Blue Drop/Headscratchers


 * The Arume have white blood, so they should look like pale ghosts. They appear to have quite a normal complexion though, more in line with the red-blooded humans.
 * The coloration of the blood is not the sole determinate when it comes to skin coloration. By that logic, humans themselves would at the very least be far more rose colored than we actually are. It all has to do with melanin or whatever sort of pigment the Arume use. You could say that this would also mean their mouths, lips, etc, would be white or pale or whatever, but these could easily be colored by pigments as well. However, they should not be able to blush, at all, for any reason, as is noted in the article itself, and this troper shall forever bang his head against the wall each time he sees it occur.
 * Their blood only becomes white upon contact with the atmosphere, as is explained here.
 * Why is Hagino so consequently stupid and impractical? She lets a prisoner roam around freely on her ship. She wastes a lot of time on her fake school life, instead of making preparations for the Arume invasion. That's all very dubious behavior for someone who is fit enough--not to mention old enough--to be a space ship commander.
 * Genius ditz?
 * Arume seem to have a lot of trouble thinking clearly as soon as hormones come into play, and since Hagino is clearly smitten with Mari....
 * Except for Azanael, Tsubael and Hagino still handle fights about as well as possible. So...Hagino is savvy enough to know they'll scrape by no matter how much she goofs off? (YMMV on her overall strategy, but that's a separate issue.)
 * Why does Hagino use that robotic tern to communicate with Tsubael? What's wrong with something looking like a cell phone?
 * Clearly rule of cool at work there, and I suppose it doubles as a mobile version of those little tiny cameras you see on spy movies. So... it's like an alien version of a Predator spy drone... and a cell phone... all rolled into one! But yeah, Hagino is an idiot when it comes to picking what to use for her shoe phone.
 * Why does Hagino fall in love with Mari? Sure, love can't always be explained, but in this case they don't even try and Mari is not the easiest person to fall in love with. Hagino saving Mari when she was little is a very meager explanation as well. It gets worse when you realize that Hagino wanted to strangle Mari at first, although perhaps that is part of the Arume mating ritual.
 * What did Hagino do at that school anyway? How could she know Mari would enroll there?


 * It's really unlikely that Hagino would blush that colour considering that her blood is white.


 * The plot twist mentioned in the Mars Needs Women trope entry, is it actually true? Is it really the case that the Arume invaded to get their hands on male genetic material, then got cold feet and decided that extinction was preferable, provided they could have the womenfolk instead? I mean, what? Is there truly an Idiot Ball that big, that it requires an entire race to hold it?
 * Yyyup. Read Tenshi no Bokura for details, bearing in mind that you'll probably have nightmares for weeks afterwards. Long story short,most of the grunt-levels don't even know about the real purpose, and there's been a conspiracy among some of the more hedonist Idiot Ball-bearing high brass to keep it that way, but yeah.
 * So...the Arume are a viable, spacefaring culture whose leadership has horny fratboy-stereotype levels of intelligence, self-control and responsibility. And this has been going on for how long?
 * Several, possibly as much as a dozen, cloned-and-genetically-engineered generations. Maybe one of the imperfections that makes getting males back a neccesity is mental degeneration over the course of generations?
 * The only cloning happing is the gostas, the "normal" method of arume reproduction is explained here
 * Doesn't change the fact that its an artificial process that destabilizes their society and is causing genetic degradation and a slow extinction, it just means they're more creative about it. They're still engaging in a form of natural sexual reproduction, but I'd bet good money that the problem is with degradation of the sperm substitute's DNA or DNA analog- probably a miniscule and barely noticeable thing per generation, but compounded over several generations ...
 * That's utter lunacy. I get that they're incapable of feeling attraction to men, but have they not heard of artificial insemination? Or even just recombination? I mean, hell, we have that technology now. Do they have a race-wide squick reaction to Y-chromosomes?
 * Apparently. Either that or they just never thought of it, or, more probably, the authors never thought of it.
 * Oh. I hate it when the answer to Just Bugs Me pages is rank idiocy. It's like in Good Omens, when Azrael talks about how the demonic organisations contain the ineffable seeds of their own downfall, and Crowley responds that for his money, it's just plain old incompetence by everyone involved.
 * Yup. Thats Hanlon's Razor for ya.
 * Good God. This may be my college major talking here, but all I can see now is a version of the war in Iraq where the U.S. occupies the Middle East to control the oil supplies and maintain their industrial economy, only to then decide that oil is gooey and flammable and icky, and they'd really rather just take all of the delicious, delicious falafel. So, they expend enormous military strength and carry out atrocities against the civilian population to maintain control, dominating and warping the local culture beyond repair, forcing the locals to cultivate chickpeas for all their petty lives are worth, and in the end, when their infrastructure collapses and their military gets eaten alive without their armour and air support, we're left with neoconservatives sitting in the ruins of downtown Washington, muttering about how it was totally worth it, as they molest bags of fava beans.


 * Went and read Tenshi no Bokura. Do the Arume have any particular reason for being such colossal assholes, bordering on Exclusively Evil? Seriously. Their grand plan is to go extinct due to their collapsing gene pool, but to enjoy human women first, destroy human civilisation along the way, and possibly take humanity with them by wiping out men? What? Did the author set out to write about a race composed almost entirely of Psycho Lesbians? Is Blue Drop actually an attack on lesbianism in the media?
 * Actually, and this is the same guy who posted just previously and alittle bit above as well, I've figured out what it is that just bugs me about the series. For a series set firmly on the yuri side of things, it is deeply, unpleasantly homophobic. I mean, really, let's take a long, honest look at the implications and outright textual statements in play: Adult lesbians are sexual predators who will throw intelligence and responsible moral conduct to the winds if there's the possibility of having sex with young girls, which leads to: Lesbians in a position of power will abuse that power for the sake of corrupting young girls into being soft, passive sex objects. Lesbian teachers are in it solely so they can corrupt and seduce their students. The lesbian agenda is to sideline men and take away the women. Women who aren't sexual predators cannot effectively resist, and in any case, women cannot rape women, because a properly passive young woman will eventually accept and enjoy unwanted sexual contact, until it ruins men for her. Therefore, homosexuality is a learned behavious akin to The Virus, and should be resisted.
 * Writer on Board who probably subscribes to the "gayness is something created by circumstances and choice and is horrible" philosophy, combined with misogynic low estimate of female strength of will and domino-theory-esque paranoia, combined with a deconstruction of some pre-existing implications of the stuff seen in other less anvilliciously atrocious Blue Drop media.