Blue Drop / First Impressions

Summary:

When Mari fails her chemistry exam, she’s forced to prepare for a retake, though fortunately her teacher Yuuko is there to help her. Mari’s friends point out that Hagino could also help, but Hagino has her hands full with tutoring other girls, and Mari doesn’t particularly want her assistance. The next few days are full of studying for Mari, and on one night, she finds Michiko working on her script for the play. Michiko informs Mari of the fireworks display that’s going to be put on soon and hopes that they can go see it. Armed with this knowledge, Mari goes to Yuuko the day before the exams to ask if they can go together to see the fireworks. Yuuko agrees and offers to bring Mari one of her old yukata to wear, and she also ties Mari’s hair up in a special way. The next day, Mari is waiting to take her exams when the Akane and the others come by to give her some encouragement.

Mari ends up running out to go see Yuuko before her exams, but she arrives in the chemistry room to find it empty. In the adjoining office, Yuuko and another woman are discussing the killings on Kamiokijima, and Mari overhears Yuuko say that she’ll keep watch over Mari because she holds the key to the incident. Feeling betrayed, Mari breaks some equipment as she runs out and dumps the hair band she got from Yuuko on the floor. Meanwhile, Shivariel has ordered two ships to coordinate an attack on the Blue, and she sends Azanael out too. The battle starts while the festival is going on, but Hagino notices that a particular aircraft is flying away from the main battle and realizes that this was all a setup. Azanael is in this aircraft, and she’s gone after Mari who has been found by and is currently struggling with Yuuko. When Azanael tries to use a robotic arm on them, Yuuko grabs Mari and hides in the forest.

In order to protect Mari, Yuuko pulls out a gun and shoots at Azanael’s aircraft, but this only causes Azanael to respond by trying to shoot her back. However, before she can fire, Azanael comes under attack by another aircraft: Hagino’s. The Blue also returns fire on one of the ships its in combat with, and Shivariel eventually orders the withdrawal of the two ships. In the aftermath, Hagino captures Azanael, and back near the school, Yuuko apologizes to Mari. Yuuko’s final advice is that she not run away from herself, and she thinks that because her secret is out, someone else will take her place for the second term. Mari, however, doesn’t want this and asks Yuuko to teach her until the end. She has to make up her exam the next day, and during it, Hagino looks in from a nearby window to tease Mari without the teacher noticing. This gets Mari in trouble because she gets annoyed, and Hagino has a good laugh over it.

 
 
 
Well, Mari got a lot closer to Yuuko than I thought she would – with all that blushing going on between them, you’d think Hagino would get jealous. Maybe it was just a very special teacher-student relationship. Regardless, I hope never to see this again; it was so awful I couldn’t pay attention to what was going on. There was also plenty of action this episode, though I kind of wish it didn’t take place at night so that the battle could stand out more. Overall though, they’ve done a much better job than I expected with the animation and CGI battles. There’ll likely be more fireworks to come, especially since they won’t just give up going after Mari, and Hagino won’t stop protecting her. Thus far the series has kept the alien side and the human sides of the story relatively separate – save for the two attempts on Mari – but I assume that there will be a point fairly soon where the two sides will come together, especially if Mari actually gets captured or something.

28 Comments

  6. In just one episode Mari got closer to the teacher than to Hagino in the previous 5. Quite disappointing if you ask me. The balance between the school setting and the alien plot is started to feel off too.

    Kazu-kun
    Reply

  22. That also irritated me. But now that I watched the episode I think it serves Hagino right.
    She needs to learn to set her priorities. What was she expecting? Keep her harem and just add Mari as one of the girls? Besides, sensei is not bad looking at all!

    Watatake-kun!
    Sensei!

    quex
    Reply

  25. it turns out to be my fave show, simply because it’s not so cliche like shana or clannad…
    not anything wrong with good cliche, but this is something I wasn’t seeing yet… alien in a school show that is not a comedy?

    ewok
    Reply

  26. oh so this is a yuri anime? no wonder i feel weird watching it.. so there something going on with hagino and mari or was it the teacher. anyways, (yes im stupid for not knowing pls dont rub it in) i like the whole alien thing plus the battle scene.. cool.

    Ayie
    Reply

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