Blue Gender | Retcon_404 (Anime Retrospective)

hey there I hope you like vaguely phallic bugs because today we're talking about a turn of the century anime that really loves three things guns guts and boobies hot damn well that's everything I like if that's what came to your mind when I said those three things while strapping because today we're talking about blue gender a show that carries on the legacy of ryosuke takahashi's previous Mecca outings gossaraki and bottoms while I have talked about bottoms on the channel and I personally really like it I did find that there were a few problems that I had with the pacing and just the general way the story was presented so I'm pretty excited to see how blue gender fares on that front if it can fix some of the issues that Bottom's original series was plagued with or if it ends up with these same pitfalls oh and I unfortunately have not seen gasa Rocky yet so I guess we'll have to go back and get to that one eventually blue gender is a Sci-Fi Mecha anime release back in 1999 by Studio AIC the show received generally favorable reviews in Japan and is notable for having to be so heavily censored for its 2003 Western Toonami run that they literally just said [ __ ] it and gave up eventually putting it on the late night Adult Swim time block instead and even then the show had to be censored for its copious amounts of violence nudity and profanity Western fans eventually did get the uncut version released on the FUNimation Channel and eventually the Sci-Fi channel of all places from about you blue gender from FUNimation Productions look for it on VHS and DVD now I mean this kind of makes the show sound more shocking than it really is but there's a lot of violence and the flagrant attitude towards sex is used as part of the World building but it we're not really talking about porn or anything here if anything this show kind of feels like something your older cousin would have a random tape of when you were a kid and you would like watch it in their basement that kind of smells like a combination of laundry detergent and weed blue gender follows Yuji kaido a young man in 2007 who is seemingly pretty normal he has friends a job goes to school until one day when he learns that he's infected with a terminal genetic mutation known only as B cells Yuji is put into an experimental program where he will be cryogenically frozen while scientists study the strange new phenomenon he along with the other sleepers hoped to be awoken one day when there's a cure however what Yuji does eventually awake to one day is a nightmare world full of giant bugs personality altering Mech suits and humans that are cold uncaring and unable to make connections let's take a look at the Bleak future of blue gender yuji's Story begins with shock and awe alarms Blair and his Consciousness slowly comes into Focus but instead of doctors announcing a cure to his terminal illness Yuji is birthed like a wretched animal into a world of horror he's wheeled down a hallway by soldiers Dawning armor that makes them appear like the Visage of death itself white skulls with black sunken eyes yuji's pod is smashed open when a huge bug-like creature attacks the military escort and to accentuate just how horrible the world truly is the bug doesn't just kill people it crushes them up into a human meatball [Music] that's a spicy meatball this is a site that literally causes Yuji to piss his pants and cower and fear until he's saved by the intervention of a 12 foot tall suit of armor being utterly terrified Yuji runs off deeper into the facility only to find the rest of the cryogenic pods have been broken open and are covered in blood and a disgusting green mucus Yuji starts to freak out and have a mental breakdown which is understandable when he sees that the center of the room is home to a literal salad of human parts smooshed into a green ball this might be the first ever anime slime girl though much less sexy than the ones we have in the 2020s upon further research there is a slime girl from like 1967 in the mighty Adam manga there are some really great shots of the city and we see that sometime after Yuji was frozen some major [ __ ] must have gone down because huge bug hives pepper most of of the buildings and human cabbages litter the streets some giant bugs flit around the city and I think that most people would be quick to notice that their mouths and faces definitely resemble genitals sexual themes and imagery are pretty heavy-handed in blue gender and while it's obtuse enough to not have to censor it yeah the design is definitely meant to put you on edge and start asking what's going on Yuji shocks himself right into a flashback of his old life where he promised his friend Takashi that they would go chase girls after he was unfrozen instead of three girls alone in a room with him it's three giant beetles Yuji tries to defend himself but it's pretty useless and luckily he's saved once again by a soldier in a Mech this time however there is no place for Yuji to retreat and he has to watch as the soldier who's revealed to be a woman named Marlene Angel blows the attacking bugs to pieces Marlene tells Yuji that he will follow her orders or he will die and leaves no room for interpretation on that front they exit the facility and are immediately ambushed by more bugs luckily two more Mech Pilots named Keith and Joey are close by and come to their aid the soldiers plant a bunch of explosives around the facility and flee in an armored truck Yuji asks what's going on and Marlene tells him that the current year is 2031 and the last members of humanity are fighting a very deadly enemy giant murderous