Boku no Marî

First time I watched this trilogy I was in stitches for over an hour. The three episodes set a strong foundation for the characters and tell good stories so I was devastated to hear that no more were made. The best bits are Hiroshi's desperation to keep the truth about Marie secret and his encounters with rent-a-fist girl Hibiki

I stumbled onto this title by accident so I was able to see My Dear Marie the Japanese version with English text and I liked it so well I ordered the English version Metal Angel Marie (1998), Everyone will tell you that it was cut short their should of been more than 3 episodes. There are lots of good reviews online that are easy to find as well, I like cartoons but i was never into anime or manga I don't even know what they really stand for but I knew this was different, I found it very interesting how the characters interacted with such maturity when dealing with issues that are very much the same in our own lives, has some memorable moments that I wont forget.

Hiroshi Karigari is a lonely engineering student who longs for a girl named Marie a member of the school tennis club. Hiroshi is too shy to talk to her so he ends up just hitting balls off the wall. He must have inherited money from his dead parents because he has a sophisticated workshop in his home. He designs a robot based on Marie and one day the human-looking robot activates itself. He is startled to see her in his room and calls out "Marie" and the robot decides that is her name. Complications occur when Marie follows him to the tennis club and the android sees the young woman she is based on. Human Marie has blue hair and android Marie has pink hair but nobody actually refers to that in the show so maybe those colours are for the benefit of the viewer so we can tell which one is which. Hiroshi introduces android Marie as his sister and nobody mentions the issue of where she has been up to now except for club president Tanaka.

The made-for-video series is based on a manga in Young Jump Weekly. Episode one is "The Birth of Marie" and it introduces the main characters. Episode two is "The Appearance of Hibiki Kennou" and is about a childhood acquaintance of Hiroshi who is now a bad teenaged girl. Episode three was a clever one called "Dreaming Android" where Marie learns about dreams and asks Hiroshi take make her capable of dreaming. This is one of those stories where you can't be sure if the character is really awake.

I first saw this series at one of the local anime clubs and I wasn't the only one who wished there were more episodes. I've seen the subtitled version and the English-dubbed version and they were both good. If you liked Video Girl Ai then you will probably like Metal Angel Marie because both Ai and Marie are conflicted as they try to help their guys meet their dream girl.