Reviews for Blue Drop

The following review would never be written if it weren't for the ending...it was very touching...it brought the show to a whole different level...anyway... Blue Drop (BD) is a combination of slice of life school drama and sci-fi water action anime. In a nutshell, BD is not meant for those who only seeks action (slice of life HINT HINT). I would say about 70% of the show is slice of life-ish and 30% action. Story: The story itself is pretty easy to follow. Nothing too complicated, though I didn't expect the ending to be like that... It was a bit lacking at the end though due tothe lack of follow up to what happened at the end. Also, I just didn't quite like the Yuri stuff throughout the show (should be good news for all you Yuri lovers).

People should also appreciate the events leading up to the ending (mainly the preparation for the drama and how it never get to finish) as that's what really makes BD shine

Art:

One of the stronger points of the show. Some may argue the drawing of the characters are not very original (actually, a few faces does remind me of some characters from older anime), but when one consider the creative art of the spaceships, environment settings, etc, one should agree that solid efforts were applied to the show.

Sound:

The OP and ED are not particularly outstanding to me (in fact, it took me quite a while to "accept" them). But the occasional soundtracks fit the settings perfectly.

Character:

The strongest point of this show. There are tons of character development for the main characters (namely Mari-san and Hagino-sama!) and what they experience throughout the show is what truly makes it worth watching. A lot of the background story get uncovered as the main characters develop themselves. In particular, one will see a great deal of maturity in Mari-san at the end compare to how she started in the beginning.

Enjoyment + Overall:

There were some silly parts like

having BLUE (the ship) act like a whale jumping in and out of water

but all in all, the story has a satisfactory ending and most of all it wrap things up which is always welcoming. I was able to sit through the entire show in a day, so I don't think it is really that boring as some people has suggested. Again, I don't recommend this anime to those seeking for intense action as the show is rather calm until the end when all hell break lose.

Blue drop is hard to put into words. One moment you think you're watching a slice of life school drama, the next moment you feel like watching some sci-fi space/water action show. When these two things intermingle badly it feels like you're trying to watch two different shows at once. Story (Decent) Having said that though, you will notice it will lean towards one or the other toward the end. It's basically a story about a sole survivor of a tradgic incident who has no recollection of her past or the incident. When she joins an all girls school, she happens to discover things about herpast. ...And the wheel begins to start turning. The story starts out fine but then it starts to branch out to other stories involving other characters, and with the lack of episodes, it "sorta" gets a little overwhelming. But not to a point where you get lost completely, but to a point where you might have to pause and think about what happened before hand why certain decisions are made. Its not really a thinking mans anime but more of an attention to detail kind of anime. Either good or bad, is your decision I found it to be alright. But what helped me to watch this show was that it was an all-girls school.

Art (Poor)

The art style is kind of below average in my opinion. Although there is a large variation (but mostly cute) cast of girls. They're all drawn pretty weak. Almost reminds me of a late 1990's anime. Not much time is given to fully understand the technology and reasoning behind what is going on but for the most part makes the action scenes fairly decent albeit very short. If there was anything good out of the art department, that would have to be the paintings of the "spaceships" They're very detailed and show a large amount of time was taken to create them. Too bad they look like ridiculously inefficient machines. But one can't think too much on the Blue Drop universe, since a lot of details are left out. I will say one thing, for a slice of life school anime, the battles are pretty epic.

Sound (Fair)

The sound and music is average as well. Nothing spectacular. Aside from the girls talking and the orchestra pulling the strings to the viewers heart, nothing really stands out. Even the sound effects for the battles all sound like they came straight out of a final fantasy game. The electronic voices all voices sound perfect for this show, they didn't sound annoying like most war animes manage to do on a normal basis. The school girls voices all sound spot on as well, but they're typical. Just stereotypical voice casting but it was all done very well.

Characters (Mediocre)

The characters are neither memorable nor are they forgettable. With a drama, of course theres a love story involved, its incomplete. Well not incomplete but rather you wouldn't expect it to go the way it went. But when there was drama, it was pretty good and heart moving. But like i said, with so much going on in this show it kind of beats itself up on making this a well thought out show.

If this show as at least a whole season longer, or if they explained things better, or at the VERY least put more than two people to run such a gigantic warship maybe I could have grown to love it. I'll even admit I was almost moved to tears in this show, and almost enjoyed all the characters, if there was a little more polish to this show it would have gotten higher points. Unfortunately my score stands, this is one of the few shows I want to score higher but just can't.

Blue Drop ~Tenshi-tachi no Gikoyku~ (The Angels Play) is the adaption to the manga Blue Drop (which I haven't read). One of my friends sent me a link to it, and I decided to check it out which I'm grateful for. The greatest assets in this anime is the art. The art is superbly smooth and well done, details couldn't have been more and everything just looks so realistic. Already from the beginning you can see it, the beauty in the art. It is sparkling and dazzling and leaves a taste of wanting more. The storyline can be a bit hard to understand first, it's morelike a Slice of Life in the beginning. Introduction to the environment, all the characters and lots of new stuff appearing all the time. But despite that, it all goes in a very smooth and calm pace which leaves plenty of room for one to enjoy.

Characters are rich and engaging, they interact with each other a lot and are very detailed. Their personalities are flawless and make good spots for humor in their own way when making mistakes.

The OP and ED are both made by same artist, Suara and are very good. The OP leaves a trace of sadness and beauty, and the ED gives a calm feeling. But the rest of the soundtrack aren't that astounding but it fits well into the scenes.

