Martian Successor Nadesico

Plot Overview

In the year 2195, while Earth prevaricates about sending troops to fight invaders from Jupiter known as Jovian Lizard, a brave civilian takes matters into her own hands and steals a privately owned warship. Earth's last hope against the Jovian Lizards is the ragtag crew of the Nadesico, a ship named after the nadeshiko flower that is said to represent Japanese womanly perfection. Captain Yurika Misumaru and her mostly female crew are determined to meet the challenge, while their cook (and Yurika's childhood sweetheart) Akito Tenkawa don't want to get involved in the war due to fear even though he is one of few who can pilot Aestivalis.

History

Based on a manga in Monthly Ace magazine by Kia Asamiya and supposedly set in the same universe as his Silent Möbius, Nadesico is one of the better 1990s shows, particularly for a hardcore fan audience that can spot the in-jokes and identify the fine line between a satire of cheesy shows and the cheesy shows themselves. Parodies and homages are handled lightly, and the anime's characters and situations are cleverly scripted to avoid the repetitive tedium of Tenchi Muyo!, whose adoring-female-of-the-week policy it often imitates. The most striking example of this is cute moppet Ruri, a mixture of Wednesday Addams and Tenchi's Sasami, marrying intelligence and competence with sullen cynicism.

Often playing like a superfast trailer for a much longer series, the viewer is left dazed by the compression of information, events, and background. Director Sato cuts conversations as if they were fight scenes; tone and mood change without a by-your-leave, and there's an incredible amount of shouting. The camp giant robot show-within-the-show Gekiganger Three is more than mere comic-relief pastiche of Getter Robo and its ilk-a viewing experience that turns the crew into anime fans, it eventually becomes a cultural bridge between the warring worlds. With a wink to the fan audience, anime saves the universe in much the same way as the power of song in the earlier Macross. The Gekiganger segments were compiled and released with extra footage straight to video in 1997.

The movie release Nadesico: Prince of Darkness (1998) closes the series with a flash-forward redolent of the second Patlabor movie. Years after the original series, the two main leads are missing, presumed dead, and an older Ruri is now the commander of the Nadesico B, fighting an enemy that's not all it seems.