bugs called the blue that seemingly exists only to destroy everything the human race has ever built and have driven what remains of humanity aboard a giant space station known as second Earth Yuji and the other sleepers from before the collapse are considered an incredibly invaluable commodity for reasons that Marlene doesn't explain and Yuji is being taken with them to Second Earth as a first episode this was really effective at Sun putting up both the mystery surrounding the world and the threat that the blue posed to the protagonists the pacing is pretty tight with the flashbacks to yuji's past providing a shocking contrast to the current day and it doesn't stuff all of the action and horror imagery at the end which I appreciated and knowing that the creator of bottoms created this it's real easy to draw similarities between that series ATS and blue gender's armor strikes they're about the same size move around like they're skating and focus mainly on practical ballistic Weaponry I do enjoy the visual style of the ATS and bottoms more in general but hey the armor strikes have some really great designs as well especially some of the models that come into play later in the series so now Yuji is kind of just along for the ride on this military Convoy while getting to know the soldiers like Keith and Joey blue gender is not afraid of putting its adult themes front and center so while we got plenty of Islands in episode 1 now we get to the sex part of that equation Keith goes and uh grabs another soldier's chesticles and she hasn't mind but she also doesn't seem totally into it and it doesn't take that long to realize that the show is using the character's attitude and approach towards sex as a proxy to show just how far the human race has fallen and what a dire State we're truly in this becomes a lot more apparent later on but humanity is pretty much screwed in blue gender and we've kind of boiled down to just our base needs and urges these characters don't have sex with partners because they're in love or they feel the need to procreate they truly are just humping like rabbits because it feels good and it's something to look forward to in a nightmare world full of giant homicidal ants the Convoy fights its way across the barren landscape showing the audience that small arms fire is is all but useless against the blue even when fighting the creatures in an armor strike the soldiers have to strike a blues core to kill it efficiently or risk wasting way too much ammo at first the cores are large pulsating blowhole type orifices that are easily taken out but as the blue continue to evolve we see more and more variety of the giant bugs with armored cores this keeps the human characters constantly on their toes with new types of enemies popping up every time they get into a new situation while the strikes are cool and Powerful the viciousness of the blue cement the show's tone as threatening and hostile the team arrives at an airstrip built on a base out in the ocean a good stronghold against the blue that are unable to attack from the sea unfortunately the base begins to break apart as the blue show up anyway and Yuji sees a bunch of sleeper pods fall off of an Airborne transport and into the ocean the team is able to escape but just barely and Marlene points out that the blue figured out there was an underwater tunnel leading to the base and that seems like something you should have probably closed off huh I think this set piece really does a lot to show you the type of violence that this show is going for it's right up in your face like I said earlier blue gender has dingy basement Vibes I mean look at this girl snapped the [ __ ] out of her neck they try to contact headquarters but have no luck and ultimately decide to procure a ship and meet up with another team located in Korea they have almost no time to rest as a flying blue attacks the truck and Yuji takes it upon himself to grab a gun and fight only to completely freeze up and get in the way luckily the blue is dispatched via wall smearing but it makes Yuji realize that he's pretty much completely useless and without people like Marlene and Keith he would be dead meat this leads him to ask to be trained to use weapons which Marlene is incredibly hesitant to do while Keith remarks that it might be a good idea considering their numbers are thinning good place to talk about how Marlene starts off pretty cold and while Yuji is immediately drawn to her as she's an attractive woman that did save his life she sees him as nothing more than a subject to deliver back to Second Earth Marlene is a dedicated Soldier and someone who has known nothing but a life of fighting so her attitude is understandable especially when she has to put up with Yuji who's kind of a dumbass at the end of the day Marlene does decide to teach Yuji how to fight and at least operate an armor strike good enough to move it around he does get a little distracted by feeling her boobs on his back while they train you know but I guess I'll have to cut him some slack because the dude has not busted a nut in 22 years the soldiers aren't all cold don't talk to me types though as Yuji actually ends up bonding with Joey over their shared knowledge of an old world song the group is lucky enough to find a seaworthy boat that they can take to Korea and after dealing with some blue and piloting an armor strike for the first time Yuji is on the next step of his journey and this is where he goes from constantly bemoaning his lot in life to deciding that he does want to live as he goes in bonds with Joey some more while fixing up the strike Joey death flag is officially planted once their