The lead characters are an orphaned young inventor named Jean, who lives with his aunt and uncle, and a dark-skinned former circus performer named Nadia, who wishes to return to her home in Africa. Many of the designs in the series, including characters' appearances and several machines, showed up in later Gainax works. In particular, several characters in Neon Genesis Evangelion vaguely resemble Nadia characters due to the same head design artist, Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, working on both. Sadamoto has said that the design of Shinji Ikari, the protagonist of Evangelion, is basically the result of giving Nadia a "masculine makeover".
About two-thirds into its run, the production ran into financial difficultes, since the series was a huge hit and NHK wanted more episodes than had been originally planned. It had to be budgeted to cheaper overseas animation, resulting in a noticeably sharp decline of animation quality and an odd shift in the use of sight gags. (Many consider this the first example of Gainax's tendency to go far over budget during the early stages of producing a TV series and end up having to finish the series on a shoestring; other notorious examples can be seen in Evangelion and His and Her Circumstances (Kare Kano). Gainax has never made another series as long as Nadia; both Eva and Kare Kano ran for 26 episodes.) A less famous movie, "The Secret of Fuzzy", was released in 1993, but generally regarded as poorly plotted and animated, with no involvement from Anno or Gainax outside of some flashback footage from the TV series. It was not received favorably and is almost unheard of by most American fans of the series.
In its original Japanese broadcast, it aired from 1990 to 1991 and ran for 39 episodes. The complete television series and aforementioned movie are currently available in the United States from ADV Films on DVD. ADV's Anime Network has broadcast the series in the United States. Reportedly, the series was to have been screened on TV in the United Kingdom in the mid-1990s, but the UK distributor balked because of the amount of violence in the series (which is never gratuitous but is at a greater level than most English-speaking viewers might be used to in TV animation).
Dislikes: Meat, Fish; Onions, Green Peppers, Mushrooms
Nadia is a 14 year old (15 toward the end of the series) who works in a circus as an acrobat in order to survive, since she is an orphan and of unknown origins. She is chased by Grandis and her associates Sanson and Hanson, who are looking for the jewel that Nadia possesses, the Blue Water. While escaping from them, she meets Jean, and from that moment the two of them will be together in the series, where she tries to discover her origins and find out the truth about her past and the Blue Water, the jewel that seems to have an enormous intrinsic power.
Nadia is quite stubborn, easily irritable, socially inept, and has the ability to talk with animals. For example, she is able to communicate easily with her little lion, King. Nadia is also known among those who have knowledge of the blue water for being its possessor. She even happens to be a strict vegetarian and believes that there is no excuse for eating meat or killing (although her friends attempt to justify their reasons for doing so). Because of her unhappy past, Nadia is even extremely suspicious of all grown-ups--particularly Nemo. As a result of her growing love for Jean however, she comes to learn valuable lessons about friendship, respect, and trust for those around her.
In the epilogue told by a grown-up Marie in the last episode, Nadia has married Jean and they have a child. While Nadia is still a dedicated vegetarian, she is not aggressively so (as evidenced from her meals of meat and fish for Jean and his son).
Jean is a young 14 year old orphan who fell in love with Nadia ever since he first laid eyes on her; unlike her, however, Jean has a completely different personality and interests. He is very generous, patient, friendly, and devoted to the things he loves, which are his friends and the love for science. He is also genius inventor, in fact he is capable of creating complex machines at a very young age. Jean's father is a wealthy trader and ship's captain, but was recently lost at sea and is presumed dead. (We later find out that there has been a rash of mysterious disappearances of ships lately and the rumors are that a sea monster has been attacking them) Jean, however, chooses to deny them and is determined to finally find his father along with his big adventure with Nadia to find about the Blue Water. Despite being somewhat awkward when it comes to social graces around the opposite sex (such as giving compliments or lack of awareness in some cases where he's inventing and/or reading when Nadia wants his attention), Jean is genuinely well-behaved and is nice to everyone--even Gargoyle finds something to admire about his courage and cleverness.
