The Third: Girl with Blue Eyes

Genre: Serious, Zen
Score: Good

Honoka lives by the sword. She lives in the desert, travelling with her tank and working to exterminate the massive creatures that threaten people living amid the ruins of civilsation. One day she meets a strange man called Iks – and saves him from a danger he hadn’t even noticed. He asks to travel with her and watch life in the desert.

This is quite a hard one to pin down – despite a setting that sounds like Trigun or Appleseed, I’d actually compare this more to Kino’s Journey (only with plot). Honoka’s philosophy does show through the events, and you do get a sense of people trying to live somehow under difficult circumstances, without being overly romanticised.

* translation note: Unlike the English word ‘blue’, the word ‘aoi’ covers a range of colours from indigo all the way through to turquoise. Also, like most Japanese words, there are no singular or plural in the title. The name can therefore ambiguously refer to her two normal azure eyes, or the more blue extra third eye.