BRIGADOON: MARIN TO MELAN EPISODE 1

this is an insane one. i'm kind of conflicted on it.

in this one, our main girl is marin. she's an orphan and lives in 1969 japan. we follow her throughout her usual daily life, delivering newspapers early in the morning and then going to eat breakfast with her grandma and all of the other people that live in her building with her. she's a very outgoing and curious person! i like her a lot already.
Marin happily riding a bike down a staircase. Marin encountering a weird green alien cat-shaped thing.

im going to be posting a lot of screenshots throughout this review, because i REALLY LIKE THIS ARTSTYLE!!! it's so fun and silly and the character designs are all really really charming i screenshotted some of my favorites. there's this alien cat thing she encounters at one point but it's not elaborated on in this first episode its just like a weird thing she saw and then it ran away.
A pale blonde man with blue eyes, tied back hair and wearing a red handkercheif around his neck. Subtitles read, And his American assistant, Mike. End subtitle Three schoolgirls sneering at the camera, all with varied styles and shapes. Subtitles read, I wish I could have been an orphan. End subtitle

okay, back to marin's daily life. after breakfast, she goes to school! at school one of the boys lifts her skirt up and when she's called up to receive an award for a poem she wrote about being an orphan, it turns out her skirt was still lifted up and everybody at school saw her underwear & this is played exclusively for laughs.

That sucks a lot, man. I'm disappointed now. there will also now be occasional pantyshots throughout the rest of the episode. it's not like the most explicit thing because the underwear she has are very... diaper-like? but it's still very weird, and i dont like it.

okay. so. marin goes home, and then some weird bullshit happens with the sky, and a huge giant robot crash lands in marin's home, right in front of her.

anyway it starts fucking SHOOTING AT HER!!!!!!! here's 2 more screenshots showcasing the fun artstyle of this show and MAN im so disappointed by the underwear shit.
A closeup shot of Marin's face, looking extremely worried. Marin quickly cycling away from a glowing green object, looking very hurried.

so marin goes to a temple and throws a random weird little thing at the giant murder robot. And this fucking guy comes out of the weird little thing. This is melan blue. That's all that i know about him.
Melan Blue, a large almost robotic looking figure, with a V shaped head. He's blue.

melan blue subdues the murder robot (eventually. it takes him about 7 minutes to do it.) and then the episode ends, with marin asking melan blue,
A rooftop shot of Melan Blue kneeling in front of Marin. Subtitles read, You saw my underwear, didn't you? End subtitle.

What the hell , man .

do i want to watch more?

i would literally be going so crazy about this show right now if there wasnt the ??!???!? UNDERWEAR STUFF?!??!??!?!! WHY?!? WHY DO YOU KEEP MENTIONING IT?!??!? STOP IT!!!!!! i WANT to watch more but im scared theyre going to keep doing underwear stuff.

favorite screenshots

melan blue is really cool. its like if virizion was a robot and blue and humanoid
A close-up shot of Melan Blue.

another gag throughout this episode is marin imagining various cartoonish scenarios happening to her/other people in which they end up as bones. and then its revealed that this was just her imagination and she goes "Can't be!"
Marin being shocked by lightning and revealing a cartoonish skeleton. A cartoonish skeleton laying on the ground, with smoke rising from it. The skeleton is wearing a little red bow.

HAND MAID MAY EPISODE 1

our main guy is saotome, a computer nerd in highschool. he likes to build robots. saotome is very oblivious, and a guy that clearly hates him (but who saotome thinks is his friend) gives him a virus on a CD-ROM, meant to destroy his computer when he writes in an absurdly long password incorrectly.

saotome writes the password perfectly, and unlocks a link to a mysterious website that automatically orders a package in his name. he gets the package immediately.
when he opens it, there's a little tiny robotic maid woman in it! her name is may. may can shoot a laser from her hands that turns on the TV.
May shooting her beam.
she's also: tiny. and she's small.
May and Saotome. May is standing on a table next to Saotome. She's small.

...and everytime she moves they play a fucking Bones Rattling sfx?
This is an ecchi harem anime. That's all. may ran out of charge and saotome had to plug her back in. it's weird in all the ways you'd expect.

do i want to watch more?

No i don't want to watch more of the ecchi harem anime. the best thing about this show is may the hand maid but she's kind of living in a doomed narrative here.

favorite screenshots

i will say, i LOVE the use of color here a lot. the first screenshot is from the beginning and i really liked the colors of this scene specifically. the next shot is saotome (middle guy) and two of his buddies and the VIBRANCY of this shot was shocking to me. also the fashion here is really '00s i love it.
Saotome and his buddies standing in front of vending machines. It's very vibrant. Subtitles read, Cheer up, Saotome. It's just one exam. End subtitle.

may is cute and if this wasnt an ecchi harem anime i may even go as far as to say i liked her.
However she's a tiny maid in an ecchi harem anime. So i am fearful for her.
Chibi-style May looking up at the camera with big sparkling eyes. Subtitles read, Yes?! End subtitle.