boat trip is over the team finds that the other sleeper retrieval unit has been completely wiped out and now the team has to contact HQ on their own or risk being abandoned on Earth while driving through the city Yuji sees a site that he really wasn't ready for a young girl and her dog now this is a pretty big deal to him because up until now the only people Yuji has seen are either these cold skull-faced killing machines or rolled up into meat Mochi while he expects the Convoy to stop and let the girl climb aboard Marlene basically tells him to shut up and keeps driving Yuji can't do that so he jumps out of the moving vehicle to chase the girl gunning down a blue with his pistol in the process while the child and her dog run off into the city this is where we learn that these soldiers of second Earth do not care about the civilians still living on the planet not only do they not care about the civilians their orders actually say that anyone still living on Earth is to be considered already dead so they don't even factor in collateral damage when it comes to planning operations if survivors or their camps are in the way they're just as likely to be gunned down as the blue which explains why the survivors aren't really happy to see them when they stumble upon their camp and I mean stumble literally because Yuji trips right over a dead body laying in the street yeah this should set the standard for how terrible life is for the survivors on Earth the people on Earth are basically reduced to husks that just Mill about waiting to die and Yuji despite being told that the resources on second Earth are so limited that these people aren't even considered people to them thinks he can contact HQ and that they'll send a rescue party Yuji is sort of Dumb and that's a part of his character that carries on throughout the entire show I mean it's not like he was a soldier or scientist before he was frozen the guy worked at a car wash luckily there is a radio tower nearby that Marlene and the others plan on using to contact HQ the only downside being that the entire thing has become one big blue Hive they come across a bunch of blue eggs inside that really reminds me of alien they observe one hatch and much to everyone's shock it has a shield growing over its core and seeing how hard a time they have with the regular blue this is pretty bad news speeding to the top of the tower Yuji realizes that Marlene isn't calling HQ for a rescue party and gets really upset this is where yuji's major character trait of having a really thick skull comes in hard and fast as it was just explained to him that they definitely weren't doing that instead they're told to go to baikonur in Kazakhstan where a shuttle home will be awaiting them we also learned that Marlene's team's call sign is Lucifer's Hammer which is ultimately inconsequential But Metal as hell the team's downtime is over as a blue bursts through the wall and almost kills Joey they book it out of the Tower and flee in the truck but are forced to abandon it and head back towards the Survivor camp in their strikes blasting through a group of blue they nearly make it back before Marlene's Mech is thrown into a pile of girders and she's injured they face the armored blue with Marlene shooting it in the eye before passing out Joey dies in the battle but Yuji is still determined to protect the survivors so he and a wounded Marlene Retreat across the makeshift bridge and then blow it up Yuji and Marlene meet back up with Robert the team's commanding officer who hasn't really done much but have an injured leg up until now with only the three of them left they decide to use the Survivor Camp as a choke point to take out the blue but without any strikes and only a moped and Small Arms the Outlook is pretty bleak If This Were a more mainstream anime then I would be guessing that somehow yuji's Action Hero moment where he tears around on a motorcycle would at least allow him to save Jung and her dog but this is blue gender the defense fails and the barricades are easily overrun and Yuji sees Jung die right before his eyes as she's trampled to death by a Giant Beetle this part is pretty shocking and sad and something that stays with ugn changes his character for the rest of the series but it's also sort of hilarious the timing and sound effect of that stomp are like a YouTube edit a wounded Robert reveals that he's armed a bunch of explosives throughout the camp and he detonates them taking out the rampaging blue horde this leaves a depressed Yuji and a stoic Marlene to head to baikonur on foot alone which you know it's not that far you just gotta walk through all of China Yuji is really depressed and won't even talk to Marlene they cuddle for warmth in a cave one night and Yuji has a nightmare where Marlene's tits turn into um giant monster mouths and then he becomes green goo but I mean who hasn't had that dream before he wakes up after hearing a blue off in the distance and exits the cave with a gun but there are no giant bugs to be found even more peculiar peculiarly even more peculiarly oh my God I can't it even weirder is the fact that the next day Yuji is in much higher Spirits he's even the one outpacing Marlene as they hike even saving her when she almost falls off a ridge it's here then Marlene tells Yuji that when the blue invaded only 100 million of the best and brightest humans were evacuated to Second Earth she was only 10 years old but for reasons unbeknownst to her she was taken to the station and raised as a shrike pilot Yuji reassures her that he's going to get them to Second Earth alive and he's decided to live and find his place in the new world and then