In 1889, the world is on the pinnacle of great discoveries in technology. In mankind's grasp for the future, a sinister foe known only as Gargoyle, obsessed with restoring the former Atlantean empire to the glory it once held, begins his plans to take over the world. Nadia, with the help of a young inventor, Jean Roque Lartigue, and Captain Nemo of the submarine Nautilus, must fight to save the world from Gargoyle and Neo-Atlantis. Based on the Novel '20,000 Leagues Under the Sea' by Jules Verne.
(Source: ANN)
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Comentários
BornIn1142
Story: Nadia, the Secret of Blue Water is supposedly based on the novel 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. The truth of the matter is, the plot elements shared by the two can pretty much be counted on one hand. The two stories are practically unconnected. But that's alright. The plot crafted for Nadia "based on" Jules Verne's is actually quite good by its own right. It offers both awesomely epic action and touching emotionality and handles both wonderfully. There are a few nicely executed twists thrown in as well. Of course, no review of Nadia can get around a certain arc in the middle. Episodes 23-34are directed by a replacement director. The twelve "filler" episodes, in my opinion, aren't horrible, but they ARE horribly mediocre in comparison to the rest. For those twelve episodes (episodes 30 and 31 excepted), the plot comes to a stand still. Life on a deserted island simply doesn't compare to the excitement of the main plot. However, that's not actually the worst part of it. I wouldn't have minded so much if it hadn't also distorted the characterization to a nigh-insulting level. More on that later.
So would you be better off skipping the island and Africa arcs? While they have their moments, in my opinion, the answer is yes. The experience would probably be enhanced if you left them out. The director felt only episodes worth keeping from those twelve were 30 and 31 and I'm inclined to agree. Those two are good and should be watched. You won't lose anything by watching the rest unless you're remarkably touchy, but you won't really gain anything either.
Art: Yoshiyuki Sadamoto's character designs are as nice as ever, and the animation is generally good. Emotions are portrayed nicely and the complicated technological wonders and battles are quite nuanced and pretty. However, the series IS 20 years old and looking its age.
As for the supposed iffishness in part of the animation during the filler arc, I can't say I noticed it. It did, however, suddenly become somewhat more cartoonish than previously (like a character running off a cliff and only falling when he noticed it...) It wasn't very fitting, in my opinion.
Sound: The sound of Nadia is good but not notable. I watched the subbed version and the voices were fine. They suited their characters and the performances were good, as far as I can tell. Nothing much to say on this. In any case, the soundtrack was composed by Shirou Sagisu, so you know its good. The action-comedy parts and the epic struggle for the fate of the world are both handled nicely, but Sagisu's tracks for the bittersweet scenes really shine. I can safely say the score greatly enhances the emotions of the last episodes, especially the ending.
Character: Nadia's characters are, in a word, great. The leads and supporting cast are all very well developed, but even the minor bit parts aren't left as two-dimensional ciphers. The relationships between them are very carefully crafted and actually change believably over time and with new revelations. I personally rooted for Nadia and Jean's romance.
Especially noteworthy is Gargoyle, who is, in truth, a world-class villain and one of the best I've seen in anime. He appears in only about a third of the episodes, but comes off as a true menace who you really learn to hate by the end.
The worst offense of the filler arc is probably the messing with characterization. Nadia herself is by far the worst victim of this. While she has a canonically difficult personality, the the filler arc upgrades this to "annoying bitch". Every flash of likability is negated by another act of irritating stupidity. Especially retarded is her falling in love with some random African kid - a huge slap in the face of the love story that forms the core of the whole series. Thankfully, this and most everything else that happens in the island and Africa arcs is pretty much ignored later on.
Enjoyment: While one can certainly like Nadia solely for its artistic competence, it's also damn good fun. It's been a while since I watched a series as engrossing as Nadia. It's humorous moments are amusing and its sad moments are ridiculously touching. I've rarely come as close to crying while watching an anime as during the ending of Nadia. The characters are likable and easy to get into. The series doesn't take itself seriously all the time, but when it does, so do you.
Overall: Nadia, the Secret of Blue Water isn't nearly as well-regarded as it should be. I saw a bit of it as a child on television, and expected to at least nostalgically like it when I rewatched it. Instead, the series forced its way into my Top 10 list. It's an undervalued classic that most people have not heard of and possibly never will because of its age. Do yourself a favor and watch it. And you wouldn't be doing yourself a disservice if you only watched episodes 1-22, 30, 31, 35-39.
JTurner
In the mid 1970's, prior to obtaining his well-deserved status as Japan's greatest animator ever, a young Hayao Miyazaki was hired by Japanese movie giant Toho to develop ideas for TV series. One of these concepts was "Around the World Under the Sea", based on Jules Verne's "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea," in which two orphan children pursued by villains team up with Captain Nemo and his mighty submarine, the Nautilus. Although it was never produced, Toho nonetheless kept the rights to the story outline. Miyazaki would reuse elements from his original concept in later projects of his, most notably the terrific action-adventure Castle inthe Sky. Ten years later, in the mid-1980's, animation studio Gainax was commissioned to produce an original Anime series to be broadcast on television network NHK. Under the direction of a brilliant but angst-ridden artist known as Hideaki Anno, the studio selected Miyazaki's concept, and crafted an engaging story set in a steampunk 1889 France, with interesting characters, amazing animation (for its time), and a mixture of comedy, romance, mystery, and drama. The result was Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water, which has since become a worldwide fan favorite.
The story begins at a Paris World Exposition Fair where Jean, a nerdy but charming and instantly lovable inventor boy of fourteen, becomes smitten with a pretty, dark-skinned girl his own age. The girl, known as Nadia, is an unhappy circus acrobat with no clue about her past other than a jeweled necklace she wears. After rescuing her from a trio of comic bandits (the Grandis Gang) Jean earns Nadia's trust. The two set off on an even bigger adventure to find Nadia's birthplace, which supposedly lies in Africa. Along the way, they have run-ins with a supercharged submarine commanded by the mysterious Captain Nemo and his pretty but overprotective first officer Electra as well as a shadowy cult of Nazi-like masked soldiers known as Neo-Atlanteans led by the misanthropic, sinister Gargoyle, who wants Nadia's pendant at any cost. In the course of their around-the-world adventure, Jean and Nadia adopt an orphaned little girl, Marie, who senses that her new guardians will become more than just close friends. Although Nadia's explosive temper poses problems, Jean's patience and loyalty keeps their relationship afloat, and her growing love for the boy gradually transforms her as a person.
Nadia has all the makings of a classic series: a well-rounded cast of characters, unforgettable sequences, and a long, involving action adventure. There is a distinctive "Miyazaki-esque" style to the visual designs of the leads, yet only Jean seems to emerge as a Miyazaki creation. Which is arguably what makes him the most lovable character in the whole show. It's easy to see why Nadia finds herself falling for him--who wouldn't want to be with a boy as intelligent, genuinely compassionate, and impossibly generous as Jean? While he does display clumsiness in terms of social graces around the opposite sex, it only makes him all the more appealing as a character. Nadia herself, by contrast, is not always lovable. In addition to having serious anger management issues, she also has unbending and irrational principles about killing, eating meat, or trusting grown-ups. She does, however, display courage and, as mentioned, finds herself growing to care for Jean. Actually, Anno has said that he created Jean and Nadia based on his "light" and "dark" sides. Shiro Sagisu's music is sometimes bland, although some of the later tracks, notably the Neo-Atlantis themes, are memorable. The opening and ending theme songs as sung by Miho Morikawa are also enjoyable.
For all its assets, however, Nadia suffers from one fatal flaw that prevents it from being the classic it aims to be--it doesn't always stay afloat throughout its 39-episode count. The first twenty-two episodes are old-fashioned adventure at its best, with humor, young love, traumatic situations which involve death, and compelling, engrossing mysteries as we learn about Nadia, the Nautilus, and the Atlanteans. The production values in these episodes show their age at times, but frankly, they still exude detail and clarity for an early '90s series. In episodes 23-34, however, it devolves into a painfully dull, unengaging, haphazard, incoherent Saturday morning cartoon, with warped characterizations, and even worse scenarios totally devoid of imagination or credibility. Simultaneously, the animation takes a hit in these dozen episodes, with some episodes looking downright sloppy or dreadfully cartoonish. (In all fairness, these dreadful half-hours weren't supposed to have existed; distributor NHK requested that they be made after the show became a smash hit in Japan.) In the final five episodes Nadia does recover in terms of artistry and storytelling, delivering a satisfying finale, but it's hard to compensate for the damage that has been done. Simply put, the show would have been far better if it were eleven episodes shorter.
For their part, however, ADV Films deserves a shout-out for their work on bringing this series to American audiences. The visual and aural transfers are competently done, but it's their translation that really shines. The English dub, provided by Austin-based Monster Island studios, is notable for casting three actual children in the roles of Jean, Nadia, and Marie--Nathan Parsons (12), Meg Bauman (14), and Margaret Cassidy (11), respectively. For inexperienced youngsters, all three do exceptional jobs, and are amply supported by a similarly entertaining cast of adults, particularly Sarah Richardson, Corey Gagne, Martin Blacker (as the Grandis Gang) as well as Jennifer Stuart (Electra). Ev Lunning Jr. (Nemo) and David Jones (Gargoyle)'s performances do take a bit longer to find their groove, but when they do, they really shine. This dub has taken a lot of undeserved flak from critics who have made the mistake of writing it off on account of the sometimes uneven accents (Jean's admittingly shaky French dialect in particular takes some getting used to; although Parsons does improve on it as the show goes on). Despite that and the occasional trepidatious moment in the opening episodes, the end result is still a spirited, energetic, emotionally charged dub that really brings its characters to life. It is most certainly a very commendable effort that deserved better recognition than what it was accorded for back in 2001 and even today.
