World War Blue, also known as Aoi Sekai no Chūshin de, is a parody of the Console Wars between Nintendo and Sega in their early era, originally created by Anastasia Shestakova with art by Crimson
. The manga has been licensed in the US by Seven Seas Entertainment, and an anime adaptation by 5th Avenue, directed by High School Dx D director Tetsuya Yanagisawa, is licensed by Media Blasters and streaming on Crunchyroll.
World War Blue provides examples of:
- Adaptational Villainy: Nintendo is the antagonist in this series.
- Amazonian Beauty: Tofai. Interestingly, she's based on Akuma from Street Fighter.
- Bishōnen: Tejirov. Gear doesn't look too bad himself. Most of the young male cast falls under this.
- Composite Character: Those who aren't Expies of individual characters are this. Fare seems to be a combination of many Fire Emblem lords (designwise invoking Marth, Ephiraim, Roy, and Sigurd the most), Carvai seems to be an Expy of Kirby but wears a robe and wields a hammer similar to King Dedede, etc.
- Curtains Match the Window: Gear. This is despite Sonic, the character he's based on, generally being depicted with green eyes.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Whenever Opal uses her Shooting ability, it really seems like as though something else was about shoot from within her...
- Double Entendre: Tejirov's Tetris jokes are just Tetris jokes, right?...right?...guys?....
- Expy: Being a parody of the Console Wars, we have characters representing various video game characters or entire video games. The different regions in the land of Consume are also named after video game companies like Ninteldo Empire, Segua Kingdom, Atarika Empire, etc.
- Fingore: Opal gets her nails ripped off from overcharging her Shooting ability.
- Foregone Conclusion: Sega being demoted to a third party developer in the console wars is ancient history by now. Considering that Sega's portrayed in a heroic light...
- Gag Dub: While it keeps the emotional tone intact, if there's a referential joke to be made, the dub will make it.
- Hot Springs Episode
- The Anime only showed Gear and Tejirov in the hot spring; however the Manga included a (separate baths) scene with Nel and Opal as well as the two boys.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: This happens to Tial very early on in the story.
- Massive Multiplayer Crossover: Parodies of Sonic The Hedgehog (Gear and Tial), Phantasy Star II (Nel), Fantasy Zone (Opal), Tetris (Tejirov), Columns (Ramses), The Legend of Zelda (Zelig), Super Mario Bros (Marcus and Guliji), and so on...
- Short-Runner: The manga only lasted 10 volumes and the anime only 3 episodes.
- Shown Their Work: For a series made in Japan, it seems to know quite a bit about the Nintendo-Sega Console Wars and America-only video game companies. Many characters seem to act like the nature of their series or the characters they are Expies of as well. For example, according to profiles, Fare's motto is "treasure your lives" and is known to try again no matter how many times she falls, Guliji is scared of ghosts, Masa loves music, and lost his mother when he was young; said mother told him No crying until the ending, and so on.
