Return Of Nadia is a splendid collection of genga ( key animation ) drawings and layouts from the anime series Nadia : Secret Of Blue Water, produced by Gainax.
Many of the core creative personnel behind Evangelion worked on the series, including director Hideaki Anno and character designer Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, which is why is visual style and look of both series share many similarities.
Interestingly enough, the concept for the film came from Miyazaki Hayao, who based his ideas on Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. He was approached by Toho to produce an anime series based on this concept, and although it never really took off some of the ideas were still used in Future Boy Conan and Castle In The Sky.
Another anime luminary who contributed to this series is the insanely talented Tatsuyuki Tanaka – check out some of the image boards he created for the series in his art book Cannabis Works.
(above & below left) I love these dynamic group poses, so full of energy. The book is filled with plenty of drawings as such and is great as reference material when drawing.
Sentai Filmworks has released the complete Nadia blu-ray boxset – I’m hoping for the price to dip a little more before getting it.
The quality of the genga drawings in this book is exceptional, and comes highly recommended even if you’re not a big fan of Nadia. ( You ought to be ! )
Return Of Nadia Genga Collection Art Book ふしぎの海のナディア アニメーション原画集 details :
– Dimensions – 30 x 20.6 x 1.4 cm
– Softcover, 272 pages
– Black & White, in Japanese language
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January 19th, 2015 at 3:22 pm
The grounds work looks so solid.
January 24th, 2015 at 9:36 am
I am think on watching this promising series. Is it worth it? Did you enjoy it?
January 25th, 2015 at 3:15 pm
I recommend it, although after watching it I spent more time thinking about the wasted potential than thinking about what actually happened. In Evangelion and Kare Kano, Hideaki Anno did a great job of understanding the characters, their thoughts and motivations, insecurities, hopes, and interpersonal relations. With this series that only happens in flashes, with some flashes brighter than others. Aspects of their characters are touched on enough to give you a sense of potential development, but the characters are never dealt with as deeply as you’d wish from Anno.
If you’ve read about the series you might have read that Anno had quit for the last chunk of episodes, which do have good character and plot moments here and there, but also a lot of cringeworthy moments, with a few entire episodes being nearly unwatchable.
Also, while the two main characters were great, there was an abundance of comedic relief supporting cast which I personally didn’t think contributed much to the show. And I found that while most of the design work was great, the designs for the bad guys affected my ability to take them seriously. The music was great. Overall the show is endearing and worthwhile, especially if you’re a fan of Gainax, but you’ll be wishing there was a Rebuild of Nadia instead of a Rebuild of Evangelion.
January 25th, 2015 at 10:13 pm
DISTRAKT – Absolutely ! :]
kamikaze/Jason – I don’t think I could have provided a better answer than what Jason wrote, so thank you Jason. :]
Admittedly I saw the series a long time ago and have very little memory of the details, so I’m really looking forward to revisiting it on blu-ray ( when the pricing comes down to a reasonable level ).