Anime Hajime Review: Blue Drop

Series Synopsis

Mari Wakatake (voiced by Akiko Yajima) is the lone survivor of a mysterious disaster that complete wiped out the small island she was from. Making matters difficult, she has no memories from before or of the event. Five years have passed and Mari is transferring into the prestigious girl’s school, Kaiho Academy; a transition she isn’t thrilled about and makes no effort hiding her distain.

Mari’s first interactions with her fellow students are strained, but there's one girl who seems to always strike a nerve; Hagino Senkoji (voiced by Miyuki Sawashiro).

Despite the two starting off on the wrong foot, Mari and Hagino cannot help but feel some kind of connection between them. Things then start to go from complicated to other worldly when Mari discovers Hagino isn’t quite who she claims.

It turns out that Hagino is the commander of the alien battleship Blue, and was part of a reconnaissance mission for an incoming invasion. Yet Hagino has seemingly turned against her comrades and is doing whatever she can to protect the Earth; a decision that was a direct result of the tragedy on Mari’s home island.

The two girls struggle to open up to their friends and each other, but that cannot deny their feelings
for one another are the strongest ones that can exist.

Series Positives

Not going to lie, there are problems. Although I didn’t fully hate it, Blue Drop is certainly frustrating and sloppy.

Though I stand by what I think is wrong with this series, admittedly some of the issues that arose where due to a big misconception on my part. I was under the impression that this was a prequel series; which maybe technically it is, but not to the degree I lead myself to believe.


The manga versions of Blue Drop take place after a war between humans and the invaders and are standalone stories with their own characters and time settings. This version is too, but takes place right before the war.

My mistake was thinking this show was directly tied to the events of the manga, much like Gai Rei Zero. If that were the case, Blue Drop would have been a completely pointless prequel since it does absolutely nothing to establish or provide insight into the original story; I say with no idea of what the original story actually is. However in Gai Rei, which I also never read, I could see what the anime was trying to accomplish. This was my biggest criticism, but now it wouldn’t be right to hold it against the show. There are still a lot of things wrong, like a lot more, but this is no longer one of them.

Plus there are things that are done well.

The Invasion

Mari

There are two major plot points of this series. The first is the relationship between Mari and Hagino, which is fine to a point, but I’ll save it for later. The other is the alien invasion. Whenever focuses was on this, whether it be the actual event, how Mari and Hagino are involved in it, or the tragedy that took place on Mari’s home island, the series was at its most interesting.

Hagino

This is the only thing in that seem to make sense and have some kind of purpose. It had mystery, conspiracy, trickery, deception, and pretty much everything that can get you invested. It also gives reason to many other plot devices. For instance, the relationship between the two leads was at its most genuine when it was directly connected with the fact that Hagino is an alien.

The ending is what benefited the most. For what it’s worth, the final episode was rather sad; not bawling your eyes or anything, but legitimately unfortunate. Disregarding the fact that it took a while to get there, stumbling and easily getting distracted by pseudo pretty imagery the whole way, it did ultimately get there.

Sadly, this wasn’t the cure all that it needed to be. Actually it shouldn’t have needed to be one in the first place. I say this because I’m not convinced Blue Drop knew what its priorities should have been.

Series Negatives

Blue Drop’s fatal flaw is that it wants to be a high school romance anime and treats the alien invasion as an addition. Do I have to explain why that’s a stupid f#$@ing idea?

One inherently has much larger importance, the fate of humanity, over the other. The entirety of the alien angle is merely sprinkled through the first maybe eight episodes and doesn’t have any real prominence until the end.

Watching Blue Drop means going from occasional moments of neat-o to long spells of not giving a s#$@. I never cared that Mari, Hagino, and the other characters spent time looking after a baby. I never cared about what would happen if a test was failed. I never care about one character’s estranged relationship with her father. And I certainly never cared about the success of some school festival play when literally the entire world was being engulfed in interstellar warfare.

This is why when I mistakenly believed that this series was a prequel, I thought it was pointless. It was either that or assume every boring ass event had some relevance to the original source material. And if that were the case, the original sounded dull as crap.

So while that wasn't what was going, it still didn't make up for it being here; that and one more thing.

Inconsistent

When I said that the relationship between Mari and Hagino was fine, I should have said that it ended up working out. It sure as hell didn’t start off that why; mostly because it never started.

The two leads suddenly have feelings for each at some point. There’s no event to trigger it, one doesn’t help the other out, and they don’t see eye to eye at the beginning…wait no scratch that, they actually hate and don’t trust each other, especially Mari, in the beginning. 

This is where the inconsistencies start. 

Mari and Hagino don't start off well and it’s clear to see why. However, Mari’s handling of it is bizarre. She's understandably and openly upset with Hagino. However, she treats it as if Hagino was the girl who said a few rude things to her and no one believes her side of the story. Instead of…you know, what really happened, “Hey this is the bitch that suddenly started strangling me for no god damn reason and I am not comfortable being around her”.

From there, the two become roommates, which Mari begrudgingly accepts for some reason. The two try to resolve what happened, but Mari is able to look into Hagino’s mind as well as see all the invisible alien technology that no one else can (except when its a reflection in water, that was stupid when that happened). The mind reading part really freaks Hagino out, but the fact that she was as surprised as she was doesn’t make sense. Hagino had acknowledge before this incident that Mari is special in some way. Is it really that big of a shock that she can do all these things that end serving no purpose to the story in any shape or form?

This pattern continues throughout the show, but the biggest one is when what happened to Mari's home island is revealed. I won’t give it away, but it was incredibly f@#$ed up and Hagino was supposedly the reason behind it. This causes Mari to go completely dead eyed; like she lost all ability to register anything around her. This reaction, again, makes sense, but in the very next episode it's played off as if Mari learned that Hagino was the perpetrator of a slightly mean spirited prank and the whole thing is resolved within half an episode.

Blue Drop wanted all this other bull crap to work and be meaningful, but it was so botched in its execution that prevented the good parts from standing out.

Final Thoughts

Blue Drop is a whimsical and wondrous look at the struggle of two girls destined to be apart despite their love for each other; or that’s what it thinks.

What this series is actually is an inconsistent cluster of events that do nothing but be a distraction to a story that might have been good. The focus is all over the place, but rarely in the right place. The relationship between the two leads would be passable if there was more effort in establishing it. The meaningless high school drama and friendships are completely over blown to the point that it overshadows what should actually be the main problem, a god damn alien invasion.

There are way too many misused opportunities making Blue Drop impossible to recommend.

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