Consistently loyal to Nadia (even through all the bad moments), Jean vows to take her to Africa someday. In addition, his love for Nadia gradually changes her as a person, inspiring her to be more trusting, respectful, and caring of others.
In the epilogue, he is married to Nadia (as mentioned above), still inventing things alongside his uncle... and his son!
Nemo is the captain of the submarine called Nautilus, whose purpose is to destroy the Neo-Atlanteans at all costs. He is a mysterious man with a dark past; in fact only step by step we discover that he is Nadia's father and the real Emperor of Atlantis. Though he could have all mankind under his command, he chooses to live peacefully along with them on Earth, as he believes in humans and in their ability to love. While he acts cold and aloof when he first meets Jean, he nonetheless warms up to his outgoing cheerfulness and enthusiasm. Nadia, meanwhile, is very distrustful of him and is quick to accuse him of murder when he shoots a Neo-Atlantean to save her from death. However, she eventually learns to respect Nemo, and, at the end, at last acknowledges him as her father. Nemo then dies after overloading the Neo Nautilis's reactors to blow a passage out of Red Noah, permitting the rest of the cast to return to Earth.
Nemo's name is a reminiscence of the Greek city Eleusis, the place in Greece where the followers of Demeter met annually to initiate members into the ways of the Earth-goddess, and Ra, the sun-god of Heliopolis in ancient Egypt. He is likely based on Captain Nemo (literally meaning "no man" in Latin). He also bears a striking resemblance to another famous anime captain, Bruno J. Global/Henry J. Gloval of the SDF-1 Macross in Macross/Robotech.
Marie is a 4 year child orphaned by the hands of Gargoyle and the Neo-Atlantean troops, who killed her parents. She is soon found by Nadia and Jean, who decide to keep her and to take good care of her. Although she is a kid, Marie is a very strong character, who is at the same time a child but also acts like an adult in difficult situations. She has a good relationship with King, her playmate. In fact, she later comes to see him as husband and wife and Nadia and Jean as her new parents. Later on, however, she will develop an interest in Sanson; in fact, in the epilogue, a grown-up Marie tells us what had happened to all the characters... and finishes her story by she has married him, and is expecting their first child.
The spelling of the name is uncertain. In the episode guide she appears as "Marie", in the Japanese series books she is "Mary", Streamline Pictures calls her "Mari", and in episode 24 she signs one of her drawings as "Marry". Even so, Marie is probably the most accurate spelling, as the French one.
King is a small lion, and he is Nadia's best friend before she meets Jean and the others. He will become eventually Marie's nursemaid during the episodes, playing with her all day. He is a very jealous animal, especially when Nadia and Jean become more intimate.
In the epilogue, King is still living with a now married Nadia and Jean, and has several cubs of his own.
Grandis is a 28 year old who grew up in a royal Italian family. At first she was rather rich, spoiled and powerful young woman, but later when she was tricked by her first husband, who married her just for her money unil he leaves her broke and alone. After her frail mistake she is exiled by her relatives and the only people who remained faithful and loyal to her were Hanson and Sanson, with whom she then formed the Grandis Gang, a group of jewel thieves. Her life and behavior change dramatically when she meets Nadia and the others; having to first steal the Blue Water, then wanting to protect them after finding out she has soft spot for them when learning about their troubles with Gargoyle. Once aboard the Nautilus she falls hopelessly in love with Captain Nemo competing and having a strict rivalry with Electra. She tries to seduce him with any power she has until the very end, but her love for him is never returned.
In the epilogue, a grown-up Marie tells us that she is alive and well, but still looking for love. She's quite popular though.
Sanson is the brawn side of the team. His strength overcomes even the most powerful of mecha. When he was younger he was slim and girls made fun of him; as he trained day by day he became stronger but incredibly vain. Sanson also is an outstanding marksman. He was the chauffeur to Granva's family before they lost their fortune, and he remains faithful to her until the end of the series. In the epilogue, he has married a grown-up Marie and they are expecting their first child.
