Yuji Kaido is an ordinary kid from a few years in the future, living an ordinary life... until he's diagnosed with a strange, incurable virus. His only hope to to enter artificial hibernation until a cure is found. Theoretically, it wouldn't be long. But he wakes into a world gone wild, and is nearly devoured by monstrous insects the size of trucks. He's barely rescued by humans driving enormous robots, who were sent to bring him back.
Yuji discovers that twenty-two years have passed, and it is now 2031. While he was sleeping, the earth was overrun by these insects, called "Blues," which devour organic and inorganic alike and have reduced civilization to a pack of on-the-run soldiers. They were ordered to bring all the sleepers back to a space station where they all live, but a Blue attack kills all the sleepers except Yuji. Determined not to be babied by the present-day humans any longer, Yuji decides to fight for his life.
A pretty typical plot, and as a cartoon it sounds doomed. But despite the anime look of the characters, the action scenes, settings, and the Blues themselves are quite realistic-looking. One problem is that the action scenes themselves are a little repetitive, if well-done -- bloody, weird, full of violence and gnashing insects.
The Blues are one of the bonuses -- as they act like real insects, only thousands of times the size. Nor do they seem evil, just animalistic. Though alien invasion is nothing new, we're given a good means of finding out what is going on, by having a clueless hero. And time is taken to build up the sense of desolation, loneliness, and destruction that the Blue have brought to Earth, and how civilization has been wrecked by them.
Fuji will, without a doubt, irritate the heck out of viewers at first. When first rescued from the Blue, he whines, shrieks, freezes in danger, and generally acts irrationally - although given his circumstances you can't really blame him for going bonkers. There's certainly promise of improvement; he does grow on you with time. Marlene just comes across as cold at first, but gradually we see some softening. Most of the supporting characters are a lot harder to keep straight, especially since quite a few die.
While not particularly original, "Blue Gender" is a solid scifi story, with the king of darkness and violence usually found in major action movies. Though the characters are a bit hard to warm up to, it's overall an entertaining show.
