"Blue Drop" (Anime)

[pkristen]

13 Episode TV Anime Series. Complete review on February 11, 2010.

Summary
The story starts at the point of teenage girl Mari Wakatake being forced from her secluded life with her grandmother to attend an exclusive all-girls school. Five years prior to that, Mari had been involved in a mysterious event that had caused the destruction of all of the inhabitants of her home island, including her parents. The moment also wiped away all of Mari’s memories. Of course, her past comes back in full force when she encounters beautiful girl Hagino Senkoji, who seems to know more about Mari’s missing memories than everyone realizes. Alien invasion, anyone?

Review
In the scale of the vast amount of yuri-related anime that I’ve seen, “BD” doesn’t really have the strength to stand out as anything noteworthy and memorable. In fact, it’s been a month since I watched the series and already I’ve forgotten a good portion of it. But in doing this review, it has some key elements that makes it worth knowing about if you consider yourself a yuri-fan.

Now, I’m not saying that it’s bad; it’s just not that distinctive for long-term recognition perspective. From a production and target audience perspective, it means well in terms of trying to be a true girls’ yuri science fiction anime. It’s very refreshing to watch a series that doesn’t rely on jiggling breasts and gratuitous violence to be its primary source of entertainment. And it has an episode devoted to babysitting and diaper-changing, which I’m pretty confident is not high on the list of subjects of interest to male fanboys.

If anything, I think it’s biggest flaw is typical of what I find for more serious and earnest material: the level of melodrama that tries to invoke some sort of emotional response that feels very trite and unnecessary after awhile. While it does dabble in the girl/girl romance arena, the biggest flaw that I find about it is that it doesn’t really deliver with anything really significant and satisfying that makes you feel like you were really glad you watched the whole 13 episodes.

Even though I own the box set, I’m not sure how often, if ever, I would get the urge to watch it again — at least not for a few more years and with a laptop handy for multi-tasking. I do consider it a worthwhile addition to my collection, but I am a completist after all.

Lesbian Analysis
Arume Race: The hostile, invading alien race of all females, who are on the verge of extinction because of it. And that’s why they’ve come to Earth as a solution to their crisis, since we seem to be genetically compatible. Yet, despite their extremely advanced technology, they somehow can’t overcome the importance of the Y-chromosome to perpetuate their species. (We need a reason for the invasion, after all.) But with this, they form female/female relationships that seem to be treated with a certain amount of acceptance and casualness.

Mari Wakatake: She’s the lead character in this series, so of course she’s listed in my analysis. And she definitely is female-focused, both on the mysterious Hagino Senkoji and a cute student crush on hot babe teacher Yuko Sugawara

Hagino Senkoji: Beautiful girl icon in the school who really is the Captain of the alien vessel. She’s from a race of all-females and she ends up being very considerate of Mari and her first officer. So yeah, I think she qualifies as lesbian.

Tsubael: Hagino’s second in command. Absolutely and completely has a crush on her captain. Oh yeah, and she’s Arume so that’s cool.

Azanael & Onomil Couple: This Arume pair is probably the most distinctive feature of the series from a plot perspective. Onomil was killed in the 5 year old incident, and her surviving partner Azanael blames Hagino for it and spends a good portion of the series seeking revenge. Not really a pair that you hold up for role-model purposes since one of them is dead by the team we are aware of them but the idea of a surviving spouse seeking vengeance works for me even though it does start to feel like a broken record after a while.

Yuko Sugawara: Babe teacher who is the object of Mari’s schoolgirl crush in a key episode. Personally, I got a big kick out of that and watched the episode a couple of times just for it. There’s nothing really significant that clues you into her actual orientation though it is noted that she is NOT interested in the male, single principal.

Akane Kawashima: Very butch upperclassman who becomes the token male crush object for a lot of the female student body. Unfortunately, we don’t really see anything that signifies what kind of person gets her attention instead.

Hagino’s Groupies: Trio of girls devoted to their beautiful classmate, and who view Mari as their arch enemy. Don’t think I need to say more on that.