Download Captain Nemo eBook

A decade ago Seven Seas Entertainment started publishing several American manga style serials. Some succeeded, but some only made it an issue or two and were never finished. Unfortunately, this intriguing alternate history/sequel to Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is one of those that never made it past its first volume, which is too bad IMHO because it had a couple of intriguing premises: what if Napoleon had won the Battle of Waterloo and founded a dynasty of Europe ruling tyrants and what if the Captain Nemos, father and son, had fought against Napoleonic Imperial French tyranny rather than first against British Imperialism, later against the World as the original had?

In 1893 Napoleon IV rules Europe and a good chunk of the rest of the world with an iron grip, and the French Empire faces little opposition on land or sea, excepting for an extraordinary submarine, the Nautilus II, commanded by the 18-year-old son of the original Nemo. As our story begins, 17-year-old Camille Pierpont, daughter of the French Vice Minister of Security, bored with her privileged life in a gilded cage, has stowed away aboard the naval vessel taking her father on a mission to seek out and destroy whatever has been ramming and sinking French ships (he's convinced it is a sea creature, not a submarine like that of the first Nemo, believed sunk and killed in the first Nautilus nearly twenty years before).

However, a long search proves fruitless, and the French are contemplating giving up and returning to France, when they are rammed by the Nautilus II, and Captain Nemo II challenges the French captain to a duel. The upshot is that seeing her father preparing to shoot Nemo in the back, Camille intervenes and ends up wounded and falling overboard, forcing Nemo to dive after and save her and bring her aboard. The rest of the volume introduces several of the crew (one of whom is the child of Jack the Ripper, thus not someone it would be wise to annoy), shows Nemo and Camille getting along about as well as any pair of tsundere idiots ever do at the beginning, and reveals more of Nemo's purposes, ending on the verge of Camille being allowed on her honor to accompany a "shopping trip" in still isolated and xenophobic Japan. (What could possibly go wrong?) There the story ends, just as it is getting good.

Now, as artist Aldin Viray freely admits, there is more than a little Captain Harlock in this Captain Nemo, but then there was more than a little Captain Nemo in Captain Harlock, too. Besides, you've got to respect an artist who lists his hobbies as

Thinking of Drawing Sexy Anime Girls,
Drawing Sexy Anime Girls, and finally
Looking at my drawings of Sexy Anime Girls.

Maybe someday it will be finished, but for now it's just another fascinating what might have been.

Captain Nemo has always been one of my childhood heroes--the misunderstood Indian prince and genius who built the fabulous submarine "Nautilus" and who roams the world's oceans in splendid exile, aiding the oppressed and exacting his vengeance on those who wronged him and his country. This manga-style book is Part One of a planned series featuring Nemo's 18-year-old son and successor, who plans to carry out his deceased father's ideas and works. The story is set in 1893, in an imaginary scenario in which Napoleon was NOT defeated by Wellington at Waterloo. Since then, France has become THE leading world power under the dictatorship of Napoleon IV, who sends Bertrand Pierpont, his Vice-Minister of Security, on a mission to find and destroy the "pirate" Nemo. Pierpont's 17-year-old daughter Camille stows away on the warship and falls overboard during an encounter with Nemo, who rescues her and brings her aboard his submarine Nautilus II. The free-spirited, feisty Camille at first resents her captivity but soon realizes that she is now more free than she had ever been while locked and guarded in her father's chateau--who had planned to give her in forced marriage to the brutal, hulking Vincent LaRoque, Admiral of the Imperial French Navy. Nemo has also been raised in isolation, unfamiliar with girls his own age; and the two young people inevitably find themselves attracted to each other, paving the way for more character development in future issues. Can't wait for the next installment!

wish he wrote more

The book was amazing and i picked up the comic style fast. It was rich in detail and had plenty of references of Jules Verne. Keep it up and give us more.

This English-language manga that was the first volume of a discontinued series in one of Seven Seas Entertainment's numerous original American titles.

This is about the son of the original Capt. Nemo fighting to raise an army against Napoleon IV to free Europe from his tyranny in an alternate 1893. Sent to apprehend the revolutionary pirate, the Minister of Security looses his lovely daughter Camille to Nemo Jr. and his crew of the Nautilus II. Nemo claims her to be a captive, but treats her with gentlemanly respect, which woos her to the part of them making out more than once. A visit to the underwater sunken continent of Lumeria reveals one of the last of an ancient race of sea creatures, which is also where Nemo stores a lot of his loot. The book ends with the crew going to Japan to buy weapons for their cause, which was going to lead into material with hot springs and samurai.

This is a visually agreeable manga, and sure to please your average steampunk fanatics. It's available as a single graphic novel and on Kindle.