In my own opinion, there ain't many drama animes that has this mix of emotions in it. Happiness that makes them laugh until the fall asleep, hate that constructs an aura around you strong enough for others to feel and sadness so deep that the body they live in feels like a vessel for hell. Emotions in this anime are really bunched up in a mix that makes you taste all the flavors one by one strongly.

For those who like Slice of Life's and drama, here is a perfect anime for you. I strongly recommend this, from the very bottom of my otakuheart.

This animé actually has few true "plot twists" that would surprise anyone who has seen more than a few animés. But mysteries aren't everything in storytelling, what distinguishes a good story is when you know what is coming but you're still biting your nails and hoping that it does, or doesn't, happen. And this is what this animé managed to do, at least to me. There are two parts to this animé as has been said, the high school/romance part and the sci-fi part. For those hoping for quick-ass action, avoid this title, battles are few and generally quickly over with, they often serve to increasethe tension on the characters and not to be the main events. A bonus point however for more realistic sci-fi in terms of equipments and weapons... given the more serious approach of the material, I was afraid when seeing some calling the animé as part of the "mecha" genre of seeing mecha as such as Gundam and the like.

As to the second part, this is what sucked me in. The characters may be based on typical character types found in animé, but they get a chance to be fleshed out well so that you find them sympathetic and grow to like them. At the end of the story, you're really rooting for the main characters and feeling for them. As some say, this animé is slow-paced, but this slow pace I believe allows characters to grow a bit beyond their mold and truly become alive, as relationships don't develop overnight nor do the developments seem forced. This is truly an animé more for the emotional side, at which it succeeds...

However on the rational side, it fails a bit. There's a lot of questions that go unanswered or sci-fi aspects that go only slightly explored. It's ultimately the sci-fi bit that gets a bit forced at times to make way for the relationships bit. And for those interested about the ramifications of an all-female species and concerned about a coherent fleshing out of it, you will be disappointed. Same thing with the intentions of the main vilain, whose actions often seem illogical. It seems the sci-fi context is almost only used as a reason to put the characters into relation and to justify the drama surrounding them, and for little else. The ending rubbed me in the wrong way too, it succeeds emotionally (again) but fails rationally (if it wasn't a spoiler-free zone, oh, the questions I would ask!).

In short, a very good tale for the shoujo-ai fans and for those looking for drama, but best avoided if your main interest is science-fiction and you don't care much for romance and relationships.

Blue Drop is one of those anime series that are good but could have used a bit more work to make them great. When it first aired, I was looking forward to this series since I'm a bit of a shoujo-ai-fan (as 80% of male anime fans) so I gave it a shot. Here are my thoughts after finishing it: Story The story is interesting and original, thus I gave it an 8. I would have graded it higher but there are some parts that for a shoujo-ai/sci-fi anime, it just don't add up. There were times when I would have wished a more sci-fi story thanthe slice-of-life they're showing. Basically half the anime is about the (almost) normal life of Mari and Hagino. The drama is there, of course, and I admit I didn't see the ending coming but most of the story I could read along. The original idea was good yet the content were a bit bland for me. Still, it gets an 8.

Art

Well, the art is Blue Drop's strong-point. I really like the way it's drawn though I can't say I like all of it, it's normal for every person to like/dislike some things. I gave it a straight 9 for the awesome design and concept of the alien ships, especially Blue, that looks like one kick-ass battleship from modern times with a bit of a whale DNA. Even the battle scenes between ships were impressive compared to other anime series I've seen.

I wished the character design would have been a bit more special since some of the characters really look like grabbed from the bookshelf and added another color of eyes and a lock of hair. The only character that looked out of the ordinary was the dorm leader.

Sound

Nothing much to say about this, as usual. The OP and ED are sung by Suara (lovely voice) and they fit the anime in my opinion. They're really worth listening to once in a while. As for the background music, it fit the scenes but it was pretty average. Nowadays the producers don't spend so much time creating quality, touching BGM. Anyway ...

Character

Apart from the art (mentioned earlier), I liked the characters. Sure, their personalities seem to mix here and there with other anime characters but I have no complaints, pretty well done. The one thing that annoyed me was that the whole action happened on Earth, yet we see only 3-4 males through the entire show. I know it's SHOUJO-ai but I would have liked to see a bit more male activity along the way, could have added some flavor to both the characters and the story.

Final Thoughts

Even though it wasn't the greatest shoujo-ai I've seen, I enjoyed it. I has it's good parts and it has it's bad parts but who am I to judge it. It's not a waste of time but don't expect anything too special. Off to fight some hot aliens ... IMMA CHARGIN MAH LAZERZ!

Final Overall Grade: 7.5, rounded up to 8.

A somewhat tragic love story addled by a the fact that the anime is a prequel to the manga series. But yet it's as if the creators of the anime decided to forego the conclusion that the Arume (a race of female aliens set on conquering earth to save their species) are perverse genocidal maniacs and the humans are their slaves and create a haunting little love story that takes place at the eve of the Arume invasion between a mysterious Arume starship Captain, Hagino, and Mari, a human girl whose early life was beset by tragedy. The entire show revolves around Hagino's attempts to be human,loving, forgive herself and ask for forgiveness while slowly becoming close to the withdrawn Mari. It manages slice of life elements while keeping a backdrop of surreal alien conflict--almost as if it's telling unrelatd, seperate stories, but slowly reconciling the two faces of Hagino into the troubled individual who stands before Mari.

