Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water: Difference between revisions

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{{quote|''Are you adventurers? Are you prepared to climb the blue waterfall named The Perilous? Do you seek the truth of the legend that lies therein? If you do, then you must first find me.''|'''Opening narration'''.}}

 

Set in 1889 and ''extremely'' loosely based on [[Jules Verne]]'s ''[[Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea]]'' (to the point of being an [[In Name Only]] adaptation), ''[[Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water]]'' tells the story of [[Tsundere|Nadia]], a girl who's trying to find out about her past, Jean, a boy who wants to build a flying machine, and the [[MacGuffin|Blue Water]], a mysterious gem of Nadia's with strange powers. Their world is home to two shadowy groups in conflict: Neo-Atlantis, who want to rule the world, and the crew of the submarine Nautilus, who have sworn to oppose Neo-Atlantis. These two plots are not unconnected...

 

 

(Entry originally written by Rob Kelk for [http://robkelk.ottawa-anime.org/primer/ The Anime Primer], and used with permission of the author.)

 

 

 

{{tropelist}}

* [[Adorkable]]: Jean, definitely. Even Nadia's English voice actress has said she would date someone like him in a heartbeat. Hanson, too, once he switches sides.

* [[Charles Atlas Superpower]]: Sanson breaks out of prison by ''bending the bars''. Later he stops the punch from a mecha twice his size. Both were bare handed.

* [[Circling Birdies]]

* [[Cliff Hanger]]

* [[Clip Show]]:

** Electra does the same when she finally learns that Nemo actually ''does'' care about her, and tries to shoot herself. Nemo talks her out of such behavior.

* [[Dropped Glasses]]: Minor subversion: the glasses are repaired almost immediately to demonstrate the technological capabilities of the Nautilus.

* [[Everything's Better with Princesses]]: Subverted. The people who call Nadia "princess" rarely seem to have her best interests in mind.

* [[Evil Chancellor]]: [[Big Bad|Gargoyle]] used to be this, before pulling off a (mostly) successful coup and moving on to better things.

* [[Furo Scene]]: Two with Nadia. The first one is shared with Electra and Marie and the second one (on a western bathtub) is with Grandis.

* [[Gadgeteer Genius]]: Two of them -- [[Geek|Jean]], the heroic and goodhearted main character, and Hanson, a member of the Grandis gang.

* [[Gravity Is a Harsh Mistress]]: Gravitational Cognizance variety.

* [[Good Costume Switch]]: Grandis is the first villain of the series and wears a military uniform. When she announces her [[Heel Face Turn]] she's wearing a dress and it becomes her standard outfit (unless she's going into battle).

*** As a matter of fact Nadia even lays into Jean when he offers her manmade flowers (that Ensign Fait generously gives the boy) or attempts to compliment her in the abovementioned episode (as Electra advised him to). Naturally, this only succeeds in confusing poor Jean—to the point where he is surprised when she finally plucks the courage to ask him directly for a compliment for an (awkwardly fashioned out of canvas) dress in episode 26. (Fourteen episodes earlier, she doesn't succeed in getting a compliment from Jean about a dress she's wearing since the latter is busy reading a book, but in that case she was sort of expecting him to read her mind and not knowing how else to act.)

*** In that same episode, Nadia furiously declares to Nemo that she hates him and the Nautilus crew; he slaps her for saying that, adding in a stern tone, "Please don't say sad things like that" ("You have made me very sad." in the dub).

* [[Just Between You and Me]]

* [[Kikuko Inoue]]: Electra

* [[Limited Wardrobe]]: See [[Fan Service]] above...

* [[Long-Lost Relative]]: {{spoiler|Emperor Neo is Nadia's older brother.}}

* [[Love At First Sight]]: About the sole reason Jean is following Nadia from the beginning.

* [[Loveable Rogue]]: The Grandis gang. In most ways they end up being much bigger heroes than the [[Designated Hero|title character]].

* [[Multinational Team]]: Nemo's crew is assembled from people that hate Gargoyle for various reasons. It seems Gargoyle is unpopular the world over....

* [[Mushroom Samba]]: Involving actual mushrooms!

* [[Mysterious Antarctica]]: Nemo's base is here. Also the [[World Tree]].

* [[Luke, I Am Your Father|Nadia, I am your father]]: {{spoiler|Captain Nemo.}}

* [[Number Two]]: Electra

* [[Ocular Gushers]]

* [[Official Couple]]: Nadia and Jean

* [[Offscreen Villain Dark Matter]]: averted by Gargoyle's mooks reporting how his dark matter I.E. commerce in wool and banking, is proceeding and how it is paying for things like his submarine and the Tower of Babel.

* [[Oracular Urchin]]

* [[Orphan's Plot Trinket]]: The Blue Water.

* [[Rock-Paper-Scissors]]: Sanson has bad luck at this game.

* [[Romantic False Lead]]: A villager from the Africa arc who recognizes the Blue Water. {{spoiler|It turns out that he's already engaged.}} [[Ass Pull|This arc is both out of step with the rest of the show and frankly, doesn't make sense]], since {{spoiler|Nadia admitted that Jean was important to her in the previous episode. The motivations behind her subsequent behavior in Africa is not at all clear.}} Unsurprisingly, [[Canon Discontinuity|Episode 35 promptly disregards this two-episode sidestory]].

* [[Sand Bridge At Low Tide]]: The only way to access their escape pod during the unfortunate island arc. (Get the picture yet? SKIP THE ISLAND AND AFRICA ARCS!)

* [[Schizo-Tech]]: One of the more infamous examples is an 80's-looking telephone on board the Nautilus (in 1889), which is supposed to {{spoiler|be thousands of years old}}.

* [[Self-Destruct Mechanism]]: Jean install one on the cockpit of the plane it build, Nadia touches it {{spoiler|resulting in her and Marie's death. Though it was [[All Just a Dream|just a dream.]]}}

* [[Shadow Archetype]]

* [[Shout-Out]]: To ''[[Indiana Jones]]'', ''[[Gamera]]'', ''[[Tarzan]]'', ''[[Uchuu Senkan Yamato]]'', ''[[2001: A Space Odyssey]]'' and [[Gunbuster|others]].

** And, of course, multiple shout outs to Jules Verne's works that weren't directly used in the plot.

** Considering that ''Nadia'' is older than ''Evangelion'', the "suspicious resemblance" goes the other way.

* [[Underboobs]] Nadia inadvertently reveals hers while adjusting her top. Naturally, [[Accidental Pervert|Poor Jean can't help but look.]]

* [[Weapon of Mass Destruction]]: The Tower of Babel, located in several places in the show: Gargoyle's base, Tartessos, and, ultimately, Red Noah.

* [[What the Hell, Hero?|What The Hell, Nadia?!]]:

 

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[[Category:Anime of the 1990s]]

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