The ADV dub is not the only English track of Nadia to exist. In the 1990's Streamline Pictures attempted a release of the show. Interestingly, the head of Streamline, Carl Macek, did express interest in paring down the much maligned filler arc. As his version only got about as far as eight episodes, we probably never may know how it would have turned out. Having said that, though, I don't think the Streamline dub compares favorably to the ADV version. Wendee Lee and Ardwright Chamberlain are both very credible actors, but both are miscast as Nadia and Jean and unfortunately underwhelm. Jeff Winkless is a bit less stiff than Ev as Nemo, but even then his turn isn't anything amazing. I did like Edie Mirman as Electra (she ties with Stuart) and the Grandis gang doesn't sound too bad, but on the whole I prefer the ADV dub. It strikes me as the better of the two by far.
Out of curiosity, I did sample a few episodes of the Japanese version. Although some voices are solid (Nemo, Gargoyle, and Sanson), I felt rather indifferent about the others. Marie's voice is the weakest of the bunch; no offense to the late Yuko Mizutani, but I feel Margaret Cassidy does a far better job of bringing out this little girl's innocence as opposed to Yuko's high-pitched shrieking. Likewise, despite Yoshino Takamori and Noriko Hidaka's solid turns as Jean and Nadia I found myself preferring Bauman and Parsons, if mainly because both characters are supposed to be children. It just feels more natural to hear them voiced by actors of the appropriate age. Despite insistence from some long-in-the-tooth fans that this show should only be appreciated in its native language track, I don't consider either version better or worse, only different. Whichever one you prefer is a matter of personal preference.
Is Nadia a complete waste of time? Not at all; as mentioned, the characters are fully-realized, and for twenty-two episodes and the final five, the show does indeed deliver an entertaining, consistently engaging adventure story with just the right amount of heart, humor, and drama. It's just too bad that it goes downhill in the second half (despite delivering a phenomenal conclusion). Otherwise, this series would truly be worthy of the praise it receives as one of the greats. The best way to appreciate Nadia is to view episodes 1-22, then 31 (the only "filler" episode to have any genuine plot development), and finally 35-39. It will provide for a much more pleasing experience.
Fear_the_Reefer
Jean Raltique is a 14 year old, wide eyed inventor living in 1890’s France. He and his uncle are participating in the Birdman Rally, an event that wouldn’t actually be established until 1970’s England, but we’ll be gracious and ignore that fact. He falls in love at first sight with an exotic looking circus performer named Nadia, who wants to return to the place of her birth, which... Due to her dark skin... she believes to be Africa. They’re attacked by a trio of jewel thieves, and are chased all the way back to Jean’s house, where he smoothly offers tofly her all the way to her home. Another encounter with their aggravators leaves them stranded out at sea in a floating plane wreck, until they(and their pursuers) are picked up by a futuristic submarine named The Nautilus. Grand adventure and intriguing mystery await the five of them as they begin their journey to find Nadia’s birthplace and unlock the secrets of the strange blue jewel that she possesses, in a story that was inspired by two of Jules Vernes’ most famous works, and the imagination of Hayao Miyazaki himself!
Well, I say that, but this series wasn’t actually made by Miyazaki... It was his idea, but after some initial financial controversy, the project was picked up by Studio Gainax, a rising animation studio who recently changed their name from Daikon in order to pursue more high profile titles. After already having a successful movie and OVA series under their belt, Gainax decided to take Nadia as their first televised series, and it was highly successful... to a fault, even, but we’ll get to that later.
Right from the first few minutes of episode 1, Nadia shows you exactly what it’s animation style is going to be. We’re shown a few frozen panning shots of people enjoying themselves at a science fair, immediately followed up by the impressive CG effect of an electricity machine. This is indicative of a well allocated budget, where the bulk of the production money will be spent giving motion to scenes that need it the most, while leaving other shots... Not all of which will be as unimportant as these opening ones... High and dry. Thankfully, the budget is managed well enough that those opening shots are the exception rather than the rule, and for the most part, this show does look very good.
While it may look cheap and dated, in terms of it’s visual style, keep in mind that Nadia came out back in 1991, when an anime couldn’t look expensive without actually being expensive, due to the limits of the technology of the time... High frame rate, Miyazaki quality productions were a rare treat, and the lesser spectacles were given a lot more leeway than they are today. Having said that, as cheap as Nadia can occasionally look, there are a ton of moments in the series that look like they could have come straight out of Ghibli itself... The visual of Nadia daringly leaping down from the Eiffel Tower to protect her sacred jewel is only a small taste of this, and it will in no way be the last.
While most of the character designs may seem generic at first, they grow on you more and more as the characters in question develop throughout the story, and their backstories begin to become unraveled. There are only two designs that really stand out right from the start... One of them is Gargoyle and his sinister cult of Neo Atlanteans, the true villains of the series whose actions are unfortunately wrapped in spoilers too heavy to discuss. The second one is Nadia’s, as she’s wearing what has to be one of the most iconic outfits in Studio Gainax’s long history. It works very will with the backstory of her being an acrobat and a utility performer at a circus, but if we’re being honest with ourselves, the reason this design has endured for over twenty years in peoples’ memories is because of how revealing it is. I’m not going to say this is necessarily a bad thing, as I know that women should wear whatever they want to without feeling ashamed, but it does feel kind of strange when you consider that Nadia was wearing a normal looking european dress when we were first introduced to her, implying that that’s how she likes to dress when she’s off the clock... But for the rest of the series, she seems to prefer skin baring clothing so much that she’ll tear entire pieces off of any other outfit that’s handed to her. Again, this wouldn’t bother me if it felt like her decision, and not just that of a horny animator.
But that’s not the only thing about her that’s made her such a fixture of Gainax’s history... She’s also, in general, a very likeable and dynamic character. She’s cautious around new people... Who wouldn’t be, after working in the circus for so long... But she’s willing to give them the benefit of the doubt after she becomes more comfortable with them. Her convictions and principals are also a very strong part of her character. She’s a pacifist, who’s adamantly against the idea of people killing each other for any reason, and while this belief isn’t portrayed as strongly as it was in Trigun and Fullmetal Alchemist, she also takes it a step further by being a strict vegetarian... Yes, she believes that animals and people should both be spared from the wrath of greedy humans, and she’s not afraid to act on those beliefs, even when it may cost her the good graces of her peers. She can be difficult because of this, but she never seems to cross into the territory of becoming unreasonable, at least not until... We’ll get to that later.
Oh, and her baby albino lion has giant balls. Because... Yeah, courage, and stuff. He's awesome.
Jean isn’t really as complex as his nimble crush, but that’s not to say he’s some bland self-insert character, either... The darker tones of the series take their toll on his happy-go-lucky outlook, maturing him just like the rest of the cast. He also has a very distinct personality, even if other personalities sometimes overshadow his in the story. He’s very open about his feelings for Nadia, that visibly develop from infatuation to actual interpersonal romantic interest throughout the course of the series. He’s very passionate about technology, and not just about his own inventions, but about the technology of the anachronistic Nautilus submarine, as well. He’s fascinated by Nadia and the Nautilus, and will take any given opportunity to learn as much as possible about both, as they respectively become the inspiration and the basis for his future inventions, since only a flying machine can take Nadia to the faraway land she yearns for. But just because he’s an inventor doesn’t mean he can just whip up deus ex machina devices whenever he needs them... Unlike that Mary-Sue technology-bender from Big Hero Six, Jean’s inventions are consistent with his familiarity of technology and the materials available at the time, at least until... Once again, we’ll get to that later.
Surprisingly, those two aren’t always the most likeable characters in the cast(YES I KNOW I’M GETTING TO THAT). I mentioned before that the three villains who attacked Nadia for her jewel go through a heavy amount of development and reveals, and I wasn’t kidding about that... They have a backstory that will redeem their actions almost immediately after you hear it. The motivation that led them to the Nautilus changes soon after they take up residence in it, which is a refreshing development compared to the Team Rocket baddies that they almost certainly inspired. They become more and more relatable as time goes on, and there are points when their roles in the story become even more interesting than that of our two main heroes... In fact, after one of them pulls off the daring rescue of a young orphan girl named Marie from a Giant Enemy Crab, I could see him instantly becoming a fan favorite.
And the English dub, well... It’s not the worst I’ve ever heard, by far, but it’s also not really up to par with the time period in which it was released. It was initially dubbed by Streamline Pictures, and if you’re familiar with their work on films like Vampire Hunter D and Wicked city, then you’d probably guess that Nadia is one of their better dubs... But you'd be wrong, and being worse than those two titles is saying a lot. The dub was picked up by ADV films after Streamline put out the first eight episodes, and ADV completely redubbed them, producing much better results... Mediocre results, yes, but they’re still much better than the awful Streamline dub. While the ADV version isn’t bad by any means, the only actor that really merits any praise is Meg Bauman in the role of Nadia, who puts forth a much more sincere performance than voice acting heavyweight Wendee Lee. Actually, that seems to be a common theme of this dub... A cast full of unknowns who would mostly go on to have very brief careers in the industry did a much better job than a dub full of respected talents and recognized mainstays.
It is worth mentioning, though, that Nathan Parsons has gone on to have a moderately successful live action career. Most recently, he played the role of James in True Blood, which I guess is an interesting bit of trivia.
Aside from her, this is a dub that has to grow on you in order to be enjoyed... There are several characters sporting foreign accents that are fake-sounding, inconsistent and half-committal, with the worst offender being Nathan Parsons in the lead role of Jean. His attempt at a french accent replaces all of the ‘th’ sounds with ‘s’ and ‘z’ sounds, but aside from that, he barely inflects when he should. Sanson’s upper-crust accent sounds irritatingly like James from Pokemon(Which makes sense because Grandis sounds like Jessie and Hanson sounds like Meowth, and I don’t think any of this was accidental), and in the role of Elektra, Jennifer Stuart focuses so hard on perfecting her British accent that she barely emotes in the process. As I said before, it’s not a bad dub, and all the performances do grow on you after a while, but unless you’re a hard core dub fan like I am, there’s really no reason to switch the Japanese version off.
