FIF#209-Blue Seed

Momiji Fujimiya seems like your typical High School girl.  One day, she’s attacked by a mysterious young man with cat eyes and blue beads before being saved by a pair of Government Agents of the Terrestrial Administration Center.  Momiji learns that she is the last surviving Kushinada, the only one capable of stopping a reawakened group of powerful Monsters called Aragami.  Unable to escape her duties, Momiji joins the wily but determined roster of TAC Agents to wage war of the Aragami.  Can Momiji master her latent powers?  And what of this cat eyed assassin, Mamoru, will he succeed in killing Momiji or join the TACs struggle to protect her?

 
We’re looking at the first episode of another mid 90’s Anime today and it’s one I’ve had fleeting experience with.  Blue Seed used to air on one of the major movie networks as part of their late night Anime marathons (Friday nights on Encore I think).  Anytime I ever caught any of it, the show was either well into its run or almost done but the title always stood out, even if I had no idea what to think of when it came to mind.  So my expectations are minimal.  Sitting down to watch Blue Seeds first episode however…I feel like this could be a similar case to Silent Mobius: I’ve seen the previews, recognize the theme song and would love to check it out…only for the show to ultimately be a letdown.
 
The premise of Blue Seed has shades of Silent Mobius and, believe it or not, Inuyasha (just without the Isekai).  Momiji isn’t Kagome Higurashi though, I don’t think Kagome screamed nearly as much as Momiji does in Blue Seed and she had to face far worse than giant plant Dragon Hentai monsters.  She’s your generic high school girl prone to embarrassing wardrobe malfunctions who just wants to be a normal girl despite an important destiny.  Then there’s Mamoru, the Inuyasha to Momiji’s Kagome.  He ants to kill Momiji for reasons unknown but it probably has to do with the bunch of titular Blue Seeds housed in his body.  I’m sure deep down he’s a huge softy.  Where the Silent Mobius angle really comes in is the existence of the TAC, who seemed created with the intent of stopping the Aragami threat by protecting the Kushinada.  Honestly, who knows how well humans with modern day tech will do against a legion of unstoppable monsters…though judging from the intro, the pink tracksuit sporting Koume is certainly embracing her inner Rambo trying to do so.
 
Production wise, Blue Seed doesn’t look bad for a mid 90’s title and that’s definitely thanks to Production I.G. being behind this one.  Seeing as Blue Seed has a tinge of horror to it, I.G. is able to cut a little loose with the violence and blood, adding a surprising amount of tension for a series that’s an action/comedy Anime.  The show gets added points for having a score by the legendary Kenji Kawai, best known for his work on Mamoru Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell films and Mobile Suit Gundam 00.  His music is always awesome when it comes to action and the Aragami assault on Momiji’s High School has an amazing track to accompany it.  When it comes to the English Dub, however, I don’t know how big the community is divided on this but I didn’t care for it.  The Eng Dub came from ADV Films, the same group that gave us the pretty much flawless dubs of Neon Genesis Evangelion and Golden Boy.  While some voices do match, particularly Tiffany Grant as Koume, most of the cast sounds, for lack of a better term, nasally.  It’s like half the cast all caught the same bad cold and still came in to record (props if that’s the case).  It just doesn’t sound good and if I were to recommend watching Blue Seed, I’d suggest watching it subbed.
 
That all being said, will I continue on with Blue Seed past its first episode?  Wellll…probably not.  Maybe it takes a couple more episodes to get going but I feel like I haven’t missed much not having checked out Blue Seed til now.  The music and visuals have promise but the characters feel stock and annoying most of the time.  Plus I did get burned by the promise of Silent Mobius once before…who knows, maybe one day I might come back to Blue Seed…or I’ll try and get through all of Inuyasha for once.