Series Recommendation: Blue Gender
“I will fight to eradicate the Blues from this world, no matter what it takes.”
Humans vs Aliens is perhaps the most prevalent trope in fiction, and mecha is no exception. Notables franchises include Macross, Fafner, Muv-Luv and many more. In particular, if you like Muv-Luv for its complex story and character development over time, then you’d definitely fancy the series that had a huge influence on it: Blue Gender. Blue Gender can be seen as a “proto-MuvLuv” where they take the conflict between humanity and an unexplainable horror to the edge of extinction.
Blue Gender is a 26-episode mecha anime set in a post-apocalyptic world where humanity faces extinction against the Blue, aka BluE That are Adversaries to the human race *ahem*. Created by Ryousuke Takahashi, renowned for Armored Trooper Votoms, and directed by Masashi Abe, the series was produced by AIC and aired from October 1999 to 2000. The story follows Yuji Kaido, a young man awakened from cryogenic sleep, and Marlene Angel, a hardened soldier from the space colony Second Earth, as they navigate deadly battles against the Blue and other threats on Earth.
Blue Gender is a 26-episode mecha anime set in a post-apocalyptic world where humanity faces extinction against the Blue, aka BluE That are Adversaries to the human race *ahem*. Created by Ryousuke Takahashi, renowned for Armored Trooper Votoms, and directed by Masashi Abe, the series was produced by AIC and aired from October 1999 to 2000. The story follows Yuji Kaido, a young man awakened from cryogenic sleep, and Marlene Angel, a hardened soldier from the space colony Second Earth, as they navigate deadly battles against the Blue and other threats on Earth.
+ PLOT: Blue Gender combined the usual mecha war story where a vetera soldier has to couple up with a young person who did not want to fight initially and just wanted to get away from it all with a grounded and psychological approach to the situation. The main character – Yuji Kaido – is a man out of time like Captain America, but unlike Steve, Yuji was just a normal college student when he went under the ice, sleeping in cryogenic stasis for many decades. He was awakened into a ruined world where monstrous creatures – Blue – was devastating the world with billions dead. If you think this is familiar, this is exactly like Shirogane Takeru at the start of Muv-Luv Unlimited. And it was then that he met his “Meiya” – the headstrong soldier who learned humanity and compassion from him – Marlene Angel.
Marlene is a skilled soldier from Second Earth – essentially space ships stations that a small portion of humanity managed to escape to. Marlene was trained to be an emotionless killing machine ever since she was young, and that’s all she ever knew. She was sent to Earth to retrieve the people who went into stasis decades ago, and they weren’t supposed to be woken up. But Yuji did, so now Marlene and her team has to deal with Yuji’s emotional state as well as trying to get back to space. And along the way, Yuji’s humanity bled into Marlene, and vice versa where Marlene’s cold and logical thinking started taking roots in Yuji.
The plot and character development in Blue Gender is actually quite ingenious. It shows how people can affect others in both positive and negative way, but in the end, if you face your partner with a pure heart, your feelings will get through. The fact that Marlene and Yuji’s character slowly swap place throughout the series will make audience conflicted on who to support, further highlighting the grey areas of the series. Furthermore, the unconventional use of “sex” as “escapism” add to the distortion of the world view. This point is also reflected in Muv-Luv and is most likely a reference to none other than Starship Troopers.
+ Animation: The series was decent for the time, if not to say slightly below average. The mecha combat felt quite…monotonous and a bit more like sliding Powerpoints rather than smooth an agile mechas. I understand that the characters and plot were more prioritized in the series, but they could definitely improve on the animation. The Blue monsters however, was actually quite well done. They communicate the Blue’s terrifying nature and uncaring destructive instincts very well through their actions. The sound effect for this series is also extremely well done. And if you’ve already played the Muv-Luv Visual Novels, prepare your ears for some very PTSD-triggering sounds…
+ Mecha Design: Shigenori Kurii placed the foundation for TSF in the series. The Armor Shrikes are sleek, edgy ground-based mechs that have a lot of potential for great dynamic combat. However, they didn’t really do much with them. The Armor Shrikes looks very cool, and design wise it is very militaristic in terms of color-scheme, with no obvious “hero units” and most have a dark gray color-scheme for mass production. Although their designs are cool, the studio didn’t really put a lot of work into making their movements dynamic, since most of it are still frames with shotting effect or they are just sliding on the ground slowly which look a bit…lazy.
+ Mecha Design: Shigenori Kurii placed the foundation for TSF in the series. The Armor Shrikes are sleek, edgy ground-based mechs that have a lot of potential for great dynamic combat. However, they didn’t really do much with them. The Armor Shrikes looks very cool, and design wise it is very militaristic in terms of color-scheme, with no obvious “hero units” and most have a dark gray color-scheme for mass production. Although their designs are cool, the studio didn’t really put a lot of work into making their movements dynamic, since most of it are still frames with shotting effect or they are just sliding on the ground slowly which look a bit…lazy.
+ Music: One of the best aspect of the series. The opening “Tokihanate!” is an intense rock song with an extremely energetic chorus. The start of the song is a bit slow, but you can feel the energy building, and when the chorus hit with the “Set me free now!” line, you can feel the cathartic release of emotions that is exceptionally fitting for the show’s tone. Meanwhile, the ending “Ai no Tsumi” is a slow and brooding ballad sung by none other than Marlene’s voice actress – Houko Kuwashima – emphasizing the themes of loss and human’s fragility as a reflection of her own character. Absolute masterpieces at the start and end of each episode.
+ Conclusion: Blue Gender is a great series about human’s fight-or-flight instinct, and the meaning of existence as well as the circle of “life on Earth”. The Blue – just like many other human vs aliens’ series – represent an existential threat to not only the living environment and the physical wellbeing of humans, but also their psyche. We also see how someone could change and grow as a person even though they have been indoctrinated during a war. The series show that in the face of extinction, humanity can either choose to run away or fight to the death blindly, or they can choose another path that may bring about the final glimmer of hope.
+ Conclusion: Blue Gender is a great series about human’s fight-or-flight instinct, and the meaning of existence as well as the circle of “life on Earth”. The Blue – just like many other human vs aliens’ series – represent an existential threat to not only the living environment and the physical wellbeing of humans, but also their psyche. We also see how someone could change and grow as a person even though they have been indoctrinated during a war. The series show that in the face of extinction, humanity can either choose to run away or fight to the death blindly, or they can choose another path that may bring about the final glimmer of hope.
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