Blue Submarine No. 6
Studio Gonzo is one of Japan's most acclaimed and prolific animation studios, producing many of the biggest television hits such as "Vandread," "Hellsing," "Full Metal Panic!" or "Last Exile", but the list is much longer. A remarkable curriculum, above all considering that it is only since 1992 that the company has acquired its own specific physiognomy and a characterizing stylistic guideline. However, the general Italian public got to know this team only starting from October 2001, when "Blue Submarine No. 6", reviewed here, was broadcast on the frequencies of the MTV television channel, helping to strengthen that partnership between Japanese animation and music television for teenagers that continues to this day.
The series was born as a production for home video (OAV) and consists of only four episodes. A frankly questionable choice.
"Blue Submarine No. 6" belongs to the very rich post-holocaust vein so appreciated by the Japanese, here revisited with an overturned perspective with respect to the canonical visions to which so many films and so much animation have accustomed us. In the film, humanity has been decimated by terrifying cataclysmic events of global significance, but fortunately the survivors are not forced to live on a planet that has become an endless dusty desert (as on most Japanese anime). Instead, in Blue Submarine No. 6 the survivors have to deal with the opposite scenario: a rise in the level of the oceans that significantly reduces the emerged lands.
While changing the assumptions, the series does not change the basic narrative purposes of this science fiction vein, i.e. to confront man with the upheavals of his natural habitat, forcing him to change his lifestyle and to relate to nature with a renewed spirit, not more like a conqueror but like a frightened castaway at the mercy of a wild element that he is no longer able to subject to his will. However, that of "Blue Submarine No. 6" is still a positive and optimistic vision of the day-after, where, albeit in disadvantaged environmental conditions, man is still strong in the technological factor which has not been lost and which can help him turn the tide of an adverse destiny.
In this movie there is a lot of water, as far as the eye can see, up to the horizon and beyond. The emerged lands have almost completely disappeared, swallowed up by the rising level of the oceans which has forever buried every trace of civilization, together with its dream of scientific omnipotence and environmental domination. The blue of the sea and sky shines everywhere, united in an embrace of purity and rebirth as evidence of the condemnation sentence issued against the human race. The survivors are forced to concentrate on the few lands still outcropping, under the nightmare of a constant threat: man is no longer at the top of the food chain and a new progeny created in the laboratory and perfectly adapted to aquatic life has declared perpetual war against the humans.
So much devastation and so much ferocious fury are not the result of natural environmental phenomena, but are the consequence of the crazy but lucid plan of an erudite mind, that of Prof. Jung Zorndyke, a scientific excellence who at the turn of his career identified in the human the cause of all suffering on planet Earth. To eradicate the evil Zorndyke takes possession of the Stream Base, an artificial habitat built in Antarctica which was supposed to represent the salvation of humanity and from which it was possible (at least so it can be deduced) to modify the earth's climate at will.
The use he makes of it is easily understood, but not satisfied with having transformed the Earth into an endless ocean, he decides to use his advanced scientific knowledge to repopulate the planet with new mutant animal species capable of living in symbiosis with the new environment. From his research come the "muska", similar to gigantic armored sperm whales endowed with human intelligence and deputies to the destruction of human coastal cities, and the "myutio", human females modified to survive in the deep sea abysses. However, the real threat to mankind is represented by the "ghost ship", a huge biomechanical entity inside which there are creatures resulting from Zorndyke's experiments. They are led by Berg, a cynical and bloodthirsty shark-man.
Between the extinction of mankind and the hope for a new rebirth stands the Blue Fleet, a military body formed by the coalition of the major countries on earth. it consists of an armada of sophisticated submarines, whose flagship is represented by the "Blue Number 6" captained by the expert Tokuhiro Iga. The military leaders of the Fleet agree that there is no more room for negotiation for peaceful coexistence between humans and the new order created by Zorndyke and are preparing the decisive attack on the Stream Base, to be implemented with coordinated action and simultaneous of the entire Pacific and Atlantic Fleets.
Before leaving for the mission that could prove to be of no return, Iga assigns the young and reckless Mayumi Kino the task of trying to convince the veteran of combat in the submarine environment Hayami Tetsu to join her crew. The proposal is promptly rejected by the latter, who was traumatized by the death of a companion caused by his carelessness at the time when he was under the orders of the Blue Fleet, now leads a dissolute life dedicated to alcohol and drugs, surviving thanks to the looting of everything he can recover from the bottom of the sea. Thus looms the idealistic clash between Kino, eager for revenge after losing her entire family to the climatic upheavals, and Hayami's self-destructive disillusionment, according to which humanity is now doomed.
