Okay, I've finished my Nadia Secret of Blue Water DVDs, in which a Katara prototype has a somewhat rocky romance with a boy inventor from 1890's France aboard Captain Nemo's Nautilus, while much of the time being chased by the mysterious and evil Neo-Atlanteans, with their masks, KKK robes, Hitler salutes, and fiendish airships.

Well, Wikipedia's article on the series points out that the director (better known as the Neon Genesis Evangelion guy) had some trouble producing the series, and gave episodes 23 through 34 to an assistant.

I'll admit the episodes produced by this assistant are somewhat erratic in quality. Adventure took a back seat to comedy and romance for awhile. All the other characters behaved more or less consistently, but poor Nadia herself was stretched this way and that to the limit and maybe further. I'm torn between interpreting some of what she does as the result of a lot of stress (a vegetarian marooned on an island without fruit?) and just saying, okay, the assistant director took her out of character.

Her random crush on a native dude in episode 32-33 after the intense bonding with Jean (the inventor boy) in episode 31 is especially hard to explain. It's as if Katara's crushes on Haru or Jet happened after "The Crossroads of Destiny" rather than very early in the show.

The main director says of this stretch, he'd just keep episodes 30-31, the one stretch where the main story gets advanced. I think this is a bit harsh. There are moments in the 23-29 stretch that are really touching, though some that are kinda cringeworthy.

You may, however safely skip episode 34. They did a freaking musical episode?! Yeah, they did, and it's mostly a clipshow. It does kinda show what various characters are thinking and remembering on the eve of the five part finale, and there may be some value to this, but it's not required. Most of the songs, at least in English, and gloriously, stupendously BAD! Oh my god! Funnier than any of the comedy, but maybe not intentionally.

Then we come to the five part finale. Okay, it kinda rehashes the idea of Nadia being captured and used by the evil Prime Minister again. I so wanted to see her pwn him, somehow, even if this was totally against her ideals. It takes repeated pwning to end this dude, and his scheme, and come to think of it, Nadia does deal him the final pwn, unintentionally, while trying to revive Jean.

I don't think it's too much a spoiler to reveal that almost all the good guys have happy endings— this is a suffiently old-school show for that to be expected, though it certainly was hard to achieve.

Favorite shippy moment: Jean gets hugged by a nude Nadia in episode 31. Gasp! I totally wasn't expecting that. She tells him to close his eyes. Somehow she went through a wall and her clothes didn't. I guess these things happen. But then she tells him to open his eyes and just hugs him.