The schoolgirl friend stock characters that serve to mix things up in the background seem to be a bit cliched as extras as are most of the alien characters, with the striking exception of Tsubael and Aznael (two young Arume women caught on different sides of Hagino because of mistakes made in the past) and serve as a very striking redemption to the Arume plot of the anime--which stands almost on equal footing of the schoolgirl love story, and perhaps the show demands criticism for not furthering these side arcs of these characters.

The weaknesses are that it is a short anime, and tries to do too much in a brief amount of time. Even if the romance aspect is a bit cliched, the characters seem and feel very real thus forgiving some of the more typical conventions. With that said, the anime rushes to fulfill its destiny as a prequel--something that is VERY discordant with its nature as a characer driven story and in the end comes off as a bit schizophrenic, trying to unite and wrap up three storylines Hagino and Mari, Tsubael/Hagino/Aznael, and the invasion of which only the first two are worthy.

After hearing that Blue Drop is a slice-of-life/ sci-fi action with some yuri, it is understandable to assume that it would be a big floundering mess. The whole idea of school life, spaceship battles, and girl-on-girl romance being mashed together in one show sounds ridiculous (yet we still see this kind of thing far too often as anime-fans)... and yes, Blue Drop flirts with disaster on a regular basis. However, it manages to juggle these elements surprisingly well to deliver a decent story with emotional punch. Mari Wakatake is a young amnesiac and sole survivor of a tragedy that left hundreds dead. She remembers nothing beforewaking up in the hospital and has lived with her wealthy grandmother ever since... that is until her grandmother sends her off to an all girls boarding school. Here Mari meets Hagino Senkouji, a girl highly admired by her fellow students, but also quite mysterious. As it turns out Hagino has some big secrets, as she has ties to Mari's past; plus, she may not even be of this world.

Blue Drop attempts to combine school-life drama with sci-fi action, and for the most part it does a decent job of this. Those looking for heavy action might be disappointed, as the primary focus is on is on the school-life aspect; but really, that is where the heart of the story lies. The drama works very well here, in no small part to the show's colorful and sympathetic cast; most important of which are Mari, Hagino, and their classmate, Michiko. On face value Mari is kind of a jerk, pushing away her classmates, but as the show continues and she begins to build relationships, it becomes clear she's actually a very caring person who acts abrasively because of the traumas in her life. Hagino's perfect girl exterior is actually a facade hiding a deep remorse over her past; Michiko is friendly and has a love for stories, but is very unsure of herself. It is very compelling and rewarding to watch these three distinct personalities grow; Mari and Hagino's friendship (later on romantic relationship), and Michiko's struggle to write the school play (which in of itself is an interesting story) are definitely the highlights of the show. Other notable characters are tough girl and wannabe cook Akane, dorm-manager Hiroko, and chemistry teacher Yuuko Sagawara; all of whom have there issues and turns in the spotlight.

With the school-life aspect being dominant, you would expect the sci-fi portion to be a huge mess that doesn't work. Surprisingly, it actually works quite well. Hagino's dual life, and her species purpose on Earth (the presence of heavily armed spaceships should be a dead giveaway...), fit nicely into the frame of the story. There is even a good amount of compelling drama regarding the show's sci-fi segment; the spaceship battles are exciting satisfying. There is a lot left for speculation and some gaping holes in logic, so the sci-fi aspects are far from perfect, but admirable considering its considerably limited time.

On the technical-side, Blue Drop works, but doesn't excel. The character designs are, for lack of a better word, 'normal'. They certainly are not hard on the eyes, but they aren't particularly striking, and honestly, the outfits for the (all women) alien race are pretty silly. The backgrounds are decent enough, but again mostly the interior of a school, the grounds around the school, occasionally a city or small town, without any particularly distinctive characteristics; so nothing eye-popping. More interesting are the interiors of the spaceships, which are quite striking and practical in design, which is nice and shows effort was put into their look. As would be expected from an anime from Gonzo, there is CG art used present, it is primarily used for the spaceships and done well there. However, it is also used for birds, or cars, for which the rendering could have been done better. The music is pretty standard, it can be effective and is used well, but ultimately not a memorable soundtrack.

The problem here is, because of uneven amount of time spent on each part, Blue Drop ends up falling short of being rewarding as a whole. Sure, the school-life drama is done very well, and the sci-fi is competent... but they just don't mesh well enough together to work cohesively as a whole. The fact of the matter is that the trials of school life are trivial when faced with an alien invasion, and the possible enslavement/genocide of the human race, and that is what takes up majority of the shows running time. It is hard to care about a school play, no matter how well written, when there is world-wide destruction taking place. On top of that, there is no clear resolution to the monumental events that take place late in the series; with only a very vague idea of what happened that just screams "Haha... read the manga", which makes sense because this is a precursor to the manga, but it ultimately feels like a slap to the face to the viewer.

Blue Drop is a show that ends up feeling like less than the sum of its parts. All the aspects of the show are good enough on their own, but fail to come together in a completely satisfying way. Perhaps if the show was given more than 12 episodes, they could have. That aside, it is recommendable for how well each individual part works. The drama is compelling, the characters are sympathetic, and the action is exciting. For those reasons, Blue Drop is certainly worth a watch.

