Film
Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water – The Motion Picture, also known as The Secret of Fuzzy, is a 1991 Japanese animated fantasy adventure film written by Yasuo Tanami (as Kaoru Umeno) and Shigeru Morikawa and directed by Masaru Aono. It was produced by Hideki Higuchi, animated by Group TAC, and distributed by Toho. The film stars the voices of Yoshino Takamori, Noriko Hidaka, Kumiko Takizawa, Ken'yû Horiuchi. The film was released in Toho theaters on June 29, 1991, alongside the live-action film adaptation of Video Girl Ai.
It depicts events three years after the ending of the TV series. Only Nadia, Jean, Grandis, Sanson, and Hanson return from the TV version. Marie, King, Ayrton, Electra, and the Nautilus crew appear only in Nadia’s flashbacks. These flashbacks occupy about 30 minutes at the beginning and reuse footage from the TV series. The child of Captain Nemo and Electra, revealed in the final episode of the TV series, does not appear.
Originally, Gainax was supposed to produce the film, but director Hideaki Anno declined, saying he was “burned out” from the TV series. After producing only the plot and character designs, Gainax ran out of budget and could not complete the film. The remainder was finished by Group TAC. Gainax's contribution was limited to the plot, design work, and editing of the TV recap footage used in the film.
According to Gainax co-founder Yasuhiro Takeda, about 50 million yen owed to Group TAC was only repaid after the success of Neon Genesis Evangelion.
Three years after the battle with Neo-Atlantis, Nadia works as a trainee journalist for The Planet Times in London, though her editor still treats her as a mere tea-serving assistant. Around this time, a series of bizarre incidents occur worldwide: in front of witnesses, prominent figures in government and the military suddenly emit smoke and vaporize, leaving only their clothes behind.
Nadia has become a reporter for The Planet Times newspaper while Jean returns to his house in Le Havre where a girl ends up ashore. He picks her up and tends to her. She slowly recovers her memory and realizes her name is Fuzzy but the real Fuzzy is dead and she is a clone. Nadia does some research on the government and military leaders turning into dust and suggests someone named Dr. Albert Whola is behind it. Nadia gets captured by Gieger, the leader of the Neo-Atlantis remnant.
Grandis, Hanson and Sanson capture Fuzzy and take her to Gieger's men near the harbour. Jean tries to rescue Fuzzy on a motorcycle but the two end up captured and thrown into the same cell as Nadia. All three are revealed to be in a submarine headed to Gieger's hideout. Gieger reveals that he intends to start a world war by capturing various world leaders and politicians and making their militaries attack each other.
Gieger forces Jean to walk a plank and he is nearly thrown overboard before Grandis, Hanson and Sanson arrive and attack the submarine one a boat. Jean and Nadia jump off the boat after the latter is show by one of Gieger's men and they are rescued from a shark by Sanson. Gieger returns to his lair where he prepares for the war. Whola reveals to Fuzzy that she is a clone of the original Fuzzy, his late daughter. Whola reveals his disdain for her as Gieger threatens Whola if his experiments on synthetic humans aren't perfected.
Grandis's boat is sunk by a cannon from Gieger's base but Nadia and Jean use a boat to make it to Gieger's island. Nadia and Jean sneak in but are discovered and run into Whola. Gieger arrives and tries to kill Whola for his incompetence along with the others. Fuzzy is shot by Gieger after she tries to protect Whola. Whola causes a fire and they escape. Gieger attempts to complete the robot clones by stealing life energy before Whola arrives and activates the self destruct sequence.
Nadia, Jean, Hanson, Sanson and Grandis escape without taking the brains of the world leaders trapped in jars. The artificial humans placed around the world dissolve into liquid. Gieger attempts to follow the submarine Grandis and the others stole and fires a rocket at them but he himself is crushed by a falling rock in the tunnel. Fuzzy dissolves into sparkles and is mourned by the others on the submarine. Jean and Nadia stand over Fuzzy's memorial placed on a cliffside. Nadia reveals she'll go back to London while Jean will continue inventing before they share a kiss.
The voice actors of the editor-in-chief of The Planet Times as well as numerous military and political figures are not credited.
As with the series, Shirō Sagisu composed the score for the motion picture.
The film has generally received negatively. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an audience approval rate of 25% from 2 reviews. The IMDB film score averages to 4.2/10 based on 243 reviews. Reviews cite the low quality animation of the film as well as the fact that a third of the runtime is recycled footage from the series displayed as memoires from Nadia along with the fact that the writing of the characters is inconsistent with their portrayals in the series like the Grandis Gang being hostile towards Jean when they weren't in the series.
A novelization written by Hirotoshi Kobayashi called Nadia the movie: Fairy from the Sea was released on June 1, 1991.
