Blue Gender

Wow, never before have I seen an anime series self-destruct so utterly and completely than Blue Gender, but it wasn't a quick fall, no Gender extends its suicide into a maddening dozen or so episodes. This wouldn't have bothered me in the least but Blue Gender showed some real promise(hence why I stuck around, holding out hope till the end, but alas). The sci-fi action series takes place in the post-apocalyptic future, were the human race has been devastated by a new species of called the blue (the look similar to the bugs of Starship Troopers) whose natural instinct seems to be the extinction of the human race. Has a result the last silvers of humanity live in a space station in Earth's orbit, but conduct military operations on the planets surface in order to obtain humans still in cryogenic sleep or "sleepers", whose role are essential to the human's survival. The first half of the show follows a small group of soldiers, lead by a hardened, icy woman called Marlene. They are charged with bringing a sleeper named Yugi back to the space station, which is a bit tough, seeing as they are cut off from their comrades in a land crawling with blue. While the first several episodes are a little iffy(Yugi starts off as a whiny little bitch, you just wish they would duct tape his mouth shut at some points) but out of nowhere the show really starts clicking, Yugi ends up being rather likable and Marlene goes through a nicely paced charter metamorphosis. The action scenes with the blue are messy and frenetic, the sci-fi storyline is gritter and more realistic than most sci-fi mecha series, which is a refreshing change of pace, a romantic chemistry builds between are leads and the show becomes pretty compelling in general. Oh, if only they just ended it at the halfway point...Once the mission is complete and the protagonist go to the space station, everything and I mean everything goes to hell. For and foremost, with utter disregard for being true to character ,Yugi' does a complete, 180 degree turn and for the rest of the series is a completely unlikeable,self absorbed, hair-pullingly obnoxious waste of screen time. Every other character except Marlene at this point (who is actually probably the reason I watched till the end.) are devoid of any remotely likable(or human) qualities. Unsurprisingly, the writing and plot departments take a free fall into the crapper. This slow, agonizing torture goes on for many episodes before the incredibly(but at this point I just wanted it to end) piss poor excuse for a climax/resolution that spares no expense with the dime store new age philosophizing. I will say that at least the ending, though cookie-cutter d was a happy one, and leaves the protagonists in a good place. Blue Gender was a horrible disappointment, to this day I'm still wondering what the hell happened, but at least the first half was great.

Grade:C (on the virtue of the first half)

Reviewed:episodes 1-26(complete) Format: English Dub, DVD