Welcome to the third review of yuri anime month. Well, we've had two comedies so far. Let's move onto something more tragic. Adapted from the manga by Yoshitomi Akihito by Asahi production and Bestack, this is Blue Drop: Tenshi tachi no Gikyoku, which I will consistently refer to as Blue Drop for the sake of simplicity. One thing that makes Blue Drop interesting is that it's not directly adapted from any of the Blue Drop manga, it's a prequel to them with its own story and characters. Yoshitomi Akihito did co-write the screenplay though. Still, you have to wonder why they didn't do a directadaptation. Maybe they thought it was a good opportunity to expand on the manga or maybe they just didn't think that either of the manga stories that existed at the time would make a good anime (there are three now.) I'll try to find an interview or something to answer that during my time re-watching the series.*

We open with a girl named Mari being moved to a private school because her grandmother thinks it will benefit her to learn social skills. Like anyone needs those. Mari is upset because she's spent all her life that she can remember with just her, her grandmother and their servants but on the way to her school she sees a girl surrounded by birds, almost like a Disney princess. She soon finds out that the girl, Hagino, goes to the same school as her. They meet and things instantly get off to a bad start. Why? Because there's something strange about both of them and no, I'm not going to explain what exactly. While not a major spoiler it would be a minor one. There are actually two major focuses to Blue Drop's story. The first is the relationship between Hagino and Mari. The second is invading aliens. I promise, it makes sense in context. Let's start with my problems with the story... okay problem. There's really only one and that's that there's a bit of a plot contrivance, let's just call it the spectre. If you watch the anime you'll figure out why. Yeah, I have a few minor complaints like that the alien culture isn't really explored much or that the short sequences in the first and last episodes set in the future are out of place, but those are things that hardly merit mentioning because, honestly, they kind of work. That being said, there's a lot that Blue Drop does really well. Foreshadowing is used to great effect, the relationship between Mari and Hagino is really well developed with good tension that never feels forced. Then we have the ending. It's pretty masterfully done. The first time I saw this was with my anime club and we all cried at the end. I thought that it would be less tragic when I knew what was coming, but it doesn't lose it's impact. I'm not ashamed to admit that the ending moved me to tears... again. It has a largely tragic element, but there's also a sense of hope underlying the whole thing.

Let's move on to the characters. Mari and Hagino are both really interesting characters who have small aspects of over-used tropes, the tsundere and the tortured past, that are expanded upon and developed in a unique way. Another thing that makes the tropes work is that they're only a small part of their characters. Both of them have a lot of depth beyond the tropes. That's what makes them interesting characters instead of the same ones weve seen multiple times. One thing I really like is that Blue Drop's major supporting characters all get their own miniature story arcs. Azanael, Tsubael, Hiroko, Akane, Michiko and Sagawara sensei, they all get an arc. That could've easily led to a bunch of scenes that were out of place or pointless, but it doesn't. The writing is really spectacular. Every miniature arc is worked organically into the story and feels like an essential piece to it. Which naturally leads to a very intricate and character driven story.

The art is just magnificent. The alien tech is both otherworldly and awesome looking. The nature scenes are beautifully done. The characters, backgrounds and general settings all look really good. The way they use a bird to mimic actual human expressions, and yes there is a good reason for it, is brilliant. I do have one complaint about the art, though and that's that the aliens' military uniforms are ridiculous. They look like leotards with random holes poked in. Look, I hate to break it to you but that's not going to be helpful for combat. It is going to be detrimental.

The vocal cast does an excellent job in this. Particularly Sawashiro Miyuki. I'm used to her giving good performances, she's always good, but this is the best I've heard from her. The music is well done. I especially like the way that most of the music is really serene except towards the end when things start going down.

And the yuri factor... It's a little tougher in this one. Of course there's yuri, it is a yuri anime and the romance is central to the plot. That being said, a lot of it focuses on them learning to be friends and the romance doesn't become a major factor until the last four episodes or so. Still, the relationship between Mari and Hagino is very well done and it isn't the only yuri. There's also Azanael's relationship with Onomil and Hagino's fan girls. I'm going to say a 9/10 since it's there and it's canon, but it is a little down-played.

Now we move on to the final rating. You may have noticed that I did have some problems, but nothing big. As such my final rating is a 9/10. It's got a good mix of sweet moments and tragedy, both of which are well done. The story, characters, art and voice acting are all really good. Give it a try. Now, I know my last two reviews have been anime I've seen and knew I liked, which can't really be helped when you look at how much yuri I've seen but still, so next week I'll be looking at something new, for me anyway. So next week its Mnemosyne.

* I couldn't find any real answer. I looked, but there wasn't a whole lot of information about the production, not that I could find anyway.

Blue Drop is like A roller coaster that makes you puke the second you get on. But you also get to see a train wreck happening. This is just a complete piece of trash. The story is non nonsensical and the characters are boring and there actions make no sense. Their is some enjoyment in seeing how Ludicrous somethings are. But sadly its not enough to make up for how painful everything else is. The art and music is fine but there are plenty of shows with more appealing art. or music. its clear they just wanted to tell a story that be a descentprequel to a manga. But the fumbled the ball so badly that the ball exploded.