His name is reminiscent of the biblical figure Samson, who appears in The Book of Judges Chapter 13 - 16., which tells the story of a man who had enormous strength, but if he were to cut his hair he would be breaking his promise with God and therefore lose all his strength. The Sanson in the series is very vain and pays particular attention to his hair.
Hanson is the mechanic of the Grandis Gang. He has exceptional skills; he built the Gratan and lots of other devices. He is in love with Electra, but alas, his love is not returned. Jean and Hanson become close friends thanks to their mutual fascination with technology, they spend a lot of time together discussing technical details and ideas about mecha.
In the epilogue, Hanson has become an industrial giant, rich and respected-he lives in fictional world's equvalent of the Chrysler building. Having made his fortune as a manufacturer of automobiles, he still claims that he will find a girlfriend someday.
Electra is an orphan since the destruction of her hometown, after which she is saved by captain Nemo and she is the First Officer of the 'Nautilus', fighting Gargoyle and the Neo-Atlanteans. Electra is deeply in love with Nemo, although she also burgeons a deep grudge toward him for the deaths of her family. Even so, she becomes extremely envious of Grandis' mad infatuation for the Captain, igniting a heated rivalry for his love. She grows fond of Jean and his determination to learn about technology, seeing him as the equivalent of her long lost brother. Nadia, on the other hand, detests Electra and becomes increasingly jealous of Jean's friendship with the First Officer; likewise, Electra fears that Nadia will somehow steal Nemo's heart away from her. Eventually, however, both open up to each other.
In the end of the series, Electra is revealed to be pregnant with Nemo's child, and Marie tells in the epilogue that she gave birth to him and raised him with love, like Nemo asked her.
Dominate over the entire world and humans, whom he considers inferior.
He considers himself an Atlantean, but he is not aware of the fact that he is one of the humans that he despises, as the mere creation of the Atlantean technology. He is a cunning yet brutal villain who speaks in a soft voice and taps into other people's weaknesses to make them comply with his wishes. We never see the face behind the mask until the final episode (and even then, his face is only briefly shown before he dies).
His name is also a mix of Latin and Greek mythology, as for Nemo and Electra.
Emperor Neo (Venusis Ra Alwar; called Icon Epiphanes by Gargoyle)
Emperor Neo is apparently the leader of the Neo-Alanteans. Later in the story we discover that he is Nemo's son and Nadia's brother, but his body was destroyed in the collapse of Tartessos, and was mechanically recreated by Gargoyle. He is then controlled like a puppet by him; he tries to take over the world using his psychic powers and technology, and also shoots his own father against his will.
In the end he will eventually liberate his free will and love for his family, sacrificing himself to save Nadia.
Ayerton is first seen in the series as a scientific officer aboard US warship Abraham; he states he's been sent on a secret mission to investigate the sea monsters phenomena. Later in the series, Jean and Nadia meet him again partially buried on a mysterious moving island, completely drunk and telling stories about a strange witch who inhabits the island (who naturally turns out to be Grandis). While on the island, Ayerton falls in love with Grandis, and to strike her, he pretends to be an English nobleman who's going to inherit a large wealth from his family.
Ayerton is quite a weird, loudmouthed character, who is never really able to completely grasp the reality around him, and to tell good from evil. In the epilogue, Marie says that Ayerton was really a noble and wealthy man, and eventually he returned to his homeland.
Eiko is Nautilus' sonar operator and founder of Ikolina's fan club. In episode 16, Eiko reveals that he is the sole survivor of the shipwreck of Elise Le Havre, Jean's father's ship.
Mecha
Gratan (The Grandis Tank / Katherine)
Designed and built from scratch by skilled mechanic Hanson, Gratan is a small multi-purpose vehicle: it has wheels for ground movement, but may also fly using a hot-air balloon and propellers, and even travel underwater. Configuration can be switched by the pilot using a piano keyboard in the cockpit. Gratan is the common name for the vehicle, while Grandis prefers to call it Catherina. After being damaged and repaired countless times during the series, Gratan is eventually crushed by the igniter of Red Noah's Light of Babel, a sacrifice needed to avoid destruction of a defenseless Excelion.
