Fushigi no Umi no Nadia

Nadia seems to have fallen off the radar when it comes to 90s anime, but it's truly one of the classics of the decade. Few shows feel as equally accessible to kids and adults alike, and the show's themes about technology, power, and love remain provoking.

The characters are all so memorable. Jean and Nadia are the finest protagonists one could ask for in this sort of adventure, likable while still leaving a lot of room for character development. (Nadia can get supremely irritating at times, but she's such a unique heroine and her growth is so powerful that her more zealous moments can be tolerated.) The child Marie and Nadia's pet lion cub King are cute without being cloying, and the Grandis trio are comic gold who come to be more fleshed out as the story goes on. Nemo, Electra, and the rest of the Nautilus submarine crew are all fantastic, and the villains are sinister without feeling one-note.

The animation in the first season is breathtaking for a television series, though it notably declines in quality by the second season. Speaking of the second season, it is awful, the one true drawback to this great show. The characters lose much of the development they gained at the end of season one and little of interest happens. Unless you are a completion-ist like me, it could be skipped altogether without losing much narrative cohesiveness.

Secret of Blue Water needs rediscovery. It's much superior to some of the more popular 90s anime and as far as coming-of-age adventures go, this series dwells with the best of the genre.

I have this in Japanese, English subbed and dubbed and even in French. Slightly different edits for each. A superb show with first class animation, especially in the first episode. Some very slight nudity was removed from several edits (including the French aired shows) and there are some very powerful emotional moments - such as Marie's grief at the loss of her parents. If you can, sit down and enjoy the whole show - it will not leave you untouched. Highly recommended introduction to the real art of Japanese animation. NB: The movie which followed is not so good.

Before anime characters started sporting gravity defying hair and using freaky psychic powers to subvert the laws of physics, we got a few gems like these. Nadia is one of the most popular series of the 80s and one of the best looking, especially over the first few episodes. The visuals are breathtaking and the action is edge-of-your-seat exciting. The action is driven by exciting stunts and the (then) cutting edge inventions from the age of steam make for wonderfully unpredictable getaway vehicles. The first episode alone has one of the best anime chase scenes of the period, as memorable as anything in Castle Cagliostro, and the excitement keeps up from there. The 'villainous' trio pursuing the main character are my only real complaint with the series; they are meant to be both threatening and comical, but they just come off as goofy and tend to get in the way. The pace also tends to slacken a bit after episode two, but the rest of the series is still worth watching for its likable characters and gorgeous visuals. The first couple of episodes are maybe the best in the series and start things off at a frenetic pace, making for memorable entertainment and good fun.

This series, a creation of Studio Gainax, is a perfect example of why I love anime. It has everything: Adventure, romance, action, comedy, and drama. Oh, does it have drama. And all of these elements are brought together in such a way that "perfection" doesn't do it justice. Running for 39 episodes, this series starts out in Paris in the late 1800's. Jean (pronounced the French way), a young boy with an incredible knowledge for designing aircraft, meets a girl named Nadia. Nadia is a mysterious girl, and quite unusual. Her companion is a grey lion cub named King, and they are being chased by a band of jewel thieves (Graten, Samson, and Hanson, three of the coolest anime characters ever)because Nadia has a pendant around her neck, a diamond-shaped, blue crystal. But, that's just a small part of the story, for you see, that crystal holds a secret capable of destroying the world. Nadia and Jean meet other characters, including the enigmatic Captain Nemo, captain of a high-tech, almost futuristic submarine named the Nautilus (the series borrows some elements from the Jules Vernes novel 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, then adds it's own spin to them). They also encounter the series' true villain, the leader of a society called Neo Atlantis. This villain, named Gargoyle, is perhaps the single most evil villain I've ever seen, as well as one of the coolest. He's very proper, with a calm, smooth voice, not loud and over-the-top like most typical villains, and hides his face behind a mask (take Darth Vader's coolness and multiply it by about 10, and you've got Gargoyle). Eventually, the series explores the secrets of Nadia's past, her relationship with Nemo and Jean, and the awesome power her pendant, the Blue Water, unlocks. The series' finale, the final four episodes, are some of the best viewing you can get (why, oh why can't American animation be this good?), with heart-wrenching drama and glorious animation. The music, by the same composer as the Evangelion music, is heavenly, and the character designs by Yoshiyuki Sadamoto are as good as his Eva character designs (the man is an artistic genius). The opening and ending themes are fantastic, also. All in all, this series is the only anime I can think of that equals Neon Genesis Evangelion in every respect, and in some may actually surpass Eva. After all, Eva was great, but lacked a cool villain (and Gargoyle is one of the coolest). If A.D. Vision ever gets around to releasing this officially over here, buy it (and please buy the subtitled versions, the voices are just TOO GOOD to watch a dubbed version). An 11 out of 10.

A few years back, Disney announced they were going to be dubbing and releasing major Japanese anime in the US. So far, KIKI'S DELIVERY SERVICE and PRINCESS MONONOKE have been the only ones to make it. It's dang obvious though, that someone at Disney watched NADIA and took notes, because the character design of the Atlantean girl in ATLANTIS looks to have been lifted directly from here.

US release of the dubbed NADIA stalled at an early section on the series. I hope that the release of ATLANTIS prompts someone to complete the US release of NADIA, as I would like to finally understand what the heck I watched a decade ago in Japanese!