So, when I started watching this series, I didn't know whether or not I’d be able to review it, and I had Mahoromatic on standby just in case. The problem was, of course, that there wasn’t really anything to talk about. It just felt like a really, really well made action adventure/title. It wasn’t terribly deep, but it was well written, wonderfully paced, and it was able to handle a large, diverse cast while showing respect to all of their differences in background. There were clashes between the beliefs and ideals of our main characters, especially where Nadia was involved, and there was an admirable level of ambiguity in regards to who was right and who was wrong. All in all, I didn’t really have anything interesting to say about it, and I was fully ready to review something else... Until IT happened. It, which I’ve been putting off until this point in the review. It, which if you’ve seen the series, you know exactly what It is.
See, as the series was airing, it was earning very high ratings... And deservedly so, all things considered. Because of this, the network got greedy and hired an entirely new director to extend Nadia’s 26 episode run into a 39 episode run, adding in 12 episodes of filler material just to pad their precious success’s run time. If you ask any Nadia fans to talk about the series, this story arc will inevitably be one of the first things they bring up, as it’s believed to be the single worst thing about the series. And having seen it for myself, I can say that this assessment is... Completely accurate.
After some spoiler events occur, Nadia, Jean, Marie and Nadia’s lion cub King wind up stranded on a mysterious island, with no clue where they are, and no hope of summoning any of the ships that they keep seeing out in the distance. And I’ll say right off the bat that this idea, in and of itself, wasn’t a bad one. There are a ton of ways this development could have been a great opportunity to further the depth of the series... But it wasn’t that at all. It’s boring, it drags the pace of the series down to a dead crawl, and it does everything in it’s power to rape, dismember and display the remains of everything that was good about the show up until that point. The animation quality also tanks, looking uglier and cheaper than it ever did before. No joke... This show has worse filler material than Naruto and Bleach combined.
To be fair, I’m not actually bothered by the fact that this filler arc screws up the original material. Representing somebody elses work can be an extremely tough thing to do, and I don’t think anybody should ever be vilified for failing to do so. What bothers me is the outright contempt that the new director, Shinji Higuchi, had for the original material. You see warning signs right from his first episode, which I believe was 23, when the four children of the series are riding a jettisoned mini-sub to reach the mysterious island. The sub starts to flood, and Jean drinks all the leaking water, blowing up balloon-like as though he were a freaking Looney Toon, despite the entire series up until that point featuring no such cartoon physics whatsoever. He then spews the water back up, which in retrospect is pretty good metaphor for the way Higuchi barfed up the rest of Blue Water.
Higuchi proclaims early on, loudly and proudly, that he has no respect for the themes and characters that have been unfortunately entrusted to him. It also becomes clear all too quickly through his treatment of Nadia that he doesn’t possess a very high level of respect or understanding for women or vegetarians, either. Immediately after setting foot on land, Nadia turns her back on the very idea that her companions may have to eat meat to survive for an extended period of time, as the canned food they brought over with the mini-sub won’t last them very long. Instead of working this out with him rationally, she dashes off into the jungle like a monkey and goes feral, which ultimately culminates with her stealing his food cans and crushing them under rocks, despite the fact that the island is clearly shown to be covered with fruit bearing trees. I’m not a vegetarian myself... Far from it, as the partial pizza I just deposited in my fridge will tell you... But when I hear Nadia saying things like “I’ll go a week without food and water to prove that I’m a better survivor than you!” it even offends ME.
That’s not to say Jean is a whole lot better, though... With Nadia reaching levels of likeability that make Asuka Langly Soryu look like Belldandy, Jean is left to fill out the role of ‘smug white male,’ a role that would be more subtly played by Seth McFarlane. It’s Jean’s job in this story arc to be right about everything, sigh and shake his head whenever that angry woman-thing yells at him for no reason, and whip up inventions from the giant piles of ABSOLUTELY NOTHING that the island has to offer him in terms of material.
And the relationship building that happens between the two is the absolute worst of it. I don’t consider this much of a spoiler, because it has nothing to do with the plot or ending, so I’m going to describe the moments that begin their relationship in detail... This is going to be a rough patch, so brace yourself.
Nadia finds an old, moldy can of spinach. She eats it... Because it looks so much more appealing than any of the plants on the island... And it gives her a fever. Not a stomach-ache, but a fever. She winds up sick in bed with Jean going out to fetch herbal medicine for her... for the second time in the series, I might add. But he winds up finding a patch of drug mushrooms, which knock him out, so Marie has to drag him back to the tent. Later, Nadia wakes up, completely fine, despite receiving no medical care of any kind, and is told by Marie that Jean tried to help her. She kisses his unconscious lips, and all of a sudden, her attitude completely changes towards him... All because he tried to nurse her back to health. Like a fucking pet.
Oh, and later, after they finally share a consensual kiss under the stars, she blows up at him for not remembering the kiss she gave him WHILE HE WAS UNCONSCIOUS.
In other words, this director has boiled women down to petulant pet dogs... They bark at you for everything, can’t understand or care about your feelings, and they’ll love you forever if you help them while they’re sick or otherwise vulnerable. Puke. Well, at least the relationship development doesn’t wind up mattering, because after they escape the island on a popped balloon that never runs out of air and wind up in Africa, she falls head over heels in love with some sexy African guy, which gives her a new reason to hate Jean. Like a dog finding a new crotch to smell. Oh, and then there's an episode of music videos.
I wish I could just look past this story arc and consider it non-canon, like so many other people do, but I just can’t. The show does eventually get better, with the animation and writing returning to their former glory around episode 35, but that 12 episode stretch is just unbelievably awful. I’ve heard people say you should skip most of those episodes, taking the entire viewing experience down to episodes 1-22, 30-31, and 35-39, and while that would successfully cut out all the awful, it doesn’t really improve the experience, it just makes it confusing. If you follow this list while watching the series for the first time, you’ll wonder about the things happening in those episodes, like ‘when did this character come back,’ ‘how did these characters come to this point,’ and ‘was that material really as bad as I was told?" Sorry, but those episodes aren’t self contained, and the only way to know how much of an improvement the abridging of the series would be, you’d have to have watched it all the way through at least once... And by that time, the damage is already done, to both the viewer and the series.
Nadia: Secret of Blue Water has been available on VHS in the past, but is currently available on DVD and Blu-ray from Sentai filmworks. Both sets are available online for quite a bit of money, but at the time of this writing, you can find them as part of the Rightstuf.com holiday sale for 30-40 dollars a piece. The collection 1 and 2 DVD sets that were put out a few years ago are available for fairly cheap on Ebay, and you could say the same about the individually released DVDs that ADV put out in the early 2000s. There’s also a series of video games that have never been released stateside, and a movie that I haven’t actually watched yet... Although I’ve heard some not-too-flattering things about it. At least I know that it’s a sequel, and not just one of those BS cash grab retellings.
I really wanted to give Nadia a high score. I really, truly did. If it wasn’t for that filler arc, I’d be calling it one of my favorites of all time with no problem at all. Without them, Nadia is an exciting adventure title that never slows down or panders to the viewer, offering romance, wonder, and new surprises at every turn. There’s some sexism at play, but it’s largely innocent, and hits both genders about equally, never turning into straight up misogyny until the dreaded filler arc. If my initial introduction to this series had been to the episode list that many fans... And even the original director himself... considers superior, I may have given this show a 7, but that sadly wasn’t the case. I can watch it without those episodes, but I can’t review it without those episodes, which is why I’m going to give Nadia: Secret of Blue Water a 5/10.
CodeBlazeFate
Nadia is a strange and interesting series to talk about. From its reception, you’d find a show that can go from fun to nauseating and amazing to terrible at the drop of a hat after a magnificent early run. From the title and the premise, this show sounds like a wonderfully charming time. It creates this sense of trepidation as to whether you should watch the show, as while there is a lot of joy to be had, some may deem the lengthy yet temporary drop in quality not worth sitting through even for the ⅔ of the show that is worth cherishing. Allow me tostate that for all intents and purposes, now only is this show worth watching, but that a majority of it is some of the most charming and pleasant anime out there. Beyond the main antagonists and Nadia herself, every major character has a distinct level of whimsy and chemistry that make you want nothing more than to join them on their exploits. Absolute standouts include Grandis, Hanson, and Sanson, who apart from wonderful child character Marie, have the loudest and most animated personalities of the entire cast. Even the Nautilus crew manages to be wonderful despite the majority of them being tertiary characters. Along with the pluckiness of Jean, it becomes a glorious treat seeing their frantic exploits, and a blow to the heart to see them in tragedy.
This is another of Nadia’s defining strengths, and indeed something that Gainax is known for: its ability to elegantly tiptoe between charming fun and soul-crushing despair. The directing tends to compliment the scenes of sorrow magnificently, courtesy of the legendary Hideaki Anno and even the not-so-legendary Shinji Higuchi when the time calls for it every now and then in Anno’s absence later on. The visuals on display are generally wonderful, with fantastic character designs from Grandis, to Gargoyle, to the iconic design of Nadia and all her wonderful clothes. Each design adds a distinct personality to these characters no matter what they wear, which is yet another of this studio’s most notable strengths. The animation is so vibrant, kinetic, and fluid that chase sequences and all other major action sequences are a sight for sore eyes.