(updated 9/19/18 for format and slight content revision) Hi! Welcome to another Robert's Too Late Reviews! As always, reading the synopsis is assumed, and this review *MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS* so be careful if that matters to you. This review is for the dubbed version. I tend to rank most anime fairly high, but for once I discovered a show I didn't care too much for. Blue Drop is a odd mix of water/alien warfare, and stuttering, jerky yuri romance. Overall, it fails at doing either very well. Does it make the RTLR wall? Read on and I'll show you! (to quote the unmatched Sailor Moon) Story: 3 Thestory is an utter mess. A large part of the story revolves around aliens in submarines preparing to invade Earth. (and with poor British accents no less!) The aliens are not well defined, their purpose for their actions not really explained besides 'must conquer earth', and they are all female in silly fanservicey uniforms. The romantic side of the story is fairly slice of life-ish, but opens with a HUGE Chekhov's Gun. A Chekhov's Gun (the playwright, not the nucleer wessels guy) states that if we see a gun on a mantle in a play, it needs to be fired before the end of the third act. Everything extraneous is to be eliminated. Everything detail has to have a motivation. This applies in nearly all storytelling. SPOILERS BEGIN HERE: The main alien girl meets the main human girl. After a simple handshake, the alien girl flips out, her eye color changes, and she proceeds to attempt to choke the life out of the main human girl, while flashbacks from the primary alien plot flash across the screen. This makes for a very memorable meeting between the two, one trying to choke the other to death. In fact for several more episodes the main human is super angry at the main alien for what happened. The main alien seems to have no memory of the event. Never again does the alien's eye color change, nor does she commit any further violence again the main human girl. There's a throwaway line or two about 'contact telepathy' later on, but apparently this only works once, as the girls touch each other many times after, this is a shoujo ai-ish anime. So because we are never told why what happened happened, or why it never happened again, we have a Chekhov's Gun of major proportions. ENDS SPOILERS.

The rest of the story is the weird aliens preparing for an invasion of Earth via submarines apparently, and the slice of life shoujo ai is built around preparing for a school play with hints of 'mystery' thrown in that frankly makes one yawn. It really fell flat on both fronts.

Art: 4

Like the other anime I've watched, again we have simple lines, which screams lower quality to me, but I understand some prefer that look. The ships are odd, appear to be CGI, and mostly look like some kind of robotic scorpions. Not anywhere near good, but not so bad I was distracted by it.

Sound: 5

Oh the aliens' accents. They are just terrible. Also, the headmistress at the school tries WAY too hard to be the harsh older woman and comes across as nearly comical. Some of the girls are fairly decently cast, the tough girl sounds about right, the shy girl is good, the main human is angry enough to fit the story but because we have so many aliens, mediocre is the best I can give it. This is especially telling, as one of my favorite voice actresses ever, the incomparable Brittney Karbowski.

Character: 5

I have to say it; the Headmaster of the school looks like he should be in a '70's porno, not an anime. He is hilarious looking, but really kind of a non factor. Some of the best parts of the story come from the side adventures of the supporting cast. The shy girl tends to fall in love with *anyone* at the drop of a hat, the big girl isn't ashamed to be herself no matter her weight, and the tough girl harbors an embarrassing (at least to her) secret. To watch them overcome problems they thought were insurmountable and succeed through them anyway was much more interesting than the battles of the scorpion subs and their 'jilted lover's revenge' thread. The villain for most of the story doesn't seem to have any real motivation, and when she reveals why things happened the way they did, it's utterly disappointing. A conspiracy is involved, and if it was real, it would be too dumb for even Alex Jones.

As the main alien's relationship with the main human grows into something positive, we find that the alien girl is much more interested in being a human high school girl than some alien warship commander. Sure the power of love and all that, but it still seems unlikely. There are some small moments of tenderness and sweetness, but they are offset by tons on nonsensical actions by everyone from secret agent teachers to alien second-in-commands.

Enjoyment: 5

I stuck with it, hoping that either the alien battles would take the focus or the romance would truly blossom but in the end neither of them did. There were a handful of spots I found myself leaning forward thinking they might just be onto something only to have those moments end and the show return to its inane mix. I wanted to like it. I just couldn't.

In closing, there are much better anime out there that are not bizarrely disjointed and lost in their own identity. I suggest you search them out. Blue Drop fails as a battle anime, a slice of life anime, even as a yuri-ish anime. To no one's surprise, this was one of the few anime not to make an appearance on the RTLR wall. Take a pass.

Blue Drop is another in the Girls Love genre that I was really rooting for, despite the low MAL score, in the same way that I was cheering for Destiny of the Shrine Maiden, for very similar reasons. I was coming into this with such an open mind, but man, I really wasn't into this one. Story & Characters: Blue Drop starts out with us seeing our main character, Mari Wakatake, who has been enrolled in Kaihou Academy by her grandmother. Why her grandmother? Because Mari lost her parents, along with everyone else who lived on the island she was from, five yearsprior to this series starting. The kicker is that this caused amnesia in Mari, so she can't remember any of it. Skip forward to the present where she meets multiple students in the dorm, including Hagino Senkouji. Due to Hagino's popularity and standing in the academy, it's suggested to Mari that she get to know her. This, before Hagino decides to try and... choke Mari? To make matters weirder, when Mari steps outside, she sees a rising spaceship in front of Hagino.

The story, unfortunately, takes a long time to get going and that's really the ultimate downfall of Blue Drop. It doesn't ever feel like we have any amount of foreshadowing into what the end goal of this series is, and that makes this series' direction completely absent. I'd argue that while you're in a school setting, you don't "really" need that end goal in mind, but with this series quickly introducing sci-fi aspects into the story, you kind of wonder what the point of it all is. There are a fair amount of conversations taking place both back on this ship, or with its crew, but it almost feels like there's no way for us to know what the point of it all is. There's nothing to really get excited about, outside of the fact that romantic aspects are getting introduced once the plot moves along.

