WI: Gainax earns/retains the rights to Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water?

[Neoteros]

Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water is a Jules Verne-inspired anime by Hideaki Anno and Studio Gainax that aired in the early 1990s. A sequel was in the works, but Gainax could not retain the rights to it - the fact that Gainax could not earn money from it (as Toho had the rights to the story outline since at least the 1970s, when it had hired Hayao Miyazaki to develop a television series) and was therefore driven to near bankruptcy by the series surely had something to do with it.

What if, during the development of the anime, or during its original run, Gainax had been able to obtain the rights to the it in full? A sequel hook in the anime was meant to lead to a sequel series... that, after Anno became unable to keep working with the characters and setting of the anime, was reworked into Neon Genesis Evangelion. So, a Gainax without money issues is able to work on that sequel series: NGE is butterflied away, but many of its elements presumably find their way into Nadia's sequel.

How would the anime industry be influenced by this?

 

[lukedalton]

Well the lack of this problem, near bankruptcy of Gainax included can at least mitigate the depression issue of Anno meaning that the creative process will be different, plus unlike Evangelion Nadia was a more fun adventure and with an optimistic ending...expecially for the Trio Drogno expy

 

[Sekhmet_D]

Gainax always struck me as being the wrong studio to have handled Nadia. It really should have been a Ghibli project.

Incorporation of Evangelion's themes into a Nadia sequel is probably going to dilute said themes and result in a product nowhere near as bombastic, controversial or groundbreaking as a solo Evangelion; the anime scene would be a lot more tame and formulaic for it.

 

[Nivek]

Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water is a Jules Verne-inspired anime by Hideaki Anno and Studio Gainax that aired in the early 1990s. A sequel was in the works, but Gainax could not retain the rights to it - the fact that Gainax could not earn money from it (as Toho had the rights to the story outline since at least the 1970s, when it had hired Hayao Miyazaki to develop a television series) and was therefore driven to near bankruptcy by the series surely had something to do with it.

What if, during the development of the anime, or during its original run, Gainax had been able to obtain the rights to the it in full? A sequel hook in the anime was meant to lead to a sequel series... that, after Anno became unable to keep working with the characters and setting of the anime, was reworked into Neon Genesis Evangelion. So, a Gainax without money issues is able to work on that sequel series: NGE is butterflied away, but many of its elements presumably find their way into Nadia's sequel.

How would the anime industry be influenced by this?

Gundam X wouldn't have bombed so no turn A and seed onward, that will save the franchise and show AU can work without being remake of UC