Around 1995, Japanese animation (anime) began pouring into North America, Europe and across the globe in video form. Most of these titles were unknown outside of Japan and never covered by animation journals. Whether a title is highly popular or very obscure, a high-quality theatrical feature or a cheap and unimaginative direct-to-video release, they all look the same on a store shelf. Therefore, Animation World Magazine will regularly review several new releases (including re-releases not previously covered) that have merit.

Normal 13-year-old Marin is saved by giant robot Melan Blue in Brigadoon. ©SUNRISE • WOWOW This product is manufactured and distributed by TOKYOPOP® under the license by Sunrise, Inc.© TOKYOPOP. All rights reserved.

Brigadoon. V.1, Marin & Melan Blue. V.2, Friends & Enemies. V.3, The Celestial World. V.4, Hope Amid Chaos. V.5, The Strongest Monomakia. V.6, The Day of Pasca.
TV series (26 episodes), 2000-2001. Director: Yoshitomo Yonetani. V.1-2, five episodes/125 minutes; v.3-6, four episodes/100 minutes. Price & format: DVD bilingual $29.99. Distributor: TOKYOPOP.

Brigadoon was a 26-episode TV series (July 21, 2000 through February 9, 2001) from the Sunrise studio, with very soft, cute art design by Takahiro Kimura. Its attempt to blend extremes of silly humor and grim drama into a mix suitable for young girls is another revelation of the differences between what is considered suitable programming for children and young adolescents in Japan and America.

Marin Asagi is a lively 13-year-old girl just entering junior high school. She is a foundling, abandoned as an infant at a cheap tenement building, who has been raised to consider the humorously eccentric but caring apartment tenants as her family (including the neighborhood drunk whom Marin must drag home when he passes out in the alley). She has a happier life with them than with her schoolmates, most of whom scorn her as "poor trash."

Marin's life crumbles when a "mirage" of another world fills the skies everywhere on Earth, and robots in the form of huge childhood toys zoom to Tokyo to attack her. Marin is saved by a giant robot resembling a toy soldier, Melan Blue, who claims he is a "Monomakia" assigned to protect her (but refuses to explain what is going on). Marin's attempts to continue her normal life are frustrated as the battles between Melan Blue and other Monomakias destroy much of her neighborhood and kill neighbors. In episode 10, Marin's feisty but frail adoptive grandmother, who has been giving her moral support, dies of stress, and Marin is too crushed by guilt to enjoy the cute giant-turtle toy vehicle she gets as her personal car.

Eventually no less than the president of the U.S. comes to Japan to plead with Marin and Melan Blue to go up to Brigadoon in an Apollo spacecraft to stop the attacks upon Earth. On Brigadoon, Marin gets involved in deadly politics between Melan Blue and the other Monomakia "gun swordsmen," which leaves her nude and bleeding from many wounds, while the Brigadoon government assembly (fuzzy "monsters" obviously designed for plush toy appeal) turns out to be irresponsible squabblers who throw cream pies at each other.

There is enough seriousness in Brigadoon that it cannot be dismissed as just slapstick comedy. Children who are bullied at school may dream of revenge; Brigadoon hints at the somber reality if those fantasies were carried out. Children of 12 or 13 are reaching the age where they can expect to start losing elderly relations. Holding Marin responsible for the destruction caused by the Monomakias is a situation faced by many adolescents blamed for irresponsible actions of their companions, whether they participate or not.

Brigadoon is rated 13+, although some of the humor and situations may be considered too risqué or violent by conservative American parents. Plot setups that seem obvious (Marin's unknown parentage must mean she is a princess from Brigadoon; right?) develop unexpected and imaginative twists. The title is part of a running barrage of in-group pop-culture references (Brigadoon has nothing to do with Lerner & Loewe's famous musical, although its pseudo-Celtic theme song and a reference to the planet approaching Earth "every 100 years" leaves no doubt that the Japanese creators are familiar with it; there are also "tributes" to Star Wars and Miyazaki's Laputa: The Castle in the Sky) which are a gloss over of an original plot.