Secret #6: Hideaki Anno.
Although Hayao Miyazaki can be credited as conceiving what eventually became known as
Nadia, the real talent behind the show is Hideaki Anno, one of the co-founders of the
Japanese animation studio, GAINAX. Anno was born in the Yamaguchi Prefecture
of Japan on May 22, 1960. When he was 14, Anno saw the Japanese TV series
"Space Battleship Yamato," which left a lasting impact on him as an aspiring filmmaker.
At the age of 24, Anno was a key animator on Miyazaki's "Nausicaä of the Valley of
the Wind." Anno's desk was so littered with comic books,
magazines, and other reference materials that Miyazaki wondered how Anno would be able to
clean up after the film was finished. Many elements of Anno's personal life are
incorporated into his work, including constant fear, vegetarianism, shyness, and his troubled
relationship with his father. He is said to have created the protagonists
for "The Secret of Blue Water" — the ever-optimstic, kindhearted inventor Jean and the suspicious,
eccentric circus performer Nadia — based on his light and dark sides.
Working on the show proved to be a nightmare for Anno.
Tight production schedules caused a lot of stress for the director, even more so because
he had almost no creative control on the show. The resulting turmoil led to four years of
depression for Anno. Somewhere during this period he created what
would be his most personal work, described as an attempt to put his feelings, passions,
and troubles onto film. The resulting show, "Neon Genesis Evangelion,"
was arguably his biggest success, and the work that Japanese animation fans mostly remember
him for today. "His and Her Circumstances" was his last animated
show as a director. Anno temporarily withdrew from animation to
concentrate on experimental live-action movies such as 1998's "Love and Pop", "Shiki-Jitsu"
in 2000, and "Cutie Honey" in 2004. Recently, however, Anno has made a comeback
with his "Rebirth of Evangelion" movies, a tetralogy that retells his controversial saga,
charting the story in different directions. Like Nadia, Anno's future is uncertain, but
one can be sure that he will continue to seek ways to express himself visually and mentally
in any new project he tackles.
Secret #7: GAINAX.
As any fan of Japanese animation can tell you, lots of studios in the land of the Rising
Sun have created noteworthy titles that catapulted them into success.
But in the case of GAINAX, "Nadia" was the company's first major entry to be recognized
by more than just fans. GAINAX was founded by a group of fanboy animators
in December of 1984. Their first project, the expensive, ambitious
sci-fi tale "Royal Space Force: Wings of Honneamise," premiered in Japanese theaters three years
later. The film, which was directed by GAINAX's co-founder,
24-year-old Hiroyuki Yamaga, opened both critics and audiences' eyes to the artistry and imagination
of the budding animation studio. This was followed by "Aim for the Top! Gunbuster",
a six-part direct-to-video Anime series directed by Anno, which also won considerable acclaim
for its energy and style. "Nadia" followed soon after, and proved to
be the company's introduction in creating television serials.
Since "Nadia," the studio has produced several series for video and TV which have fascinated
Anime buffs worldwide, including "Otaku no Video, "His and Her Circumstances," "FLCL",
and "Mahoromatic." But as mentioned, GAINAX's most popular work
is the 26-part TV series "Neon Genesis Evangelion." Its success spawned a tidal wave of merchandise
as well as two theatrical movies. The company has also produced video games
— most of which are available only in Japan. Regardless of what GAINAX continues to produce,
the studio will always be remembered for its achievements in animation — "Nadia" included.
Secret #8: "The Infamous Island Episodes"
"Nadia" was originally intended to have an estimated 27 episodes.
However, when it became so popular in Japan, NHK requested that GAINAX produce more episodes,
extending the episode count to 39. Neither the studio nor Anno were ecstatic.
As mentioned, GAINAX was already experiencing trouble keeping the show on schedule and meeting
their sponsor's demands. Anno was unable to handle the burden of doing
an extra season for a TV show he had little to no creative control over.
So he turned direction over to his assistant Shinji Higuchi for episodes 23 through 34.
Furthermore, to cut down on costs (the budget was already spiraling out of control), other
studios in Japan and Korea were commissioned to produce the twelve new episodes.
The results proved to be disastrous, both artistically and for the reputation of the
show. During this filler sequence (known by fans
as the "infamous island episodes"), the animation varied wildly in quality, and the stories
for each of these episodes veered the show dramatically off course.
What was once a compelling, intriguing sci-fi mystery had turned into something slapstick,
off-beat, and very out of place. Characters were becoming caricatures of themselves,
or in some cases, inexplicably regressing, losing most, if not all, of the development
they had established throughout 22 prior episodes. Instead of adventures around the world or
under the sea, Jean, Nadia, and their friends were routed through all sorts of bizarre,
wacky situations. Simply put, all of this was nothing like viewers
had come to expect from "Nadia!" The overall nature of the filler sequence
seemed more like a Looney Tunes cartoon instead of a Jules Verne-inspired serial.
At one point, Jean's actions seemed more like Wile E. Coyote, not a curious intelligent adventurer.
[Jean Screaming; Cartoonish Crashing]
"Nadia" took hits from critics and fans because of these filler episodes.
Only by Episodes 35-39 (which Anno had been concentrating on during all this turmoil)
would the show return to its initial roots wherein lay its appeal, but even then, the
damage was done for many fans. Even Anno agrees that "Nadia" would have been
improved drastically if these fillers were removed.
