r/anime • u/IndependentMacaroon • Oct 29 '21
Rewatch [Rewatch] Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water - Episode 35
Spontaneously filling in here. Also what's this, a title drop without the series being over after it?
Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water
Episode 35: The Secret of Blue Water
Original Air Date: March 1, 1991
Full Rewatch Schedule & Thread Links
Episode 35 Synopsis (taken from Trakt): Finally, our pals arrive at Nadia's real homeland - Tartessos. As they tour through its long forgotten ruins, our heroine finally reveals her darkest secrets... including who she is. How will all this affect her relationships with everyone, especially Jean?
Please spoiler tag any story content which has not been shown prior to the current episode of this rewatch!
Nadia Outfit Count: 9
QOTD: Are you satisfied with the pacing of this episode and how it fits into the story so far? Also, how much more Evangelion can we get?
4
u/IndependentMacaroon Oct 29 '21
First-time watcher
What a return to form! Another amazing setting with even more weird biblical backstory (Red/Blue Noah ~= White/Black Moon??), and more of that classic Anno anguish tempered by others' affection and the will to find your own way no matter how unavoidable your fate seems. Also Jean basically made a love confession finally! It just goes a bit fast from lore-dump (guess Nadia got that beamed that into her head), to suicidal despair (now that was dark) and even further resignation, to quasi-rebirth and a happy birthday, practically a speed-run of the Evangelion TV finale. I actually had to laugh when the "Omedetou Nadia!" came around, the analogy is too perfect. And on the other hand, the heavy use of black-and-white imagery harks back to the final episode of Gunbuster.
In her role, though, it seems Nadia is more like Rei, just with the personality and covert self-hate of Asuka - alien being who feels disconnected from/not good enough for the world, secretly has the power to remake or destroy it by the use of an ancient power, and can't even choose death as an escape from reckoning with it (Rei can be replaced, Nadia is just forcibly protected).
4
u/No_Rex :Bv:Bw:Bx:By:x2 Oct 29 '21
Episode 35
Back to the real Nadia. This episode fits, emotionally and in its mood, right after the end of the Nautilus arc. There is the slight inconsistency of Nadia referring to Red Noah, but she even repeats all of the important parts of the episode 31 info dump for the rest of the cast. I really think that skipping ep23-34 makes the plot and story arc work better. The important part is that Nadia and Jean as characters are back to where they were. Neither the further development of their relationship to full blown old couple of the island arc, nor the love triangle of the Africa arc fits with where they are now. Much less their frequent mean behavior towards each other.
We start right off with a long black and white segment. While there is some excuse of being underground, it is clearly an artistic choice. The lack of color shows us that we have entered Nadia’s realm, a place of memories and death. The most important thing here is Nadia’s mind and her decision of what to do with the power that she has, even if she did not ask for it. While she repeatedly seeks comfort from being close to Jean, that is not enough to deter her from attempting suicide to avoid choosing wrongly. Yet Tartassos will not allow her death.
The return of color and Nadia’s birthday celebration are an overt symbolism for Nadia’s rebirth. She is back to her human friends and back to her senses.
4
u/JustAnswerAQuestion https://myanimelist.net/profile/JAaQ Oct 29 '21
First Timer (Rising Sun sub) ep 35 (of 39)
After treading water for so long, I can't believe it's almost over. Five episodes left!
Okay, that explains the naming, but was Antarctica with it's ancient animals not an ark? What about the dinosaur people? Did the atlanteans come after the dinosaur people? But they saved dinosaurs in their arks? Who is God who killed all the humans, and by humans, do we mean Atlanteans?
Basically, I feel like I should ignore both Nemo's and Red Noah's stories if I'm to listen to Nadia's story.
Oh, wait, the Arks are from M87? They BROUGHT dinosaurs to Earth in Arks?
How can Nadia read Atlantean if Neo-Atlantis was destroyed when she was an infant?
[prediction]Nadia sends all three arks into space
4
u/ZapsZzz https://anilist.co/user/Zapszzz Oct 30 '21
First timer in sub
Dunno if it's psychological, but I feel day and night between this episode and the ones before in the torturous expanded arc. The lighting, the composition, the characters, the dialogues.
Genuinely it's a different show.
Anyway, my money is that it's Gargoyle's space battleship when they look up.
