Nadia does the one thing right with steampunk that I see so often done wrong: the sense of wonder. Whenever I’ve seen steampunk during this whole recent steampunk boom, it seems like everything basically consists of taking something and adding one part exposed pipes and two parts air quotes. Obviously, you cannot simultaneously have wonder and ironic detachment. The both require two different emotional distances from the work.
c'mon, can't you feel the wonder and the excitement of capital M modernity?
The sense of wonder plays in nicely with the fact that this is supposed to be a kid’s show. Gee whiz, science and the world are amazing! This is so cool! Yes, the technologies like steam are somewhat primitive now and we can map the entire world with satellites down to the foot, but what they represent (the potential and ability to do things never even imagined before) is the key. Give kids the opportunity to let their imaginations and creativity run wild! The steampunk aesthetic also helps to make Yoshiyuki Sadamoto’s character designs more distinct, since they can look awfully similar. He’s not Hisashi Hirai bad, but more along the lines of how if you took away Electra’s costume, she is totally Ritsuko from Evangelion.
Ironically, Nadia doesn’t have a Gainax ending. There’s nothing mystifying or confusing at all about it. And I mean let’s face it: this is a kid’s show. That wouldn’t even belong here in the first place. It does, however have a really boring filler arc. Wikipedia says that the show was supposed to run for two cours, but was renewed for a third. Most of that third cours is weirdly out of place filler (it’s primarily comic hijinks), and the story quite obviously feels like it’s set up to only last for about 26 episodes.
While it doesn’t have a Gainax ending, it does totally have some Gainax being Gainax moments, like the omake, which range from Gunbuster-esque science lessons to lots of title cards. My favorite of these moments, of course, are the naval battles which totally all play out like this, complete with Akio Ohtsuka playing Captain Nemo. They even have the dude who gets stuck in the engine room when they seal it off from the rest of the ship!
PS: WOW is the movie bad.
PPS: I got in trouble every time I would yell “THE SECRET OF BLUE WATER” during the eyecatches.
Would I watch it even if I weren’t forced? I’ve been trying to watch at least some of every Gainax title. All that’s left now are Houno no Tenkousei and Puchi Puri Yucie.
Wellll you know Shinji was purposely drawn to look like Nadia.
Exactly like that, yeah.
Watched it very early in my Hideaki Anno-worshiping, fanboy days…it’s got so many future foreshadowings to Evangelion it’s unmistakably his. In fact I recall reading somewhere that making Nadia was what in part led to his emotional crisis, which in turn led to the psychodrama that is the later parts of Eva–he felt ashamed at the prospect that all he would have to show for in life was making some NHK kids’ show. (Never mind that the Island filler arc aside, it’s actually a really good kids’ show.)
We’ll see if that kindergarten show that’s starting this season is worthy even to tie the sandals of this one.
Fun Fact: according to Wikipedia, the island filler is not his!
I’ve had the (bootleg) VCDs sitting in a cupboard somewhere for ages but nobody forces me to watch them.
I’m surprised it was this long before you watched this classic!
I had tried to watch it YEARS ago but most of the CDRs had died by then.
I still can’t get over the fact that Nadia is black. Like, WTF. Why couldn’t the director do an Asian or a white chick?
Also, Genshiken confuses the &%^ out of me. Freaking A, but Saki is totally hot. But her boy friend would rather watch animated porn than her. Don’t spoil anything, but I hope he makes the right choice.
Nadia is awesome and I keep meaning to buy Puchi Puri Yuucie DVDs just because of episode six (the one with all the cats and METEOR STRIKE).
What the hell?!
It’s good to hear that Nadia‘s appeal isn’t just nostalgia for the time when the first four episodes (brought out by Streamline, I think) were sometimes the only other anime on the rental shelf besides Urotsukidoji.
And yes, the island arc is terrible (but for the looking-at-the-moon-through-the-telescope scene, which I remember being touching and sweet).
Really, the only resemblance between Ritsuko and Electra is hair-color — Ritsuko has a stronger jaw-line, for one.
My favorite of the omake was the interview in a bar with Space Captain Electra.
Don’t forget the single copies of Crystal Triangle, Akira, and Harmageddon!
I absolutely love Nadia.
That guy on the first pic resembles the kid in Kiki’s Delivery Service
I watched this in Italian and then in German (no fancy internets at the time) and loved it. Then again, I was around 10-12 I think.
The “oooh science and evolution” part always seemed a creepy to me. Probably because of how the bad guys were portrayed. A lot of pipes and smoke… and evil will
But mostly I think I remember the love story and Jean’s helplessness when it came to save Nadia (in most cases).
Was my earlier comment too racist?
But it’s funny how almost NO ONE who reviews Nadia mentions that Nadia is BLACK.
I haven’t actually watched the show, so I can’t comment on it. But I’d be more likely to watch it if she wasn’t black.
Well, there’s a reason why I don’t want to say that she’s black, in that it’s kidna/sorta not REALLY true. But to say why is spoilery.
Hahaha man, unironic racism on the internet. Don’t actually run into that too often.
The reason why no reviewer ever says that Nadia’s black is because to say that would only invite spoiler comments explaining to the reviewer why they’re wrong.
And it’s a rare thing to see anime not starring someone of light skin complexion. So rare, in fact, that dark skin is practically a fetish. Complaining that a show could’ve starred a light-skinned character is like complaining that one’s vanilla ice cream has the occasional black dot in it.
heh, I must get myself to watch tis classic sometime…
Well said Dorian Cornelius Jasper.
Didn’t they remake this with lot less mentioning of the Africa/Island part of the story? I could have sworn that happened. I barely remember it, but it was good and I liked Nadia as she is/was. No need for change.
The movie thing was just…yeah…
Hell, man, everyone in the show thinks she’s African. Which leads me to… I don’t mind the island episodes. They’re stupid, but cheerful-stupid. It’s the two or three African episodes that come after those that fill me with rage. They’re painfully, stereotypically racist in a fashion that drives me absolutely up the wall.
What really made those three episodes worse, too, IMO, was the way they bastardized the characters’ personalities; I just felt that they were not acting like their usual selves. They also don’t fit in with the context of the story, especially where Nadia’s relationship with Jean is concerned. In the previous episode, she is absolutely grateful that he came back for her, and hey, even embraces him nude. And then in the next episode she takes a 180-turn on him for some stranger she hardly knows? Seriously??! And this girl is SUPPOSED to be suspicious of others! It really is no wonder that Episode 35 forgets these three episodes; even Hideaki Anno said he would have omitted those episodes (as well as the island ones) if he had the chance of doing it all over again. Doing that would not only make the show flow much smoother, but it would also keep the characters more consistent.
And I’m sorry, but the island episodes (well, a good majority of them–23-29) are absolutely horrible too and don’t fit in with the series at all; again, these are guilty of destroying the characters’ personalities. In fact, Anno said he would have saved only parts of episodes 30 and 31 if he were given the choice of deleting them. Considering that, like the Africa episodes, they are quickly forgotten once the real story picks up again, it’s best to disregard them.
Actually, the closest Anno came to remaking “Nadia” as a theatrical feature was in the “Nautilus Story” compilation released in Japan on VHS and LD; this is a much more streamlined version of the show (the island part only lasts for about 13 minutes, for instance–mostly focuses on the Red Noah revelation–and then after Nadia embraces Jean, we go directly to the final five episodes), and it DOES omit some scenes in the better episodes… but while I DID enjoy the first 22 episodes a lot, I feel that this more streamlined approach would work much better for the show, because, as the OP mentioned, it obviously feels intended to be that way.