But perhaps not all is lost yet and an answer to the doubts that torment Hayami could come from those same enemies that she intends to exterminate. However, we must hurry, Zorndyke intends to cause a sudden inversion of the Earth's magnetic poles, and then the destruction of the planet will be total and irreversible.
From the manga by Satoru Ozawa, Studio Gonzo made the film "Blue Submarine No. 6" in 1998, a work with a spectacular high impact, considering that at the time computer graphics were not used for animation works for the small screen; at least not used in such a massive way. What Studio Gonzo managed to do was to simultaneously use top-level digital animation (for the time) with rich and detailed traditional animation as only a production born for home viewing could be. The absence of economic constraints and too pressing delivery deadlines, combined with the facilitation provided by the computer in the creation of graphic effects, allowed the staff to concentrate on details and technical subtleties normally absent in other productions.
The very fact of setting the story in a "Waterworld"-like scenario confronted one of the most pressing problems of animation: the realistic rendering of the aquatic element and of the splashes, reflections and transparencies that occur within the its eternal flow. Today, thanks to the latest Hollywood productions, we know that it is possible to push the limits of photorealism, but at the time there were no such terms of comparison and "Blue Submarine No. 6". The wave motion, the formation of the waves and the breaking of the crests were therefore rendered with exceptional skill, as well as the flow of water from the metal surfaces or the swirling trails of foam left by the torpedoes. The depths of the sea appeared icy and silent in proportion to the increase in depth, giving the environment a suspended and menacing atmosphere. This evocative rendering was accompanied by a classic animation as one would always like to be able to admire: fluid (it is appropriate to say it) and created by means of very rounded soft lines that do not skimp on details, returning successful albeit stereotyped characterizations.
However, the two “artisanal” and “industrial” components traveled on parallel planes that intersected but did not interact. Was it true glory? No, it wasn't. The impossibility of homogeneously merging two techniques that are as different as they are effective if taken individually, inevitably ends up restoring an aura of artificiality within a product that is already fantasy in itself, eliminating the "compromise to the fantastic" that it allows the viewer to identify themselves even in the presence of the most improbable background. However, if with "Blue Submarine No. 6" we were at the dawn of the new conceptual current of Japanese animation, the reiterated recourse within traditional anime to a clearly dissociated computer graphic as is done today, poses a problem that does not it is more just technical but cultural. The Japanese love the screeching that is created between the pixel and the acrylic colour, which in their eyes takes on a connotation of technological power and artistic avant-garde that overcomes the obvious graphic forcing. It is useless to criticize in this sense.
The problem of coexistence that exists on a cosmetic level also manifests itself on a screenplay level. In "Blue Submarine No. 6" two absolutely irreconcilable souls coexist: if on the one hand we have well-defined realistic personalities inserted within a credible and articulated context (the tactical depth of underwater battles, whether true or false, is an example), discovering that everything is resolved in the hunt for a mad scientist who alone has managed to submerge the five continents, and who always alone has created a lineage of mutant monsters which includes sharks, wolves, monkeys and other unspecified anthropomorphic and talking monsters that would not have disfigured in an anime by Nagai is frankly too much. Too much contrast between the beautiful part of hate, hope and melancholy involving the human component of the series and the blind and absolute lust for death of the creatures created in test tubes.
There is a lack of homogeneity both stylistically and conceptually, with the result of making the entire dramatic scaffolding fall into the grotesque.
A pity, because beyond everything "Blue SuBmarine No. 6" also has beautiful moments of ecological reflection on the themes of tolerance and the right to life of every creature, which are embodied in Hayami's educational path.
The Dynit edition (Italian) shows off a video of immaculate purity: brilliance, definition and cleanliness are at very high levels and make us dream of a future in which all souls will have the same quality level. The dubbing is at superlative cinematic levels, and the stellar cast hired to give voice to the characters speaks for itself: Massimo De Ambrosis (Edward Norton, Matthew Perry) is Hayami, Francesco Pannofino (George Clooney, Denzel Washington, William L. Petersen) interprets Tokuhiro Iga, while Dario Penne (Anthony Hopkins, Christopher Lloyd) gives voice to the crazy prof. Jung Zorndyke. It's been a long time since I've encountered such a heartfelt and genuinely emotional voice acting.
