Anime Martian Successor Nadesico anyone?

[ElrickOtaku]

The series Martian Successor Nadesico was voted by the Japanese as one of the greatest anime series of all time and includes one of the funniest mecha spoofs of all time, Gekigengar III. Yet it seems to be rarely mentioned, there arn't even many devoted Nadesico sites.

This is probably my favorite anime, with space battles, ethical questioning, Tenchi Muyo syndrome (one man - many women), superb plot and characters. It might not be that original, but it is an incredible hybrid of many different elements.

Yet is it anyone else's favorite anime? If so, why?

[Queen Asuka]

[color=hotpink][size=1]I love this anime. It's not my favorite, but it's one that I started collecting a few years back. Me and a few of my friends have volumes 1-7 collectively (we all have different ones, lol), so that's as far as I've seen in the series.

I always found myself enjoying it alot. ^_^ I love Yurika Misumaru and I was REALLY ANGRY when Akito started putting the moves on Megumi. And I don't think Ryoko has a chance. But eh, that's just me.

I enjoy miss Ruri as well. She's so cute and sarcastic![/color][/size]

[outlawstar69]

I recently got into it as well; my interest was piqued before they had Giant Robot Week on Toonami though. I seem to watch all anime at a very slow rate... I'm only up to show number 5. Still, it's hilarious and often makes my side split I'm laughing so hard.

[densuke]

I can say that [i]I know somebody[/i] whose favorite series is Nadesico. I love the show too; it's not like it isn't one of my favorites, it's just that my top 5 series are all obscure junk. I have watched the entire series 2 or 3 times and I am sure I will watch it again.

But Nadesico truly never got the love it might have commanded in a kinder world. It got a better reception in Japan than in the US, from what I gather. One reason is the frenzy over Evangelion, which also came out in 1996. And just like most series which have long been licensed, this one is becoming less well-known over time (Evangelion is an exception - it has been endlessly flogged and repackaged here and in Japan).

Regardless of how high it is ranked by general viewers, this is a must-see series for anyone with ambitions to be a serious anime fan. The show itself is a love feast for anime and its fans, as expressed by the amazing series-within-a-series, "Gekiganger". "Gekiganger" (a tribute/takeoff on sentai mecha series like Getter Robo and Mazinger Z) spreads out like a virus from a single host and infects the entire crew of the Nadesico; even the show itself shows odd symptoms at times.

The Nadesico series is a composite of older important anime series like Space Battleship Yamato and Irresponsible Captain Tylor. The success of Nadesico shows how creativity is different from originality and is in many ways much more important.

The story is sweeping and believable, ranging from triumph to tragedy and spanning worlds. Romance, action, comedy, mystery and suspense get their due. One episode pays tribute to an well-known American naval thriller.

One of Nadesico's abiding strengths is its love for and skillful handling of its characters. By the end of the series the viewer is left with the feeling of having gotten to know the crew of a huge spaceship, almost of having lived and served with them.

The character designs (by Keiji Goto of GONZO) are attractive and expressive. The mecha designs are exciting and realistic. The animation is adequate. The voice acting is top-notch. The score is very good and supports a wide range of moods.

[Panda]

I have a little section of my website dedicated to Nadesico! If you pay attention to it you will see it does spoof a lot of different animes (ie NGE, Macross, etc..). I like the humor in the series and it has a great collection of characters. For me the best part of the story is that the crew is pretty much a bunch of misfits and oddballs (or Nutbars if you quote Akito) and they work so well together. You can't help but cheer for the underdogs to prevail!

My favorite characters are Jun and Izumi. Jun since he is so sweet and it seems like no one appreciates him. He is such a nice guy, but not the guy the girls pick. I feel bad for him. Izumi I love for her puns. She makes all of these jokes that sometimes she is the only one who gets them. My favorite quote from Nadesico is from Izumi: "I ran out of filters so I ran the tea through a copy of Shakespeare, now I have the Tempest in a Teapot, that's trouble brewing." I thought that was really funny. I got the joke, but apparently the other pilots just figured she had finally lost it. :laugh:

I think I am going to watch the series again. My biggest complaint is [spoiler] that Gui only made it to episode 3, and the way he went was so lame. He really should have gone out in a blaze of glory in his Gekiganger during battle. Not the way he did. It made me sad. :( [/spoiler]

I enjoyed the series and think it is one of my favorites. Colorful characters and interesting storyline. I recommend it for a bit of fun. :)

[ElrickOtaku]

I'm glad that at least a few others have given this series the fair hearing that it really does deserve. For me, it is like those other classic space opera series like Space Battleship Yamato, though its age may make it less well known to many, for those who do/have appreciate/d it the distance of time can just make it seem all the more like a classic.

I can agree that Jun Aoi is a great character, the way in which he is loyal and fairly competant just seems to make him a joke to the rest of the crew though. That said, he did seem to be brought more into the spotlight by the movie (even if he does get more humiliated than ever in it).Can't say agree over Izumi Maki though, those puns can just be annoying (if less so then Tsukomo Shiratori's barrage "Jovians can be jovial" et al...oh dear). Personally, my favorite character is Yurika Misumaru; the way in which she manages to combine extreme intelligence and competance with just being a ditz is just great - I have to admit that one of my few complaints about the film is how little a showing she gets, even if it was necessary to the plot.