the two share an awkward kiss as Marlene says someone from her past told her it meant good luck yuji's sudden shift in mood is pretty abrupt here and he would expect that nightmare to have had the opposite effect but I do have a theory on why it's presented this way but I don't want to get ahead of myself the two spend a couple episodes walking through the desert where they meet a really cool dude named dice who lives in a dirty shed and helps them fight a giant worm there's a part where Marlene drinks from a pool of stagnant water which is gross to say the least dice helps them get across the desert after they kill a blue that looks like a giant worm but Yuji is pretty clumsy and falls right off the side of the Jeep during a sandstorm luckily he's saved by a young woman who reveals that there are groups of traveling Nomads living in this part of northern China that are relatively safe from the blue Yuji defends the nomad camp from some Mech riding Bandits and the young Nomad woman Elena asks him not to leave for a bit Yuji does consider just staying with this group as it wouldn't be a terrible life at least until Marlene and dice show up with Marlene saying that she'll take him by force if she has to Marlene doesn't have the heart to also shoot Alana who gets between the two Yuji even gets permission from the nomad's leader to stay but when they're moving on and he observes blue attacking Dice and Marlene from afar he decides to commit to making it to Second Earth Yuji saves the two from a huge snake-like blue and dice successfully gets them to bikaner's outskirts and fortunately for him he gets to exit the series Without a terrible death which is more than he could say for most characters that we meet the baikonur base's security droids recognize Marlene and Yuji as a threat and attack but the two are saved by a soldier named Scott Manning Scott tells him that he's part of the 18th sleeper recovery Squad and the rest of his team is planning an operation to infiltrate the base they also meet a guy named Sheamus Han who is really attached to a sleeper that's still in her pod his obsession over her kinda gets to Yuji and he starts to wonder what will happen to him and Marlene once they get to second Earth the next day they undertake the operation to reprogram the base's main computer Yuji goes with Bravo Team inside the base while the others fend off the blue outside they overcome some security drones and Han successfully hacks the Mainframe so that the Bots are now on their side Han is a huge creep though so and we learned that he actually plans to steal the shuttle and supplies along with the sleeper that he's obsessed with and flee not wanting her to be a guinea pig on second Earth he doesn't get very far with his plan as a strange type of blue is feeding on the base's reactor causing the power in the shuttle catapult to go out not only does the blue suck up the base's power it also attaches itself directly to Han's face when he goes Bonkers and tries to bludgeon it this causes the others to just open fire on it and by extension Han's head two birds with one stone I guess Yuji is determined to save Marlene even without a strike in fact he's so fired up that he just punches the commander out when he's told that it's a death wish he takes the security drones realizing that they can be controlled remotely through voice command Marlene has been on the front outside fighting the entire time and at this point it seems as though All Is Lost and she begins prepping her shrike to blow up Yuji arrives just in the nick of time with a fleet of security Bots that can elect the blue and it's actually really effective against them in fact it makes me wonder why the soldiers of second Earth haven't tried more energy weapons like that the two are reunited and finally make it aboard the shuttle ug patches Marlene's wounds and for the first time she'd actually sort of smiles before they can celebrate finally making it to the safety of space a blue attached to the corpse of a soldier burst through the door and stabs Yuji in the chest Marlene shoots it and Yuji passes out as the station of second Earth finally comes into view this moment marks the end of the first half of blue gender and honestly I do think that these 12 episodes do a lot to keep a tense mood and atmosphere the violence was grounded and while the sexual promiscuity was present it never really felt like it was meant to shock you and feels more like it's included to provide context to the mental state of the characters on top of that I really like the art of part 1 as the Landscapes provide a horrible picture of Destruction and isolation sure the animation can be pretty stiff once you get into the Middle episodes but that's pretty usual when it comes to 90s anime and blue gen under has a pretty easy time stringing me along on Vibes alone now that we're getting into space things do kind of take a turn for the worse in my opinion much like Bottoms having a lot of pacing issues near the middle blue gender spends the majority of its second Arc aboard second Earth this introduces new characters factions political Ambitions and a very very different setting keep in mind pretty much every character from the beginning stint of blue gender has been killed off except for Yuji and Marlene so the audience is completely drowned in like 20 new characters with names that are barely mentioned and positions that are nebulous what I'm saying is that the change in Pace tone and setting is a hard pill to swallow halfway through the series while Yuji is rushed into surgery Marlene is taken in front of second Earth's High Council for the most stressful work performance