Ao no roku go

Usually known as BLUE SUBMARINE 6, this Japanese animation has both action and brains! It's set in the near future when the world is being held to ransom by a rogue scientist, Zorndyke. He is melting the icecaps and has genetically created an underwater race to conquer Earth. Humanity's last hope is the Blue Submarine fleet and their brave crews taking on Zorndyke's living whale/submarines. The story progresses obliquely with many flashbacks filling the viewer in on the motives of both the crew and their quarry, Zorndyke. All the characters are rendered in the traditional 2-dimensional anime style but all the hardware (the submarines, the surface crab/tanks) are all 3-D animation, bringing a gritty realism to the action scenes. The subs, the explosions, the sea are all beautifully realised. The craft and creature designs are imaginative but still based on reality. I'd recommend this to someone who wants to see something unique and unusual, exciting and demanding.

There was a fair amount of buzz around this when it first was released. It is a visually entertaining movie. Just couldn't get into this one. Some parts were interesting and I didn't have any issues with losing interest. But, as a whole it's just a mishmash of stories I've either read or seen before so there want anything particularly noteworthy. I found the conversations between the humans and mutants to be more interesting than the action. Unfortunately, these interactions were few. 5 out of 10 for me as I didn't really like it of dislike it.

My father got this for me from the library when I was beginning to gain an interest in anime. At first, my attitude was "cool, it sounds interesting." Then I started watching it, and most of the excitement wore thin. There's not a lot of bad here, but there isn't a lot of good, either. The whole the Earth-is-Flooded business has been done before, and what we got was "Fishtar". Still, this was anime, so it ought to be good, right? Not necessarily. The characterization was almost non-existent. Hayami is a stoic greeny drug addict, but we barely have any clue why. Huang is a cute sonar expert and I think she would make a great little sister, but we barely know anything about her. The captain's characterization is limited to him looking longingly at a picture of his family. If you want to find out anything about the characters, get it on DVD and read the character bios, but skip the behind the scenes thing on the Playstation game thing (I hope I'm not the only one who's wanted to strangle that squeaky bobble-head girl.) The story is a bit of a mess. Basically the villain thinks, "Humans are destroying the world, so if I destroy the world, maybe they'll learn." yeeahh... Hayami's hopeless buddy-buddy ideas are irritating (I could almost hear the chorus to Kansas's "The Preacher" during his confrontation with Verg, who's reverb/octave dub is hellishly annoying. I couldn't tell if he was male or female.) Then, of course, there are the Muteo. You know it isn't an anime until there are half-naked cat-women, right? But these half-naked cat-women are special. They can swim and hum the theme from Dream Theater's "Metropolis Pt. 1: The Miracle and the Sleeper"! I felt like going "Ditdit doo doodoo ditdit doo doodoo ditdit doo doodoo doo ditdoo ditdoo!" In conclusion, if all you want is half-naked anthropomorphic women and homages to the greatest rock song since Supper's Ready from your anime, you're in the right place. If you want something more though, turn to Miyazaki and Cowboy Bebop.

I seen Blue Submarine No.6 and I enjoy it. The story of it is about in the near future, the oceans have risen, causing all land at sea level to be flooded. With the expansion of the oceans, humanity has found a new enemy in Zorndyke. A war has erupted between the surface dwellers and the sea dwellers, and mankind is placing all of its hope in the new vessel Blue Submarine No.6 and her crew. It a great Anime so anyone may enjoy it like me so. I hope a new DVD of Blue Submarine No.6 will come out soon and it will anyway I love ever things about it so I give it a 10 out of 10.

The story of 'Blue Submarine 6' is in fact the idea from H.G.Wells novel 'The Island of Dr. Moreau' taken to a much larger scale, global that is. Both style and quality are very good and the computer animated scenes fit perfectly into the film, even though the series is quit short the characters are logical and not 'flat', one will find problems looking for 'black and white' thinking in this film. But most astonishing is the effect this film leaves compared to 'The Island of Dr. Moreau' and the earlier 'real actor' movies from 1933, 1977, 1996 - whereas one could easily drop of the ideas H.G.Wells might had with this novel if viewed on just a 'small ocean island' that no one knows it is hard to deny those same ideas when transfered on a global scale. So I would recommend this series as it offers both - good entertainment and some deep thoughts.

murx