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5.0 out of 5 stars
Jules Verne + Ishiro Honda + Hayao Miyazaki + Hideaki Anno = Fun, May 23, 2010
This review is from: Nadia, Vol. 1: Secret of Blue Water Collection (DVD)
Most anime directors (and indeed most TV/Film directors in general) have in addition to a certain trademark visual style certain themes that are -for better or for worse- employed through most or all of their works and brand any such work as their own. Mamoru Oshii employs dense plotting and long-winded philosophizing. Yoshiyuki Tomino uses political intrigue and giant robots. Hayao Miyazaki is fond of environmentalism, airplanes and young girls. And Hideaki Anno is apparently obsessed with hormone-driven teenage angst and absent and/or abusive parents. He first gave the anime world his brand of puberty-fueled anguish and parent issues with the OVA "Gunbuster" in 1988. After this show he would take it up to 11 with "Neon Genesis Evangelion". Now this is not to say that "Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water" is as angsty as either of those two works. But it is hormone driven. Boy is it hormone driven.
The story starts out simple enough: Jean Roque Raltique is a French 14-year-old genius inventor who has come to Paris for the Exposition of 1889. There he meets Nadia, an African (or is it Indian? Even Nadia is not sure) circus acrobat who is being chased by a pack of jewel thieves hoping to snatch the precious Blue Water gem that hangs from her neck. After escaping from France the two land on an island where they discover that more than just petty thieves are after the Blue Water: a sinister organization seeking to restore an ancient power are after both Nadia's gem and Nadia herself! Soon Nadia and Jean will find themselves racing across the world to keep the Blue Water out of the clutches of the evil Gargoyle and his Neo-Atlantean Empire. It's a good thing they have help from the enigmatic Captain Nemo and his wondrous submarine, the Nautilus.
This plot summary may seem familiar to anyone who has seen Miyazaki's film "Laputa, Castle in the Sky" and that's because Miyazaki was actually partly responsible for this show as well as directing that movie. Way back when Miyazaki briefly worked on a TV show idea with Toho which was to be based on Jules Verne's "20,000 Leagues Under The Sea" but the project went nowhere and Miyazaki moved on to concentrate on making movies. Toho retained the rights to the story, and thus Miyazaki had to tweak the plot and setting a bit when he made "Laputa", which basically substituted Jonathan Swift for Jules Verne and added more airplanes. Toho decided to go ahead and make the TV series and had Studio Gainax handle production with Hideaki Anno (who had worked with Miyazaki on "Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind") directing.
And the result was good. I really like "Nadia". It plays like a mix between Verne's original "20,000 Leagues" and Ishiro Honda's film "Atragon" (made by Toho, by the way). The animation is decent (this show is from 1990) and the music is pretty good as well. The drama is tense and honest, and the action is exciting and well executed. I never thought "Oh, well, they're the heroes - of course they'll get out of this situation. Ho hum." I was actually gripped with suspense a few times while watching this. Gargoyle and his deadly Neo-Atlantean goons are competent villains and actually come off as a credible threat. The comedy is good if a bit dumb sometimes. The characters are great: Captain Nemo is suitably mysterious and commanding -just as he was in Jules Verne's original novel- but is much less misanthropic. His first officer Electra is both the softest and the hardest character in the show. Marie, a spirited and genuinely cute four year old that Jean and Nadia pick up on their travels is one of the few child characters I have been able to stand watching. The Grandis Gang, the not-quite-so-evil trio of jewel thieves after Nadia's gem, serve as comic relief but have some good dramatic reasons behind their actions. And the masked villain Gargoyle is, as previously mentioned, a competent threat in addition to being ruthless and unsparingly brutal - in this collection of DVDs you will see him threaten young children with death and order the extermination of large swaths of innocent people in addition to offing unsuccessful underlings in the tradition of Ernst Stavro Blofeld and Darth Vader. What is it about dark overlords in masks?
It is the two lead protagonists though who take up the most screen-time and on whom the most character development is spent. In fact, this entire series could really be seen as the story of the maturation and growth of Jean and Nadia - the fight against Neo-Atlantis and even the adventures of Captain Nemo and the Nautilus seem secondary. And while I usually don't care for "coming-of-age" stories (I find most to be sentimentally gooey and needlessly nostalgic) I enjoyed "Nadia" for its honest look at the uncomfortable point between childhood and adulthood, and the conflict between children and adults. Both Jean and Nadia have different ways of dealing with adolescence. Jean is a genuine genius who tackles problems in an intellectual way but is naïve and almost clueless about the "real" world. Nadia is more passionate and due to her upbringing is not very good around other people. She is also very moody and tempestuous, which is were the hormones come in. Potential viewers be forewarned: the titular character of this TV show will throw quite a few tantrums over the course of this series (more than the 4-year-old, amusingly enough) and this has caused some hatred for her in anime fandom. I didn't mind so much as I realized that Nadia is the way she is because of her circus upbringing and parent-less life. Oh, and being a fourteen year old girl.
