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Blue Drop
Anime Review
Holy pile of genres! Blue Drop, by Akihito Yoshitomi, is anime which totes being a science fiction yuri coming of age romance. Oh, and its also a tragedy. Sure, sad things happen, but the real tragedy is that none of the vital, interesting things actually happen within the series proper. We mean this literally, as the plot of this anime is inexplicably tied to a manga that may never be seen in the United States.
Steeped in a mythos of war, humanity was invaded by the Arume, a humanoid race of all women from an alternate version of Earth. The typical story of a dying race trying to supplement its civilization with our world, what's not typical is that we lose this war. While Blue Drop takes place as a prequel, entirely before the war, its vital to understand that it is coming, and our defeat is inevitable. The sun rises in the east, and humanity loses the war.
 Blue Drop works like a slow waltz, the story of an Arume commander who befriends, and eventually falls for a young student. Slowly, but surely, we watch the progression of this romance against the drumming up of a war humanity is unaware of, and thus horribly unprepared for. The narrative focus is on the girls who attend the school, and seems to entirely ignore the impending invasion. Given the lack of context (that they will be invaded, that humanity will lose), the experience is akin to reading the Diary of Anne Frank and somehow expecting it turn out alright in the end.
While I will not fault the work for its intentional focus on nothing but character interaction, I do hold grievance with how little foresight went into the product as a whole. It's almost as if it was designed to work within that existing framework, or not at all.
Given what we've learned, its expected that someone looking for a broody, plodding series could take something away from this series, but the rest of us might just respect what it could or should have been, not what it actually is. That said, any interested parties can watch the first two episodes for free on The Anime Network.
Reviewed by John Martone, May 2011
Below: Scenes from Blue Drop.
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