doesn't give a good impression of what to expect out of Time Bokan and an art gallery. The gallery is pretty generic consisting of mostly images captured from the two episodes and the box art. There is an additional section on the DVD with additional trailers. On one hand there are the standard anime trailers. Nothing to get all crazy and write home about, but what is on this disk that is really cool is the manga previews. I have seen a few different attempts of previewing a manga comic in video form. For the most part, what I have seen up until now haven't been very successful. But here the manga previews have sound, music, and Foley and they are done in an animatic style complete with motion graphics and 3D visual effects. Very cool stuff.

The rating of Time Bokan is 13 and up. Despite being aimed at a slightly younger audience, Time Bokan earned that rating from its cartoon violence, some crude humor, fan service and some occasionally bare-breasted young ladies. Funny thing is I don't think that anyone under the age of 13 would really understand the humor of Time Bokan, so I think that the rating is really more of a formality. I can definitely see this one being popular in the late night viewing rooms of anime conventions. At the $9.99 price point, this one is a steal and will have any fan of the old school animes cracking up.

The Third: The Girl with the Blue Eye V.1
(2007) TV series (four episodes). Director:Jun Kamiya. V.1 Four episodes 100 minutes. DVD bilingual $24.99. Distributor: RightStuf

XBEC Studios, whose animated works, such as Outlaw Star and Martian Successor Nadesico isn't afraid to take convention and turn it on end. Or at the very least laugh a little at it. The Third: The Girl with the Blue Eye is a strange and lengthy title for an anime but don't let it scare anyone away from this one. True to XEBEC's previous works The Third takes an interesting and role reversing spin on the youth pilot mecha samurai warrior thing. Traditionally this role is played by an angst-filled young man, but this time around the honor goes to a young and upbeat girl. Through creative use of humor, action and fan service, the story is kept interesting. While as a huge mecha samurai fan myself, I did enjoy The Third. But, at the same time, I don't think that it will appeal to everyone.

There is a feeling that The Third is geared a little toward the ladies with its independent, butt-kicking, very cute leading lady and her effeminate love interest. Not to say that there isn't something in store for the guys with all the action and some light fan service; it's just that the pacing and character development is more along the lines of Revolutionary Girl Utena than Gundam.

The Third: The Girl with the Blue Eye takes an interesting role reversing spin on the youth pilot mecha samurai warrior thing. © 2006 The Third Partners.

The premise of the story is familiar. In a world in the aftermath of horrific war that turned the planet into a burnt out desert, survivors are forced to live reliant on technology for their very existence. Living above the planet is a group called the Third who are constantly monitoring the planet below and policing its inhabitants. After war ravaged the landscape, the Third decided that in order to protect those who remain, they would institute techno taboos that would limit the amount of technology people could use and thereby actively controlled the degree of destruction they are capable of. Of course, this law does not apply to the Third as they use incredibly advanced weaponry against those who break these taboos.

The mechanics in this world are referred to as technos and in Gestapo-like fashion the Third will attack and detain (if they are lucky enough) these technos if they are found guilty of breaking any taboos. Enter our heroine, Honoka. She is proud to make her living as a jack-of-all-trades, but her real talents lie in the sword she is carrying. Given the name of sword dancer, Honoka has developed an almost mythical reputation out in the wasteland. Her steel easily dispatches giant spiders and can ever cut the barrel off of a tank.

Speaking of tanks, Honoka's partner is an A.I. tank named Bogie whose main job is to watch her back while out in the field. Life is pretty normal until Honoka rescues someone she finds out alone in the desert at night. The person she finds, named Iks, seems to stir up feelings inside of Honoka that she isn't familiar with. It's not that other suitors haven't vied for her affections before, Honoka just never had feelings for another like she has for Iks. The trouble comes from the Third who have taken an interest in this boy Iks and the mechanized armor Honoka just purchased that breaks the technos taboo.

This story is laid out very deliberately. The narrator portion gives this anime an almost RPG feel to it. Each scene relates to the one before it, and any jumps in time are described in detail by the narrator. It hurts the pacing a little but in its defense, narration only seems to be used when jumping between locations or similar breaks in the action. Plus, with the additional exposition, a younger audience will be able to get into this story. Dialogue is written at the standard sixth grade level and easily followed. The Japanese language track is far superior to the English version. There are some good points in the English language version. For instance, the character Iks speaks in an effeminate tone in the Japanese version and the English voice actor did an excellent job translating that over without making the character irritating.