All of this is accompanied perfectly by the wonderful score composed by legendary Evangelion and Bleach composer Shiro Sagisu. Apart from the wonderful opening and ending themes, Sagisu composed a fantastic repertoire for this show. It goes from the heartwarming Ashita e, Hope, and Love of Tomorrow, to the gloriously imposing tracks of Neo Atlantis and Gargoyle, the melancholic tunes of Tragedy and Requiem, and the bombastic fun of The Evil Trio and All Purpose Submarine. While not all of these songs are extremely memorable, and even some of the ones listed here aren’t as fantastic as others, the OST is still a real treat forged by a master of his craft.
It all blends to create a work that feels as natural and whimsical as anime can be. All of this truly sounds like a wonderful time that no one should pass up, and it is...until the dreaded island arc assaults you like Gargoyle’s ships do to the Nautilus. For whatever production-issue related reason this arc had to go the way it did, there’s no getting around it: this arc sucks! A whopping 12 episodes that have humor that doesn’t fit with the show, several moments where characters are derailed or contradictory for either cheap gags and convenience like Marie in episode 25, King in episode 26, and Nadia in several portions of this arc. Other time, it’s done because the director and screenwriter of this portion of the show seemingly have no idea what to do with them like with Hanson and Sanson. The visuals take a hit as well, with episodes that have the character models seeming off at all times, several moments where there’s a looping image for at least half a minute, and several clip shows. To be fair, the earlier half had some problems with looping footage as well, and two problems that permeate the entire show are hoe the blatant and sometimes incomplete the looping footage is, and how the visuals sometimes get jittery. The island arc sadly does this issue even worse, and had far fewer scenes if interesting direction than what came before or after said portion of the show. It has a hard time finding that delicate tone balance that Gainax is known for as well, and it goes on for far longer than it has any right to. Lastly, while Nadia was certainly a tough character to put up with, her flippant hot and cold personality and more abrasive attitudes towards her peers about anything -especially the killing and consumption of animals- at least made consistent sense. While this arc does flesh out how she got this mindset, it also has her contradict herself constantly for no good reason other than a sheer mishandling of a tricky character that happens to be the focal point of this entire show. It's a truly loathesome experience fromm beginning to end. There’s more I want to say about this arc but I’ll save that it another time.
It’s not like the show picks up that much past this point. The final episodes are an absolute mess with glaring holes and moments of characters missing easy opportunities and making obviously wrong decisions, sloppy writing that feels like it assumes that the island arc answered important questions and connected pieces of its narrative to this final stretch better than it actually did. Even the power of willpower is used here, and it’s as cheesy as you’d expect. Character inconsistency also finds itself present within this stretch as well, and as intimidating as the villains are, even this portion of the show fails to make them anything but one-note pretentious “humans are our troubled servants so we must rule over them with an iron fist” characters and puppets. Characters such as Jean find themselves absolutely useless as well, and the final moments of this show are astronomically ridiculous for a variety of damning spoiler-related reasons that range from narratively nonsensical to character-shattering.
It’s honestly sad what happened here. Several of the early episodes were wonderful in nearly every way, and even the final episodes managed to instill a sense of scale and raw fun. The vibrant and epically fluid animation led to some brilliant sequences that make this show feel like it would be an absolute classic. It’s just that the show truly started fumbling in terms of its narrative halfway through and then dropped nearly every ball for roughly a third of its run before just becoming a fun yet total mess towards the end. With a bit of retooling and tons of cutting, the dreaded island arc could still be as wonderful as what came before it, and with that same level of retooling, the final episodes could have avoided being as messy as they ended up being while giving more characters a purpose. Regardless, despite how tumultuous the voyage ended up being, it’s still one I’d thoroughly recommend, if only with a few caveats.
cloudviiiiiii
This series is one of the best animated features ever made. Away from the bizarre island arc, it is nearly flawless. I recommend watching the 30th Anniversary fan edit, which converted the 16+ hours series into a trilogy of movies of less than 6 hours. It also treated the major issues like the island arc, and some other continuity errors and fillers in an amazing way. I personally think this is the best way to watch this work of art. The best thing about this masterpiece is the character development and writing. This is by far one of the most enjoyable, relatable and well written castof characters in a work of fiction. The music too is amazing. Could be Shiro Sagisu's finest work.
NeverKnowsBest26
Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water is one of the first works acclaimed director Hideaki Anno. Though inspired by Jules Verne's "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" it is a sci-fi adventure that is enjoyable even without any knowledge of Verne's story. The show displays Anno's talent as a director early in his career. While not as refined as Anno's definitive work, Neon Genesis Evangelion, it benefits from Anno's mastery over characters and spectacle. Sadly, it also suffers from the director's unfortunate tenancy to overemphasize on those strengths and his weakness in theme and plot. The show follows Jean Roque Raltique, a young scatter-brainedinventor who spends most of his time creating half-baked inventions. While in Paris, Jean meets a girl named Nadia and instantly falls in love with her. Nadia, who has no memory of her birth and only a lion cub named King as a friend, is distrustful of other humans, and snubs Jean. As it turns out, she is being hunted by a trio of jewel thieves who are after the Blue Water, a large jewel that is Nadia's only link to her past. Jean helps Nadia escape and the two find themselves on the run from the jewel thieves. That is until they find a safe haven on the mysterious submarine The Nautilus, which is under the command of the equally as mysterious Captain Nemo. However, this is just the beginning of an adventure that will not only reveal Nadia's past but uncover secrets of the world; as well as start a battle the will hold it's fate in the balance.
Nadia starts off like a Ghibli film, which isn't surprising since the original concept was from Hayao Miyasaki, however Anno makes it his own (even throwing in biblical references near the end). One of the best things about this series is Anno's handling of the conflict between the crew of the Nautilus and the Neo-Atlantians, who serve as the series main antagonists. The Neo-Atlantians intend to use their advanced technology to conquer and reign over humans, which they see as inferior. Their leader, Gargoyle, makes a charismatic villain: cool, collected, and sophistic; possessing a silver tongue and merciless sadism. The crew of the Nautilus is a collection of people who have lost their homes to the Neo-Atlantians, and are determined to stop them at any cost. Leading them is Captain Nemo, who while cold and distant, retains a heroic demeanor by sticking to a strong set of morals. The sharp differences between the two factions and their leaders are put to good use and is one of the shows driving factors.
In the middle of these two battling sides are Jean and Nadia, two maturing youths with unique views on the world. The enthusiastic young inventor Jean is obsessed with technology, holding it on the highest pedestal and believing it could do no wrong. As the series progresses, he has experiences that force him to question his faith in technology as well as learning what it means to grow up. Meanwhile, Nadia has an affinity for animals and nature, an little trust in other humans. She detests hunting, and condemns anyone who participates in the action, even when it is essential for food. Through her journey, she finds that living on nature alone is more difficult than she believes, and learns to value other people. The development of these two youths is double-edged. It provides some of the series most compelling moments, and provides a good amount of character development for the entire cast, not just Jean and Nadia. However, it can also be very heavy-handed in execution, even preachy at times. On top of that, it eats up time that could be spent developing other parts of the plot. This is especially true for the deserted island arc mid-way through the series.
Speaking of the deserted island arc, it is the absolute low point of the series. For a time, the series takes the focus off the conflict between the Nautilus and Neo-Atlantians, and instead focuses on Jean and Nadia's relationship. This was not a good decision. For the entirety of this arc, taking up about a fourth of the show's run, Jean and Nadia's relationship more or less stays the same. Worse yet, there is no sign of the Neo-Atlantians or the Nautilus, making this stretch of episodes unbearably boring. The following arc, in which they travel to Africa, is similarly dull. Sure, there are some discoveries that progress the plot in these episodes, but it is hardly worth all the wasted time.
This is all really a shame, because a lot of the story elements unexplored are quite interesting. The back-stories of Nemo, Gargoyle, and Electra (Nemo's second in command) are all fascinating, but relatively little time is spent on them. Despite being one of the plots most interesting aspects, Nemo and Gargoyle's rivalry barely is explored; which is practically a crime. The growth of the Neo-Atlantians' technology is also barely explored; they just seem to materialize more powerful weapons out of nowhere with every encounter. Some of these complaints may seem trivial, but given this anime was 39 episodes long, it certainly had enough time to explore them. Instead, it opts to stick with Jean and Nadia having pointless misadventures on a deserted island.
While the storytelling quality is not constantly good, the art and animation are at least. The character designs and backgrounds are nothing jaw-dropping (especially by Anno's standard), but good none the less, and certainly get the job done. Character designs remain on model throughout the show, and while some backgrounds might be bland, they effectively create a believable world. The animation is quite impressive for a TV anime of its time. Movement is fluid, and is supported by Anno's keen sense of cinematography and editing. The spectacular battles between the Nautilus; and a nightmarish sequence which gives insight on why Nadia is so against the killing of animals, notably benefit from Anno's direction. The musical score is more or less like any other animated adventure, but is used accordingly and supports the story very effectively. Overall, quite a nice package production-wise.
Despite not putting its time to the best use, Nadia is certainly a solid watch. It has a strong, likable cast of characters and an intriguing plot. On top of that it is backed by the talents of a legendary director (albeit, early in his career). If it had not been for the incredibly poor use of time midway through the show, this could have been something great. As it stands, Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water is a decent animated adventure that showcases the talent of a prominent anime director.
MikaelX
Full disclosure: I did not watch the 39 episode anime, I watched the 30th Anniversary fan edit, which converted the 16+ hours series into a trilogy of movies of less than 6 hours in total. A lot of people who presumably saw both say this is the way to go, and I guess they're probably right, because this shortened edit worked very well as a "director's cut". And I can definitely see how the story would suffer from adding 10+ more hours of pointless filler... The anime is not perfect (its age shows!), but it's very charming and full of surprise plot twists that kept myinterest all the way through. So instead of complaining about the weaknesses I'll just applaud its strengths.
