Brigadoon: Marin to Melan

Summary
Brigadoon: Marin to Melan is a Japanese Animated Television show created and directed by Yoshitomo Yonetani, in 2000 for the Animation Studio Sunrise. After having spent the previous decade directing entries in the kid oriented Mecha series "King of Braves," Yonetani began work on a series that would combine the fast paced action, character development, and heart of a mecha series, with his own childhood experiences in post World War 2 era Japan. With character designs by frequent collaborator Takashi Nakamura, and a photo-realistic setting based on the director's own childhood home town, Brigadoon is one of the strangest combinations of genres, tones and animation styles to ever be released.

Plot
Marin Asagi is a typical 13 year old girl, living as orphan with her eccentric adopted family. All is well until Marin's homeroom class is suddenly interrupted by an alien planet, "Brigadoon" appearing above the Earth. Shortly after landing, Marin is hunted down by large, spiked covered lazer shooting alien, which fires a warning shot destroying both her room, and Bicycle. As she runs in horror from the spiked death machine, Marin discovers a blue bottle which she accidentally uses to summon a protector: a sword carrying, gun slinging alien called Melan Blue. Together Marin and Melan must save the earth, deal with family crisis, school prejudice, and the police, as well as learn to trust each other. The story is set in 1969, post World War 2 era Japan with a colorful cast of friends and enemies.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) Fantastic animation and action scenes, provided by Studio Sunrise, known for their ability to animate complicated Mecha designs in detail
 * 2) A fantastic opening theme performed by Acapella group "Ikuko" and featuring a combination of animation and live action footage.
 * 3) A like-able cast of characters, making both Marin's human classmates and the aliens equally likeable  The 13 year old protagonist, Marin is upbeat and optimistic, despite being an orphan. She is accepting of her new parents and home, and cares deeply for them all.
 * 4) Extremely accurate portrayal of 1960's era Japan, with backgrounds that are based on the creators real life hometown, and themes of the political unrest after World War 2, or the development of technology in Japan.
 * 5)  A groundbreaking show for 2000, presenting Interspecies romance (between the main characters) and LGBT characters (with Moe, Pyon and others)
 * 6) A fantastic ending that shows how all the characters grew, in a tearjerking finale with music sung by Marin's voice actress.
 * 7) Tons of animation styles, including 2D handrawn animation, Computer Generated characters, and even Stop Motion animation (used in the bumpers, ending themes).

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Several moments of underaged fan service, with its protagonists Marin and Moe. (Although this is slightly subverted, as it was relevant to the plot, and the character perving on them later gets his head hit so hard he is covered in bandages)
 * 2) It is infamous for having extreme mood whiplash, which is most prevalent in Episode 10 "Fly from the Darkness," which features one human character trying to choke a younger character to death, in a gruesome detail.

Trivia

 * 1) The American draft dodging character who lives with Marin, named Mike White, was based on a combination of several characters that Yonetani had previously created, named Mic Sounder, from The "King of Braves" series
 * 2) The location of the main characters hometown was based on the directors own childhood, and fans have visited the locations the show was based on and taken comparison photos.
 * 3) The only English release was several DVD volumes by Tokyopop, although the series was re-aired recently in Japan, and given a Blu-Ray Box set in 2015. Fans have uploaded English subtitled versions to YouTube for English speaking viewers to see the series.

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