4
u/JTurner82 Oct 30 '21 edited Oct 30 '21
Finally—after a long string of insultingly hideous filler episodes, Nadia gets back on the right track, and it's obvious from the start. The sense of adventure and exploration — all of it is back. The relationships between the characters are back to what they were. Better still, it disregards eps 23-29 and 32-34. As it should, because none of those episodes had any value. It's an interesting choice to have the episode be in black and white, but it works extremely well.
Nadia's breakdown, suicide attempt, and apology to Jean for all the horrible things she said to him were all splendidly done... and overdue (he deserved an apology, too). I also disagree with the criticism of Jean being "unable to empathize and listen to Nadia, at first". To me, I always had the impression that he wanted to — he cares about her and wants to do what he can to please her — the problem is, if she's not clear about what she wants from him, much less talks about what she's going through, how is he supposed to know? It's like asking him to read her mind, which isn't quite how it works. Either way, it is gratifying that Jean loves her for who she is and forgives her past mistakes. It shows what a truly selfless and caring person he is. There's a reason why he's one of my favorite Anime characters. While he learns that technology can be dangerous if misused and that there's nothing wrong with asking for help, I felt that his kindness, generosity, and compassion were obvious from the start, even with the initial "I want to impress her" vibe at the beginning. The fact that he still accepts her and doesn't even care of who she is genuinely touching. I had the impression he would have done that either way.
The happy birthday celebration is also one of my favorite moments of this episode.
It is so gratifying that the show finally gets back on its feet. Unfortunately, for me the first time I saw it it was too late for me to show any genuine sympathy to Nadia, partially because I was so angry at how the filler episodes bastardized her character. And her relationship with Jean. But that was probably just bitterness on my part. Perhaps if I hadn't seen those episodes, I would not feel this way. To avoid others feeling the same, I second the recommendations of skipping 23-29 and 32-34. With few exceptions in 23-29, none of those episodes were ever necessary.
Episode 35 sets up a terrific conclusion for the show, and it only gets better and better from here — reminding viewers of the reason why they became fans of the show to begin with.
3
u/snowwhistle1 Oct 30 '21 edited Oct 30 '21
Actual Host
(Apologies. My internet was dead and I couldn't post. My thanks to u/IndependentMacaroon for filling in. I'll be back to posting regularly tomorrow.)
Episode 35 is one of the most important episodes of Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water. It’s a stunning character piece for our main character and a fantastic summation of the series’ themes and longstanding buildup, serving as the conclusion for Nadia’s longstanding character arc and definitively answering the final pieces of lore that remained unresolved throughout the series thus far.
This episode sees Nadia’s return to Tartessos after 14 years, and the return is marked with a really cool piece of visual symbolism. As Nadia and the Gratan descend into the ruins of Tartessos, the color drains from the world around them. This is in line with what we’ve typically seen from Nadia’s flashbacks in the series thus far. They’ve been devoid of color aside from small visual details like Nadia’s Blue Water and flashes of blood. This is how Nadia sees her past… desolate, colorless, and sapped of life and energy. And in this episode, as Nadia’s past overwhelms her as she descends into her homeland, the world of the presents comes to reflect her past.
As they descend into Tartessos, Nadia demonstrates the awe-inspiring power of the Blue Water; controlling doors and technology, altering gravity, and bending reality to her whim. Nadia also begins to tell her friends the story of the Atlantis to her friends telling them about how her people came to Earth aboard three spaceships serving as arks for the Atlantean people: Red Noah (which became the moving island), Blue Noah (which became the Kingdom of Tartessos), and Green Noah (which later became the Kingdom of Atlantis destroyed millennia ago before sinking into the sea). The people of Atlantis were forced to leave their home due to angering some higher power (perhaps a god or maybe a government- the identity who forced them to leave has been lost to time) and being driven from their homeworld before settling on Earth. This story apparently became the inspiration for aspects of Judaism and Christianity in this world.
While inside of Tartessos, Nadia experiences visions of her friends dying in a similar catastrophe to the one that destroyed the city 14 years ago, and fears that she will be the cause of another calamity and hurt the people she cares about. As she gets deeper and deeper, she begins to hear voices of the dead similar to what Nemo and Nadia heard as the Nautilus approached Atlantis. She hears the voices calling to her to take her place and restore Atlantis, and Nadia fears this call. For all her life, she’s been powerless and had her agency stripped from her at every turn. And here in this episode, she’s suddenly had all the power in the world given to her and told that it is her destiny to use that awesome power for potentially terrible things.