It's pretty evident early on that Hagino isn't particularly normal. She's very clearly related to this ship in some fashion, and unfortunately, the dialogue that surrounds her makes very little sense until they feed you the information later on. That makes her very hard to like as a character... because you just don't know what's there. There's no ramp up for us to see this character shine. Mari makes almost less sense to me as a character than Hagino. She has some pretty stark attitude issues, some of which are understandable, that make it seem like she's pretty hard to get along with. That's fine for a character, but after a certain point, she's completely warmed up to her colleagues. The journey to see her character from the beginning to end doesn't feel smooth, and her character just changes, seemingly overnight. That being said, the moments between our two characters near the end were really sweet, and if only the character development made sense and was allowed to blossom, I feel like you'd fix a lot of the issues that I have with this story's main cast.

Tsubael is one that Hagino knows very early on, and she's sweet for the most part, but doesn't really add much to the story itself. Azanael is from the same place that Hagino comes from, but I actually didn't mind her as a character. She has some pretty hard resentment for Harino, which gets explained later in great detail, and that easily makes me feel for her. Even when she acts rashly, you can kind of see why, and her character develops even further in the last half of the series. She was an excellent side character. Yuuko is one of the teachers at the academy, and she clearly has a purpose to the story, but like Tsubael, I just found her to be kind of useless. Hiroko, Akane and Michiko make up the biggest names in the dorm that we see in our story, and they're fine for being general schoolgirls that our main cast hangs around. Michiko was probably the best of the bunch, trying hard to get some form of reputation while working her absolute hardest.

Most of the series took place in and around the school or dorm, and that's probably where this series most comfortable. What little drama occurs during the series was decently placed, even if the storyline itself didn't seem like much. I wasn't terribly pulled into all of it because the series basically only focused on one class, but it was all believable enough to call this series a school-based series anyway. The back and forth between the students does tend to get old pretty quick because there's so much bickering. Even if you consider this typical for an all-girls school, it hardly makes for an enjoyable viewing experience.

The sci-fi aspects drag this series down quite a bit because it feels like it was almost added as an afterthought. It doesn't feel like a well thought out story because it's not fleshed out and there's nothing terribly interesting happening with it until the last couple of episodes. This is something that Destiny of the Shrine Maiden also struggled with, and is why that series resembled Blue Drop the most - outside of the fact that they were both Girls Love series with Sci-Fi aspects. When you finally have a realization of the purpose that these Sci-Fi aspects have, the series just kind of ends. Sure, the last two episodes were probably the best in the series, but there's no real resolution. Not only that, but after a key event happens, the series basically rolls to the credits with a 30-year time skip clip that lasts a depressing minute or so. It all leaves for a pretty disappointing end to a series that had some potential. (Story: 4/10, Characters: 5/10)

Art: This series is very old, so you have to keep your expectations a little reasonable. However, the series generally looked fine. One thing that current series struggles at time is keeping characters looking of decent proportions, even in the distance shots, and I wouldn't say this series struggled with that much. That being said, there was some pretty heavy and misplaced-looking CG used for the ships and some of the associated textures, and it just didn't look good at all. (6/10)

Sound: The OST was pretty lacking in most parts of the series, but I'm not really a hard stickler for anime OSTs anyway. Same goes for the OP and ED, which were just kind of there. VO work was really rough here, even for the time in which it was recorded. Look, Hilary Haag (Mari) is a very big name, still thriving to this day, but I wouldn't say this was her best work. It feels like she overshoots Mari's "rough" attitude some times and it doesn't feel like the greatest fit. But what makes this series somewhat annoying to listen to is the choice to employ random country accents to our characters. All of Brittney Karbowski (Tsubael), Monica Rial (Hagino) and Shannon Emerick (Hiroko) had them here. This was very likely a choice by either the script writer (Clint Bickham) or ADR Director (Matt Greenfield) and I'm not entirely sure of the inspiration for that. Rial's in particular kept coming and going, for whatever reason. Shannon Emerick was actually really solid in this series, as was Luci Christian (Yuuko) and John Swasey (Fukamachi). (6/10)

Overall: Blue Drop is a really difficult title to recommend because it really doesn't have many places that it shines. The story doesn't have enough of a direction, our main couple are okay at best and the random accents popping in and out are fairly annoying. I gave a pass to Destiny of the Shrine Maiden because all of the non Sci-Fi aspects were really well done, but I unfortunately can't say the same thing for Blue Drop. (5/10)

I admit right now that I came into this anime expecting something quite different than what it was. The summary seemed like it would make for great tragedy at the end, and while it did, I still felt like it was sorely lacking. The whole ending of the show seemed like it downplayed the relationship built between the two main characters, something that felt like a cop-out to me since the relationship really did grow in a very believable way. Story: 8 From an unbiased perspective, this story really was more than decent. There were a lot of things going for it, disregarding my feelings on theending. I thought that they accomplished something difficult, balancing tension, impending doom, and tragedy with some levity and a love dynamic. That is something I feel a lot of shows try to do and fail at. For the length of the show, it did a good job with plot.

Art: 8

At first glance, you might think this anime is older than it is. However, despite the relative antiquity of the art, it managed to be very beautiful in it's own way. I thought that the battleships looked very alien in a good way and all of the scenery was well done too. The art fit the tone of the anime quite well.

Sound: 6

The reason I give this a six is because generally nothing stood out to me. The soundtrack was so much white noise, dramatic at the right parts, nonexistent in others. The ED was a little too upbeat for the feel of the anime, I think, but it wasn't glaringly bad. The OP, however, was really wonderful and suited the anime perfectly. As for the voice acting, I wasn't impressed, but I wasn't disgusted either. Every character had her moment, I guess, but there was once again nothing that stood out more than being just okay.