First and foremost, it's the charm that carries this show! The characters are very simple, but in an earnest and endearing way that makes you root for them, not in a boring way that just feels like lazy writing. And the art has all the charm of the hand-drawn anime of the era. It's less technically perfect than modern anime in all kinds of ways, but it also feels much more *alive*.
Watch this one if you're in the mood for a fantastical adventure, but only if a somewhat childish tone doesn't annoy you too much. In the beginning you very much get the feeling this was made for kids, with a goofy troupe of harmless villains reminding you of Team Rocket, but as the show goes on certain things happen that touch on more adult themes, the show is definitely not sugar-coated for preschoolers. With "adult" I don't mean sex, there's none of that, it just deals with some of the darker aspects of life and the human condition.
I'm being very vague on purpose here, since I don't wish to spoil anything. My intent with this review is to draw your attention to the existence of this anime, and hopefully tease you into giving it a chance. And as stated, tracking down the fan edit is probably the way to go. Folk wisdom says this show is a bloated mess in its original form, and folk wisdom is usually right!
I rated it 9/10, which is an unusually high score for me. Most anime has started to feel very samey and uninspired IMO, so most things I watch get 6 or 7 at best. But this one made me feel enthusiastic about the medium again. There's so many flaws I could write a book about it if I cared to, but none of it matters, because the MAGIC comes through unimpeded. And that's what it's all about, right?
neongenesis92i
The characters are truly loveable and well-written (Jean and Nadia are both adorable in different ways), many interesting and philosophical themes like science/nature conflict, growing up, human race and its flaws, love, death, fate, duty, sacrifice, hubris are covered. I loved how joyful and childish the show looks like at first sight, but it actually ended up being kinda dark and deep. The story itself is also really interesting, and the ending (ep 35 -39) is grandiose. The Island and Africa Arcs are for sure flawed in many ways: they are mostly fillers, with crappy and boring humor and gags, ininteresting events (King being jealous...), boringcharacter interactions (Sanson and Hanson were just so annoying), and sometimes the graphic style looked horrible (ep 27...). But there were some interesting character moments (mostly with Nadia/Jean/Marie in ep 23-26) and the Jean-Nadia relationship was well explored. However the Africa Arc was litterally useless - it was watchable but it brought nothing to the show and it felt so out of place- but I still enjoyed the show, mostly by attachment to the characters and for the plot. Nadia also is a great follow-up for Evangelion, some characters are truly similar (Kensuke is basically Jean, Ritsuko is inspired by Electra, Gendo and Nemo, Nadia is kind of a mix of Asuka and Shinji, some themes are also similar.
mattpointon77
I was introduced to the world of anime back in the mid-1980s when, as a child, I saw The Mysterious Cities of Gold. Ever since then I've searched for a series that can compare and now, I have found one. Nadia is not MCOG and I still prefer the latter, but in style, plot and characterisations, there are lots of similarities, from an historical setting, world travel and survivors from an ancient civilisation destroyed by war. Nadia is better in terms of characterisation. There is a degree of depth to all the characters that does not exist in MCOG. The dynamics between Nadia and Jean are excellent. Nadiafalls because of too much padding. Cut out the Lincoln Island episodes, the awful musical one and stuff like the battle with the giant squid and it would be on a par. I believe it was originally meant to have been 26 episodes long and that would have suited perfectly.
The opening tune is catchy and brilliant, just like with MCOG, but the rest of the score, particularly the ending tune, is pretty average to awful.
I liked the artwork on the whole although Grandis was poorly drawn which did not help one empathise with her.
I believe that Miyazaki was instrumental in the original concept and that he later reused some of the ideas in Laputa: Castle in the Sky. That was really noticable when Nadia falls from a great height and the jewel glows and stops her from crashing to the ground, just like at the start of Laputa.
Well worth a watch. My 10-year old is watching it now and really getting into it.
JuneNephthys
Fushigi no Umi no Nadia was a cacophony of many different things: an explosion of colors, an unusually worldly settingーparticularly for an anime of its time, and machinery fetishization that is noticed, it nearly breaks the fourth-wall, by the main heroine (Nadia) who annoyingly whines and throws tantrums throughout most of the show. I felt as though Hideaki Anno was attempting to merge Space Battleship Yamato with Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea into an original, awe-inspiring tale. • Nadia: Secret of Blue Water fails where it’s successor, Neon Genesis Evangelion, thrives. This is with tonal consistency and focus, areas that cause Secret of BlueWater to fall behind despite its influence on the medium. There are some truly chilling and thought-provoking moments in this series, especially episodes fifteen and sixteen, which are haunting in ways that even Neon Genesis was not. If the rest of the series didn’t exist―I would have given those two episodes alone a ten out of ten.
•People frequently cite the infamous island arc as being the most egregious examples of Nadia’s tonal whiplash, but the change in mood is as bipolar as someone deciding to have a Pokémon-like atmosphere and then radically deciding that they want a bleak tonal shift the next minute. Even though I was thirty-something episodes in to the series, I nearly dropped Secret of Blue Water when there was a corn-ball musical montage episode happenedーwhere all of the characters’ voice actors were singing and describing their characters’ personalities. An example: one of the montages was just reused clips of the main male character, Jean, and him singing for five minutes about how he loves science and Nadia. Very cringe-worthy.
•The really serious episodes that I mentioned earlier were a complete shock to me because it was focusing on the trio that would, in the future, inspire Pokémon’s Team Rocket, a goofy crime trio that are after Nadia’s Blue Water pendant, but drop their motivation for thievery as soon as Grandis Granva, their leader (and practically an export of Doronjo from Time Bokan), falls in love with the Nautilus’ captain and then the trio’s ONLY purpose is to be slapstick comic-relief characters that cause tension on the ship.
•The ship’s captain, Nemo, is an export of Space Battleship Yamato’s Juuzou Okita! They’re practically the same character! This didn’t bother me though; Hideaki Anno respectfully made the similarities to Juuzou Okita as an ode to Leiji Matsumoto’s father. Nemo’s vice captain Electra is another story. There’s a climatic scene when Electra loses her marbles because she… has a father complex. For those of you who are not aware, the famous psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud titled a woman who is sexually attracted to her father―as someone with an Electra complex. After the reveal, as Electra made a tear-soaked declaration with a gun between her fingers, I didn’t know whether it was supposed to be parodical or taken seriously.
•The same goes for the villains, they are comically grandiose and exaggerated… I feel like I’m watching Giant Robo again with Gargoyle’s propensity of silliness. And there are moments where to plot gets too real to handle; it makes one wonder what are supposed to glean from this series? An obtuse political message? Or a satire mirroring political indignation? I didn’t understand Anno’s vision with this series.
•This series is for those who are diehard fans of Hideaki Anno or for people who want something that was visually influential to later works. I honestly believe that ALL of Fushigi no Umi no Nadia isn’t worth watching; it is remembered as a classic because of the few moments of honest brilliance, but much of it seems like fillerーa series that probably would have been safe with twenty-two episodes instead of thirty-nine. My rating: 5/10.
LaLeLuLiLo
The story opens on 1889 as the world is in the midst of an industrial revolution, as well as the start of the famous french world fair with its main attraction being the Eiffel tower, the tallest structure during its time as well as a monument to modern engineering, industry, and science. Enter Jean Ratlique a young french inventor whose dream is to be the first person to make an actual flying aircraft. Jean along with his uncle enter a sort of flying/gliding competition, until Jean falls in love at first sight with a dark skinned girl who walked passed by. Jean leaves his projectin order to strike up a conversation with her, until a group reminiscent of team rocket intrudes in order to steal a blue jewel around the girl's neck. The two kids are able to escape, and jean later figures out that the girl is a circus performer by the name of Nadia. After that the show enters more or less a cat and mouse chase as Jean and Nadia try to outrun the jewel thieves which leads to a series of circumstances where Jean and Nadia and later the jewel thieves and some girl find themselves aboard a submarine commanded by the mysterious captain Nemo. They also find out about a group called the neo-atlanteans who are in a secret war against Nemo as well wanting to capture Nadia and her Jewel for mysterious reasons.
The beginning of the anime was really great as the show would take you on an amazing adventure story. The story went on a decent but brisk pace, and there was always something to be had in each episode. Since the characters were mostly stuck in a submarine most of the time there was time to learn more about the characters and introduce the characters manning the submarine, as well for the characters to grow relationships among each other. Especially for others to deepen their relationship which made for a decently made subplot. Along the way Nadia learns more about herself until they are cornered by the neo-atlanteans which leads to the island episodes.
The island and Africa episodes while not really that BAD were pretty much dull. The pacing for the show was put on a stand still and had the characters meandering around and doing absurd things. It takes a lot of suspension of disbelief for all the things that occur during these episodes from the way the characters act as will as the stories that happened during these episodes. Of course the island episodes did have some moments, but they were few and far between to matter. It’s rather odd to consider these fillers even though they are since almost nothing really happens and anything that did develop or happens was completely forgotten and thrown to the side as if nothing really happened. However that’s not what’s odd, what is odd is that these episodes could have had importance to segway into the final episodes because that’s exactly what it did, but due to its bad execution that leads them to become mostly pointless and thus fillers
While the island episodes while the worst part of the anime I believe the worst thing they did was hamper the final episodes. Since these were the episodes that were meant to segway into the final part due to how long and pointless they were, the final episodes had to speed things up leading to what felt like a rushed ending. While the show was back to how it was in the first dozen episodes, with so little time on there hand now they just had to make stuff happen. While they were able to make it look spectacular and end the show decently, i believe that if given more time they could have made it better.
To put it short the characters in the show were good. They all had amazing and diverse personalities, they are all full of life, enjoyable to watch, and well rounded. However since there are so many of them i will talk about the main duo.
Jean our main character of the show is a genius inventor who is mostly a optimistic and friendly person. Due to being an inventor he always strives to be smarter and more concentrated on his work which leads to him not paying attention to those around him. Also due to his love the Nadia he is very caring about her but also due to his nice nature is also caring of everyone else.
