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It is pretty obvious that _Nadia_ and _Castle in the Sky_ shared a lot of
their basic premise: both of them feature a girl who owns a mysterious glowing
blue pendant, meets a boy who is interested in flying machines, and is chased
both by a small pirate band and a sizeable military power. Other similarities
are pretty obvious once one has seen both.

Was that level of similarity in _Nadia_ due to a conscious or inconscious
influence from _Castle in the Sky_? Did it come from a common origin?


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tropes nadia-the-secret-of-blue-water castle-in-the-sky
Is Nadia voluntarily inspired by Castle in the Sky?


According to Toshio Okada's (co-founder of GAINAX) [1996 interview with
Animerica](http://www.gwern.net/docs/eva/1996-animerica-conscience-
otaking#page-24-1):

> _ANIMERICA_ : Wasn’t **NADIA** ’s story originally by Hayao Miyazaki? Is
> that the real reason it seems to show so much of his influence?
>
> _Okada_ : Yeah. The original story was going to be called “Around the World
> in 80 Days by Sea”. That was Mr. Miyazaki’s plan, fifteen years ago. And the
> Toho people held onto it, and showed it to Yoshiyuki Sadamoto and told him,
> “ _You_ make it.” [...] **NADIA** was a very hard experience. At first,
> Sadamoto was supposed to be the director. But after two episodes, he said
> “Okay, that’s enough for me!” and went back to character design and
> animation direction, and Anno took over.

So _Nadia_ 's original story was by Miyazaki, and it seems very likely that
that original idea was part of _Castle in the Sky_. That is claimed at least
by [nausicaa.net](http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/nonmiyazaki/#nadia), but
that claim is not sourced (and all google results for "Around the World in 80
Days by Sea" is ultimately sourced from one of these two pages). However, the
timing certainly makes it plausible - _Around the World in 80 Days by Sea_
would have been first written ca 1981, while _Castle in the Sky_ was
originally released in 1986.


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