Nautilus (Eritrium)
Length: 152 m
Mass: 12,000 tons
Powered by: Para-annihilation engine
An Atlantean space-ship converted to submarine, Nautilus' is Nemo's main weapon against Gargoyle and his minions. Notable features of this ship are: ability to withstand high pressures and depths, exceptionally resistant Space Titanium armoured hull (glasses are made from Tektite), and water-jet magnetic propulsion.
The name of the original spaceship was Eritrium, as is discovered by Jean and Nadia in episode 15, while the origin of the Nautilus is explained at the end of the series. Eritrium (sometimes spelled Elitrium or Eltrium) is also the name of a space ship in Gunbuster.
One of Atlantis' most powerful warships, it's been reactivated after 12,000 years by Nemo's crew after the demise of Nautilus in episodes 21 and 22. New Nautilus' Orpheus engine draws power from aberrations in the gravitational field of two black holes orbitating one around the other, Reportedly, the ship has other weapon systems which were damaged in previous battles, and cannot be repaired. Excelion is also the name of one of the most powerful ships in Gunbuster.
Red Noah
Diameter: 12.222 km
Powered by: Multiple Orpheus engines regulated and powered by the two Blue Waters
Weapons: firepower is reported to be 50 times greater than the New Nautilus'
One of the three space-arks used by atlanteans to leave their home in Nebula M78 and reach the Earth. It is disguised as a moving island on which take place episodes 27-31. Red Noah finally reveals its nature when Nadia and Jean enters the ship in episodes 30-31, as a giant flying saucer operated by a sentient android, which wants to bring Nadia to Atlantis in order to start a new Atlantean empire. Eventually Red Noah is retrieved by Gargoyle who'll be using it as the final weapon for the restoration of Neo Atlantis and the subjugation of the human race.
Design controversies
Also, an early character design for Captain Nemo suggested that he was originally intended to have the same skin tone as Nadia. It should also be noted that according to Jules Verne's Mysterious Island, Captain Nemo is an Indian prince, and presumably would have been dark-skinned.
Nemo's final design looks remarkably like Captain Bruno J. Global (from The Super Dimension Fortress Macross), even down to his uniform being almost identical to Global's. This is most likely intended as a tribute; Hideaki Anno's first job in the industry was as an animator for that series.
The 2001 Disney animated feature Atlantis: The Lost Empire was criticized by some anime fans as borrowing too heavily from this series. Defenders of the film insist the Disney version simply used very well established lore of Atlantis—as had Nadia itself—and in terms of story the Disney film more closely resembles Hayao Miyazaki's Castle in the Sky than it does Nadia.
Trivia
This show's origins date back to the mid-1970s when Hayao Miyazaki was hired by Japanese movie giant Toho to develop ideas for television series. One of these concepts was "Around the World Under the Sea", (adapted from Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea), in which two orphan children pursued by villains team up with Captain Nemo and the Nautilus. It was never produced, but Toho retained the rights for the story outline. This explains why Anime fans often liken Nadia to a Miyazaki production; the animator reused elements from his original concept in later projects of his, notably the Sci-Fi series Future Boy Conan and his action-adventure film Castle in the Sky.[2]
Approximately ten years later, Gainax was appointed by Toho in 1989 to produce a TV series which would be broadcast on the Japanese educational network NHK (the equivalent of PBS). Miyazaki's outline for "Around the World Under the Sea" was the one which captivated Gainax the most. Under the direction of Hideaki Anno, the animation studio took the central story and setup Miyazaki had developed and touched it up with their own creativity.[2] (incidentally, Anno had previously worked for Miyazaki as an animator on Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.)
Nadia showed up on the Japanese Animage polls as favorite Anime heroine, dethroning the then top champion, Hayao Miyazaki's Nausicaa.