review of all time the council are not at all stoked that Yuji was awoken prematurely and has experienced combat apparently sleepers are supposed to be woken in a controlled environment and yuji's Adventures on Earth put their whole experiment that has yet to be fully revealed at risk they even blame the loss of the entire platoon on Marlene being too ambitious and taking command over Robert Marlene is ordered to undergo re-education training and we see that her time and relationship with Yuji has changed how she performs in battle specifically she refuses to fire through a crowd of Earthling survivors to kill a blue and stops to save another soldier who had fallen on the battlefield both of these are seen as big no-nos especially to her trainer a woman named amik hendar who can best be described as a hardcore [ __ ] while training Marlene sneaks into the medical station and finds Yuji being observed by members of the council and the next time she tries to find him he's gone missing even after being caught by amick and is subjected to even more harsh training Marlene just cannot get Yuji out of her mind and decides that she needs to find and be with him she even tries to look up Yuji in the station's computer system and it just returns a very rude access impossible message then she somehow accesses the security cameras and finds where they're transporting Yuji but she really has some G savior level hacking skills Marlene makes her way to the science division knocking out guards and stealing a shuttle and really just going full Sam Fisher on everyone she even steals a uniform and hacks a computer terminal right in front of vomic and another council member named Doug okay I guess that's more agent 66 than Sam Fisher finally Marlene makes it to the head of the science division a man named Seno Miyagi she takes him hostage with a taser and sees yuji's detailed genetic information displayed on the computer Marlene finds out where Yuji is being held and when a bunch of soldiers Break in with amik she shoots the computer with a taser and that causes the lights to go out for some reason this distraction allows Marlene to shoot her way to yuji's room and I assume she's like using rubber bullets or stun rounds here because if not Marlene is killing a lot of people in this episode finally face to face with Yuji who's in a weird pod Marlene just can't get through the final door too bad defeated by a simple walk amick punches her in the stomach but then the door opens on its own and she stumbles inside Marlene desperately calls out yuji's name as she finds him undergoing intense VR training and when he opens his eyes there's something different about his stare something cold Marlene still tries to get to Yuji bursting through some glass and arriving on his platform which happens to conveniently be an elevator that brings them to a conference room where the High Council accuses Marlene of treason Marlene tries to convince them that she has a right to know what's happening to Yuji because she's his friend and chairman Victor says he'll tell her if she agrees to stop fighting them they're both told that the B cells inside of the sleepers are the key to wiping out the blue currently they're working on a new model of armor strike that will link directly with the sleeper's nervous system to help them be a better Soldier on top of b-cell activation also making sleepers stronger than normal humans along with having more strength and endurance Yuji actually seems kind of excited about being able to take Earth back and just as Marlene is about to be dealt with senomiyagi speaks up he proposes that they let Marlene join the sleeper Brigade along with Yuji as their peculiar Bond may help awaken yuji's B cells they're taken to the brigade's training facility in Pilot a tandem Mech actually losing their first match against another sleeper named Tony they also meet a young woman named Alicia who was just recently woken up from her pod along with some of the non-sleeper soldiers that make up the Brigade support unit and let me tell you something about Alicia she's probably the biggest dumbass on this entire space station despite being a sleeper she is way behind both Yuji and Tony and piloting ability and for some reason she keeps saying she wants to go shopping at her favorite mall on Earth even though she's she's been told everything down there has been destroyed she's also used for an obligatory shower scene and she really wants to jump yuji's bones even leading him away to a I kid you not hidden [ __ ] tunnel to get some alone time with him meanwhile Marlene goes to work out some frustration in the gym and then some dude hits on her and takes her to a sex lounge of some sort Marlene tries to enjoy herself but finds it uncomfortable because she can't get Yuji out of her mind yeah so this show feels like it wants to be really subversive when it comes to sex but it really sort of never goes anywhere with it I kept thinking at some point the flagrant attitude towards banging in a rusty hallway would wrap back around into the story in a stronger fashion but it really does just end up being for World building and for shock factor I guess I find it a little disappointing and a lost opportunity because I was hoping that the reasoning behind all of the sexual content was a little bit less juvenile but here we are Marlene ends up following Tony while looking for Yuji and Alicia and she oversees him looking up info about the other two sleepers in the computer so Something Fishy is going on with that dude trying to access us the confidential information causes the alarms to go off and Yuji and Marlene run into each other