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demonblade508
Joined: 01 Aug 2003
Posts: 65
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Posted: Sun Nov 07, 2004 10:50 pm
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Hey everyone, been a while. I did an anime marathon this weekend of Blue Gender, 13 eps yesterday, 13 today. The whole series. I've seen it before, but the last time I watched it was at least a good 6-8 months ago. I knew it was good, but forgot it was THAT good.
I think Blue Gender is one of the most underrated series of all time, from what I've heard people say. Great character development, story,characters. etc.
Anyway, onto the ending. What do you make of it? such as, The bright beam of light Yuji walked into, what was it? Was it the Blue dying off? And then everyone getting together and killing Seno Miyagi, (I assume they did that to go back to earth) but it seems it failed and they destroyed themselves.
I have my own theories, but I wanna know what you guys think the whole ending signifcance was. By the way, I watch 95% of all anime in Japanese, but this is one of those few occasions where I think the English cast was superior. Funimation did a great job with this one, unlike most of their other stuff *coughDBZcough*
I read something like they had all the actors in there at night after hours so nobody could bother them and keep it very dark and everything. I think it worked quite well. Lemme know what you guys think. Peace
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Pathfinder
Joined: 20 Oct 2004
Posts: 40
Location: Sweden
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Posted: Mon Nov 08, 2004 5:43 am
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Blue Gender is indeed an excellent series, and something everyone should watch. A workable mix of action, developing personalities and a solid plotline, asopposed to other "mature" mecha series such as Gasaraki (the way the plot diverged made the series suffer; they should've sticked to and concentrated on either the supernatural or the political line).
As for the ending, I havn't watched Blue Gender for quite some time, but as I recall it the pillars of light were the results of the Blue dying off - supposedly to give birth to new life, as the principal purpose of the species was to eliminate mankind, or more specifically eliminate civilization. Having achieved the objective there was no place for the Blue, hence Earth "recycling" them. Poor things.
It's difficult to say what caused a large portion of Second Earth's population to revolt and kill Miyagi, destroying the base in the process, but it was probably a combination of factors, although the realization that their ultimate dream (the restoration of mankind on Earth) would never materialize probably caused a mental breakdown. It also served as a convenient way to get rid of the last actual civilization, and as a reminder that mankind's place is Earth, not outer space - regardless of Miyagi's intentions. I always liked Miyagi; his rational practicality and ruthlessness along with his desire to make the best of the situation for humanity made for a good character. His physical resemblance to NGE's Gendou Ikari didn't hurt, either
On another note, BG has the best intro (graphical along with the theme) I've seen - one of the few series where I watch through the intro everytime I view an episode.
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TF
Joined: 09 Nov 2003
Posts: 357
Location: Belgium
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Posted: Mon Nov 08, 2004 1:50 pm
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since they were always talking about nature and the law of nature, i see the pillar of light as nature itself.
Through that light "nature" talked to yuji and told him the big picture behind all the events.
The blue are then nature's soldier to execute natures will.
About the destroying of earth 2. Life was so damn boring on that spacestation and with earth floating around at all thimes while they knew they couldn't go back to it, everyone just snapped and kinda killed themselves. Good thing though because otherwise a new kind of Blue would have emerged.
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Golgo13
Joined: 30 Sep 2004
Posts: 148
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Posted: Mon Nov 08, 2004 3:50 pm
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If you like Blue Gender, you might want to try Ryosuke Takahashi's other series like Armored Trooper VOTOMS. Its the same plot, but without bugs.
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Key
Moderator
Joined: 03 Nov 2003
Posts: 18264
Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley)
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Posted: Mon Nov 08, 2004 4:54 pm
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Blue Gender is one of those series that didn't impress me much at first but gradually got better as the series went on. I'd give it a positive review overall - a B on an A-F scale.
I thought the English dub was respectable but not exceptional. And for the person blasting Funimation's DBZ dub, just remember that many of the Blue Gender VAs were carry-overs from DBZ dubs.
As for the opening: Pathfinder, are you sure you didn't meant the closer? I would certainly rank it among the best for its type (in either Japanese or English, and not because of the nudity), but the opener is very ordinary. I could easily name a couple dozen series with better overall openers.
