Blue Submarine No. 6

Director
Mahiro Maeda
Production
Bandai, GONZO, Toshiba EMI
Country of origin
Japan
Format
OVA
Running time
4 episodes
Year
1998

Blue Submarine No. 6

By Stephen Lerch
23rd May 04

Short Synopsis:

In the world of Blue Submarine No. 6, a scientist has decided that the Earth needs to be cleansed of people and has created an acquatic race of people who will rule once his ambitions are complete. He has melted arctic glaciers and flooded the planet, covering anything that was at sea level in water.

The story focuses on 2 main characters, Hayami and Kino who are members of Blue Submarine No. 6 which is part of a group of humans attempting to stop the evil scientists ambitions. Kino is seeking revenge on the scientist who is responsible for killing her family, Hayami, in the beginning, seems to be on the sub simply because he finds it interesting, though this changes further into the series.

In terms of length, the story is told over 2 DVDs, double sided, single layer, with one episode a side.

This Anime is based off of a Manga that, as far as I can tell, never saw and English release (at least not in the US).

Video:

The transfer to DVD of this series is near flawless, in terms of encoding. There are hard subs in the ending of the first episode and the op/ed credits of episodes 1 and 4 are replaced with English instead of Japanese. No other video flaws are to be seen.

Now, the animation, that's another story. I believe this was one of Gonzo's (Full Metal Panic, Vandread, Last Exile) first efforts to put CG with cel based animation. It shows. There is an over abundance of 3D creatures, ships and various other things available. In the beginning of the series there are scenes where they actually used 3D animated characters, colored using a cel shading technique, seen mainly in video games, in place of standard cel techniques! I have problems with this, as it appears as though they used 3D just for the sake of using 3D. The character animation and coloring is simplistic, but passable.

Audio:

The options on this disc are English or Japanese in Dolby Digital 5.1 with optional English subtitles (with exception of the hard coded subs). The Japanese language track is well acted and well mixed. There aren't many instances of sounds travelling from front to back, but what is there is well done. Plenty of other directionality between right/center/left channels and the sound is well separated. The ending song sounds really good in 5.1.

I have not watched the English track, so I leave this to other viewers to decide on.

Extras:

I bought the Special Edition which collects all 4 episodes in one oversized DVD case. All of the extras, which are very nice, are on the 3rd single sided, single layer DVD. Anyone who is a fan of the show is in for a treat, as the extras are abundant and well done.

You have a character encyclopedia, collection of terminology, specifications on the enemies, an introduction to the Japan only video game, making of the game, collection of animation made specifically for the game, interviews with the game creators, interview with The Thrill (responsible for music in the game as well as the ending theme in the series), TV commercials shown on the Cartoon Network for the show, regular trailer collection and a music video for Yukikaze (another Anime being released by Bandai).

You would be hard pressed to locate a better set of extras on a DVD.

Packaging:

There are 2 versions of the show available, the whole collection in one set, or each episode on a separate disc, for 4 discs total. I cannot comment on the individual releases as I do not own them, so please note that extras, packaging, audio and anything else may be different on the single releases.

When you buy the collection, you are given a nice plastic slip cover with the Ao no Roku-go (Blue Submarine 6) Kanji design on it, with 'special edition' written on the back. The cover artwork is of the Blue Sub underwater and the back contains basic director information. The description of the show was on a sticker put on the back of the box on the celophane wrapper, so once it's opened, unless you keep the sticker/wrapper, there is no description. There are no screen shots on the box at all. The cover is reversible, giving you the option of the above insert or of a plain aqua blue cover with the Ao no Roku-go Kanji on it. The interior insert contains episode and extras listings.

Final Analysis:

There are many things in Blue Submarine No. 6 that could have been done better. With such a back story, it could have been longer than 4 episodes. The animation could have used a lot less CG. The CG, even being of a decent quality, lends a sort of lifelessness to the show.

The love story/interest between Kino and Hayami is poorly executed. Kino shows some interest in Hayami, and when he turns up missing, she seems to be worried about her boyfriend. While you can tell there is something there and that Kino is interested, it's just not executed in a believable way. It seems more like a love at first sight sort of relationship, rather than anything 'deep.'

The relationship between Hayami and Muteo/Mutio is better believed, as they share a common bond of having saved one another, though when one is indoctrined to believe the other side is evil, would you really save your enemy? I guess this is what really sets Hayami apart from the rest of the remaining humans, as he tries to patch things up between the 2 races and only someone with this sort of attitude could possibly pull it off.

This series, while not excellent, also is not bad. It's worth a watch if you can get past all the CG and don't mind things that are likely better explained or properly fleshed out in the Manga.

-- Stephen Lerch 23rd May 04

Blue Submarine No. 6 Images