Nadia who is the main heroine of the anime while just as good as the other characters is also the most dynamic among them due to her part in the story. Due to her past she has a hard time trusting other people as well as the murder of living things even for consumption which she makes very clear early on, although she later on comes to accept that but still remains a vegetarian. Due to her off placed mistrust in people she comes off as a stubborn person making it difficult sometimes to express her feeling out right.
However just like the story; the characters also take a toll during the island episodes. They start acting out of character, the way they are portrayed and the way they react are horrible, and for the most part they pretty much regress as character. There are still nice moments, but just like the in the story it's few and far between, and in the end doesn’t really matter.
from the start of the anime you can already tell how the art and animation for the show will be for the rest of the show. The animation for the show are placed in parts needed the most while unnecessary parts were still images. While it looks bad, due to how they were chosen the anime pretty much ended up looking and moving good. There were still some reused clips at times but they were mostly placed far between each other to matter. The character design while not looking the best and sometimes looking dated were easy to get used to and allowed for the characters to be very expressive. There was never really alot of detail put in the shows art, but they were able to make it work. And just like the rest of the anime the island episodes really did hamper the anime as the way the anime was portrayed was more slap-stick and wacky, and while the anime did look like that it never try to be any of that.
I only watched the english dub, but i did listen to the english dub, and i wouldn’t mind going back and watching it in english since it does sound decent enough to listen to. As for the voice acting in the japanese dub, it was pretty good. Every voice sounded in character and each voice sounded unique. The soundtrack for the anime was good as well which sounded mostly adventures since this is mostly an adventure anime. They also were able to use silence in the show very well for the more dramatic moments.
I really did enjoy this anime and i really want to say that it’s a good anime since it started off as an amazing adventure with an amazing and interesting cast. But man those island episodes and how they affected the final episodes really put a dent on this anime. Nonetheless this anime is still a fun ride worth experiencing.
hasabrowngirlnit
[Warning somewhat spoilerish] Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water ‘starts off’ as a great anime. The first ep was well-done and serves as a perfect example of how to capture your audience's attention from the very beginning. We are quickly introduced to the character Jean, who we understand is an upcoming inventor, he then spots Nadia, a mysterious girl who wants to find out where she comes from. Later, on we meet Grandis and her crew, who will quickly become my favorite characters in the series, and see that they are after the ‘blue water’ that is Nadia’s necklace. So there we go, we have are plot, wehave are mysterious, what should come next is just a bunch of whacky eps of Nadia and Jean trying to get away from Grandis and her crew.
Well, not exactly.
The plot quickly takes on a interesting turn in later eps when Nadia and the others board a ship called the Nautilus. A story that seemed to be going the way of two kids running away from a trio of goofy adults, quickly turns into a story about war, sacrifice, and what it means to be human.
Sooooo,what do I think of it?
Well, I’m a sucker for steampunk and while not as heavily focus on in the show as compared to something like Steamboy you can definitely see the elements sprinkled throughout the series. I love the characters and especially their designs, Nadia’s being my favorite. And I love the constant question the show asks about sacrificing and how they presented different scenarios on the topic that has the audience challenging their beliefs with each ep.
So, do I think this is a great anime?
Weelll...it could have been
It’s kind of hard for me to talk about why this anime isn’t great because I somewhat disagree with the major reason that a lot of people seem to believe is the shows downfall, and that is eps 23-34 often dubbed as the island and Africa arcs.
It is is between these 11 eps that things get kind of weird mainly for the character’s characterization and mainly for Nadia.
Nadia, for the most part of the series, is a stubborn, bratty, girl who has a hard time trusting people. This makes sense however, as from ep 1 we can tell she had quite a hard life that had made her become that way. However, in these eps she goes from being bratty to a straight up bitch. The girl seems to be constantly angry with Jean even when there is no conceivable reason she should be. There is even a part in one of the eps that she admit she doesn’t know why she gets angry with him so much.
The excuse or reason why these eps are so bad is due to the fact that during this time Anno Hideaki, the original director, handed it over to Shinji Higuchi. There was also the fact that NHK, the channel that was broadcasting it, wanted more eps than they had planned for.
These reason are so highly accepted among fans as reasons why this show is bad that many will tell you just to skip theses arc, but this belief honestly frustrates me.
You see my major problem with this show is the lack of character development with Nadia and her interaction with other characters. I was okay with Nadia being a difficult character to put up with in the beginning because I hoped that eventually she soften up to the others character, maybe even begin understand their opposing viewpoints but this never happens not even with Jean, her love interest.
Also, I would like to take a quick moment to explain how bad Nadia & Jean’s relationship is. It is the second worst anime couple I’ve seen next to Sakura and Sasuke. Nadia and Jean have such strong opposing viewpoints about machines,man, and food that they spend 90% of the show arguing and can’t honestly even say it’s arguing as it just Nadia yelling at Jean Like during the Nautilus eps, crew members constantly go on about how Nadia and Jean like each other but Nadia is so fucking indifferent/angry with him that I don’t understand why they would think this other than the fact that she a girl and he’s a boy? Like I get Nadia is the prototype tsundere to Anno’s Asuka but man does her feelings for Jean seem to come out of left field when we do see it. .
But getting back to my main point, Nadia lack of character development bothers me because what is the point of Nadia’s character if we never see her actually come to care about the people that surround her. Sure at the end of the series she suddenly cares about her ‘friends’ and ‘humanity’ but this just all comes out fake as we never get to see her grow into this line of thinking. Like even as a plot device Nadia seems to have no purpose in the story.
Ignoring the fact that a few filler eps exist isn’t going to fix the fact the Nadia lacks depth. If anything those eps should have been the moments we really saw Nadia characterization develop instead of just exaggerated.
In the end, I don’t think Nadia is a bad show like some may think but just a show that could have been great if it weren’t for it’s huge flaws. While I wouldn’t recommend it to the average anime watcher I do think this would be a much watch for fans of Anno’s work, just because it’s fun to see how some of the stuff in this series can be seen in his later works.
BunBytes
STORY - 5/10 Apparently this idea was pitched by Hayao Miyazaki over a decade before the series was made. In total honesty I'm no fan of Miyazaki when it comes to his stories - I watch Ghibli for the animation - so it's no surprise I wasn't the biggest fan of the plot of Nadia. What confused me most was the inclusion of filler (there's an episode where the characters sing 2+ minute songs set to clips from previous episodes), considering it ran to a non-standard 39 episodes and wasn't adapting anything. It's very hard to pin down the story's faults beyond that, though, because thewriting is inconsistent in its quality. It opened well, the episodes on the Nautilus were great, and the finale was fantastic. But anywhere inbetween those three points ranged from passable to annoying. I believe that's partly to do with the characters.
CHARACTERS - 4/10
Nadia: Secret of Blue Water has some really good characters. It's a shame they're not used very much. Our two protagonists, Nadia and Jean, are downright insufferable people. Nadia is preachy and needlessly confrontational, whereas Jean doesn't know when to keep his mouth shut about certain topics. The crew of the Nautilus and others serve a valuable role in keeping those two in check and teaching them how to not be awful to each other. Unfortunately the primary characters don't have near as much charm as the tertiary ones.
VISUALS - 8/10
I've heard the animation was kind of stellar by 1990's standards, but I haven't seen much from that time period, so I wouldn't know. Where Gainax earns this 8/10 from me is in the designs and the use of color in scenes. Most everything is incredibly vibrant, but by no means garrish or tacky. This also contrasts well with their decision to use monochrome at some points in darker locations and more intense scenes. Character designs were all readable and memorable, and settings reminded me of Steven Universe quite often.
AUDIO - 10/10
This anime has one of my favorite anime OSTs. It has the kind of jazzy feel you'd typically expect from a series of this time period, with plenty of memorable themes throughout. Sound effects were also masterfully done, adding just the right ambiance to scenes. This coming from somebody who normally doesn't pay much mind to sound design. As far as voice acting goes, I watched the sub because the dub was terrible, but I'm not an authority on the sub's quality since I don't speak Japanese. It seemed pretty good at the very least.
ENJOYMENT/OVERALL - 6/10
On the whole I liked this show more than I disliked it, but I would by no means recommend it.
spacenewtype
What a wonderful show full of adventure, discovery, and relationships. This story follows the titular Nadia and a young inventor, Jean, as they get caught up in a spanning adventure that takes them across the ocean, under the waves, and through the skies in search of Nadia's past all the while discovering more about each other and, more importantly, themselves. The character relationships of the cast are dynamic and really change over time. The animation is beautiful to behold; there are great elements of mecha and magic present in the show... I hesitate to say much more as don't want to spoil the experience of thestory. It really is a treat to experience for the first time. Overall a beautiful mix of light and dark elements.
The narrative is all tied up in a bombastic and exciting conclusion that, while feeling a little rushed, seriously delivers on viewer satisfaction all the way to the end. There are also a lot of visual/audio queues and tropes that are both referenced and originated in this anime that later became ingrained in not just Hideaki Anno's other works, but the anime medium in the decades following.
On to the music - simply put, it is excellent. Able to jump between playful, intense, tragic, and alien nature of different elements of the story, it was one of my favourite elements of the whole show. Well worth tracking down the OST. As for general audio, I stuck with the Japanese track which is what I would recommend. The actors all give extremely memorable performances, are well cast, and are what kept the show afloat for me even in it's downtimes.
Some things to note for this show/release... There is an often mentioned caveat with this series known as "the island filler" or the Island/Africa arc which I suppose bears addressing in a review of the series. I won't get into the production reasons, but for a chunk of episodes in the middle, the episodes were outsourced to a different animation studio and the animation quality took a big hit. Not just the animation quality, but for a few episodes, our main cast were quite off-model. Putting this aside, however, I found these episodes nonetheless endearing and possessing many key character moments for our main characters. Of the whole of this subsection of episodes, there was perhaps only 1 episode I though was objectively bad and irredeemable, and one plot element in another that really didn't work. Getting to my point, I would say, just know there is a section with lesser animation quality, but just stick with it and you can still find some treasure buried here.