As for the meaning of the ending, my impression was that the burst of light had some psychic effect which drove the people on Second Earth over the edge - sort of a last strike against the last remaining vestige of the "old" civilization, as others have suggested.
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Pathfinder
Joined: 20 Oct 2004
Posts: 40
Location: Sweden
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Posted: Mon Nov 08, 2004 5:07 pm
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Key wrote: | As for the opening: Pathfinder, are you sure you didn't meant the closer? I would certainly rank it among the best for its type (in either Japanese or English, and not because of the nudity), but the opener is very ordinary. I could easily name a couple dozen series with better overall openers.
[/spoiler] |
No, I was referring to the opening - obviously we all have different tastes, and I'm weak for that sort of thing. Hell, my favourite game intro is still the one from UFO: Enemy Unknown. Since the reference is probably lost on most people I'll just say that they both help set the atmossphere. Technically though there are many better around, but none that I feel the same about.
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Nani?
Joined: 20 Jul 2003
Posts: 632
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Posted: Tue Nov 09, 2004 12:39 pm
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Pathfinder wrote: | A workable mix of action, developing personalities and a solid plotline, as opposed to other "mature" mecha series such as Gasaraki.
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It's interesting that you mention Gasaraki (which I like) because they both seem have the same underlineing theme, i.e. modern technology/civilization is not very good for us. They also had some of the same people working on both series (off the top of my head I can't remember which).
As for the ending of Blue Gender, Second Earth is totally technology dependent and the people are literally cut off from the earth. The soliders have been indoctrinated by a school system to be loyal, conformist drones and rebellion is not tolerated (kinda like gee, modern Japan).
Seno Miyagi trys to "reform" the society and it works for a short time, but in the end the people have nothing really to make thier lives valuble. Therefore, they go crazy, become anti social as we saw earlier in the series and is taken to it's ultimate conclusion at the end of the series.
As for the Blue, they seem to be a manifestation of the wrath of nature. After all, if you used the real stuff, like say Arjuna, you get a series percieved as preachy, making people defensive, ticked off, and not buying DVD 2 or 3.
But hey, everyone understands giant bugs. And bugs, once they have done thier job, the earth is returned to a more benign state, where the humans who have re-adapted to the earth can live a nice long, satisfying life. Yuji feel the role of a positive Shaman buy going into the cave "comuning" with the Blue and preventing a repeat of the cycle in a different way from the other "samples" who earlier attempted to prevent a repeating of the cycle by helping the Blue kill the humans of Second Earth. How's that?
All the Best,
Nani?
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Randall Miyashiro
Joined: 12 Jun 2003
Posts: 2451
Location: A block away from Golden Gate Park
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Posted: Thu Nov 11, 2004 3:56 am
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Pathfinder wrote: | Blue Gender is indeed an excellent series, and something everyone should watch. A workable mix of action, developing personalities and a solid plotline, asopposed to other "mature" mecha series such as Gasaraki (the way the plot diverged made the series suffer; they should've sticked to and concentrated on either the supernatural or the political line). |
SPT Layzner is also a great Takahashi series with a ending to ponder. Like Blue Gender he creates a world where humanaty sucks, but a few exceptional humans are good. Also like most of Takahashi's protagonists, Eiji doesn't fit into society, and is a lone soldier. That is something I enjoyed about Votoms and Blue Gender as well.
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Guilhem
Joined: 14 Jun 2004
Posts: 181
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Posted: Thu Nov 11, 2004 8:20 am
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The end of BG, IMO:
The big blue light is where all the bugs go to die but they are 'resurected' as some sort of 'SuperBlue' which kills all the squad though these soldiers are very though and equipped with the best mechas... This big bug is the absolute quintessence of the BLue Gender, therefore when Yuji goes into the blue ray too he becomes the quintessence of himself: he finds back all of his humanity -which has been considerably threatened all along the show while he learnt how to fight and slowly but surely became closer to the 'inhuman' people from Second Earth- and his love for Marlene is now stronger, also he's now healed from the 'Blue Disease'
I really like the other interpretations I read into this thread. Thanks to everyone for this
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R.G.
Joined: 16 Nov 2003
Posts: 685
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Posted: Fri Nov 12, 2004 2:33 am
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Who says the people of Second Earth killed themselves?They could just as easily left the space station after killing Miyagi before rejoining the human race.The station could have been empty.
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