*light spoilers follow*
From its settings, Blue Gender is highly similar to the cult feature film, Starship troopers, that was released only 2 years before the anime. In this case, our main character wakes up from an artificial sleep -- that is heavily plot-related -- to discover how the world he once knew has been overtaken by a species of over-sized alien bugs -- called Blue -- who are being fought against by a military organization whose current active mission includes *saving* sleepers like him and bring them back to headquarters.
Around half of the entire anime centers around this first mission where the main character travels with the military group and discovers what type of a place the world has become and how much people have changed due to the effects of the *apocalypse*. This side of the anime is easily the most impressive part of the work. It managed to show how several civilian groups have learnt/have not learnt to cope with the situation and how normal things such as death have become. During the first 3 episodes of the series, 80% of the introduced cast is killed with brutal and gorey ways, be it Blue ripping off their arms, smashing against vehicles so hard that people snap their neck and paralyze or their heads getting crushed by the overwhelming power of these creatures. What is really interesting about this work is how the soldiers deal with the death of their comrades and how brutally they have lost the will to give a fuck about anything: the soldiers just bang each others and have orgies during breaks just to lighten the mood a bit. It's a rough world, yet the content itself is not introduced in an edgy manner, but rather to show that these examples I mentioned are as "normal" and "common" in the world of this series as they are unlikely to happen in the real world.
The story of Blue Gender is hardly limited or even focusing heavily on the things I mentioned, rather these elements just are there as part of the universe: things that add to the overall world and its building as well as to the characters. Blue Gender is really does have its own world and the world has bit of everything going on at the same. Character-wise, interactions, effect and both; the differences and similarities of different character groups are taken into consideration and they play a huge part in the series on a general level, in the politics as well as between personal relationships of the characters. Since the world consists of several different civil groups, military organizations, politicians, the sleepers and of course Blue, a lot is going on at the same. It is not easy to even make a proper lit of all the different genres the series manages to gasp during its run, but other than the mentioned things, romance and character development are highly valued in the series. There is also horror, drama, and more psychological side to it all. Mecha -side also exist among the work in the military side of the story and the very ending of the series could be considered to fall under the dementia or "chaos" genre with its level of existential madness.
To give some sort of picture of the characters: the two *real* main leads are pretty much the nro 1 reason why the work with its world stands out. Their interactions and character development is fascinating to say the least as one of them is a female soldier who is downright badass, almost emotionally dead person who has heavily molded herself to be able to deal with the horrors she faces in her job, which she has managed to make her sole reason to exists: all she sees in the beginning of the series is the military she works for and the only thing that matters is the to succeed in her current mission. The main male lead is almost the far opposite of her: person who lived in the *ideal* world timeline as a happy commoner. Guy who shares the social norms of *our* world, almost chaotically good person who is also a coward and extremely unfit to live in the world of the Blue. Yet these characters change, adapt, are heavily influenced by each others and eventually form the main romance plot line in the work.
To quickly sum up the production: the art and animation are outdated, but also have that style that appears incredibly welcoming to all of those who dig the *mature* style that was often used in the end of 20th century/in the beginning of the 21st. The soundtrack is simply fantastic, especially the opening and ending songs are nothing less than classics. The English version of the op is simply an incredible song. Personally I watched the series Eng dubbed because I heard it is one of the most underlooked English dubs and have to say it felt more natural than the Japanese version.
Enjoyment-wise, I highly enjoyed the genuine and accurate take on how humans can and do change. Series that so heavily focus on creating believable psychological side are nothing less than scarce. The character behavior and development made so much sense it was a pleasure to witness it happen. Some bigger problems do exist in the story and especially during the 2nd half of the series, but I could overlook most of them because of the good sides that managed to impress me.