Putting aside the drop in animation quality for a few episodes, there were strange drops in resolution in some scenes throughout the rest of the anime, often in the same scene (I watched through the Gkids blu ray which totes a 4k remastered scan). It would switch from a sharp HD, to what looked like an old VHS or DVD transfer. I am not sure if this issue is present in other releases as I do not have the Sentai or Japanese releases to compare. Whether it could be that maybe these elements were lost and so could not be adequately touched up or if this was a result of the "4K" treatment this release totes, I'm not sure. Occasionally there appeared to be some DNR aftereffects that overly smoothed some details, but I didn't notice this too much.
Overall, I highly recommend this anime. The positives far outweigh the negative. Don't let this gem pass you by.
AironicallyHuman
'Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water' is a fascinating piece of overlooked anime history, as well as an adventure classic. Those fond of 'Neon Genesis Evangelion', in particular, owe it to themselves to watch it because Nadia is the anime that directly influenced Evangelion; in the form of director Hideaki Anno's very own version of a much loved Ghibli classic. The reason Nadia holds such influence is - partly - because the stress of working on the series was what lead to Anno's (in)famous four-year period of depression, which he would later channel into a sort of negative creativity in the form of THE psychological breakdownanime; Evangelion. The two share the same animation studio, Gainax, and a considerable amount of key staff, including Anno himself, the character designer (Sadamoto) and composer (Sagisu). So, thematically and aesthetically, there are NUMEROUS similarities.
Perhaps even more interestingly, Anno started out as an animator by impressing Hayao Miyazaki... and it was Miyazaki that came up with the original idea for Nadia, based on Jules Verne's 'Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea', which he himself would later transform into 'Laputa: Castle in the Sky'. Nadia could be described as Anno's version of Laputa; complete with his own brand of characterisation where very relatable, human failings become part of lovable characters.
Nadia begins in disarmingly lighthearted fashion. Set during 1889, the series opens with an aviation fair in Paris. The titular heroine, Nadia, encounters the male lead, Jean (a young French inventor), whilst working for a traveling circus troupe with her pet lion and series mascot, King. Jean falls in love at first sight and saves Nadia from comical, almost Team Rocket-esque 'villains' that later become endearing.
Then begins a world spanning adventure that starts out fun-filled. Along the way, an adorable "This is no fun!" young girl called Marie forms a close bond with Nadia, under surprisingly tragic circumstances. The tone then shifts, becoming darker, starting with the first encounter with the series enigmatic masked villain, Gargoyle. An organisation known as 'Neo Atlantis' controls the world from the shadows, using advanced technology from ancient Atlantis, and is pursuing Nadia for the mysterious 'Blue Water' pendant she possesses. The lead duo eventually end up as crew members on the futuristic submarine Nautilus and are forced to grow up quickly due to the crew having but one mission: to destroy Neo Atlantis. They are all that stands between Gargoyle and world domination. The series retains a lighthearted edge, but children having to confront the harsh realities of adult life after becoming involved with military chain of command is undeniably similar to Evangelion.
Before the small matter of Nadia-to-Evangelion influences, what made Nadia controversial to the point of sending Anno into the pits of depression and ALMOST ruined the series? For starters, there was a so-called movie sequel, which Anno and the original staff did not work on and is SO TERRIBLE people pretend it does not exist. And the TV series contains its very own non-Anno horror show. Anno only wrote/directed 26-29 episodes. Episodes 23-34 are the ultimate anime evil that Bleach/Naruto fans will be all too familiar with: FILLERS. The tone shifted to deserted island 'comedy' (complete with cartoonish exaggerations such as Jean filling up with water like a balloon)... bizarrely RIGHT AFTER the series reached its darkest depths. Every character trait was reduced to the most juvenile of levels as the series went in mind-numbing circles. Worse, Nadia's character did a 180 and was butchered to the point she regressed from having an understandably naive vegetarian viewpoint... to deciding she would live only with nature; later begging for animals AND FISH to save her. She also stole food after forcing Jean to build a camp on his own since "she hates science" and just outright started treating him terribly, out of nowhere.
The change in writing and direction was SO BLATANT that, when Anno resumed after the fillers ended, he ignored what came before. The worst involved Jean getting high on mushrooms and Nadia deciding she liked some random episodic boy more than Jean; completing her character self-destruction. And if you think the fillers are ok to begin with, believe me: when the second deserted island arrives, head -> wall.
Ignoring the filler HELL, though, Nadia is an excellent character and FAR from your typical anime heroine. For one, she is black and of African descent. For two, she is best described as the prototype tsundere for Evangelion's Asuka. A more human, less ANIME tsundere, if you will. What is most striking about Anno's work is that he clearly values characterisation above all else (almost in complete contrast to Miyazaki).
Anno's female characters in particular come across so strongly one would assume they were created by a woman. Nadia is no exception to this. Her love interest and companion, Jean, is no Shinji Ikari but she challenges him at every turn none the less with her dominant, strong-willed personality. Her jealousy over Jean unwittingly irking her by talking to other females; her hypocrisy over being a vegetarian / arguing with Jean over eating meat, whilst not minding her pet eating meat... there is a distinctly female charm about her 'evil eye' glares and the natural inconsistency between how she treats Jean and others that make her flaws as a person believable; reminding me of Kyoko from Maison Ikkoku. As I have always said, a flawed character is a human character. Nadia's maternal bond with a young girl, Marie, being reflected in Marie copying her comments about males and how she mimics another female character's comments about the bickering 'husband and wife' relationship between Nadia and Jean was priceless.
Other characters also clearly would later have an influence on Evangelion. Captain Nemo's unreadable persona in a military position and actions that traumatise adolescent characters is reminiscent of Gendo Ikari. Nemo's First Officer, Electra, and her relationship with Nemo has a touch of Misato Kusanagi's father complex issues, paired with Ritsuko's one-sided love seen in Evangelion. And Electra also shared a bond with Jean similar to that of Misato and Shinji. Even moving away from the characterisation and onto more superficial aspects, the submarine battles complete with radar tension and the more serious soundtrack pieces give off a distinct Evangelion vibe. One such track was even later remixed and reused in 'Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo'!
The version I (re)watched was Animatsu's UK Blu-ray release of Nadia, and the remastered high-definition video quality truly impresses. Seeing Sadamoto's distinctive, charming 'old school' art style in an image so sharp that the dirt on the anime cels clearly shows, paired with colours so vibrant, made it a joy to watch. At first I feared the slight 'jittering' of the image occasionally visible and what I assumed to be a related 'vibrating edge-shadow' issue were caused by the remastering process, but no: I checked my old ADV DVDs, and just about visible under the blurriness, it had the same effect. The video quality is just now so vivid I am able to notice those almost insignificant niggles. I did notice some issues during the filler episodes (a few brief parts not appearing remastered and colour bleeding), but nothing too terrible. Overall, it is up there with Cowboy Bebop's remaster; only let down by Nadia having a much smaller budget than that series.
The ONE disappointing aspect of Nadia in terms of audio is the old ADV English dub. It is one of THOSE older anime dubs where the cast read stiffly off the script, sounding painfully wooden. Jean in particular will make or break the dub for viewers: he speaks with a thick/fake French accent... whilst no-one else bothers with similarly totally overdone accents in what is a multicultural anime. Nadia certainly does not sound African. A bad idea, that. The dub cast either only have Nadia on their resume - still - or few to no other roles. And it is easy to see why. Whilst it was a nice touch to cast child actors to voice child characters, it was not a particularly wise move. Compare them against the array of Japanese talent, such as Noriko Hidaka as Jean and Akio Ootsuka as Nemo, and the writing is on the wall. Just the manner in which Nadia's voice actress in Japanese can say Jean's name with such tender affection, then seconds later convey almost venomous anger... the difference in range is night and day. I STRONGLY recommend watching in Japanese.
In summary, Nadia offers a charming adventure, grounded by Anno's human-relatable characters. The tone and pacing is initially inconsistent - only showing its darker edge around episode five - but, ignoring the fillers that weigh the series down like an anchor, there is honestly little to complain about. Jean did become less important as the series went on, in spite of some decent boy-to-man maturity--he simply had no relevance to the plot outside of his relationship with Nadia. Due to this, rather than Jean, my favourite male character was the villain, Gargoyle: his despicable, cunning nature was amplified tenfold by the mystery of a man that ALWAYS wore a mask. Truly a hate-worthy villain with a distinctively arrogant voice; never failing to entertain, much like the show itself.
Buy it, watch it and make it last: they do not make anime like this anymore.
Smartreviews
Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water is one of anime's greatest kept secrets and a hidden gem (no pun intended) for most modern anime viewers. While I wouldn't say it's based off of 20,000 leagues under the sea, it certainly does take inspiration (Nemo) and pay homage (Jean) to many of Jules Verne's works. Most importantly, it's accurately captures Verne's spirit of adventure that would be expanded upon in Hiyao Miyazaki's latter works. It was basically Gurren Lagann before Gurren Lagann. Yet, I wouldn't blame anyone for rating this show a flat 7. Why? Well, while the first 23 episodes and last 5 episodes made upone of the greatest adventure animes I've ever seen, episodes 24 through 34 made up for one of the worst adventure animes I've ever seen. It was almost as if the creator of episodes 23 through 34 (yes they did make 1 episode right) didn't even watch any of the preceding 22 episodes of the series, but instead felt content to, rather than tell a compelling story, preach about the inferiority of women. They are so preachy with their sexism, if you were a fan of e preceding 22 episodes, then it will straight up piss you off.
