Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water (1990)

Finished October 1th 2022

I can’t wait to see how fans of this show try to rationalize how many times lion balls appear on screen.

I always had a slight interest in this series whenever I first heard about it in the Nostalgia Critic covering Atlantis: The Lost Empire (I only care for the actual critic parts of the videos) and how it has so many similarities to this show even though movie makers say that they didn’t even know this show existed. I love Atlantis and I wanted to check out the series for myself, but I couldn’t find it anywhere. It was out of print and really expensive, but luckily GKIDS came in and made a rerelease of the dub and I got it and here we are now.

The show was overall great, but there were definitely bumps in the road. I think the series strongest aspect is the characters. I mean Jean is fine standard protagonist, Marie was really cute, and Naida… we’ll get to her later, but dude, the Grandis Gang might be my favorite part of the show. I thought they were a really fun trio to hang out with. For the first few episodes, I figured that they would have the same dynamic as Team Rocket from Pokémon by how a trio of of kooky baddies trying to get their hands on one of the character’s prized possessions. But over the series, they turned out to be a lot more fleshed out and compassionate characters then Team Rocket. I mean I don’t think James and Meowth would would knock out Jessie just because they would rather sacrifice themselves than seeing Jessie in a life or death situation. Also I loved seeing them bond with the kids and it was really cute and loved their character interactions. Also Gargoyle was such a great and threatening villain, I mean I don’t get what was the point of going on a random killing spree whenever Marie was introduced and it’s never explained what we’re the motives behind that, but that’s a pretty minor nitpick.

Where my dislikes start in a show called “Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water” is, well… Nadia herself. She is so horendiously unlikable and completely unreasonable. I get that she wants to protect nature and all and I get why she freaked out when the crew brought a baby deer to eat, but she blows up every time someone eats meat to survive or when someone kills another person in self defense and calls them murderers for that reason alone. Nadia rightfully gets called out for this THREE TIMES by Grantis, Captain Nemo, AND FREAKIN’ MARIE! There’s only so many times where a character learns the same lesson before it starts to feel really disingenuous. I guess the last time she acted really that selfish was when she learned that Nemo was her father and got separated from him. So I guess she just resorted to what she knows best by begin once again a selfish brat who thinks she’s in the right by denying basic survival skills which would honestly benefit her more than hurt nature, if at all. But no, she’s way too idiotically prideful in “protecting life” to even consider the implications of living on a deserted island and burns into a fit of rage when Jean actually uses proper brain functions to help them survives. But the 30% of the time that she’s actually tolerable, she’s a pretty alright female lead. I think Episode 24 was just the breaking point for me for this character. But I think even the show agrees with me because the recap in Episode 25, the narrator says outright talks about her selfish ways and Jean finally starts to get a backbone when Nadia won’t eat meat. Also in the same episode, Nadia finally comes around to Jean when he gets high on mushrooms and not the other multiple times he risk his life for her like the time when the Grandis Gang first captured her or the time he rescued her from Neo Atlantis. And it kinda sucks that such a pivotal point in Jean and Nadia’s relationship happens in such a lame episode. Episode 26 was pretty cute and it had pretty neat animated parts, but I wish the story was tweaked so the kiss happened in that episode and dedicated Episode 25 solely to Nadia’s backstory which should of probably happened way earlier in the series. Also the Island part of the show I didn’t really like a whole lot at first because that’s when I realized that the Grantis Gang added so much to the dynamic of the cast and I didn’t like when the show stripped the cast of characters down to just Nadia, Jean, and Marie. And that’s when Nadia REALLY started to get on my nerves because there wasn’t anything else to balance it out and that’s what ultimately brings the show down for me. We finally get the Grantis Gang back and their still as entertaining as ever, but even though their enjoyable, nothing in the island episodes really progressed the story in any way which is shocking. Every episode up until then furthered along the plot in a very natural way on top of being very entertaining. In these Island episodes, however, it just feels like we’re just meandering around until we get to the actually interesting plot lines. If it had started as a episodic series from the get-go and only occasionally had a story driven episode every once in awhile and not trying to have a laser focused narrative, then it wouldn’t be so painful to see this show fall off the high pedestal that series created for itself. Like would it have been SO hard to have at least ONE scene with Gargoyle trying to find the Blue Water and getting frustrated for going 4 MONTHS without a trace of it? I’m sorry, but these Island episodes are just FFFFFIIILLLLLEEERRRR!!!!!

