Ao no roku go

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.

Although visually beautiful and stunning, the characters were too basic, and you really just didn't care about them. Also, the underworld creatures were a tad silly. Now, I know this isn't the creator's fault, but when the main character was smoking a cigarette, they made it a toothpick on Toonami, and smoke was still coming out of it!

Just don't bother with this film.

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

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.

As long as you get the 3x disc Special Edition (not the cut for TV version) you should expect a good evenings entertainment.

It's a cracking good SF eco\ action story that manages to make it's point and stay entertaining at the same time. Once the action starts in episode 1 it's a roller-coaster ride to the very end. And you'll find your emotions and view point change more than once as more of the story is revealed.

The characters are stock in their (anime) attitudes, but the animation brings them to life. And it's the animation that takes the biscuit, with stunning 3D effects that they are only now beginning to match- it was ahead of it's time for sure.

As to why it's stays so undiscovered remains a mystery, every reviewer of note has given this anime a well deserved A, yet it stays in R1 land! Anyway, lets continue to keep it our little secret ;-)