Of course, that is in fact what happened. While Hiyao Miyazaki had creative control over a majority of the story, because production was slow, Gainex director Higuchi Anno asked his friend Shinji Higuchi (who hadn't seen the show) to take over episodes 23 through 34. You know, Shinji Higuchi, the genius behind the Vandread series? No wait, genius isn't the right word. No, braindead baffoon? Yes. The braindead baffoon behind the Vandread series, you know him right? He also worked as an assistant on Evangelion, which, if you're wondering where all the sexism and hatred for women in Evangelion came from, it's this guy. No, Shinji, Nadia isn't incompetent, you are.
I can sit here for hours and write everything wrong with those episodes, but I don't have that kind of time. So here's a sample platter of everything wrong with just episode 24. By the way, this doesn't include the fact that it was horribly directed and had no plot.
1. Nadia isn't Candian nor is she Tarzan.
2. Nadia doesn't have superhuman strength.
3. Marie doesn't think of Nadia as her sister, she thinks of her as her mother.
4. Nadia doesn't hate machines because "it's against nature," she associates machines with Gargoyle's weapons, which she has seen been used to cause mass destruction and kill her friends, which causes her to be rationally cautious of machines that specifically destroy. In fact, she has time and time again shown her appreciation for machines that don't kill people such as Jean's various aircrafts, despite the fact that they aways fail. And being cautious of machines that can kill and destroy is how a sane person would think. I mean, just look at the atomic bomb.
5. Nadia doesn't hate Jean, or hate that he uses machines, she hates that Jean thinks machines are the solution to everything, because she knows where that will lead.
6. A can opener is not a machine. Even if it was, why wouldn't she just use King to open the cans like everyone else?
7. Nadia has always shown herself to be a logical person, she wouldn't try to ask fish to save her.
8. Nadia wouldn't destroy their entire supply of food to prove a point.
9. Nadia wouldn't lecture Jean about eating meat then few episodes later ask him to create a machine to kill mosquitos.
10. Nadia wouldn't impose her vegetarian beliefs onto others. She hadn't done that thus far and even buys and feeds meat to King.
11. Nadia has never quarreled with Marie, so there's no reason why Marie would think that of her.
12. Jean shouldn't have any knowledge of chopsticks, as he's never been to Asia, nor has he mentioned anything about Asia up to this point. The fact that he even wants to use chopsticks in the first place just goes to show that not only is Higuchi a sexist, he's also a patronizing Japanese nationalist. I don't hate Japanese nationalists. I just hate shows like Gate: JDSF that appeal to a viewer's gut or pride rather than his mind or heart. It's a big deal when this show has spend the previous 20+ episodes showing off it's vast knowledge of western culture, which Higuchi obviously knows nothing about (honestly, why did he even take this job?). By the way, I'm Asian, and I was born and raised in Asia. But nobody, if given the choice as a kid would use chopsticks over forks. I'm sorry, but that's just stupid.
13. Most importantly, Nadia is the main character of this story, not Jean. No one cared when we found out what happened to Jean's father. Finding out what happened to Nadia's father was literally the climax of the entire anime. So then, why would you repeatedly throw your main character under the bus and make her look like a bimbo who should just stay in the kitchen, who wouldn't be able to survive without someone there to hand-feed her, and should come to bed when it's time for a good shag?
But I digress, those unbelievably stupid Shinji Higuchi episode aside, Nadia: the Secret of Blue Water is a very good show. The music, while sparse, is terrific. The characters are very enjoyable. There's a surprising amount of adult themes in this anime, despite it being presumably marketed to kids. It definitely doesn't talk down to you like those Higuchi episodes do. It's smart. It's fun. It's fast paced, and something happens in every episode. It does a very good job of switching it up every now and then to keep things fresh, not unlike Gurren Lagann. There are a few plotholes, like how everyone seems to be able to see into the future and no one questions this. But there's a surprising amount of high-level storytelling techniques here. Like how every episode begins with a narrator asking a question about what the mysterious blue water gem can do. It does pretty much nothing for the vast majority of the show. But when it finally does something, the fact that the narrator talked asked about it all this time makes it not seem like a deus ex machina at all, even though it otherwise would definitely have been.
So yes, it's definitely worth a watch. But if you're going to watch I have two pointers for you. First, skip episodes 24 through 29, then 31 through 34. These episodes will honestly make you hate this show. Second, skip the intros, or if you want to listen to the music, just don't watch the intros, because it contains a lot of spoilers for what will happen in the episode.
young_kappa
I'll say it right off the bat, this show totally soiled my expectations. I was certain Nadia: Secret of Blue Water would become one of my all time favorite series at an 8/10 or possibly 9/10 score until about the halfway point where the directors just threw in about ten episodes of superfluous and boring character interactions just to stall on keeping the plot going, that largely being what killed this for me along with the fact that it's chock full of blatant animation errors, among other things I'll get into. But it certainly has some very redeeming qualities. Nadia's story is the strong point. It'sdefinitely one of the best stories I've ever seen in a series, up to a point. You may or may not know already that it loosely follows the plot of Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, but it's mostly an original work. I personally consider it to be part of a trilogy along with Gunbuster and Evangelion because they're all very similar series, Nadia is of course the most obscure of the bunch but each of them share some of their themes and it's noticeable after seeing them all.
Everything up to them is fantastic, but the two story arcs that "killed" the show are one set on a remote island that feels kind of like some fever dream version of Gilligan's Island with three kids and a baby lion. Most of the interesting characters totally absent here and the events leading up to this are mostly ignored. The episodes are pretty confusing and shockingly dumb. This arc is immediately followed by some inexcusably messy venture into some African village that thinks a can of food is a pillar of silver gifted to them by God or something. But it gets back to kicking ass in just the final 4 or 5 episodes, thankfully.
The animation is mostly well done on its low budget but some episodes certainly suffer a lot, most of the details are typically conveyed in a very minimal fashion and whenever there is an error it's especially difficult to look at. One thing I couldn't get out of my mind even after I finished watching the show is a part where a character's entire forearm is see-through. Chilling.
There are also lots of good characters in the show. The Nautilus crew is well fleshed out and the Gratan team is probably Gainax's first major endeavor into GAR characters. The Neo-Atlantis bad guy Gargoyle is really simple in terms of motives and personality but he's still kind of cool. The eponymous Nadia and Jean (the kid that orbits her) are unfortunately not among the good characters in the show. Nadia's personality and characterization, while you eventually come to understand it, is way too erratic. Though her boyfriend isn't too bad in terms of personality, Jean's knack for inventing is kind of abused as an unrealistic deus-ex-machina that just leaves you wondering if it's really possible for a 15 year old in the year 1889 to invent so many miracle machines. He makes like 20 planes across the series and even a functioning shower on a remote island composed of scraps. Not very plausible.
The last good thing I can say about Nadia is that almost all of the soundtracks are bangers and they're very memorable, but I don't really know what else to say about that.
Overall, if you are a fan of Gainax and Anno, or you're interested in something with a fantastic story and don't mind it having very few other merits, definitely go ahead and check it out. Otherwise maybe put it on hold or stay away from it.
DISKOWN
Fushigi no Umi no Nadia is a series marred by an abrupt mid-season change in direction that disrupts the established quality and tone. This deviation spans roughly 10 episodes, constituting approximately a quarter of the entire anime, which somewhat detracts from the overall experience. Setting that aside, the narrative is reasonably well-crafted, albeit with a few plot holes and an increasing reliance on exposition in the later episodes. The characters, while relatively straightforward, are overshadowed by the anime's heavy thematic emphasis. The initial episodes exude a strong sense of adventure, harmonizing effectively with the more dramatic and action-driven scenes in the conclusion. Overall, Fushigi noUmi no Nadia is a predominantly good anime, yet the jarring shift in direction ultimately leaves the conclusion somewhat unsatisfying.
renyrells
I always thought this show was more popular than it seems to be. It's a Gainax show directed by Anno after all. I've definitely seen Jean, Nadia and Captain Nemo around the internet for well over a decade. As some of the other reviews here indicate, At less than 50k viewers, it is a hidden gem in the Gainax Library. *Will contain some minor spoilers* This is one of the better adventure show's I've seen. I know it's an aspect of the anime media to have over arcing storylines. However, this show does such a good job at stitching the end of one episode right wherethe next one begins. The early pacing of the show is brisk. Boy meets girl being chased by some thieves. Boy shows girl flying contraption, but the two crash in the ocean. Boy and girl are rescued by the navy, that gets into a fight with a sea monster. It's just BOOM, BOOM, BOOM every ep. I have seen some complaints about how the show slows down a bit in the middle. I actually thought this was a good character building and relationship building arc..
The art is surprisingly good for a show from the early 90s. Actually when I was watching the first couple ep., I thought that it looked like an 80s show only to find out that it was from 1990. The animation can be hit or miss. There is some nice sakuga here and there. There is also a lot of squash and stretch animation. Then there are times when the same animation is used for about a minute. So it is a mixed basket.
The sound is fine. The OP and ED are very 90s style. Sound effects are good enough. I watched the English dub of this and my goodness. This is a very good dub. Most of the main cast really give it their all with emotion and accents. There is the occasional flat performance, but for the most part it's good.
The main cast of characters are incredible and well fleshed out. Not just Jean and Nadia. Captain Nemo, Marie and others get a lot of story. The previously mentioned thieves, start the show as Team Rocket. (even though they predate them by a few years) Then by the time we get to the 8th or so ep., they've joined the main group of good guys and later become parental figures for the Jean and Nadia. Like, imagine if Team Rocket joined Ash and Misty instead of Brock and help mentor the two children. It was amazing to watch those characters grow over the series.
Overall, yeah easy recommendation. Some aspects might have not aged very well, but this is still and excellent watch.
