Martian Successor Nadesico

T

Trowa_Ayanami

Brigade Leader
Nadesico.jpg


When Earth's colonies on Mars are suddenly attacked by alien invaders referred to as the Jovian Lizards, civilian contractor Nergal decides to come to the Earth's aid by constructing powerful space battleships, the first of which is known as the ND-001 Nadesico. A crew is selected from among the top civilian experts in each field, however, these individuals tend to have "some slight personality disorders".

The main character, Akito Tenkawa, is a boy with a mysterious past; once a resident of Mars' Utopia colony, Tenkawa somehow escaped its destruction by the Jovian Lizards and arrived on Earth, with no memory of how he got there but a terrible fear of the invaders. He hates fighting and only wants to be a cook, however, he is constantly called on to act as a pilot of one of the Nadesico's Aestevalis - humanoid combat robots. While on board the Nadesico, Akito has more problems to deal with than just the Jovians; pretty much all the female members of the crew, especially the vessel's captain Yurika, seem to be head over heels in love with Akito, but all he wants to do is cook and watch his favorite anime, Gekigangar III (an anime within an anime).

I really think this anime is not getting the recognition it deserves.

I mean, the series itself it just one big parody. It pays alot of homages to great animes of the past, such as the Gundam series, Ichijo Hikaru and the Macross series, Voltes V and the great giant mecha space operas of the '70s and '80s when they ruled the anime fandom. Hell, even recent anime shows such as Evangelion and Irresponsible Captain Tylor get parodied as well.

And the english dub was good as well, probably one of ADV's better english dub jobs in my opinion.

However, if I were you, it would be wise to stay the hell away from the movie, The Prince of Darkness.
 
Nadesico is one of my favourite series ever, and will always be important to me as it was the first series I completed buying in any format.

It really does deserve more recognition than it seems to get. Unfortunately, many wont get the opportunity due to the license expiration but it truly is something worth checking out. Personally, I couldn't stand the english dub with Yurika's grating voice, but at least ADV made the effort to bring out the series into an english language market.

If anyone can find it cheap online or anywhere infact, I highly reccomend it also. It's not so much just a series with lots of parodies, it's a series which whilst taking itself lightly, also instills alot more characterisation than a series which sees itself as too serious.
 
i've been a little interested in Nadesico for a little while but have yet to actually start on it. Probably once i've finished with one or two of the series i am watching the now, i'll start on it.
 
Trowa_Ayanami said:
I really think this anime is not getting the recognition it deserves.
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Time was when that would have been met with a "huh?". When ADV was king of anime in the UK, Nadesico was one of the most talked about properties. Ironic really, since given the kind of anime available to people at the time, most of the references that Nadesico makes must have gone over the heads of any but the hardcore.

Therein lies my problem with Nadesico. Nope, I'm not a fan. I feel that i've had to work to hard to know why things in the show are funny, and then I laugh. And then I step back and think: a) "isn't this the equivalent of being the only person in the room who laughs at someone saying 'It's over nine thousand!'" and b) "Wasn't I laughing at this 'joke' when I saw it in the original anime anyway?". Fair enough I suppose. Except that it's wrapped around a Macross-style love triangle with the two most irritating, despisible Female characters ever. Yes, yes, that's the point (whichever one he chooses, he loses!), but is it really that funny? Irritating characters either have some redeeming feature, or a bloody death on the side of an asteroid they weren't looking out for. Yurika and... the other one... have neither.

That and they killed Gai. Which was simultaneously the most intelligent and most stupid move in the series. It would have worked if there was actually anything worth watching after he copped it.

Bottom line is: Why would I watch Nadesico, where the entire appeal appears to be being smug everytime I tick off a cultural / anime reference from the running checklist, when I could watch something like... Futurama. Where I don't have to struggle with everything that is lost in translation, and I can care about the characters even when it's largely episodic and everything returns back to normal at the end of the show? I suppose that's just one of the mysteries of anime fandom...
 
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kupoartist said:
Bottom line is: Why would I watch Nadesico, where the entire appeal appears to be being smug everytime I tick off a cultural / anime reference from the running checklist, when I could watch something like... Futurama. Where I don't have to struggle with everything that is lost in translation, and I can care about the characters even when it's largely episodic and everything returns back to normal at the end of the show? I suppose that's just one of the mysteries of anime fandom...
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Hmm, thanks for giving your point of view, that's an interesting way of looking at it. I hadn't (and still haven't) seen any of the series they referenced, although I could tell where the references were for the most part, so that element never really bothered me.
One of the things I really liked about Nadesico was the ending, where they neither have a big pyrotechnic finale, nor just have things continue exactly as they were before - it has a normal conclusion to it, in that some important things relating to the crew are resolved, but for the most part life goes on.
 
When i watched this for the first time hadn't seen that much anime and i enjoyed it well enough, if anything found it helped me to understand a lot more of the jokes in later anime. My only gripe about the series are the endings, both of which suck major buttock.
 
i would have to agree with what Trowa said, i think it is a real gem of a show. I initally saw it on Sci-fi and really didnt understand the refrences, nor the actual plot as i was new to anime, but i still really enjoyed it.

After coming back to it 2 years ago, i throughy enjoyed it, i loved the way how the show's atmosphere whould just chnage at a momnet's notice from comedic to tragic. sure, its ultimately a parody, but at least it dosn't take it's self to seriously when it comes to referencing a particular show.

I've yet to watch it in Japanese yet, so i cant make a comment on how it compares to the dub, but i though it was probably one of the better dubs by adv.

i bought the 'anime essential' sets; 3 volumes containing 2 discs per volume, plus you get some audio commentary and other extras not available in the stand alone dvd's and box set.
 
There were only 2 things really about Nadesico that I didn't like, what happened to Gai Daigoji, and the ending. Yes it's true a lot of things were left unanswered at the end but they were supposed to have been sorted out in the follow up series that they were going to make, ( and now never will, even though they never said why. ) :cry:
 
Nadesico was one of the three anime series I watched on the sci fi channel in 2002-3 (before they lost it) the other two being Evangelion and Blue Gender. These were the first anime SERIES I had seen - up until that point I only had a collection of videos (all Manga Ent ones) so seeing a series was a very different experience to say the least.

Well from very early on in that run, Nadesico became far and away the favourite of the 3 series for me (Blue Gender was quite good, and Eva was boring) there is so much fun there that it is consistently enjoyable even now. For one it was the first Anime dvds I bought, in 2003, and having watched it yet again a few weeks back over easter, I was still immencely impressed by it all. I still argue that Ruri is one of Anime's great characters, and basically it still stands up to anything that can be thrown at it for me.

(Just do not watch the film, god that was awful)
 
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