I'll be third. It is strange that this series has only two reviews. Okay, I'll be third.
In fact, this is just an adventure series in the spirit of Jules Verne. Atlantis, submarines, islands, pirate-like villains. But it's the details.
Nadia should be quite famous, because many anime fans after watching the masterpiece of Evangelion must have a question - and what else did this wonderful man Hideaki Anna? After all, Nadia is valuable as a step on the way to the top of the director and it seems to me that everyone who liked Evangelion should definitely want to see Nadia. But judging by the number of estimates, such people are not very many.
But back to the show. 39 episodes that could be squeezed, or even needed. You can see that their number was deliberately stretched, because in the middle, and not only, there are places where the dynamics sags significantly. It's just boring. But where the plot focuses on the main thing, namely the confrontation between Captain Namo and Gargoyle, where Atlantis and all sorts of mysterious figs appear, here everything is in its place. Some of them have even fascinated me.
But in today’s view, most adventures seem a little naive, as if the writers had the task to soften almost all angles, not to burden the emotional and eventful series. And I was a little puzzled by the manner of the main characters - Jean and Nadia to avoid questions, because there are a lot of riddles around, and they seem not to know the answers, but Nadia wants to find the place where she was born to blue. That’s what the second half of the series is all about. A lot of insightful viewers will guess very soon.
The characters themselves deserve praise. By the end of the series, they’re all close. Everyone has a spark that makes them alive. Only the villain Gargoyle turned out to be just villainous, and he has motives, some kind of humanity even, but he is spelled so to himself.
What is a little discouraging (if you do not remember the name of the director), it is obvious similarities with Evangelion, but not scripted, and visual and design. Although this is understandable, all the same people later worked on Eve.
It immediately catches the eye that Jean is like Kenske, only obsessed with inventions, not weapons. Nadia became the prototype of Shinji, which surprised me personally. There is also an image of a woman avenging the murder of her relatives, and a captain who abandoned his only child for the cause of his life.
Plus, the music is very similar (the composer is the same), and in some moments there are penguins, then a giant human body, if something explodes, then incredibly powerful, and so on. And again flirting with biblical motifs, particularly the theme of the flood. In general, the search for familiar themes and symbols personally turned into a kind of game that even eclipsed the very viewing of the series.
The series is very eclectic, and it is not always done smoothly. Basically everything is more or less realistic, and then suddenly - bang! There is a pure cartoon joke with distorted faces and wild absurdity. In the same series, the drama rolls in waves and disturbing music sounds. Yes, it was in Evangelion and in the earlier Hanbuster of the same Anno, but there it is implemented in some elegant way. There is so much more to comedy than drama.
Total length and tightness write in minus, action, drama and gigantomania Hideaki Anna in plus. Anime lover can safely look, the rest at their own risk.