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 by Asahi Production and GONZOnote 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 the Anime Network, although restricted to certain countries.
Tropes:
- Animal Motifs: There are terns appearing throughout the anime, including in the dorm's stained glass windows. And then there's Hagino's spaceship.
- Applied Phlebotinum: the Emul Force and the "thought-arresting weapons" that it powers.
- Artificial Human: The Arume create synthetic children as living bombs.
- 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. Specifically, using Child Soldiers (Volunteer, or so they claim) for suicide bombing because it's "beautiful" and being grossed out by males.
- 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.
- Cast Full of Gay: A vast majority of the entire cast, in both the Anime and Manga series, are lesbians.
- Censor Steam: Used in the anime during a kiss.
- Chivalrous Pervert: Yui
- 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.
- Dating Catwoman: In the manga, Yui the Half-Arume rebel and Misato the Arume scientist.
- 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.
- 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.
- Fan Disservice: The Arume's sexual habits are often rather ...
weird, to put it mildly. - Fanservice: Much, MUCH more in the manga, but the anime has some bikini shots.
- Flower Motifs: The episode titles in the anime.
- Gender Bender: The manga Tenshi no Bokura is about Kenzo, a boy turned female by an Arume experiment. It turns this "Kenzo" was a mental copy of the original implanted into the body of an Arume. When the girl's memories return, they pretend Kenzo suffered Death of Personality, but the reality seems like more of a Split-Personality Merge.
- Glowing Eyes of Doom: Hagino
- 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.
- 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.
- 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 is about the gender-bent Kenzo and his male best friend Shouta, who are forced under threat of death to have sex, but end up falling in love anyway. Bizarrely, Kenzo's mind was put into an Arume's body to overcome the original mind's lack of attraction to men—which is pointed out as patently stupid, because why would a straight human guy's mind be more likely than an Arume's to want to have sex with a guy?
- Kissing Discretion Shot: Combined with the above-mentioned censor steam.
- 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: 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.
- Mood Whiplash: The anime bounces between Slice of Life and Space Opera.
- 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
- 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.
- Powered by a Forsaken Child: the Arume use human and synthetic children as living bomb disposal units.
- "Ray of Hope" Ending: The anime ends with Hagino pulling a Senseless Sacrifice at the beginning of 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.
- Scenery Gorn: In the Tenshi no Bokura manga, the characters live surrounded by devastated cityscapes, a grim reminder of the recent invasion.
- School Play: Which is somehow really important to Hagino.
- Senseless Sacrifice: You'll know it when you see it. Somewhat impressively, it's also a Stupid Sacrifice, because the character's death could have easily been avoided without changing the result.
- 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.
- 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 Guards Must Be Crazy: Azanael is detained after an attack, but she manages to keep a secret control device for her fighter craft, which is repaired by the ships captain.
- The Mirror Shows Your True Self: When Nagino is tele-talking with Mari, she's invisible, but Sugawara sees her as a reflection in the water.
- The Tease: Hagino toward Mari—eventually. And then of course there's the abundance of teases in the mangas.
- Tragic Hero: Hagino/Ekaril
- 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.
- 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: Mostly, though one of the sub-mangas was more of a het romance.