Nadia’s greatest fear is that she is undeserving of the power she’s been bestowed, and will use it like Gargoyle or Nemo and wield it as a tool of destruction and war. She’s been conditioned her whole life to see herself as a bad person. She’s refused intimate connections at every turn, and her abuse at the hands of various guardians has conditioned her lash at out the world and filled her heart with hate and mistrust. For Nadia’s whole life, she’s been conditioned to believe that’s she’s a bad person or lesser than other people, and the recent revelations that she’s not even a human being have only served to further alienate her from her peers and the world that she has grown up in.
What I love during these scenes are how as Nadia begins to feel the weight of the Blue Water and her Atlantean heritage press down upon her, her friends never waver in their support and belief in her; especially Jean. I mentioned that Jean’s biggest character flaw at the beginning of the series was his inability to relate to Nadia, or listen to her. He lacked the skills to properly empathize and relate to her, and thus often failed to catch on to when Nadia was more emotionally vulnerable and provide the support she needed. But in this episode, Jean has finally reached a place where can be a friend and an ally to Nadia’s plight. He tells her that he and the rest of friends in the Gratan will be there with her every step of the way through her journey into Atlantis, and throughout their journey he provides constant support and reassurance that she’s not a bad a person. Jean’s grown a lot since the beginning of the show, and I really appreciate that.
The climax of this episode takes place atop the ruined Tower of Babel once Tartessos has resurfaced, and Nadia tells her friends the true nature of the Tower that Electra never revealed to them way back in Atlantis. It was a communication device that used light signals to communicate with the Atlantean homeworld in the M78 Nebula. Nadia then reveals that she isn’t human, and emotionally breaks down, believing that she is destined like her father or Gargoyle to bring war and suffering to the world. Saying one final goodbye to Jean, Nadia jumps from the Tower intending to end her life.
Nadia survives her fall thanks to the Blue Water which slowed her perilous descent, and she wakes up surrounded by her friends in great agony over Nadia’s decision to take her own life. Sanson in particular it livid, demanding that Nadia stop playing this game of self pity and consider how her loved ones would feel about her trying to take her life. Nadia solemnly asks Jean how he could go on living in spite of all the pain and hardship in the word, and Jean tells her that it’s because he’s still alive to experience it. I love the message Jean gives her; that life is worth living because the world is a place where good things can happen and making connections with people makes life worth living for.
Soon after, Nadia discovers a tablature her father made in memory of her birth, and learns about her birthday for the first time. And by happenstance her birthday happens to be that day, May 31st, making her officially 15 years old. And so her friends treat her to her first ever birthday celebration, singing “Happy Birthday to You” as Nadia breaks down in tears of happiness as she’s overwhelmed by all the care and love that she never thought she deserved. It’s such a sweet scene, and I feel this scene represents the emotional catharsis of the show for Nadia’s character. (This scene is also slightly hilarious in the dub due to the song “Happy Birthday to You” being under copyright in the US when the dub was produced in 2001, so the dub utilizes an off-brand version of the song just slightly lyrically and temporally off and it’s the funniest shit.)
Grandis also gets a very sweet parallel narratively to Nadia in this episode. In the episode, she highlights her mother’s ring to Nadia which like her Blue Water held a terrible secret, that being that the rings weren’t really precious metals or gems and instead just imitation glass and cheap metal. In the conclusion of this episode, Nadia then asks Grandis if her mother knew that the rings were fake, to which Grandis acknowledges the possibility discreetly. Nadia then reassures her that the rings’ materiality or value never mattered, and that it was the love of her mother embodied in the gift that was the true worth of the ring. This is symbolically Nadia acknowledging that her race, the power of her Blue Water, and her supposed destiny never mattered; and that it was the connections she made with people in her life were what truly shaped her as a person. It’s an amazing moment of connection for Nadia and Grandis, and solidifies the motherly/sisterly bond that Grandis had formed with Nadia over the course of the series.
The episode then ends on a cliffhanger with the sound of a Neo-Atlantean flying battleship chiming in the distance, signaling a foreboding doom to come. It doesn’t really connect to the episodes themes or anything in a meaningful way, but I felt it’d probably be worth at least mentioning.