In fact, the only episode he would have saved was the 31st, "Farewell, Red Noah"— and
to a lesser extent, parts of Episode 30, "Labyrinth in the Earth."
Unlike most of the aforementioned fillers, these were the only episodes to provide any
actual meat to the story. Because of all this, GAINAX has never made
another series as long as "Nadia." Had the show been produced at its intended
episode count, who knows what could have been? Like the title character's murky past, this
question remains a mystery. However, Anno did produce a "compiled" release
of Nadia known as "The Nautilus Story", which aimed to focus mainly on the show's major
plot point: the struggle between Captain Nemo and his ruthless archenemy, Gargoyle.
Released only on video and laserdisc in Japan, this version pares the 39-episode show down
to six hours, eliminating all but fifteen minutes of the filler sequence.
Unfortunately, many of the show's other important episodes are also shortened and/or cut from
the compilation. Jean's Japanese voice actress Noriko Hidaka
recorded narration to bridge the missing pieces together.
Fans disenchanted with the shipwreck the show's second half turned out to be have often requested
Anno to remake Nadia, but this was as close as he ever got.
Secret #9: "Nadia & Evangelion"
Several episodes of "Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water" include references to Bible stories
and religion, such as the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Adam and Eve, the Genesis of
our world, and the Tower of Babel. Similar elements can be found in another GAINAX
production, "Neon Genesis Evangelion." In this post-apocalyptic tale about three
children piloting robotic giants to save their world from monstrous invaders, Christianity
and Western religion were used rather extensively. For instance, there were tense action sequences
culminating with explosions in cruciform patterns. Much of these references owe to director Hideaki
Anno's own readings in Jungian psychology and archetypes.
In fact, it is interesting to note how alike "Nadia" and "Evangelion" are, stylistically,
artistically, and emotionally. Both shows feature character designs by Yoshiyuki
Sadamoto. They were also scored by composer Shiro Sagisu.
And Anno, as mentioned, served as director. The visual design of shy, introverted protagonist
Shinji Ikari has even been described by Sadamoto as "Nadia with a masculine makeover."
Most of the other characters in Evangelion bear some striking resemblances to their Blue
Water counterparts. If the lead characters of "Nadia" were based
on Anno's light and dark sides, then this show's children triumvirate "heroes" — Shinji,
fiery tempered Asuka Langley Sohryu, and eccentric Rei Ayanami — all represented Anno's personality
in general. To this day, there are numerous discussions
of how both shows compare, but that is also another story.
Secret #10: "Nadia — The Motion Picture."
In spite of "Nadia"'s tumultuous production period, it still delivered a satisfying conclusion.
But two years after its first run on Japanese television, distributor Toho decided to produce
a full-length movie to cash in on "Nadia"'s popularity.
The result, infamously known as "Nadia: The Secret of Fuzzy", (or "Nadia: The Motion Picture"
worldwide) was a 90-minute feature with no involvement from GAINAX nor Anno.
In fact, their only "contribution" to the project was recycled footage from the series
which made up a third of the film; the remaining hour was an original story set three years
after the events of "The Secret of Blue Water". Unfortunately, this "new" tale was both contrived
and inconsistent with all that had happened in the original show.
Furthermore, the animation suffered from the same inferior, cheap and rushed quality as
the island/Africa episodes which almost sank the show.
As with that sequence, both critics and fans reacted negatively to the movie.
Unsurprisingly, "Nadia: The Motion Picture" is seldom mentioned today.
In the midst of all this creative disaster, GAINAX had initially been hired to work on
the film by (now defunct) Japanese animation company Group TAC (who had funded the project).
While GAINAX contributed to the main plot and additional characters, according to Yasuhiro
Takeda from The Notenki Memoirs: "[A]t the actual production phase, things
just weren't happening.... Things continued to worsen, until finally
we had to just apologize and tell [Group TAC] that we couldn't do it."
What GAINAX did gain from the doomed project, however, was an advance payment of 50 million
yen (half a million dollars) to help recoup the losses they suffered from working on the
show. It wouldn't even be until years later after
the success of "Neon Genesis Evangelion" that GAINAX would finally pay their debts to TAC.
"Luckily," writes Takeda, "[TAC] were willing to overlook the cost of Sadamoto's character
designs and the editing of all that television footage.
We gladly pocketed the savings and returned them the rest."
In short, "Nadia" was a series of ups and downs, and continues to receive criticism
for its faults. But it still remains a favorite of many Anime
fans from the 1990s, its core storyline, colorful characters, and mixture of Jules Verne marvel
with steampunk adventure continuing to outshine such drawbacks and captivate newcomers.
-[Bubbling] -And so our adventure comes to an end as we
return to our ship and set sail for home. We hope we answered many of your questions
and expanded your insights about "Nadia — The Secret of Blue Water."
Much of the information you've been listening to has been taken from various sources, including
Yasuhiro Takeda's "Notenki Memoirs," published in America by ADV Manga, and available to
read online at www.gwern.net/docs/2002-notenki-memoirs, the folks at evageeks.org, evaotaku.com, "The
Most Holy Gainax Cult" at sleepisfortheweek.org, wikipedia.org, khara.co.jp, and finally Dr.
Marc Hairston, a longtime "Nadia" fan, for his extensive article about both the show
and its dub in the November 2001 edition of the magazine Animerica.
I'm Jon Turner. Thanks for listening.