Character: 7

This is, again, one of those things that was really quite good until the ending. While character designs were very run of the mill, I thought that the character development far exceeded the design. The growth of relationships was believable, especially between Mari and Hagino. Most of the motivations also got eventually explained which is more than most anime can boast, and unlike most shojou-ai, not everyone was motivated by love of the cute little moe girl (thankfully there was none). However, as I stated before, the yuri relationship between Hagino and Mari came- in my opinion- to practically no end. Thus, the seven.

Overall:

I would have enjoyed this anime a lot more had it actually acted like the shojou-ai it claimed to be. I left it feeling unsatisfied and cheated which I don't like in my anime. I prefer to leave an anime feeling sad and depressed and wanting to write fanfiction. However, if you are not looking to watch something specifically shojou-ai, this is probably the thing for you, as the rest of the story is interesting and preludes the manga well.

Good idea in theory, the anime switches between slice of life with cute girls going to an all girls high school and bonding (one is a spunky and yelly girl, while the other is a cool and refined beauty) to drama about their past and an alien army invasion plot that ramps up in the last few episodes. I did enjoy the english dub with Hilary Haag and Monica Rial as the two main girls. The reason why this is hard to recommend... its specifically cause of the ending, it ends so abruptly and doesn't give too much closure, like they needed one more episodeor something, so I googled if there was an OVA or something and it turns out this is just a prequel to two manga that is set like 1000 years before those take place.

I think its cool that its original content though instead of just adapting the manga, may read it someday even though it wont really give me closure for the story this anime tells.

Note: This review is filled with spoilers, to explain how bad the anime is. Blue Drop is a lesbian show where one of the main girls killed the whole family of the other, and the first interaction they have in series, but not chronologically, is the former strangling the latter, and not because of a kink. This would be more than enough for me to say that this anime is not worth watching but there sure is a lot more to criticize it for. The series is about an amnesiac girl who goes to a prestigious girls only high school and ends up sharing roomwith another girl who strangles her at first contact, and is found out to be an alien from an all-female race that wants to investigate Earth for plot reasons. It immediately tells you that the main character has no backdrop, or that it remains a mystery throughout most of the show, and based on the very typical setup and setting, you just know these girls will end up as the main couple of the show.

Even though it combines slice of life and sci-fi action like Figure 17, the last show I covered before this one, Blue Drop really doesn’t focus on any of them, or at least, not in a way that feels well written, it’s even hard to tell what part is prioritized in it, because, really, it’s none. Scenes transition from the school to a space ship (as in, a spaceship that’s underwater, it´s a spaceship, but it’s a space ship), without a solid reason, they don’t do much in it during the initial episodes.

Eventually it turns out that this spaceship is a traitor, or suspected to be a traitor, again, for no clear reason, yet. It’s not a complicated show in the least, but since stuff just happens for the sake of happening, it’s hard to even tell why or how something just kind of happens. Heck, it’s even hard to say that stuff just happens, things are shown on screen but nothing is progressing any of the two main genres of the series.

When the girls are in school, they just goof around, when the space ship is shown, the dialogues are something like this: “Commander, I kept investigating, we need you here to do that thing”, “Understood, I will keep investigating here, so keep waiting for me there, I will go soon to do that thing”. The show desperately tries to build a mystery but there´s no mystery because nothing is happening.

So, inevitably, the focus ends up shifting to the school setting. Normally this would be to flesh out the cast and build character dynamics, but here the two main characters just flicker and makes fun of the other. The show dedicates screen time to other girls they interact with, but it feels like it’s just there for the sake of being there, it doesn’t really show much of the girls in question besides one or two things about them, and since those characters are ultimately irrelevant to the plot or the characterization of the main characters, it is just a waste of time.

The plot points never connect with each other, each one of them is there just to take screen time from the other. The school life portion just have the girls doing typical stuff, with more drama than deserved and needed, is just there to fill episodes, and eventually it doesn´t even gets a closure. When the stage play that they built for half the show is about to happen, a space invasion kicks in and the play is cancelled and you never get to see it in the show.

The sci-fi portion of it has the actual protagonist being attacked by her alien race, seemingly for being suspected of being a traitor, and she and her friend keeps taking down everyone that goes after them, even when there are more than one. How can a single ship take down a whole fleet, and later on a whole army? Well, you better believe it because it happens.

And it doesn’t stop there. Everything regarding this part of the show is horribly written and it doesn’t even connect with the main story. Unfortunately, to explain this, we have to step into spoiler territory.

-The protagonist is suspected of being a traitor because of an accident, which turns out to be something made deliberately by her superiors just to see what effect would have on their race. Imagine killing lots of your own species just for that, and without any anticipation, it is just revealed when the show is close to being over.

-The all-female alien race can create more of their own, but still came to Earth just to investigate about men. Nonsensical writing, they essentially are here just because it’s the setting that the writer wanted them to be. You never even get to see them around men at any point because there are barely any in this show.

-There is a teacher who is actually a secret agent spying on the amnesiac main character, she is found out by the latter for speaking about it out loud, on phone, in the school. Aside from the dumb writing, the show tries to build drama around them with this but this is the only episode that dedicates them some shared screen time and dynamic, their relationship goes back to normal by the end of it and their interactions are as brief and hollow as they were before.

-Characters suspect that the main girl has some kind of psychic powers, it is never explained properly and it ends up not playing a single part in the plot.

-The protagonist captures an enemy and lets her roam around her ship however she feels like it, never suspecting that she might be an infiltrator. Guess what happens.

