Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water (Japanese: ふしぎの海のナディア Fushigi no Umi no Nadia, Nadia of the Mysterious Seas) was a famous Gainax series very loosely based on various Jules Verne novels, particularly Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and the exploits of Captain Nemo.
The lead characters are an orphaned young inventor named Jean who lives with his aunt and uncle, and a former, dark-skinned circus performer named Nadia who wishes to return to her (assumed) 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 working on both.
About two-thirds into its run, the production ran into financial difficultes and the desired length of the series. 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. A less famous movie, " The Secret of Fuzzy ", was released, but generally regarded as poorly plotted and animated. It is almost unheard of by most American fans.
Design controversies
While Nadia thinks she is from Africa and is in fact called a "colored girl" by a character, her hair is straight rather than 'kinky'. Although anime is known for taking great liberties with hair design and this is later explained in the series, designers admitted they could not draw the non-straight version of her as well as they liked. Conceptual art designs include the more 'africanized' hairstyle. Also, an early character design for Captain Nemo suggested that he also was originally intended to be Black. Fans speculation on why this change was made range from the producers not feeling that Japanese audiences were ready for a Black main character to the idea that it would make too obvious, from the beginning, the connection between Nadia and Nemo.
Atlantis: The Lost Empire was critized by some animation fans as borrowing too heavily from this series. Defenders insist the Disney version simply used very well established lore of Atlantis and more closely resembles Hayao Miyazaki's Laputa instead.
See also
- M78 - Nadia's homeland, 1600 light years away from Earth (In the story, it gives a wrong distance 277.5 light years)
External links