'Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water' Reveals the Playful Side of Hideaki Anno

Perhaps no auteur in the anime industry suffers from flanderization more than Hideaki Anno, the creator of Neon Genesis Evangelion. Whenever his name is uttered in anime circles, it’s either about his unflinching love for Kamen Rider or how his working through his issues in his art led to Neon Genesis Evangelion’s inarguable status as a radically sincere anime that’s somehow still not with us yet after so many goodbyes. But mostly, Anno’s magnum opus has boiled down to his having his picture next to the word “nihilistic” in Webster’s dictionary for anime fans. Contrary to the decades’ worth of memes flattening Anno to a machine made of flesh that only makes depressing works of art, Anno doesn’t get enough credit for being a pretty funny guy. And no work exemplifies that as perfectly as his seminal Gainax TV series, Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water. Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water, based on Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas, follows the globetrotting adventure of two tempestuous kiddos: Jean, a young inventor, and Nadia, a young circus performer. While their tempestuous relationship starts by happenstance, it takes a turn into a cataclysmic whirlwind adventure than