OK, first Hagino chokes Mari, and then she moves in with her, and then next time she’s touched by Mari she writhes in (ecstatic) pain, and then the two of them see who stay up the longest. Then Hagino goes away for some time and Mari misses her terribly.
Wow, girl love is beautiful. Even the lovers’ quarrel looks so cute…Ooh.
Whatever the voodoo Hagino does, she leaves a deep impression in Mari’s mind. Hence when she’s away. we keep on seeing the shot of her space next to Mari being empty.
Hagino finally decides to obey the order to mobilizes blue, much to the delight of her first officer. Also, Hagino goes back to the ship and back to her post as captain.
It’s interesting that their planet has no men, and yet they still dress in a psudo-one piece swim suit like uniform. Must be because they want to attract each other by showing off their legs. It looks like they’re shaved.
We learn that the captain of the flagship of the fleet wants to investigate about the incident on that island, which looks like it’s caused by the battleship Blue. We also learn that the more masculine first officer on the flagship (of course I’m stereotyping!) was in love with the formal first officer(?) of Blue. We also learn that it seems like during a jump, the first officer of Blue died. I wonder if this has something to do with the burning of the island where Mari lived.
In any case, Hagino’s beginning to have feelings for Mari as well, and she’s in denial. Mari just doesn’t realize her feelings for Hagino and Hagino is denying her feelings…Ooh, how cute.
Other stuff happen and we get to learn how much of a rich, spoiled girl Mari is. She can’t even cook spaghetti. We at the States say that you just can’t do spaghetti wrong. But, she does.
The classroom teacher gets into the Bijisan’s (dean’s) car, and girls are screaming jealousy.
I felt the emotional responses from the women (are there real men in this anime) are genuine and believable. Each woman has her own distinguish personality and no bimbos live here. The music is nice as usual and the animation hasn’t degraded at all. The plot certainly thickens as the captain of the flagship will be instigate the tragedy that happened 5 years ago when Blue was at the island.
My only question is: did a man or a woman draw this manga? I can see women liking Escaflowne because the mecha can be passed off as knights, but space battleships? That’s a big element of space opera, and last I checked, women don’t usually care for giant space battle cruisers with its crew dressed in one-piece swimsuits. But my recommendation is
84% recommended for your daily anime diet. Yuri is so beautiful…And every episode has a flower name…Poetic. I hope Hagino and Mari will confess to each other and go to the secret garden where they make sweet love…Ahem.
It seems you’re a little cofused here, in that you think this anime is an adaptation of a manga, which is not. Nevertheless, there is a Blue Drop manga… well, in fact, there are two Blue Drop manga series:
The original manga, called “BLUE DROP”, is just one volume (5 chapters), which was published on 2005. It’s mostly about a half-alien/half-human girl named Yui, who is part of the resistance against the aliens. This story is set after the war (which was won by the aliens).
The second manga series, called “BLUE DROP ~Tenshi no Bokura~”, is currently being serialized. It primarly focuses on a guy named Shouta and his relationship with a guy-who-became-a-girl (ala kashimashi) named Chin (formerly Kenzou). This manga is definitely more explicit than the original one, and there’s also some Yaoi in it, and quite explicit too.
The new anime “BLUE DROP ~Tenshitachi no Gikyoku~” is not an adaptation of any of those two manga series; it is a prequel. Both manga are set AFTER the war, whereas the anime is set BEFORE.
ehhhhh? Wow, I read on hashihime that this anime was adopted from manga. Thanks for your contribution, Kazu-kun. So, if this anime sells well, there might be a possibility that they’ll do more of it…Well…
Nice piece, but it does contain a few misunderstandings. Hagino’s writhing was not in the least ecstatic, merely painful. Or maybe that was just poetic licence on your part, lol?
I think that the first officer (?) was killed by the locals and then the ship’s people murdered all the locals, but we’ll see — probably in the next episode.
The Arima (the aliens) are all female, but I believe they do reproduce together — they at least have sex — so it’s reasonable that they should dress provocatively. It actually looks to me as if sex and romance may be part of what holds a ship’s crew together. But the manga and the anime are both made by men. At least the story is by men (the director and the mangaka), and the anime script is by a woman. I think this show is following the new trend of trying to appeal somewhat to both genders. The mangas are published in shounen magazines, however (Champion Red).
And I guess my piece on this show wasn’t clear enough, because rayyhum777 got the wrong impression from it. What Kazu-kun says is exactly right: the anime is not based on any manga, but is a new story from the same fictional world as the mangas.
This show is by far the best new fall anime, for me. Real characters. Real feelings. Complex relationships. Fascinating animation, character design, backgrounds, music, and mecha design. Not that there aren’t other good shows this fall: Sketchbook, KimiKiss, ef, Minami-ke, Kaiji, et al.
Hashihime – sorry I must have misread your article.
Well, I was being my usual sarcastic self about Hagino writhing in “ecstasy”. Yeah, she looks hurt.
Ah, it’s done by men. That makes sense now. Yep, recent anime are trying to appeal to both sexes. Although, because of the lack of bishonen in this show (only a bijisan available for these who like older guys), there isn’t enough appeal to straight women…Anyway, good call on Sketchbook.
BD is definately quite interesting up to now… Though being very feeble in japanese and watching the raws… I understood practically nothing of the third episode with all that space ship jibberish… However you are right about the characters being rather complexe in their own way, wich is something that alwasy clicks with me. Surprisingly, I acutally kinda like Mari because she actually has a strong-fiery-tsundere personality which seems to be very rare for a ‘neko’ (i.e. the non-oneesama) (I still shudder in disgust at the thought of Nagisa and Hikari from Strawberry Panic -_-; ). I can also confidently say I like the homeroom teacher, the boyish girl with (is it a toothpick?) who seems to be buddies with Hagino and the Dorm Overseer. Speaking of which is amusing with her t-shirt such as ‘Keep Weight!’ and her comment on Mari being ‘good’ (in the fight that is ¬¬’)
Anyways I have high hopes for this show, I just hope they won’t crash XD