-Knowing that her prisoner of war resents both her and the main girl, she still takes the latter to her ship, gets the two of them to know each other, and even sends them together to the same room inside the ship. Guess what happens.

-The spaceship has some level of conscience, yet never tells them what this infiltrator is doing.

-At one point the plot or characters progress because of the spirit of a dead character briefly appearing to tell the protagonist to let go, that it wasn’t her fault.

-Fights keep happening between the aliens but no one notices them, not even the spy teacher reports them. This spaceships even fly through the city at some point and people act as if they were planes. And yet, by the last episode, lots of human armies appear out of thin air to fight against them, only to, obviously, get stomped with ease.

-The outcome somehow leads into the very first scene of the show in the future, but it happens out of screen and after a huge time skip, it feels that it came out of nowhere and that it shouldn’t unfold the way it does.

-The protagonist never explains to the main character that she never actually intentionally killed her family nor destroyed the island she used to live in, all she does is apologizing while crying.

-What is the response of the other girl? A slap, but not for what she thinks she did, the expected confession, and a kiss, with even a shared line of dialogue in unison. Aside from being corny as hell, we the audience at that point know that the other girl wasn’t really responsible for that, but since she doesn’t explain it to the main girl, the latter is still from this point on, and for a very short time, going out with the person that, as far as she knows, killed her whole family and destroyed every place she used to know about.

-The protagonist never explained nor even apologized to the main character for strangling her in their first interaction, yet they are girlfriends by the last episodes.

-Her underling, that wanted her Commander to go back to the spaceship the whole time, decides that her being part of the stage play for the school is more important than preventing the invasion on Earth.

SPOILERS END HERE

And these are just the instances of horrible writing I remember off my memory at the moment of writing this, imagine how many more I could write about if I were to do a quick rewatch of sorts.

As for the characters, as you can tell by me never naming them, these are the things that I remember about them as well, characters, besides their roles as plot devices in the show:

-The main character, she is amnesiac, the plot somehow seemingly revolves around her, but she takes no part in it. At least she is willing to throw some punches when she needs to, I’ll give her that.

-The actual protagonist, she is unexpectedly a prankster.

-The infiltrator, she is resentful for having lost her ex-girlfriend, ends up becoming an ally once she finds out the truth.

-The teacher, she sucks at both of her jobs and ends up having no part in the plot nor any meaningful dynamic with any other character.

-Tall fat girl, her older sister has two babies.

-Cool girl, is the daughter of the school principal.

-Glasses girl, always liked fairy tales when she was a child, after a lot of drama she ends up writing the stage play that is never shown.

-The antagonists, they exist, they are cannon fodder and their reasoning is completely forced by the script with no explanation or logic whatsoever.

I can’t even say that the visuals are good even with three main studios working on this show. I’m sure they were innovating by 2007 standards, but by now they come off as, at best, painfully average and dated. The character designs are simple, generic and forgettable, the artwork is very inconsistent, the motions aren’t very good, the special effects and the backgrounds are not bad actually, but both are filled with very dated and crappy CGI made by Gonzo, a trademark of the studio for a while.

So in the end, Blue Drops ends up being a sci-fi show about an alien invasion that doesn’t go anywhere for most of its screen time, and with a single ship defeating a whole army, with absolutely no reasoning nor logic to unfold the way it does, and with one of the most illogical writing I have ever seen. It is also an empty slice of life series with no fleshed out, memorable nor likeable characters whatsoever, and it never manages to connect its parts together. It is also another nonsensical and quite toxic anime about lesbians, and even a visually very dated show.

But I still have two positive things to say about it. One is that it has a good sound department, very impactful and very well mixed sound effects both during battles and during slice of life moments, and also, very good soundtrack, even a very good opening, which sounds almost elegiac, too bad it ended up in this anime, and a very good ending, although not as good as the opening. Check out the full versions of both, because they are even better. The voice acting is not the typical voice acting I expected, but it is still not that special and not on par with the rest.

The other is having a very important death in it, which remains permanent, the character that dies isn’t magically brought back to life.

And even these two things are still only semi positives, since the volume in this anime randomly goes up and down for no reason, and that ends up being a bit annoying, and a character staying dead should be the norm anyways, and even then it’s weird because you wouldn’t expect this character to die throughout the whole show, it kind of happens to end in a dramatic way, in an attempt to finish with a somewhat bittersweet ending, and as far as I’m concerned it failed because I never cared for the character, and the scene afterwards has a comedic tone to it, ruining its impact.

It is far from the worst anime I watched in my life, and is not the worst nor most toxic, nor my most hated Shoujo Ai anime I watched, since I consumed both Kannazuki no Miko and NTR: Netsuzou TRap, but it is still a very terrible anime and one of the worst written anime I have watched in my life. Aside from listening to the very good soundtrack, I think that the best thing that can be done with this anime, is to stay the fuck away from it.

Hmmmm... To simply put it, they fail to end the series properly. The plot is basically like alien scout for invasion make contact with esper girl and become human's ally. The story goes on and end with a cliche plot where the scout alien ended up protecting the human and died on the final suicide attack. Since the main plot is broad where the alien invade earth so the scale of the story are huge so it's unable to fit within 13 episode so you can only see like the prologue for the series. Frankly the reason why I start to watch this series is for the GirlsLove tag, but ended up with disappointment. There is not that much of flirting going on, it feels like more than a friend less than a lover kind of thing. Also it end with the tragic love, where the other partner died while the other one continue living while remembering her dead partner. It's not a complete ship.