As for the Gai thing I think that the end of episode 3 was necessary, both to the development of Akito as a character and to just show that the series was not going to be a constantly happy kiddie series - the directors had to show some ruthlessness.

I agree though, that this series was more than a little eclipsed by Evangelion; but I find that while that series is good - it has been more than a little overrated. Nadesico is in a few places far more tragic and dramatic than Evangelion was. It also was by default far funnier and just generally a nicer series, with a wide variety of characters "with slight personality defects", and a superb storyline and let's not forget a great anime-within-an-anime; Gekigengar III.

[Kusanagi]

I kills me to see Gai & Akito watch Gekigengar, it reminds me of some other anime mech series that was over dramatic like that!
It had animal mech though...
Its funny how I keep confusing Evangelion with this, but its just as good.

Ive seen about 17 eps from Comcast "On Demand" awhile ago,
Its cool. Except the Gai dying part. :p

[densuke]

[quote name='ElrickOtaku']I agree though, that this series was more than a little eclipsed by Evangelion; but I find that while that series is good - it has been more than a little overrated. Nadesico is in a few places far more tragic and dramatic than Evangelion was. It also was by default far funnier and just generally a nicer series, with a wide variety of characters "with slight personality defects", and a superb storyline and let's not forget a great anime-within-an-anime; Gekigengar III.[/quote]
Well, Nadesico is your favorite and all, I'm not gonna argue relative merits here. I wasn't going there in the earlier post either. What I mean is that Evangelion ate up a lot of attention and still does. A lot of that is down to GAINAX, which has worked tirelessly to keep Evangelion in the public eye, and ADV, which is all too happy to import the GAINAX repackages and cash in. I think the Evangelion hype has led people to claim it is overrated and so on. Anyway I don't see Nadesico getting the same attention, but none of the older series really do.

I think the Nadesico movie kind of throws up a wall too. It's an interesting feature but a some people can't get a grip on what happened in between the end of the TV series and the beginning of the movie. All of that was covered in a Japanese game (I can't say I know much about the game but I think the movie summarizes everything pretty well).

I am always surprised that people charge in and watch movies for series they have not seen, as if they could just get a nice 60- to 90-minute blast of what a series is all about; it never works. I never see distributors warn people that they are going to be wasting their time, though...

Anyway, POD's mood is very different from that of the series (less humor, less anime-fan type stuff) and of course there is not much time for the huge cast (not that the movie does a bad job). Some of the main characters are different (no point throwing in names and maybe spoiling things) and so on. So if anyone does stumble across the movie first they are not necessarily going to get drawn into the series.

[b]BTW[/b] a fansub group called Hero-Legends is bringing out the original [b]Getter Robo[/b], a very old sentai mecha series which the Nadesico production team obviously loved and which got mixed into Gekiganger. The first episode is available on BT right now for those interested.

[bimbo69]

Nadesico has to be one of my favorite anime's! I've watched it twice and it was still funny the second time.
My fav chara has to be Ruri,I'm not really sure why she is but it's proberly because she is so to the point when she says things and I like her catchphase.
:rolleyes: idiots.
I was slightly dissapointed when I watched POD because I thought the ending was a bit rushed, and some things weren't explained properly. It is still a great film though.

[Solo Tremaine]

[quote name='bimbo69']I was slightly dissapointed when I watched POD because I thought the ending was a bit rushed, and some things weren't explained properly. It is still a great film though.[/quote][color=#503f86]I didn't mind Prince of Darkness too much, personally. I guess I was just happy to see the Nadesico crew in a high-budget animated state, heh.

That said, it was quite hard to piece together, and the ending left me a little cold. Considering Nadesico is quite a bright series, [spoiler]I was surprised that Akito remained so cold and unfeeling, leaving Yurika and everyone else behind to disappear into space. I'm sure Ruri fancies him, though... mind you, almost every other female does or did at some point in the series, too.[/spoiler][/color]

[quote name='ElrickOtaku']I can agree that Jun Aoi is a great character, the way in which he is loyal and fairly competant just seems to make him a joke to the rest of the crew though.[/quote][color=#503f86]Amen to that ^_~ Jun's my favourite character, hehe. He's one I can really identify with. Although he lacks a fair amount of Akito's gusto, he often seems to gain himself a lot of the injuries Akito doesn't. His POD hair is a little questionable, though o_o;

When I first saw the Nadesico trailer on a Reboot DVD of mine, I didn't likethe animation of the noses- the shots they used made them look like horrible pixies, but when they actually broadcast the series on the Sci-Fi UK channel I was drawn in once I discovered the anime wasn't meant to be serious. I had no idea it was a comedy on watching the first episode, which made it come off as just oddly-written ^_^;

I wouldn't say Nadesico's my favourite anime, but it is one I really enjoy watching. The comedy moments can have me in hysterics for ages, and the characters are well-balanced enough to be realistic but still fall into the anime stereotypes they're trying to satirise. It's good stuff. There isn't an episode I actually dislike watching, but I felt the end of the series could have been done a little better. It just didn't seem as climactic as it should be. [spoiler]I'm happy that Akito and Yurika did manage to get it together (although Yurika isn't a favourite character of mine), but the way it happened didn't really appeal to me. I can't exactly explain why. I haven't watched it in a while.[/spoiler]

The music's pretty good too- certainly the vocal songs, if not the orchestral BGM stuff. I can't get enough of Ruri's [i]I Want to be Your Number One[/i] and [i]You Get to Burning[/i], heh.[/color]