Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water
- Why does the action become jarringly cartoonish during the island arc? What's up with all the Looney Tunes stunts (Jean stepping off a cliff in episode 26 and falling, Wile E. Coyote style to the ground, swallowing water in the captain's pod and swelling up like a balloon, etc.)?
- The answer? Hideaki Anno was not in the director's chair at that point. Up until episode 22, Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water was a genuinely epic if occasionally dark sci-fi adventure story with the occasional bit of comedy. Even some of the funnier bits in the first 22 episodes weren't as drastically "cartoony." Because the show was given a last minute extension by the executives at NHK, Gainax didn't have the time or money to do these extra episodes properly, hence why they were outsourced to other studios in Japan and Korea. But the real problem was either that Shinji Higuchi apparently didn't share the same vision that Anno did about the characters or the physics of Nadia prior to stepping in starting at episode 23, or maybe because the scriptwriters perhaps had intended for it to be a cartoonish story? Remember that Anno disliked the original screenplay for Nadia and often changed it to suit his standards for episodes 1-22 (As referenced in http://www.mangauk.com/post.php?p=the-world-of-hideaki-anno)
. Perhaps Higuchi didn't have the gall to do so?
- The answer? Hideaki Anno was not in the director's chair at that point. Up until episode 22, Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water was a genuinely epic if occasionally dark sci-fi adventure story with the occasional bit of comedy. Even some of the funnier bits in the first 22 episodes weren't as drastically "cartoony." Because the show was given a last minute extension by the executives at NHK, Gainax didn't have the time or money to do these extra episodes properly, hence why they were outsourced to other studios in Japan and Korea. But the real problem was either that Shinji Higuchi apparently didn't share the same vision that Anno did about the characters or the physics of Nadia prior to stepping in starting at episode 23, or maybe because the scriptwriters perhaps had intended for it to be a cartoonish story? Remember that Anno disliked the original screenplay for Nadia and often changed it to suit his standards for episodes 1-22 (As referenced in http://www.mangauk.com/post.php?p=the-world-of-hideaki-anno)
- The whole Africa arc. Episodes 32 and 33. That whole storyline just doesn't fit with the atmosphere of Nadia, and comes at precisely the wrong time in the series, especially where the character relationship dynamics are concerned. Nadia just admitted Jean was more important to her than the Blue Water. She embraced him nude. And there was no conflict between them while they were riding to Africa on the Gratan (except for Nadia being somewhat afraid to tell Jean about what happened while she was in Red Noah's control chamber, and even so very respectfully if quietly. So why the hell does she get hearts in her eyes (literally!) with some stranger in an African village who does little more than just recognize her Blue Water and vaguely implies he knows about Tartessos? And treat Jean like trash during that same sequence when he's done at this point absolutely nothing to deserve it? It doesn't make any sense, plus it is really out of step for Nadia's character.
- While one could make the arguments that Nadia is simply afraid of telling Jean who she is and so feels she has to bury her love for him and re-direct it toward someone who she doesn't know to fear rejection by the former, the truth is that the whole thing is handled much too suddenly and with no explanation. There's no real build-up to it. Even the friendship between Jean and Electra didn't so quickly escalate to such extremes that fast (nor did it ever). Plus, there are other warning signs in these African episodes that the whole thing feels rushed. A village that worships a goddess lion with big testacles? Whose treasures are just a can of food and a magic potion that can make anyone run super fast? The genuinely awful animation? The characters all not behaving like themselves? (Grandis even falls again, temporarily, for her Snidely Whiplash-like ex-fiance!) Yeah, it's not just Nadia's sudden flip in character that's problematic (although it is the worst issue of that sequence). The whole thing feels very off from the start. The whole two-episode affair (plus the subsequent singing episode) is also forgotten in episode 35, never once talked about again. Even the vaguely referenced "silver city" by the African villager is never shown. Nor even mentioned during anywhere else in the show. So, yeah, something was obviously fishy with the whole "affair".
- Here's another thing, too: according to a document the whole Africa village sequence was never supposed to happen. It was not in the original plans. Simply put, Anno and company had intended to take Nadia and her friends to Tartessos immediately after the incident with Red Noah. Even in The Nautilus Story edit and in some storybook adaptations of the show made for Japan, episodes 32-34 are never once referenced.