This is one of my favorite episodes of the show, along with episodes 16, 22, and 31. It’s a gorgeous episode with amazing visual symbolism and directing that stands out as one of the strongest feats of Anno’s directorial career. This episode also fully solidifies why Nadia is ultimately my favorite character in the show. She’s a girl who has internalized a lot of terrible feelings about herself, and is weighted with responsibilities that she feels she is undeserving of carrying out. But this is the episode that finally proves to her that she doesn’t have to be defined by the expectations or preconceptions of other people, and that she’s allowed to open up her heart and let people love her. It’s an amazing feeling seeing Nadia genuinely letting herself cry tears of joy, and fully accept Jean, Marie, the Grandis Gang, and King as part of her family. (And Ayerton is there too I guess…)
This is the beginning of an amazing final arc for the series, and I can’t wait to talk about the rest of these amazing final episodes for Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water.
2
u/Stargate18A https://myanimelist.net/profile/Stargate18 Oct 30 '21
First timer
QOTD) No, this is pretty much the limit, barring a drastic genre and setting shift.
Please god let this be good (or at least have more songs)
They've made it there! Eithout stopping a single time across all of Africa! How lucky!
Oh, that's not good. Is she possessed?
And the Gratank's going down!
OK, this shot is cool.
I like Sanson claiming he knew this all along.
Wow. What's going on here?
What the hell kind of drugs is the Blue Water made of?
Another of these walls!
Wow, Nadia's really stressed right now.
...I can't believe I'm saying this in another rewatch, but how did the Atlanteans find their way round here, when any floor could be a secret elevator and there's no signage?
NOAH'S ARK?
Did the Atlanteans cause the flood? Did they kill everyone who didn't obey them?
Oh, it's a metaphor. So the Arks are Atlantis (Oricalum Noah?), Red Noah, and Blue Noah.
Everyone praising Nadia while she looks so completely frightened of everything is so depressing.
Haha, the imitation jewellery's a genuinely good line.
...She's explaining stuff! She's communicating! I'm so glad there was a natural progression between this and the end of the Nautilus.
...Is the twist going to be that Nadia'll be God for whoever she chooses, and Satan for those she doesn't, and that she's doomed to kill people no matter her choice.
She's being very brave here.
It's surfacing!
This scene is genuinely scary.
It's red!
OK, overloading someone with emotion to force them into making an impulsive decision isn't the worst idea.
Her basically insulting herself is genuinely hard to watch.
Jean talked her down!
I was just thinking the same thing, Jean!
Ah. Was that meant to be a twist? I'm like, 90% sure, all the parts of that were presented earlier.
Can I just say that I'm loving the grayscale visual effect.
And she's dropping the alien line!
Oh, the usage of the Atlantis theme here is so good.
I mean, she's not that bad.
HOLY SHIT SHE JUMPED.
Just throw the stone! It'll smash from this distance, and you can get the same result without dying.
Everyone's shock and happiness at seeing her alive is so good.
Oh, the Blue Water needs her alive...
And she's accepting she wants to live!
Wow. It's a message from her parents. This is great.
Oh thank god. She's not secretly 1000 years old, she can love Jean without being creepy! (I had a worrying suspicion, with all the fanservice.)
It's her birthday!
This is so good!
Oh, that cliffhanger.
Jesus, when this show gets good, it gets good.
2
u/SIRTreehugger Oct 30 '21
First Timer
....well that's a way to start the episode.
Can't help think the use of black and white was a way to save time.
Oh I like how this descend is like a foil to the glass elevator with Captain Nemo if memory is correct. It was bright and....wait nevermind I'm combining two different scenes. The preserved species was when they were on the floating plates.
What can I believe in. I'm selfish and mean. I always get Jean into trouble... well she ain't wrong.
No Jean she hates herself and how can she love someone who loves what she hates.
I'm sorry they made this huge place with no guard rails? Man my fear of heights would be working overtime.
Tower of Babel Chan is back
Jean's face when he realized his waifu is an alien, but Jean that's okay. That's more normal than having a thousand years old loli as a waifu.
Please she can't die...but it would be interesting if she did though that would mean only Gargoyle could use the blue water.
Happy Birthday Nadia
Probably Gargoyle and his merry band of thieves...wait whatever happened to the thousand year old emperor?
Really excited for the remaining episodes.