Nadia was originally intended to have an estimated 30 episodes. Since the show was so popular in Japan, however, NHK requested Gainax to produce more episodes, extending the episode count to 39. These episodes, dubbed as the "infamous island episodes" (which begin on Episode 23 and conclude on Episode 34), took hits for poor animation (since, as mentioned, other animation studios in Japan and Korea produced these episodes), ill-conceived plotting, and character stupidities; consequently, they drove many fans away. Only by Episodes 35-39 does the show return to its initial roots wherein lies its appeal. The setting of these episodes was suggested by Jules Verne's other novel featuring Captain Nemo, Mysterious Island.
According to the notes found in the DVD sleeve of the Italian edition, the true reason behind the difference between the "infamous island episodes" and the rest of the series, would be that production was late on schedule. Starting with episode 11, Anno was working up to 18 hours a day on the series, and yet he was unable to cope with the screenplay, which was then handed to the storyboard team. After episode 20 (aired September 21, 1990), NHK put Nadia on hold to make space for news coverage on the Gulf War: the series returned about a month later with episode 21 (aired on October 26). Nonetheless production was still late, and Anno asked friend and Gainax co-founder Shinji Higuchi to take over the direction of the series, while he was going to focus on the ending. According to the same source, Anno would have stated that episodes 30 and 31 were the only he would have saved among the Island Chapter ones, while episode 34 was entirely scrapped and replaced by edited sequences of previous episodes.
At the start of each episode, a Japanese inscription appears onscreen (written in the Latin alphabet) and is read by a man's voice challenging the viewer to follow him for an adventure. "Are you adventurers? Do you seek the truth behind the mythical being that lies beneath the blue waterfalls named The Perilous. It you are, then you must first find me." This derives from the perplexing challenge of Arne Saknussemm in Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth.
Shortly after Nadia completed its first broadcast in Japan, Carl Macek and his company, Streamline Pictures purchased the license for Nadia in the hopes of bringing the show to U.S. television, but because of financial difficulties, Streamline could only dub the first eight episodes. (Coincidentally, Anno worked on Macross, which Macek adapted into the successful Robotech). The dub's cast included Wendee Lee as Nadia, Ardwight Chamberlain as Jean, Jeff Winkless as Captain Nemo, Cheryl Chase as Mary, Melanie MacQueen as Grandis, Tom Wyner as Sanson, Steve Kramer as Hanson, Edie Mirman as Electra, and Steve Bulen as Gargoyle. In 1996, Streamline's rights for the show expired. Later, ADV Films purchased the rights for Nadia, and commissioned a new dub to be recorded at their Austin-based Monster Island studios. This dub cast actual children in the roles of Nadia, Jean, and Marie (in the Japanese and Streamline versions, all three parts were played by adult actors). In ADV's version, Nadia is portrayed by Meg Bauman (who was, like Nadia, 14 years old at the time she recorded the part), Jean by Nathan Parsons (12 years old), and Marie by Margaret Cassidy (11 years old). Interestingly, Cassidy originally auditioned for the Nadia role.
The series contains numerous nods to other Japanese television series, as is to be expected in a series by Gainax, which is famously comprised of "otaku" (fervent anime fans). Ostensibly, the Grandis Gang are modeled after the villains from Tatsunoko's Time Bokan series, and M78, the home system of the Atlanteans, is also the home of Tsuburaya's Ultraman.
There are various Biblical references in Nadia: Secret of the Blue Water. "Noah's Ark" and the "Tower of Babel" are two such examples. One example presented near the end of the series, a giant artificial human called "Adam", is faintly reminiscent of the Adam and Evangelions of Neon Genesis Evangelion.
Jean's family name, Raltique, is derived from the name of the famous French photographer Jacques Henri Lartigue. Lartigue started talking photographs of aircraft at the Ligue Aérienne in 1908, at the age of 14, incidentally the age of Jean in the Blue Water series.
See also
M78 - Nadia's homeland, 1600 light years away from Earth (In the story, it gives a wrong distance 277.5 light years)
