Copyright © 1997, 1998 Ozawa Satoru

Many readers are probably familiar with the OVA series BLUE SUBMARINE NO. 6. If not, you can see the review in issue 4.2 of EX. Upon finding the manga that the anime was based on, I was eager to see what inspired the show that I enjoyed so much.
Each volume of the manga has, on the cover, a short blurb that establishes setting for the story (these are slightly paraphrased to correct the more awkward parts.) In the first half of the 21st century, human beings were exposed to the danger of extinction by the serious patho-physiology caused by excessive ultraviolet rays. The "Blue (PKN)" was organized by the United Nations to seek surviving environments and develop a new world in the ocean. Underwater, a terrorist organization, Geoce, conspiring to establish their own ocean empire, blocked Blue's activities. This story records the history of these life and death battles, and the eventual victory of the submariners, Blue Labors, to realize a peaceful world in the deep sea.
The first volume starts off with Jung Zondyke lecturing about the fate of the Earth. With the depletion of the ozone layer, the surface will become uninhabitable and a new world must be formed under the waves of the ocean. Naturally, Zondyke and his minions are the ones to carve this new world out of the ocean depths. The next page in Earth's history is being written! Zondyke commands that his message be sent out, so a missile is launched from his flagship, the Garfish, and streaks toward land.
Meanwhile, a robot named Nobo takes about eight pages to announce that the Blue Dome is opening its main gates so that Ao (Blue) #1, the Koobaku III, may depart. After a flurry of exchanges about names and protocols between the captain of the Ao #1 and Nobo, the submarine is finally on its way.
In Japan, the defense forces notice Zondyke's missile but they are powerless to stop it. However, the missile is not a bomb. It burns the symbol of the Geoce empire onto their main building, and you hear Zondyke proclaiming the Geoce empire. It takes about 18 pages for this to transpire.
Back at the Blue Dome, Nobo welcomes home Ao #4 (called "Requiem.") Ao #4 asks Nobo if Ao #6 has returned yet; Nobo replies that it has not. According to the Owl's Nest, the Blue Labor's orbiting space station, Ao #6 is still in port in Japan. Apparently, they are still waiting for their commander to arrive. The captain and second-in-command wonder what sort of person he is. They hear that he is 80 years old. A car finally pulls up at the dock and out steps a fairly large man. He stares up at Ao #6, and the captain and first mate suddenly salute. They are surprised that he can see and hear them at this distance. What sort of man is this?! With the commander's arrival, Ao #6 is finally on its way. Watching from above, the Owl's Nest reports this to Nobo at the Blue Dome. Ao #6's two attack ships, the Grampus, were not docked with her when she left so now they have to catch up.
The story is painfully complex—not in terms of its actual plot, since that seems fairly simple. AOI NO ROKU-GOU is complex in the sheer number of individual characters that exist. The beginning of each volume has several pages listing all the characters and ships. Partly because of this bewildering cast, the story moves extremely slowly. It is not until the end of the first volume that Ao #6 finally engages Zondyke's Garfish in battle and the two Grampus ships run into the mysterious Myutio.
The art style uses a very solid, consistent line. It is clean but extremely flat. The backgrounds give very little sense of location; they are mostly just thin skeletons drawn in very heavy lines for the characters to sit or stand upon. There are a number of pages of solid black with word balloons, and the reader has to guess from the context what is going on. The character designs are simple and cartoonish. Although the variation in each of the characters makes them unique enough, the common elements (nose, mouth, eyes) are extremely similar, making it difficult to see who is saying what.
The worst problem is the pacing. This manga moves so slowly, one is tempted just to skip pages at a time to find a scene where something is happening. The characters seem to exist without a past so they lack any real depth. It is like they were just created out of nothingness shortly before the story began. All of the personalities are very monochromatic: good is good and evil is evil.
If you are looking for the tight pacing and action of the anime series and its deep characters, then you probably will find this manga to be a disappointment. If you can weather through the interminable passages, the story may yield up some gems, but they are few and far between.

Published by Sebun Comics
4 volumes (and continuing?)
200-260 pages, black & white, some color
Vol. 1: ISBN4-418-97517-9
Vol. 2: ISBN4-418-97518-7
Vol. 3: ISBN4-418-97521-7
Vol. 4: ISBN4-418-97529-2
¥780-800
Available now in Japan
Where to buy