"Fushigi no umi no Nadia" (1990) TV series

Seasons:

1

Release Date:

13 April 1990 (Japan)

Genre:

Animation | Adventure | Drama | Family | Fantasy | Romance | Sci-Fi | War

Plot:

Nadia is a teenaged circus acrobat, an orphan searching for her father at the turn of the 20th century...

Plot Keywords:

Sea | Orphan | Jules Verne | Acrobat | Submarine

Cast

Noriko Hidaka	...	Jean (39 episodes, 1990-1991)
Carl Domaski	...	Additional Voices / ... (39 episodes, 1990-1991)
Judson L. Jones	...	Additional Voices / ... (39 episodes, 1990-1991)
Craig Kanne	...	Red Noah (39 episodes, 1990-1991)
Talbot McKitt	...	New Nautilus Radio (39 episodes, 1990-1991)
Nathan Parsons	...	Jean (39 episodes, 1990-1991)
Nanker Phelge	...	Additional Voices / ... (39 episodes, 1990-1991)
Guy Roberts	...	Additional Voices / ... (39 episodes, 1990-1991)
Douglas Taylor	...	Gargoyle's Cabinet / ... (39 episodes, 1990-1991)
James Arnold Taylor	...	Additional Voices / ... (39 episodes, 1990-1991)
Clay Towery	...	Gargoyle's Cabinet / ... (39 episodes, 1990-1991)
Meg Bauman	...	Nadia (38 episodes, 1990-1991)
Toshiharu Sakurai	...	King / ... (37 episodes, 1990-1991)
Shawn Sides	...	King (37 episodes, 1990-1991)
Yoshino Takamori	...	Nadia (36 episodes, 1990-1991)
Karen Kuykendall	...	Narrator (35 episodes, 1990-1991)
Kumiko Takizawa	...	Grandis (33 episodes, 1990-1991)
Martin Blacker	...	Sanson (33 episodes, 1990-1991)
Margaret Cassidy	...	Marie (33 episodes, 1990-1991)
Corey Gagne	...	Hanson (33 episodes, 1990-1991)
Sarah Richardson	...	Grandis (33 episodes, 1990-1991)
Ken'yû Horiuchi	...	Sanson (32 episodes, 1990-1991)
Yûko Mizutani	...	Marie (31 episodes, 1990-1991)
Ev Lunning	...	Captain Nemo (25 episodes, 1990-1991)
Akio Ôtsuka	...	Captain Nemo (23 episodes, 1990-1991)
Jennifer Stuart	...	Electra (23 episodes, 1990-1991)
Kikuko Inoue	...	Electra (22 episodes, 1990-1991)
Billy F. Harden	...	Nautilus Chief Engineer (21 episodes, 1990-1991)
Richard Smith	...	Nautilus Co-Pilot / ... (21 episodes, 1990-1991)
Greg Gondek	...	Nautilus Sonar Officer (20 episodes, 1990-1991)
Don Bisbee	...	Nautilus Pilot / ... (17 episodes, 1990)

Also Known As:

Nadia of the Seas of Mystery (Japan) (literal English title)
Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water (USA)
The Secret of Blue Water (Japan: English title)

Runtime:

25 min (39 episodes)

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Company:

Gainax

Trivia:

Gainax, the production company, has a reputation for being frugal when it comes to animation in some of their productions. This sometimes means that they will reuse animation; not only from the current production, but from other series they've produced if the budget becomes too tight. This is apparent in one episode of this series - when the Nautilus is doing battle against a pack of Garfish, footage of missile tubes opening is lifted from _Top o Nerae! (1988) (V)_. Also, stock footage of the ocean waves beating against the sand from the Island episodes and the explosion caused by the Tower of Babel's energy beam in this series ends up being used again in _"Shin seiki evangelion" (1995)_.

Quotes:

[at the beginning, we see a plaque with foreign writing]
Opening Voice: Do you seek adventure beyond the treacherous waterfalls? Do you seek the mythical being the dwells in this unreachable place? If you do, then you must first find me.

Movie Connections:

Featured in "Troldspejlet: (#34.11)" (2005)

Soundtrack:

Yes, I will...

Guyver was my first anime love, but Secret of Blue Water always loved me back

Possible spoilers ahead.

I don't know what I can possibly say about this phenomenal series that hasn't been said already, but I'm here to try anyway. From the moment I saw a review of this series in Gamefan magazine (rest in peace), I fell in love. I had to see it. I dashed out to the mall and grabbed the first copy I saw. And it grabbed me right back, and would not let me go.

The series uses 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (and to a lesser extent the sequel Mysterious Island) as a jumping point for its own story. It takes place in 1889, and revolves around two teens, Jean, a French boy who wants to change the world with inventions and is the biggest weenie who's ever been the hero of an anime, and Nadia, a circus dancer and animal trainer who has a magical crystal, the Blue Water, and no clue about where she comes from. During the course of things they embark on an adventure to get to the bottom of Nadia's past, meet Captain Nemo and help to stop a group of people from Atlantis from taking over the world. And I loved every minute of it.

I mean for crying out loud, what kind of mad genius does it take to make episodes on end of adjusting to life on a submarine entertaining? Whatever kind it is, the guys at Gainax had it. Their smarts in storytelling show in other areas too, mainly the finely tuned characters, like the obligatory kid, Marie, who manages to be anything but the obnoxious brat the kid in an anime series almost always is. Nadia's the only short-tempered anime girl I've ever actually liked. The Grandis Gang go from the comically inept antagonists to helpful and resourceful back-up for the other characters once the real menacing villains show up. In the two really big battles of the series it's arguably them who ultimately save the day.

But a warning flag has to go up at some point, and I'll tell you what it is for this series. Secret of Blue Water is widely touted as being from the same team as Neon Genesis Evangelion, but if you're expecting thrill-a-minute action and non-stop battles between fantastic foes like in Eva, you are in for a big disappointment. There is a fair amount of action in Secret of Blue Water, and it's spectacular stuff when it happens, but a good 70% of the time the show devotes itself to developing the relationships between its characters instead. But never have I met a cast of characters I cared about more, so believe me, I was okay with that. And there's the "island" mini-arc which just lasts too long...

If you're an anime fan, want to watch a series with people in it you'll care about, and don't mind being expected to root for a dork like Jean, please do yourself a favor and pick this up. Oh, and do yourself another favor and watch it with the subtitles on. I'm sure Nathan Parsons is a wonderful human being who'd give me the shirt off his back, but a friend of mine actually started laughing out loud at how dumb Jean's voice sounded when we watched it with the English voices.

And before I go, I want affirm what everyone else is saying, that the sequel movie is terrible and should be avoided by fans of the series at all costs. Unless you want to see how badly a story can undermine itself (pretty much every suspense issue is defeated by watching the series epilogue and twenty five minutes straight of the movie is series flashbacks). Otherwise, stay away. You'll thank me.