Nineteen of Fifty-Two

Television

Blue Gender

Blue Gender is one of the most underappreciated shows I've ever seen. This is a classic fish out of water scenario where the main character, Yuji Kaido, and others are put into cry sleep while the best scientists in the world try to cure an illness that they have. They go to sleep with the hope that when they wake up they'll be cured, only to be awoken amidst a post-apocalyptic waste land where insectoid monsters known as the blue have taken over and the majority of people live in space.

The first half of the series shows Yuji being evacuated back to the space station, but on the way to the space port the elite team of soldiers sent after him is picked off by the blue to the point that there’re only a couple left and Yuji has to learn to fight. By the time he reaches the space port he has fallen for the last remaining soldier, Marlene Angel and when given the order not to help her and to stay in the ship, he chooses to go save her life, ultimately getting severely injured in the process.

The Second half of the series show how Yuji and the handful of other infected that returned are trained to use new mech suits to kill the blue. This half of the series is more from Marlene's perspective as she has fallen for him and she has to watch as he changes from the sweet guy he once was into a monster. She ultimately helps him return to a neutral ground, and they manage to destroy the blue and re-take the world, but not before a massive mutiny on the space station that gets everyone who remained there killed.

The whole show follows the idea that the world is a living entity. It suggests that the Blue was a natural immune system that the world brought out to cleanse it of over population and technological destruction, culminating, once the purge was complete, in the blue all going to one spot and dying.

It's an awesome story, full of intrigue, romance, horror, sci-fi and mechs.
One scene that truly sealed it's awesomeness for me was in the middle of the first half of the series where Yuji comes across a town where earth people still live. It turns out that the space people abandoned them and continue to use and abuse them, considering them less than human, killing them if necessary as they're already dead.
Yuji convinces his companions to help them though, as an attack of Blue is imminent. Ultimately Yuji and his team are unsuccessful, losing the town and a lot of recourses.
The scene that sticks with me, however, is one of a little girl who he's been looking out for. Yuji's just fallen down and he looks up to see her standing there and a moment later the blue just power through the space where she'd been standing. You don't even see her die, but you know.
It's just one of those moments where you can tell just how bad the world has become.

So that's Blue Gender. If you ever get the chance to watch it, you should. Its old and I haven’t seen it in shops for a long time, but if you get the chance, do. (In fact I believe FUNimation's you tube page has a few eps)

Blue-Gender-Opening
- James