But enough analysis! What is this quadruple-dip collection of DVDs itself like? I do not own any of the previous editions of "Nadia" so I can't compare picture and audio quality. However I do know that these collections (this is the first of two) do not come with soundtrack CDs as the ones previously released by ADV a few years ago did. However, the cases used to hold the DVDs are very convenient and save on shelf space - this collection holds five discs (the next has six) and takes up much less room than the first single-disc releases. The discs are easy to access inside the case too, with single discs being held on flipbook "pages." You won't have to remove any discs to get others.
The discs themselves are (I believe) ports of the previous releases. Some of the ADV previews at least are of long-out-of-print DVDs. The video is pretty good - for a twenty year old anime this is in great shape. The audio is clean and decent enough. I would avoid the English dub - normally ADV dubs are tolerable for me but I didn't enjoy the weak attempts at European accents done by the dub cast. Also, some of the dialogue is stilted and it sounds sometimes like the actors are merely reading lines and not *acting* (I have read somewhere that part of the reason is that ADV hired actual children to play the leads, which while an interesting move proved to be unfortunate). Stick to the Japanese. The voices match the characters perfectly (Nemo's voice struck me as being appropriately deep and commanding, for example) and the acting is spot on. Kikuko Inoue in particular impressed me as Electra: I didn't know that she had that much range as a voice actress! Extras include the aforementioned ADV previews as well as character profiles and clean opening and ending animations. This set is now out-of-print along with everything else produced by ADV (the company folded last year) but can still be found for sale here or elsewhere on the net. This is followed by a second collection, which will be necessary to buy: this set ends on a cliffhanger!
Pluses - Great characters, engaging story, good action and comedy, and decent visuals and music.
Minuses - Can be (as per typical Anno) a little angsty, characters may rub some viewers the wrong way, some juxtaposition of serious drama and silly comedy may alienate other viewers.
Conclusion - This show is unreservedly *fun*, and while not an absolute anime classic is still a very enjoyable experience. This is recommended to anyone who wants a good anime adventure story.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
The best episodes of NADIA: epic, exciting, funny, and heartfelt., July 5, 2010
This review is from: Nadia, Vol. 1: Secret of Blue Water Collection (DVD)
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. 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, notably the Sci-Fi series FUTURE BOY CONAN and the action-adventure feature CASTLE IN THE SKY (this explains why Anime fans often find similarities between the show I'm about to review and the latter film). Ten years later, Japanese animation studio GAINAX was comissioned to produce this very scenario. Under the direction of brilliant but angst-ridden Hideaki Anno, the animation studio took the central story and setup Miyazaki had developed and touched it up with their own creativity. The result was NADIA--THE SECRET OF BLUE WATER, which has since become a longtime fan favorite with many followers of Anime. The show was a tremendous success in its initial 1990 Japanese broadcast; the title character, Nadia, showed up on the Japanese Animage polls as favorite Anime heroine, dethroning Miyazaki's own Nausicaä, the previous champion. (Incidentally, Anno had previously worked for Miyazaki; his most notable credit for animating the climax from NAUSICAA OF THE VALLEY OF THE WIND.)
The story begins in 1889 France at a Paris World Exposition Fair where contestants show off their flying machines. One such contestant is Jean, a bespectacled boy of fourteen who also happens to be a scientific genius. He and his uncle are prepared to launch their newest aeroplane when the boy spots a pretty, dark-skinned girl passing by on a bicycle. Instantly smitten, Jean follows her to the Eiffel Tower and tries to make friends. The girl, who goes by the name of Nadia, however, is another story. She is an unhappy circus acrobat who has become bitter, strong-willed, and suspicious as a result of thirteen years of mistreatment by her cruel ringmaster. Apparently she has no clue about her past other than a jeweled necklace known as the Blue Water. Her only companion is a little lion cub, King (who incidentally shows his testicles at multiple points in the show); consequently, she does not trust anyone else and acts aloof and uninterested to Jean's exuberant overtures.
Just then, though, the girl is kidnapped by a trio of comic bandits who want her necklace. These include Grandis Granva, a bodacious woman with scarlet hair and a fiery temper to match and her two male accomplices-- vain, arrogant Sanson, and mechanic, unkempt Hanson: all three threaten to steal the show with their pricelessly funny interactions and in their doings. The persistent Jean pursues and finally manages to rescue Nadia from the trio by crashing his new aircraft into the trio's vehicle, a beetle-shaped tank called the Gratan. Consequently, he earns her trust. Furthermore, Jean learns that Nadia has no parents and does not wish to return to the circus. Graciously, he takes her to his home in LeHarve, despite the objections of his cantankerous aunt. Through her newfound relationship with Jean, Nadia finds herself learning to trust another person her own age for the first time in her life.
The pair are soon thrust into an even bigger adventure when they set off to find Nadia's birthplace, supposedly located in Africa. They set off in another aircraft prepped by Jean, only to land in the ocean; later, they are rescued by a US battleship hunting down sea monsters, and then taken aboard a spectacular submarine called, yes, the Nautilus (commanded by the charismatic but quietly reserved Nemo and his pretty First Officer Electra). Already fast friends, Jean and Nadia will have a lot to deal with during the course of their surprising adventure. These comprise the first four episodes of Nadia, which provide a very engaging and fresh beginning to a long, turbulent (no pun intended) series.
