Ao no 6-gou

Yet another anime I remember watching during my Toonami days. I remember not liking it very much when I was younger, due to the dark plot. But I've recently rewatched it again (years later) and I must say, this was a kickass anime.

I was rewarded with a great plot, jazzy music, excellent animation, and a good moral lesson.

The story itself had a pretty interesting and original twist on the End of the World genre of movies. With the theme's of man vs nature and such (it does this much better then The Happening, but that isn't very hard to do).
I only wish that they'd ... have made a few more episodes. I'd really have liked to have seen the plot deepen somewhat, which we didn't get the chance to see with just 4 episodes.

The animation was great, at least the hand drawn portion. It flows very nicely and the colors are vibrant. The drawn stuff has aged very well... the CGI not so much. They added quite a bit of CGI, which probably looked cool 10 years ago. But now you can CLEARLY see the age. This can be an eye sore at times.

The soundtrack was quite interesting. You'd think that something like this would have an epic orchestra score. But instead, the soundtrack consists of a group of jazz tracks. The jazz actually fits very well with the anime, who would've thought...

The characters aren't very complex save for Zorndyke, who ends up being a very complex and deep character. Other than him, the other characters remain 2 dimensional. Hayami is your standard antihero, Kino is your standard annoying female counter part, and Verg (who is actually my favorite) is your standard bad guy, up until the end where we see a completely different side to the monster shark captain.
Once again, I blame the lack of episodes for this. We're just not given time to watch these characters develop at all.

Overall, this is a pretty good anime from beginning to end. It has and uses some very interesting idea's, some elements work (the concept and story) while others don't (the CGI).
I recommend this to any action/apocalypses junkies.

I shall preface this review by letting you, the reader, know that I have not reviewed a show before. It is something I have always wanted to start. There is no time like the present, so let us begin.

Blue Submarine is a fresh spin on a post-apocalyptic man vs the world story. I believe the true strength of the anime lies in it's unique story in a seemingly oversaturated market (granted it was made 20 years ago as of this write-up) while it's true weakness is it's inability to do anything tangible with it in a 4 episode setting

It is of this reviewers belief that ... this OVA would have perhaps been formatted better as a movie or a longer series. My largest pet peeve was the character and their progression or rather I should say lack thereof. The main characters felt hollow and only serving as a placeholder of sorts for the character they COULD become. Abysmal.

The sound was that of the funky fresh jazz variety that seems to be a beloved attribute of 90s anime sci-fi, of which I will not complain. It gives a particular vibe that can trigger nostalgia in the older anime peruser, myself having been a young viewer of Toonami, often sneaking up late to watch shows such as Dragon Ball, Gundam and the like.

The last item I will touch on are the visuals. For the show being 20 years old, the art is impressive in 1080p. It looks as good or better than some currently airing anime, but...
There is one tiny part of the visuals that didn't quite hold up so we'll, and that's the CGI. Watching it now in 2019 it feels like watching science mystery theatre 3000, it's that comical. But for the era, I'm sure it was well done.

Well, that's it. I'm sure that this review will likely go unnoticed as the show is not popular and rarely discussed, but I wanted an opportunity to try to write something up.

If you do happen to read this, please leave me feedback on how to improve upon my reviews.

Thankee-sai.

STORY SECTION

Post-apocalyptic world, animal-like mutants, a submarine out to save what’s left of humanity by an insane scientist, and some more typical elements, packed in only 2 hours. The main theme of the story is hardly original. The pace of the story is almost predictable. The conclusion is on the other hand promising but fails to wrap the story smoothly or even to make sense. You almost feel like the scriptwriters were not given enough time and ended the story in a rush, unfulfilling way. The scenario clearly needed more episodes and development in order to run smoothly and to make sense. As it is, ... it feels like a lot of fuss happened for no reason and the conclusion will leave you more frustrated rather than satisfied. It had potential for greatness, thanks to all the talking about humanity’s greed and ecology. It didn’t make use of it though and thus the story is half good. A typical GONZO mistake. Very good visuals and promising stories that are always ruined by their apathy at keeping the pace of a series as good as it begins.

CHARACTER SECTION

- As it is, the only character with interest is the “evil” scientist, who wants to wipe out humanity. He has a good reason for what he is doing and is not a typical bad to the bone villain.
- The only thing the rest of the characters do is fighting for or against him, instead of having personality and goals of their own. There is supposed to be some personal drama around the leading man and woman but given the short duration of the series, it will feel uninteresting. All the whining and crying of the shark-like leader and the renegade female mutant feel more like pointless torture time, rather than reason for acting as they do. None of the characters has much coloring or development because of the duration. Most seem to have something interesting to show but nothing of such is shown in the end. As soon as their development begins, we see the ending credits.
- Even the scientist is not that great, as his plan is not given enough time to be explained. I mean, destroying humanity and most of the world just to replace sentient life with a race of warlike animals? How will that help the planet? Duh!

ART SECTION

- This is amongst the first anime that managed to mix 2D and 3D without making it look utterly stupid. There is a huge amount of details and colors given to almost everything, making the optical department a sight of sore eyes.
- Realism in motion is quite good, although casual viewers will probably dislike the way 3D objects move and the mannerism of the characters. They both look weird and not natural, something that was expected for an early CGI work. But it’s not like GONZO learned from its mistakes and improved later on.
- Anyway, the animation takes some time to get used to but it eventually becomes bearable. The 3D doesn’t always look ok next to the 2D but if we think this is GONZO we are talking about, we must give them a credit for taking animation in anime to a whole new level with this title. Really; just check how lame all previous attempts were. Hell, just check how uninteresting most upcoming 3D anime were.
- Other than that, the character designs were way too generic and simplistic to the point you cared more about the backgrounds and the action than about them. This tends to make them less interesting than the theme of the story.

SOUND SECTION

- Jazz for humans and tribal ouga bouga drum music for mutants, almost made it sound like a strategy game with themed factions. Voice acting was decent, although the voice synk for the mutants feels more like dubbing than actually listening to what they say with groans and barks in their native language. Beyond all that, the context in the dialogues is mostly philosophical and scientific and you get a kick out of paying attention to what they say.

ENJOYMENT SECTION
The aesthetics are better than the story and the characters put together. It all comes down to a silly ecology theme of value your planet and recycle or the shark boogiemen will eat you. The Blue Submarine is sinking in term of enjoyment and you won’t remember it for something particular.