Blue Gender Dub Review

By Allen Divers     March 16, 2002

Blue Gender Vol 1 contains the first 3 episodes in this 24 episode series created by AIC in Japan. AIC is known for its work with the Tenchi Muyo series as well as El Hazard. Blue Gender shows AIC's characteristic animation techniques and character designs. Staying in-house, FUNimation produced the English dub with Christopher Sabat handling ADR direction. John Burgmeier acted as script supervisor with Ward Perry helping with script writing. FUNimation shows a great deal of maturity with this faithful dub, showing they are able to work for the fans and not worry about mass-market appeal.



In a departure from the norm of Dragon Ball Z, Blue Gender's English dub script stays very close to the original Japanese script. No unnecessary dialogue was introduced to provide exposition or fill sound voids. There are a few wording changes, mostly to match mouth flaps. The nature of Blue Gender is very dark, and FUNimation doesn't shy away from it in any way. The language used is very rough, which should is to be expected for this type of show. They stay within the limits of good taste without going to an extreme of making every other word a swear word. The opening and closing songs are both translated and sung in English, staying as close to the original as lyrically possible. This is something FUNimation has done for all of its series, and really has some talented people handling these songs.



Casting for the characters of Blue Gender match very well with the personalities of the various characters. The voice actors are pulled from the standard stable of FUNimation actors, but in a change of pace are actually using voices very close to the their real voices. Taking the role of Yuji, the main protagonist, is Eric Vale. For most of this dub, Eric spends a lot of time screaming and whimpering as Yuji finds himself waking up into a literal nightmare. Eric does a great job of expressing the proper emotions as Yuji slowly adjusts to his new surroundings and begins to take on a more heroic role. This change in Yuji comes very naturally staying away from the pitfall of suddenly becoming brave.



Opposite to Yuji is the role of Marlene, voiced by Laura Bailey. Marlene starts off as the tough as nails soldier sent in to recover Yuji. The character keeps her distance from Yuji, but slowly warms up to him. Laura's performance does a good job of matching this transition without making it feel abrupt. There is a lot of potential for growth with this character, so hopefully Laura will be able to keep up. Rounding out the main cast is Kyle Hebert as Robert, the captain of the recovery team and John Burgmeier as Joey. Solid performances come out of both of those actors, but take the back seat as the focus stays on Yuji as he comes to grip with the state of the world.



Due to the violent nature of the show, other characters come and go quite quickly. So far, FUNimation has shown quite a bit of flexibility when bringing in new actors to voice these minor parts. The voices remain varied and don't seem repetitive. Time will tell as this show proceeds through its 24 episode run.



The English soundtrack takes many of its cues from the Japanese soundtrack. Although a little lighter in volume and overall tone, the incidental music matches closely the original Japanese with the Sound Effects remain true as well. The English soundtrack has a healthy stereo mix with no real problems to speak of.



Comparisons to FUNimation's work on Dragon Ball Z show up even by the staff of FUNimation in a commentary included for the first episode. The commentary features Eric Vale, Laura Bailey and Christopher Sabat. Chris continually compares work done on Blue Gender against work done on Dragon Ball. Although a bit repetitive, this commentary goes a long way in showing FUNimation's attitude towards this new property. It is best to watch the 3 episodes first, and then listen to the commentary. There's even a bit of foreshadowing, but nothing major in terms of spoilers for the rest of the series.



Blue Gender proves that FUNimation is ready to play for the fans with its faithful English dub. The acting pool also shows a great deal of experience gleamed from working on Dragon Ball Z. Overall, this dub shows a great deal of maturity on the part of FUNimation and a willingness to work for the fans. FUNimation proves they have the talent and the flexibility to produce strong dubs. As they expand their Anime line up let's hope they continue to meet and exceed the quality shown on Blue Gender.



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