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+==================================
+ Nadia - the Secret of Blue Water
+==================================
+:CreationDate: 2015-12-11 12:38:51
+:Id: anime/review/nadia
+:tags: - anime
+       - review
+:rating: 4
+:original: http://www.easternkicks.com/reviews/nadia-the-secret-of-blue-water-complete-collection
+
+There are some works of art that force you to take notice. You may not
+have the knowledge, or the context, to fully appreciate the craft or
+the importance or the references or whatever, but you are still caught
+and gripped and you think «this is something special». And I'm not
+only talking about “proper art”, paintings and sculpture and
+“classical” music: comics and pop music and films can and do shine of
+significance even to the clueless observer.
+
+I grew up with science fiction and anime. The first books I remember
+reading on my own were abridged editions of Verne, and stories for
+children written by Asimov and Bradbury. I know that I was watching
+Yatterman and Polymar when I was four, and I remember watching Tetsujin
+#28 and Arale when I was six. But the first time that something made
+me stop and take notice was when I was fourteen, and I caught a
+fragment of an early episode of Nadia on TV. When I was younger, I
+used to watch TV most afternoons, and Italian TV at the time broadcast
+plenty of Japanese animation; then, over the years, my computer
+attracted more of my attention (no Internet! this was the eighties!),
+and I sort of lost track of what was on TV: the fact that anime was
+re-scheduled to coincide with mealtimes (as opposed to mid-afternoon)
+didn't help, as my parents controlled the TV while we ate. So it was a
+surprise, one evening just before dinner, while channel-surfing, to
+stumble upon an animated scene that screamed «this is good, pay
+attention». But my mother called, I went to dinner, and that was it.
+
+I actually didn't know what it was I had seen until about five years
+later, during my first year at University, where I finally met other
+manga and anime fans. I was finally able to watch the whole series,
+and the experience only confirmed my first impression: Nadia is
+special, it's an important cultural artefact.
+
+Of course, by that point, I also was better positioned to recognise
+the various sources of inspiration and references in the work: Jules
+Verne, of course, but also Ghibli's Laputa, Tatsunoko's Time Bokan
+series, and to a lesser degree the ship design of Macross and Yamato.
+
+The references to Verne are obvious and explicit: the opening
+narration in the first episode is essentially the same as the one that
+opens Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Seas, there's a Captain Nemo
+on a submarine called Nautilus, to say nothing of balloon travel
+around the world, and mysterious islands.
+
+The Grandis / Sanson / Hanson trio is of course modelled after Doronjo
+/ Tonzura / Boyacky and their other incarnations from Yatterman and
+the other Time Bokan series. In Nadia, though, the characters are not
+written as bumbling idiots, but as smart and resourceful thieves and
+fraudsters, with hearts of gold.
+
+That a very similar group of enemies-but-not-quite is found in Laputa
+(the sky pirates Dora / Charles / Henry / Luis) is almost certainly a
+consequence of the original concept on which both works are based: in
+the seventies, the production company Toho commissioned a young Hayao
+Miyazaki to propose a few ideas for television series; the series were
+never made, but on the one hand, Miyazaki used some of those concepts
+in Future Boy Conan and Laputa, and on the other hand, Toho gave the
+same concepts to Gainax (already famous for Honneamise and Gunbuster)
+to make Nadia. So the two works are not directly inspired one from the
+other, they're more two different developments of the same premise. I
+always suggest watching both, to see how different people can tell
+what is essentially the same story, and send very different
+messages. Then you may also want to watch Disney's Atlantis, for
+another different take on very similar premises.
+
+So, is this important cultural artefact without faults? Oh, of course
+it has faults!
+
+For starters, it's way too long. 39 episodes are too many for almost
+any story: at the time, 26 was the norm, and these days I look askance
+at anything longer than 13. The probability of there being filler
+episodes and useless story lines grows sharply beyond about four hours
+of animation. Nadia is no exception: episodes 32-33 can be seamlessly
+removed, the whole Lincoln Island sequence could be seriously
+shortened, and after a while the chase / fights with the Evil Guy feel
+repetitive.
+
+Then, the Evil Guy, Gargoyle, is not much of a character as a
+caricature: very thin back-story, minimal motivation, apparently
+unlimited resources, petty vengeance… mind you, Laputa's Muska and
+Conan's Lepka are not much better written, but being a wide-spread
+problem does not make “cardboard bad guy” less of a problem.
+
+There's many other issues with this series, but I feel they do not
+detract much from its best feature: the characters.
+
+Jean is, in all aspects, a 14 year old techno-nerd. Naïf, socially
+awkward, innately positivist, looking for technological solutions to
+all problems… how many of us have been there? And, just like Jean, how
+many have grown out of the destructive and isolating aspects of such
+youth, helped by friends and loved ones?
+
+Nadia, orphan, adrift, a young black woman surrounded by white people,
+exploited, sold, afraid of loving others. But with a strong moral
+sense, a clear feeling for what's wrong and what's right, which helps
+her navigate the upheaval of her world when she realises that not
+everybody is out to get her, and that she can be loved. Nadia is as
+close to a self-insert as you can get (Anno has stated on the record
+that many aspects of her personality are based on himself), but I
+can't think of any other who came out this well. Also, she's one of
+the very few non-white characters in anime.
+
+I have already spoken of Grandis's trio, but they also work as adult
+guidance and examples for Nadia and Jean, being much better at it than
+the crew of the Nautilus are.
+
+And, finally, Marie, the little girl, who literally gets the last word.