Blue Submarine No. 6 (Ao no Roku-go) OVA

[Ledgem]

This is an older "series" that dates from around 1998 in Japan (for animation; visual novel was in the late 1960's) and some time in 2000 in North America. There have been talks about turning it into a live-action movie, but the project seems stalled. It was notable for being among the first animation works to combine 3D animation with traditional animation. I remember seeing it mentioned in anime magazines, and even saw part of one of the episodes at an anime convention, but only got around to sourcing it and watching it recently.

The series is a four-episode OVA (which I think of as a two-hour movie, in this case), and it brought me back to what anime of the 1990's felt like. Perhaps in part to being an OVA, however, the pacing and animation didn't have the drawbacks that other series from that time suffered from. It was a nice watch.



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Wikipedia entry for the series

Even though it's an older series, is anyone up for discussing it? I liked the series and thought that it had a good overall message (overcoming the violent, quick-to-hatred nature of humanity, and accepting others), but the revealed premise really weakened the show. In particular...

Spoiler for Zorndyke's reasons for doing what he did:

One thing that comes up a few times throughout the series is questioning why Zorndyke brought catastrophe upon the world by flooding it, why he created the race of sea- and beast-people, and why those races attacked humanity. In the final episode, we're treated to some screen time and a conversation with Zorndyke. He explains that, having lost his wife, his son, and his daughter-in-law to a senseless murder, he rejected the world as it was.

All good and fine, but then he explains that he intended to only whittle down humanity's numbers. He doesn't intend to decimate humanity entirely. Why not? Did he just want people to suffer in a manner similar to how he did?

He never really explains why he created the rest of the creatures. Was he trying to create something better than humanity? Yet there are a few times in the series where he says that he isn't playing God, and that he isn't arrogant... It almost seems as if he doesn't know why he created the creatures, and he doesn't really know what he's trying to accomplish. He admits that things have moved beyond his control, but what was he trying to do from the start?

I liked Zorndyke's question of "why did humanity attack my creations; why didn't you think that you could get along with them?" although even that was slightly weakened by the rest of the premise. If the Earth was flooded and suddenly a bunch of sea beasts start showing up, I think most people would link the two and assume the new creatures were responsible and hostile.

Overall, Zorndyke's seeming lack of resolve, and what appeared to be his own confusion over the current situation, is what weakened the series for me. It makes much of the premise seem senseless.

I may have missed certain things or misinterpreted others. If anyone has recently watched this or remembers it well enough, I'd love to hear some thoughts and interpretations on it.

[Lost Cause]

This was a very underrated show! It pretty much went against the general anime themes of mecha, or sci fi at least as far as space is concerned. It had enough "realism" to keep regular fans interested.
Also there was a manga which went deeper into how Blue 6 actually worked concerning the children with psychic powers. All in all I enjoyed the show it was different from everything else at the time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhEi_0VziRU&sns=em

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by Lost Cause

Also there was a manga which went deeper into how Blue 6 actually worked concerning the children with psychic powers. All in all I enjoyed the show it was different from everything else at the time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhEi_0VziRU&sns=em

Did they go into more details about what Zorndyke was hoping to accomplish?

[Chiibi]

I remember seeing this on Toonami!! I quite enjoyed it. My favorite character was Mutio, oddly enough, she can be really cute sometimes. XD
And I recall having a slight crush on Hayami. His attitude was boss. Why am I such a sucker for black-haired moody types!?
I would like to watch this again....:[ I can't remember much of it aside from those two. I always remember characters over plots!!

[Lost Cause]

Did they go into more details about what Zorndyke was hoping to accomplish?
Not in the manga I read. But if I do remember they did a fairly decent job of figuring that out in the final episode. Zorndyke was attempting to rid the world of humanity and make it an Eden once again, with his mutants!

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by Lost Cause

Zorndyke was attempting to rid the world of humanity and make it an Eden once again, with his mutants!

That's what it initially seemed like, but...

Spoiler for Spoilerish stuff about episode 4:

When confronted about why he melted the arctic poles and caused widespread flooding, he mentioned something about how he thought that he could reduce humanity's numbers by flooding major food-producing areas. I don't remember it word for word, but I thought that he said that he didn't intend to do anything more than that.

Reversing the Earth's magnetic poles would have wiped out humanity entirely (for reasons that they don't really explain), and it seemed that Zorndyke was trying to do that... but even then it was a bit ambiguous. Zorndyke remarks that he couldn't generate enough energy to do it himself, and banked on the fact that humanity would try to stop him with nuclear weaponry. The energy harnessed from that explosion would cause the pole shift. However, the way Zorndyke set it up and explains it, it almost seems as if the pole shift is more of a threat and/or retaliation than a direct objective. After all, Zorndyke tells Hayami about this entire plan, and further explains that it can be shut down by killing him. If he really wanted to have the pole shift occur, why would he give that away? Also, why would he have stayed in that area, knowing that it could have been nuked? It really seems as if he didn't want it to happen.

Agh, that Zorndyke is such a conflicted character is what makes the series so difficult for me to appreciate through to the end...

[Lost Cause]

^Yes I forgot that part! As for Zorndyke, you must admit he was a perfect villian/bad guy, you couldn't help but hate the guy. That's what made the show different and in my opinion a notch above the average anime of the time.

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by Lost Cause

^Yes I forgot that part! As for Zorndyke, you must admit he was a perfect villian/bad guy, you couldn't help but hate the guy. That's what made the show different and in my opinion a notch above the average anime of the time.

I don't know, I didn't hate him... it just seemed like so much of what he did was senseless.

Spoiler for Spoiler tags so that I don't have to think about if I'm giving away spoilers:

I felt sympathy for his losses, and felt that his rejection of the hatreds of the world was even admirable. To try and create a new world is all good and fine, but... why kill so many others? If he was just being selfish and wanted everyone else to experience the pain that he did, then he'd be the stereotypical selfish villain. But that's seemingly not what drove him to do what he did. It's as if he didn't have any malice behind any of his actions.

So when we reach the climax and meet him, it's a bit of a let-down: there's no true villainous character behind him, yet there's also no "greater good" behind him, either. That is, he can't even say "I did this to change the world for the better, and it has played out exactly that way." It seems more like, I rejected the world after my losses, and then I did a bunch of crazy stuff for the heck of it.

If there's any character that is clearly a villain, it's Verg (the shark-man). Constantly on the attack, blood-thirsty, beats his own subordinates, sexually harasses Mutio and those like her, and even takes down a defenseless and peace-seeking Hayami and Katsuma in times that were apparently more peaceful.

I don't know... I find Zorndyke to be a fascinating character, in part because I feel that I must be missing something behind him. Or maybe I just don't want to accept that the entire conflict that the series revolves around was started over something senseless and not fully thought out.

[Lost Cause]

That's just it, Zorndyke was a cold, barrin, man after the accident that killed his family, he wanted to lash out at the world and make them pay for his grief.
Then when confronted you see a shriveled up prune of a man who is cold, calculating, and without emotion just wanting to die but by someone else's hand. That is what makes him the villain, and by the time you meet him you seem to identify with him!

[Ledgem]

Hmm, I see... that's a fitting interpretation. Thanks for sharing it!