while fleeing and watch the sunrise and this moment sort of solidifies their partnership even further the day of the first operation comes as the sleeper Brigade heads down to Tanzania on Earth and take out a huge blue Hive the operation doesn't start out particularly well as the Blue Tear through the non-sleeper strikes at a record Pace they do have some of the new models but the hangar door is blocked because the pilot was drunk and it takes them a while to blow the doors off for what it's worth the double edge is a really cool Mech with a bunch of bug-killing weapons like blades I think that this is actually my favorite Shrek design in the show which is good because it is pretty much here to stay until the end Tony goes off by himself because he's a super badass guy that literally doesn't follow orders even one time though I suppose his confidence is kind of earned because he's the most effective and deadly in the entire just disregard his psycho expression when he blows up the blue Hive seeing how effective Tony is causes Yuji to want to push himself to do better ever since he's arrived on second Earth Yuji has undergone quite a character change focusing heavily on training to become a better blue killing machine while he still has a relationship with Marlene he becomes more and more distant as time goes on spending his free time tuning the double edge or running training programs just to really Hammer home how much Yuji and Marlene have changed since the opening episodes they run across a group of kids in the forest and this time it's Marlene who wants to help them Yuji is the one to tell her that they're endangering the mission it's at this point that things are getting kind of weird within the political structure of second Earth director Miyagi personally comes to the sleeper brigades HQ to look over their combat data and Marlene surmises that something seems off along with noticing that people have been watching her from a distance or the fact that security cameras always seem to pan her way she starts to wonder what Miyagi is truly after she grabs this guy named Rick who's been trying to bang her for like two full arcs and just when he thinks he's finally about to score she just takes him to Yuji shrike and ejects the data disc telling Rick to take it to director Miyagi since she's being watched while it seems that this data is incredibly important because when Miyagi watches it the computer freaks out and forgets English saying that there is a misui meant impossibility it seems that the data Miyagi has been getting from The High Council about the sleeper's performance has been altered and they're performing much better than expected but with a huge surge in b-cell activity this is all the excuse that Miyagi needs to initiate his true plan a coup to take control of second Earth from the High Castle he has Marlene brought to him to explain that he heads a faction called The Ark and now they have proof that the council has been lying to them about the sleeper's performance but also like a bunch of other [ __ ] like the high Council said sleepers B cells allow them to heal faster and have higher strength than reaction speed than normal humans they also allow sleepers to sense blue telepathically which makes that moment where Yuji heard the blue Roar in the cave makes sense he was telepathically receiving communication as his B cells awakened the reason for this is because the blue and B cells are basically one same after Yuji was put to sleep scientists started experimenting with B cells by injecting them into lab animals and oopsie they all eventually evolved into giant murderous bugs the really bad part is that B cells will eventually take over a sleeper's body turning them into a new breed of killer blue that will turn on their own kind this explains why Yuji has been acting so aggressive and on top of that the new double-edged shrike has been specifically designed to amplify B cells so the more Yuji and the others fight in the new models the closer they get to going psycho Miyagi being the director of the medical division says he can help return Yuji to normal however in return he asks Marlene to join Arc and help overthrow the council before she can answer an alarm goes off signaling the start of the second combat drop for the sleeper Brigade Miyagi agrees to help Marlene make it down to the Earth to recover Yuji but only if she lends her skills to the coup so she leads a group of soldiers to take over the hanger and shuttle Dock of the military station meanwhile on Earth the sleeper Brigade is headed to New York City the location of the largest blue nest in North America Yuji is paired with Alicia since Marlene is missing and Yuji barely even notices she's not there quite the difference from his days of following her around like a lost puppy as far as Alicia goes she continues to have that Airhead quality from before and the horrifying situation that she's in never really seems to get in her head she's also just sort of useless constantly whining and almost dying from the blue honestly I'm surprised she's a sleeper I would say that blue gender is using her to fulfill the useless chick stereotype but this show actually goes out of its way to portray women as just as badass as the male soldiers so I think that's just Alicia being annoying the coup aboard second Earth is mostly successful with the High Council having to flee aboard a shuttle to the medical station and barricade themselves there amik is shot in the shoulder by Marlene and that that guy named [ __ ] Doug is cotton locked up Miyagi is actually kind of a stand-up guy and holds up his end of the bargain even allowing