Nadia

Nadia Of The Mysterious Seas (also given the inexplicable English subtitle of 'Secret Of Blue Water', even in the Japanese format) was famous Gainax series very loosely based on various Jules Verne novels, particularly 20000 Leagues Under The Sea and the exploits of Captain Nemo.

The leads are an orphaned young inventor named Jean who lives with his aunt and uncle, and a former, dark-skinned circus performer named Nadia who wishes to return to her (assumed) home in Africa. Many of the designs in the series, including characters' appearances and several machines, showed up in later Gainax works. In particular, several Evangelion characters vaguely resemble Nadia characters due to the same head design artist working on both.

About two-thirds into its run, the production ran into financial difficultes and the desired length of the series. It had to be budgeted to cheaper overseas animation, resulting in a noticably sharp decline of animation quality and an odd shift in the use of sight gags. A movie was later produced but has been very rarely seen even by fans of the show.

While Nadia thinks she is from Africa and is in fact called a "colored girl" by a character, her hair is straight rather than 'kinky'. Although anime is known for taking great liberties with hair design and this is later somewhat explained in the series, designers admitted they could not draw the non-straight version of her as well as they liked.

Atlantis: The Lost Empire was critized by some animation fans as borrowing too heavily from this series. Defenders insist the Disney version simply used very well established lore and more closely resembles Hayao Miyazaki's Laputa instead.