This collection contains the first twenty episodes of the show, and are probably the best portion from NADIA. The first disc gets the show off to a great start, but the second is even better, where our pals are thrust into an island survival action adventure while protecting an orphaned girl, Marie, from the sinister Neo Atlantis cult, a group of brutal soldiers wearing masks. (Think the Nazis and the Ku Klux Clan, and there you go.) The ringleader of this organization is Gargoyle, a cruel, calculating, misanthropic fiend who wants Nadia's Blue Water at any cost. The Grandis gang unexpectedly turn into allies and help Jean rescue Nadia, Marie, and little lion cub King from the treacherous overlord; a twist that again brings CASTLE IN THE SKY to mind.
The last three discs are the Nautilus episodes (two of which do not appear on this collection, as they are reserved for Collection 2), which involve the three youngsters as well as their former enemies turned allies taken on board the Nautilus where they travel around the world via underwater. These adventures are alternatingly comical, thrilling, and sometimes tragic. Although more slower moving than the first eight episodes, this arc is never boring, with more than a few surprises and engrossing characterizations to keep one intrigued. Particularly exciting are a thrilling chase involving, Marie, Sanson, and a mechanical walker, dangerous run-ins with Gargoyle, territorial eels, as well as a giant shellfish. Yet the best episodes are the ones that involve exploration into imaginative settings such as the underwater graveyard of Atlantis, and a visit to the North Pole where frozen dinosaurs, breathtaking auroras, and even a giant talking whale serve among its highlights. Probably the most upsetting but still powerful episode on the whole collection is episode 15, in which a sailor must sacrifice himself to save the submarine--this is portrayed in a manner that is both terrifying and realistic; young children may very well be disturbed by this scene.
It's the characters that really sell NADIA as a whole, but it's mainly the relationship between Jean and Nadia that gets the focus of the show. The two youngsters are opposites, but are nonetheless bounded by loss and alienation. Jean is an incredibly intelligent youngster who is sweet-natured, kind, and extremely patient, if at times naive about the world; in other words, he is probably the most lovable character in the show. Nadia, by contrast, is a much more complicated person. Having grown up unloved in a circus for more than thirteen years, she has a very pessimistic nature about the world, detests grown-ups, cannot tell the difference between killing out of defense or cold blood, and has unbendingly strict views about eating meat that she often imposes on others. This is one troubled character who really has a lot of growing up to do, and at times, her rages can be alienating to the audience (thank goodness Jean always forgives her)... but at least these episodes show her as a conflicted, moody individual, not the cartoonishly annoying caricature she is reduced to in the abysmal filler arc in the second half. Grandis, Sanson, and Hanson make for a howlingly funny trio, and it is intriguing to see them transform into likeable characters who aid the young protagonists. Particularly winning is a moment where Sanson expresses concern for Marie. Captain Nemo and Electra are every bit as well-defined. Unlike the Jules Verne original, Nemo is not portrayed as a vengeful, cold-blooded killer, but a noble, honorable man who hides behind a mask of guilt for a set of past mistakes that we don't find out about but are hinted at in this collection. Electra is mostly overprotective of Nemo and competes fiercely with Grandis for his love. While it seems that most of the show is about the social interactions between these characters, these episodes are also rich with interesting concepts about the possibilities of technology, as well as a curious mystery about the connection between Nadia, the Blue Water, the Neo-Atlanteans, and Nemo. Each episode subtly builds on these concepts, and increase interest in the viewers as a result.
It helps that this part of the show is aptly executed, too. Director Hideaki Anno and his team manage to pack a balance of action, comedy, young romance, and an ever-present sense of danger within 22 episodes. Although there are definite moments when the action verges a bit on the cartoonish side, particularly in the doings of Grandis's boys or even one comical chase of King the lion cub, it mostly maintains an adventurous tone of innocence and exploration.
NADIA is obviously a show from 1990, so the animation does show its limits in a few places. Frankly, however, compared to many other series of its time it looks quite impressive and consistent. The settings are realized in imaginative detail, and the animation itself is above average. Its use of color is also surprising, although it doesn't exactly approach Ghibli level. Slightly less successful is the musical score by Shiro Sagisu. Although fitting for the show, there are a few tunes which come across as bland and forgettable, although the themes for Nadia and especially Gargoyle are very well composed. The opening and ending songs, meanwhile, are beautifully written and sung by Miho Morikawa, and remain in one's head long after the show.
For their part, ADV Films deserves a shout-out for their work on bringing Nadia to American audiences. In 1996, Streamline Pictures had purchased the rights for the show, but financial difficulties doomed them from completing the series. This doesn't apply to ADV's version, however. The visual transfer on the discs is very colorful and well-detailed, although I did notice a few minor...
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