Marlene to take some Arc troops down to earth with her Marlene finds Yuji pretty quickly and thinks he's in trouble being attacked by two blue but he puts them down quite easily with his blades she tries to warn him that piloting the double edge any further will result in his B cells taking over but he goes totally Bonkers and attacks her and if you thought Yuji was struggling with keeping his sanity well Tony has gone completely batshit and is cuddling the corpses of dead blue and then leads Alicia away from Yuji to be with him sleepers are starting to freak me out man while ground command of the sleeper Brigade is shocked to see that Tony has made it into the hive way ahead of schedule they severely underestimated the sheer amount of bugs at this Hive the Brigade is being totally overrun and trying to fall back eventually even the command vessels destroyed with Miyagi watching from second Earth to confirm the operation is a failure fortunately Yuji and some of the other sleepers are still alive and want to finish the mission though they're all separated I do really love the look of yuji's helmet after he gets the double edge the design of it Harkens back to bottoms and it sometimes does really feel like he just brought that series into the 90s Marlene tries one last effort to get through to Yuji jumping directly onto his shrike he blows her helmet off and has a flashback to the first time that they met this softens Yuji a bit and they both exit their damage strikes Marlene tries desperately to comfort him saying he can go back to the way he used to be but he talks about the things that he's lost and the people that have died going so far to shoot at Marlene when she tries to approach while I do think that this show is sort of schlocky at certain points there is a lot of real directorial skill on display and this scene is a really great example of how tense Takahashi can make a scene finally Marlene kisses Yuji making him remember who he is and the two watches the shuttle full of surviving sleeper Brigade soldiers leaves without them luckily and I mean really luckily Marlene finds a pristine shuttle all fueled up and ready to go in New York Miyagi is kind of bummed out to hear that Yuji Marlene aren't among the survivors and even more bummed when a second shuttle carrying Tony and Alicia shows up Miyagi does not trust Tony because why would you he's psychotic and he doesn't let him dock which leads Tony to the medical station where he unleashes a shuttle full of blue upon the surviving hand Council faction Tony takes control of the medical station and threatens to Ram it into the military complex and he even goes on a big bad rant about how the blue were born to exterminate humanity and are the Apex of evolution Ark soldiers board the medical station and there's even a small space battle which I didn't expect but every Mech show will squeeze that in there somewhere I guess Yuji and Marlene finally show up and Miyagi tells them that they have to go kill Tony Yuji is pretty conflicted about this because Tony has kind of been his rival throughout the entire past Arc I don't know I'm not personally sold on yuji's thoughts here I guess killing a brother in arms is hard even if he's a nut job they search through the medical station and they find no one left alive although they do find cabbage Victor hey remember Rick the guy who's been trying to bang Marlene for 15 episodes he's here and part of the art crew sent to kill Tony the group eventually have to barricade themselves in this room away from the blue and find Alicia who's completely mind controlled by Tony Yuji tries to convince her that the sleepers are still human but she doesn't listen and tries to shoot him Marlene wants to kill her but Yuji doesn't want to and you think this would be some big moral dilemma until Rick just pulls out a gun in Blaster okay I kind of like Rick so Rick takes the wounded Alicia to try and Escape while Marlene and Yuji finally deal with Tony who's strapped into a big computer in the control room Tony sees himself as the Messiah of the earth and he believes that the Earth itself has a grand will basically B cells evolved on Earth naturally as a way to curb human expansion it's that old humans are the real cancer on the earth Trope taken in a very literal way Yuji tries to convince him to give up but when it doesn't work he does a super anime protagonist jump and shoots Tony in the head it's actually sort of abrupt before dying though Tony initiates the med station Ram plan but Miyagi sends shuttles packed to the gills with explosives and blows up the entire medical station as Yuji and Marlene leave now you'd think this is where the series would just sort of end because we're only a few episodes from the end and definitely not solving the blue problem in that amount of time but nope we have a very short final Arc involving Yuji returning to Earth with Marlene to find the truth about the blue they go to an area in Northern South America where a mass blue migration has been spotted there are people living in the area in a small village that seemed totally unaffected by the blue in fact there are no blue anywhere in the hive that they came to check out is completely empty and sealed up they follow a trail in the woods made during the migration and find their way into a deep cave complex inside are massive piles of dead blue and Marlene thinks that if the Earth truly is a living organism and created the blue to destroy Humanity perhaps now it sees the blue as the threat since they completely overran the planet if that's true then that means the Earth has planetary AIDS just saying Yuji senses a strong presence that