Plus this is where the series’s animation starts to get really inconsistent. Like we get an episode where it’s animation is as detailed and fluent as ever, but the next episode’s animation is all rigged and clunky. My personal theory is that the show runners split up the most talented animators to work on the more important and visually demanding episodes while they chopped the budget in half for the rest of the underpaid animators for less visually demanding episodes.

Also Gargoyle is such a non factor in these later episodes that it’s hysterical. Like why do you set up a good and threatening villain only to forget about him until the plot starts again. I get if they wanted to take a breather in between major serious plot focused episodes, but can the breather make sense? Also when the gang gets to Africa, Nadia meets this new hot guy that’s takes attention from Jean in Episode 32 of this 39 episode series. That’s why too late to introduce a plot line like that because Jean and Nadia’s relationship has grown too much for that to work. Maybe if that kind of plot line was introduced in one of the first 15 episodes, then it would make more sense and not make Nadia look like an ungrateful brat. Also I don’t think Episode 33 should of brought back Gonzalez, Grantis’s ex, because I think he could represent any greedy person if you’re not careful enough and I think he should of only appeared in Grantis’s flashback instead of making him a forgettable, boring, and generic one-off antagonist for a pretty standard episode all things considered. Also this episode also made me realize that Nadia didn’t learn anything from her relationship growth on the island deeming those island episodes entirely pointless. Episode 34 was honestly kinda decent actually. It’s a musical which I wasn’t expecting. The part where Nadia gets more and more mad when Jean is singing his horrible love song was actually kinda funny. I wished Grantis had a song along Hanson and Sanson, Marie, Jean, and Nadia. I mean Jean was in three songs. Two solos and a duo with Nadia. Also I wished they didn’t just reuse random clips from the previous episodes for the visual for the songs, but hey what can you do, the last five episodes are in sight.

Okay I looked up and the Island episodes were actual filler and the original creator had no control over them. That explains a lot. Also the Nautilus crew returns for the last few episodes without any buildup and they don’t even try to explain how they survived the last time they met or even reference the events of “Electra the Traitor” , the second best episode in the whole show and they brush it under the rug in favor of Evangelion set pieces which are so far removed from the rest of the series that it’s astounding. I was really to give this show a 7/10, but the last two episodes were pretty great. But also do you ever have a perfectly great last episode and just ruin it in the last 5 minutes? Yeah that’s this one.

It’s revealed that Captain Nemo and Electra had a baby together which is so out of left field and unearned. So I guess plotting against and shooting your captain point blank and actively wanted the demise of his daughter doesn’t mean anything in the slightest and Electra just keeps her current position and the captain doesn’t even think of her differently and acts like that never happened. Also Captain Nemo openly says that he considers himself as a father figure to her and seeing how the rest of the show tries to forget “Electra the Traitor” ever exist, they completely ignore what Nemo said and impregnates the woman who sees him as a father figure. And don’t get even me started with Marie and Sanson. Let me tell you that I liked the pairing of Marie and Sanson, I liked seeing this usually self absorbed guy taking himself down a peg to this toddler and there interactions were really cute. I can tell you without a single doubt that I ABSOLUTELY DID NOT see this 28 year old guy and this 4 year old girl as a ROMANTIC pairing! In the ending when 12 years pass it’s revealed that they got married and Marie is pregnant all while she is still 17… SEVENTEEN!!!!!! Even ignoring the gargantuan elephant in the room, there was absolutely no setup to this they basically just pulled it out of their @$$ just because they wanted a “sent off” without even thinking about the fact the let this scoundrel in 40s in impregnates IN UNDERAGED GIRL!!!! This is probably on the same level of sickening as the Voltron: Legendary Defender sent off by that being disgusting Queer bait and this being outright pedophilia.

WOW, that got me heated. But it was still a good show overall. The only things I outright despise in this show is Nadia and some moments that straight up feel like their fan servicing minors, but at least it’s wasn’t the focus. Also I more so feel disappointed in the Island filler episodes than activity hating them. I still really like the show overall even despite the major problems I have with it. Maybe down the line I’ll give this show a lower rating as maybe the bad stuff might sink in more overtime. But I am glad I finally watch it.

Also “The Mystery of the Lost Continent” might be one of the best episodes of television I’ve ever seen, so it still has that going for it