Laikals The greatest movie ever made..!

SanEat A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

Arianna Moses Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Cassandra Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

shukigk I didn't expect a masterpiece after checking out some of the mixed ratings on a few anime sites, but I loved director Anno's Evangelion and Gunbuster, so I had to check this one out too. I was not disappointed.As far as the story goes, this series is basically Miyazaki's Laputa (Castle in the Sky) mixed with a bit of Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. This makes sense because the original script was written by/for Miyazaki in the '70s even before the Laputa film.The show starts out by introducing a genius 14 year old inventor, Jean, who happens upon a mysterious (and attractive) circus girl, Nadia. She is soon chased after a gang of Jewel thieves - the Grandis Gang: Sanson, Hanson, and The leader Senora Grandis - who are after her "blue water" stone. Eventually the whole gang befriends each other and joins forces with Captain Nemo of the Nautilus submarine and does battle with an absolutely terrifying villain named Gargoyle in order to save the world from destruction and slavery.The story moves along at a nice brisk pace with lots action and humor. Perhaps the plot is a bit generic, however, Anno more than makes up for that with his signature character development and visual imagery; Shiro Sagisu's musical score works wonders as well, especially in that last episode. Finally, the show does contain some nudity, but it's nothing too objectionable staying in the PG-PG - 13 rating.The only major problem with the entire series is the batch of episodes near the end, the infamous "Island" and "Africa" arcs consisting of episodes 23-34 which were animated in a different studio and directed by a different guy. I've seen numerous people recommend to just skip them all except 30-31 then just watch from 35, but I just watched them all anyway, just to make sure I wasn't missing anything. Here's my opinion of each of those episodes: ep23: Skip, unless you absolutely need to know how the gang got to Lincoln Island (Nadia give it that name later, who knows why).Ep24: This episode will make you Hate Nadia, and she doesn't deserve that; skip by all means.Ep25: Watchable. There's some decent humor and an off screen kiss scene.Ep26: There's another kiss which is sorta cute, but that's the only good thing in this episode; Skip.Ep27-28: Watch if you want to know exactly how the Grandis gang and Ayerton got back into the picture.Ep29: Hanson and Sanson duel against each other with robotic lions, WTH! There's a touching moment in the middle of the episode which explains why Nadia won't eat meat and can speak to animals though, so the episode isn't a total waste.Ep30-31: Very good for the most part, don't skip! Ep32-33: Skip. These are the two worst episodes in the show bar none.Ep34: An episode where we get to hear the gang sing about their adventures. Nadia has a lovely singing voice in both English and Japanese.After that it's five glorious episodes to the finale! Final rating 8/10

gladrius Possible spoilers ahead.I don't know what I can possibly say about this phenomenal series that hasn't been said already, but I'm here to try anyway. From the moment I saw a review of this series in Gamefan magazine (rest in peace), I fell in love. I had to see it. I dashed out to the mall and grabbed the first copy I saw. And it grabbed me right back, and would not let me go.The series uses 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (and to a lesser extent the sequel Mysterious Island) as a jumping point for its own story. It takes place in 1889, and revolves around two teens, Jean, a French boy who wants to change the world with inventions and is the biggest weenie who's ever been the hero of an anime, and Nadia, a circus acrobat and animal trainer who has a magical crystal, the Blue Water, and no clue about where she comes from. During the course of things they embark on an adventure to get to the bottom of Nadia's past, meet Captain Nemo and help to stop a group of people from Atlantis from taking over the world. And I loved every minute of it.I mean for crying out loud, what kind of mad genius does it take to make episodes on end of adjusting to life on a submarine entertaining? Whatever kind it is, the guys at Gainax had it. Their smarts in storytelling show in other areas too, mainly the finely tuned characters, like the obligatory kid, Marie, who manages to be anything but the obnoxious brat the kid in an anime series almost always is. Nadia's the only short-tempered anime girl I've ever actually liked. The Grandis Gang go from the comically inept antagonists to helpful and resourceful back-up for the other characters once the real menacing villains show up. In the two really big battles of the series it's arguably them who ultimately save the day.It does warrant mentioning that this show kind of flounders in the middle, owing to a bunch of quickly-proudced episodes that were shoehorned in to pad out the length of the series when it became an unexpected hit. Most of the mid-to-late 20's of Nadia can be skipped without missing anything worth seeing.If you're an anime fan, want to watch a series with people in it you'll care about, and don't mind being expected to root for a dork like Jean, please do yourself a favor and pick this up. Oh, and do yourself another favor and watch it with the subtitles on. I'm sure Nathan Parsons is a wonderful human being who'd give me the shirt off his back, but a friend of mine actually started laughing out loud at how dumb Jean's voice sounded when we watched it with the English voices.And before I go, I want affirm what everyone else is saying, that the sequel movie is terrible and should be avoided by fans of the series at all costs. Unless you want to see how badly a story can undermine itself (pretty much every suspense issue is defeated by watching the series epilogue and twenty five minutes straight of the movie is series flashbacks). Otherwise, stay away. You'll thank me.

David Edward Martin A few years back, Disney announced they were going to be dubbing and releasing major Japanese anime in the US. So far, KIKI'S DELIVERY SERVICE and PRINCESS MONONOKE have been the only ones to make it. It's dang obvious though, that someone at Disney watched NADIA and took notes, because the character design of the Atlantean girl in ATLANTIS looks to have been lifted directly from here.US release of the dubbed NADIA stalled at an early section on the series. I hope that the release of ATLANTIS prompts someone to complete the US release of NADIA, as I would like to finally understand what the heck I watched a decade ago in Japanese!

stephen-63 I have this in Japanese, English subbed and dubbed and even in French. Slightly different edits for each. A superb show with first class animation, especially in the first episode. Some very slight nudity was removed from several edits (including the French aired shows) and there are some very powerful emotional moments - such as Marie's grief at the loss of her parents. If you can, sit down and enjoy the whole show - it will not leave you untouched. Highly recommended introduction to the real art of Japanese animation. NB: The movie which followed is not so good.