leads them to a weird pillar of light that a giant blue was birthed from this one has no core and that seems like a problem until Yuji just kills it by shooting his gun into its open mouth now Yuji wants to go inside the pillar of light telling Marlene to wait for him at the Village she reveals that she is pregnant with their child and tells him that he has to come back so Yuji enters the light and it turns out that the theory Miyagi and the others had was completely correct the Earth itself is a living organism that created the B cells to quell Humanity as it had spread too far and too fast now however Yuji is able to commune with it and convince it to give Humanity a second chance as long as they keep their population to a minimum Yuji returns to Marlene in the morning and all's right with the Earth well at least this one the second Earth explodes from some Civil War aboard the station so sucks to be them I guess blue gender is kind of a strange piece of media on one hand it brings that dark bottoms Vibe and grounded Mech combat forward into the 90s and has some of the best 2 am Vibes available on the other hand it it kind of has Takahashi pacing problems out the Wazoo and its plot is more interested in its political dealings than the overall mystery of the blue and honestly I I'm just not sure I'm really interested in the political dealings and structures of second Earth especially when it's all introduced halfway through the series this leaves the show to really Rush the explanation of the blue to the last few episodes which is a shame because that mystery was just a huge draw in the initial arc on top of that I don't really like Yuji as a character his change from the Everyman to a hyper lethal Soldier is done gradually in the beginning before he's just super good at piloting the double edge I actually kind of appreciated it when the show switched to having Marlene be the main character halfway through as her Arc is actually more compelling and in my opinion better Wharton as her Arc is actually more compelling and in my opinion better written there's also the issue of how many characters are introduced and then killed off it's honestly an act of futility to learn most of their names because they won't be around long I do still think that blue gender is worth a watch Like I said before ryosuke Takahashi is a very talented director and even when I think that this show lacks in the animation Department there are some shots and compositions in the show that are just downright beautiful while I was unimpressed with the whole will of the earth reveal because it's just something I've seen before I can definitely see why someone would like that ending and the philosophical implications that it has not to mention it's kind of fun to think about what life must be after the series closes I mean you gotta live on earth knowing that the planet is a genocidal [ __ ] oh yeah and don't bother watching this show just for the mech fights and animation because it's really not anything too mind-blowing it's fun to see them shred giant bugs but beyond the first and last episodes where the budget is usually concentrated the animation is pretty bog standard with all that being said I guess I have to watch gasaraki to finish this loose Trilogy so I'll get on that eventually look if you enjoy Starship Troopers and bottoms and you don't really care about the story meaning anything revolutionary blue gender is a pretty good time the art is on point it has edgy 90s violence and shove sex in your face just for funsies and the score fluctuates between really good and creepy and what is this if that sounds like the 26 episode Adventure for you that's pretty easy to find copies of blue gender on Amazon in fact as of now it's available digitally on Prime so have at it as for me I'm gonna move on to something a little more fun and light next time see you then good morning everyone welcome to today's end card I apologize if you can hear things outside because my windows open cause uh this is the first time in a long time it has been 100 degrees in the Northeast so you know how that is anyway uh thank you very much to my channel members AKA betosai Brian Sanchez D mels Daniel Johnson danky stank Swanky mank debtor V Gert Joe Castellanos Joe Cavazos John lamb Johnny G Canto 20 McLean Nugent Mr smash Trey Hardy video gamer 75 and Zappa slave I'm getting really good at doing all that in one breath um thank you guys for watching I really enjoyed blue gender uh quite a bit I think I came off more negative in the video than I really was um but yeah that's my thoughts I need to really look into gasaraki I ended up really liking uh ryosuke Takahashi uh since watching a bunch of Autumns and [ __ ] like that so you have to watch his other works here uh coming up I've been doing a lot of work behind the scenes to try and get back to like at least two videos a month um and I think a lot of that is just down to my the way I write scripts and how I need to get better at writing them and knowing what not to put in there what to put in there so that's just a work in progress and I'm still working on it so if you start seeing videos that are like half an hour instead of 45 to an hour then I think that that's trending in the right direction anyway let me know your thoughts below thank you guys very much again and we will see you all very soon

Channel: Retcon_404

Views: 73,027

Keywords: blue Gender, mecha, mech gender, blue gender 2023, blue gender review, gender review, blue gender retrospective, anime retrospective, anime review

Id: NIwakCXgkIA

Length: 46min 38sec (2798 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 13 2023