Blue Drop

Hagino & Mari

Blue Drop is a series of manga stories by Akihito Yoshitomi in which Earth has been conquered by the Arume, an alien race which is very much human in appearance, but consists only of females. Consequently, they are by and large homosexual and are attracted to earth women, which leads to a lot of depictions of lesbian sexual behavior. An anime series was released in 2007 that takes place one thousand years before the manga and describes the events leading up to the Arume invasion. The anime's emphasis is more on character development, whereas the manga tends to be more explicit and often crosses the line towards Hentai (although it's generally more creepy than erotic).

The manga consists mainly of one-shot stories, presented in two series, describing the struggles of human society with the Arume in charge. The main recurring character in the first series is Yui, who is a human/alien hybrid and a member of the earth resistance. An important theme is the Arume's use of children to fight the semi-sentient remnants of their biological weaponry in the earth's seas. The second series , Blue Drop - Tenshi no Bokura (Angel's Men), adds some gender-bending to the mix and often contains very graphic (and very horrifying) sexual scenes and themes. Blue Drop's third Manga is a short, romantic story called Maiorita Tenshi which chronologically is set between the anime and Tenshi no Bokura. Lastly there is the Manga Tenshi no Itazura (Angel's Prank), the shortest Blue Drop work being only three chapters in length.

The anime series is called Blue Drop - Tenshitachi no Gikyoku (Angels' Play) and describes the antics of Hagino and Mari. Hagino is the commander of an Arume battleship; Mari is the sole survivor of a disaster caused by that ship five years earlier. The story focuses on the gradually intensifying relationship between the two girls, set against the threat of the Arume invasion and Hagino's rising doubts about its purpose.

The subbed version of the Anime currently has a free legal stream on YouTube courtesy of the animenetwork, although restricted to certain countries.

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Tropes used in Blue Drop include:

• Alien Invasion
• Aliens Made Them Do It
• Applied Phlebotinum: the Emul Force and the "thought-arresting weapons" that it powers.
• Artificial Human: The Arume create synthetic children as living bombs.
• Bittersweet Ending: The anime ends with Hagino pulling a Senseless Sacrifice at the beginning the Arume Invasion. The Arume win. However, the Distant Finale 30 years later implies that humanity is on its way to a truce with the Arume.
• Bleached Underpants: compared to the second manga series
• Blue and Orange Morality: The Arume aren't completely out there, but their sense of morality definitely doesn't jive with humanity's.
• Book Ends: The anime starts and ends with Michiko in a shuttle on her way to a peace talk with the Arume.
• Bridge Bunnies: Tsubael
• Bury Your Gays: Hagino dies, right after she and Mari confess to each other. Who would have seen that coming?
  • In Maiorita Tenshi, this trope gets subverted by Ai in the last chapter.
• Cannot Spit It Out: Hagino, repeatedly.
• Censor Steam: Used in the anime during a kiss.
• Chivalrous Pervert: Yui
• Conspicuous CG: One word: GONZO
• Cool but Inefficient: Tsubael uses a robotic bird to commmunicate with Hagino. Cell phones, anyone?
• Crapsack World: If you're a Magical Girl, you're a bomb disposal unit. If you're a schoolgirl, you're little more than a sex slave. If you're a guy, you're used as a lab-rat for transgender experiments if you're lucky.
  • If you're not so lucky as to be part of an experiment, you're an animal, a third-class citizen treated like freed Africans in Antebellum America- not a slave, but only just.
• Credits Running Sequence
• Dating Catwoman: In the manga, Yui the Half-Arume rebel and Misato the Arume scientist.
• Dead Little Sister: Onomil
• Defrosting Ice Queen: Hagino shows a mild variety of this.
• Discount Lesbians: The Arume and their half-human offspring.
• Disturbed Doves: Actually, lots of seabirds.
• Dramatic Wind
• Elaborate University High
• Even the Girls Want Her: Hagino, and, in her Bifauxnen role in the play, Akane.
• Evil Versus Evil: In Tenshi no Bokura. The Arume (simply batshit insane) versus Yoshimura (batshit insane and concertedly sadistic). Weirdly, they seem to be at peace by the end despite wanting to wipe out each other's sex.
  • It should probably be noted that there are hints that Ma-chan and Yoshimura are actually doing a tag-team Xanatos Gambit. This actually may qualify as Fridge Brilliance as this does seem altogether too likely be the only way to restore the Arume's men without a certain segment of the Arume throwing a Spanner in the Works.
• Fan Disservice: The Arume's sexual habits are often rather ... weird, to put it mildly.
• Fan Service: Much, MUCH more in the manga, but the anime has some bikini shots.
• Flower Motifs: The episode titles in the anime.
• Gender Bender: In the manga Tenshi no Bokura only. Played for drama, tension, and horror rather than laughs, then turns into an subversion- its just a girl brainwashed to THINK she had once been a boy.
  • Not so much as "think" she was a boy. The girl had the boy's memories and personalities downloaded on top of hers, and over the course of the series, their minds kinda blended together making a new one with the boy's personality being dominant.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: Hagino
• Gonk: Does Hiroko really have to be that large?
• Gratuitous English: Hiroko's suspiciously apropos "KEEP WEIGHT" shirt.
• Half-Human Hybrid: The Arume sometimes interbreed with Earth women.
• Handsome... er, Beautiful Lech: Kisagi from Tenshi no Itazura.
• Hot for Student: When the Arume run schools, many of them seduce their female students. In Tenshi no Bokura, they had a school that was, essentially, their seraglio, the girls having pretty much been raised to think that such was the norm.
• Human Aliens
• Idiot Ball: If Tenshi no Bokura is to be believed then the Arume as a species are holding an Idiot Ball roughly the size of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. Not the show, the mech. See discontinuity above for one common reaction.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: The episode titles are scientific names of flowers.
• If It's You It's Okay: In the original Manga, Ami feels this away about Yui after Yui rescues her. Also subverted in Tenshi no Bokura with Kotoko, who thinks she can fall in love with Shouta but can't get past the fact that he's a guy.
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Tenshi no Bokura is an egregious offender of this trope.
• Interspecies Romance
• Intertwined Fingers: Evidence of Hagino and Mari's Relationship Upgrade.
• Invisible to Normals: Mari is the only one who can see Tsubael's holographic projection.
• Jumping the Gender Barrier: Tenshi no Bokura, which does it with a technically heterosexual couple due to lesbianism and a male mind upload into the girl- the barrier is jumped when the upload starts wearing off.
• Kissing Discretion Shot: Combined with the above-mentioned Censor Steam.
• Left Hanging
• Love At First Punch: Well, a strangling-attempt...
• Loveable Sex Maniac: Yui
• Luminescent Blush: Everyone, incessantly. Everyone with human blood at least as the Arume have no shame. Hagino forms an exception, seeing how cautiously she treats Mari.
• Macross Missile Massacre: At the most ridiculous, with FIGHTER PLANES.
• Mars Needs Women: As if the Arume didn't have plenty already. To make matters worse, Tenshi no Bokura reveals that they actually need men in order for their species to not die out in the near future. They even invaded for the sole purpose of getting our men. Then they got cold feet at the last minute and took our women instead, as they are much hotter albeit useless for stabilizing the Arume population dynamics.
• Miyuki Sawashiro: She voices Hagino.
• Mood Whiplash: The anime bounces between Slice of Life and Space Opera.
  • In fact the anime, the original Blue Drop Manga, and Tenshi no Bokura might as well all be from different series considering the sharp changes in tone.
• No Social Skills: Ai from Maiorita Tenshi.
• Older Than They Look: Hagino looks about the same age as Mari, but is likely quite a bit older.
• Ominous Floating Spaceship During the invasion
• One-Gender Race
  • However, not originally: according to Tenshi no Bokura, their men died out. But not before one of them knocked up a human woman, leaving behind a line that could restore the Arume's men.
• One-Gender School as well
• Opening a Can of Clones: While not technically clones per se, the Emul Force recalls the trope since it's used to bring characters "back to life" every time someone dies.
• Phlebotinum Rebel: Yui, sort of.
• Please Put Some Clothes On: In Tenshi no Bokura, Admiral Mariel walks around practically naked. When Shouta asks her to "put something on", she dons cat ears but remains otherwise undressed.
  • Also, Yui to Misato.
• Powered by a Forsaken Child: the Arume use human and synthetic children as living bomb disposal units.
• The Reveal
• Romantic Two-Girl Friendship: Subverted, since Hagino's interest in Mari goes quite a bit further than that.
• Scenery Gorn: In the Tenshi no Bokura manga, the characters live surrounded by devastated cityscapes, a grim reminder of the recent invasion.
• Scenery Porn
• Schoolgirl Lesbians: Older ones too, lots of them.
• School Play: Which is somehow really important to Hagino.
• Second Episode Morning
• Senseless Sacrifice: You'll know it when you see it.
• Show Within a Show: Michiko's play is a thinly-veiled parallel to the main story starring Hagino as Jeanne d'Arc.
• Situational Sexuality: Many of the humans engage in homosexuality in the gender segregated areas.
• Slap Slap Kiss
• Sleep Cute
• Space Whale: The Blue looks like a mechanical whale.
• Strange Salute: In Tenshi no Bokura, Admiral Mariel insists on being saluted in a rather idiosyncratic way.
• There Is Only One Bed: In Maiorita Tenshi with Sachi and Ai. Though this turns out to be a reason to be happy.
• The Tease: Hagino toward Mari--eventually. And then of course there's the abundance of teases in the mangas.
• Tragic Hero: Hagino/Ekaril
• Underwater Kiss
• Vichy Earth
• Wave Motion Gun
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?
• Where Are They Now? Epilogue
• Wholesome Crossdresser: Shouta and Shinichi in Tenshi no Bokura.
• Will They or Won't They?: Hagino & Mari. In the end they do, but it doesn't last long.
• Yaoi Guys: Quite a few appear in Tenshi No Bokura, Shinichi being the most prominent.
• Your Days Are Numbered: The humans used to clean up Thought Arresting Weapons
• You Shall Not Pass: Azanael and then Ekaril at the end of the anime.
• Yuri Genre