Anime Pilgrimage RTT

Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water – Episodes 6 to 12

June 5, 2004 on 7:42 pm | In Nadia | Comments Off on Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water – Episodes 6 to 12

Don’t forget to try in mind!

And, as the first arc of the Neo Atlantis story line comes and goes, Nadia becomes blood pumping ultra fun anime! Hurrah for sea legs! Then all of our character related dreams come true.
First up: Nadia’s run in with the Neo Atlantians leads to the discovery of her “weakness”, if you can call pacifism that, and the forced revelation of information. (She’s the kind of character who doesn’t care if she’s tortured, but torture her adopted child and her pet lion …)
The secret base is great, both in appearance and animation. The conveyor belt that Nadia and Jean find themselves on is a marvel, but that’s largely because a personal favourite technique of mine is when the background and foreground are simultaneously animated. Nadia’s animation wasn’t the peak of technical perfection at the time, but there were very impressive scenes, and this is one of them.
Unfortunately, there can be no surprises at times (one can’t exactly be expected to cry “Oh my God! The TOWER OF BABEL was DESTROYED?!” – it’s traditional anime shorthand that anything named after Babel will ultimately fall into ruin. It’s been standard since the father of sci-fi, Metropolis), but that doesn’t destroy the impact completely.
Finally Captain Nemo reveals himself to everyone and they start a new life, and story, aboard the Nautilus. Now we have a sense of the plot ahead.

The best thing about these episodes was the evolution of the Evil Trio. As bad guys, they’re lousy. As vain good guys, however, they’re shinily brilliant. It was poorly suggested in episode five that they cared about Nadia’s well being (at the time, there was nothing really to justify it). Their initial motivation of stealing the Blue Water was never really explained, so in this new capacity as submarine workers they’re much better.
It should be noted that this is not really in any way a spoiler, as the OP has all along shown the two groups of three (and King) getting along.
The initial escape, with Sanson powering through, was handled in such a way that it was genuinely exciting. Excitement that removed any doubts about Nadia‘s being worthwhile. But then Grandis’ sudden change to that of a loving, passionate woman is also great and adds more depth. Her hardened attitude was caused, not surprisingly, by a man. It looks like the presence of another man might be healing her, even if nothing comes of it. Really, though, the trio are all heart.

The music is never inappropriate in this set of episodes, and there was some genuinely impressive animation aboard the submarine. Oddly enough, this great animation was used for domestic scenes, which is something of a rarity, as budgets are generally saved for “action”. Heck, there’s even Grandis fan service! And when you’re as beauteous as Grandis, you deserve all the service that can be doled out.
The way that the script gets around the technology is highly amusing at times. Aboard the Nautilus, Hanson marvels “I can’t believe a submarine like this has already been built!” and when Jean asks Nemo about the engine, he says “This engine is truly a wonder, that can not be duplicated in this century or the next.”
It’s best not to worry about any anachronisms in this sort of series, because that just takes the fun out of everything. If you’re going to alter one thing, it can’t hurt to change another …

Nadia: Secret of Blue Water is generating so much good will that I don’t see how it can possibly be hurt by the infamous “island” episodes. But I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.