Kidou Senkan Nadesico

Akito doesn't want to fight. Despite a childhood spent on the anime Gekiganger 3, a Mecha show, he'd rather cook than pilot a Mecha. Fate intervenes when his home on Mars is destroyed, and he is transported instantly to the Earth, mysteriously. He has questions no one can answer fully, but follows a girl from a chance meeting in hopes to discover any. The girl, Yurika, is captain of the private battleship Nadesico, and in order to follow her, he enlists as their cook. Possessing the nanite implants that allow to control mechas, he's a handy backup pilot for the mechas of the Nadesico. He joins a crew bent on avenging Mars that seems to be composed of only misfits, otakus, and ditzes; however, in reality, they are handpicked experts. They take their own private war back to Mars to face the harsh reality that life may not always be like a Giant Mecha series.

(Source: ANN)

Misumaru, Yurika Main

Kuwashima, Houko Japanese

Tenkawa, Akito Main

Ueda, Yuuji Japanese

Hoshino, Ruri Supporting

Minami, Omi Japanese

Daigoji, Gai Supporting

Seki, Tomokazu Japanese

Subaru, Ryoko Supporting

Yokoyama, Chisa Japanese

Maki, Izumi Supporting

Nagasawa, Miki Japanese

Amano, Hikaru Supporting

Kikuchi, Shiho Japanese

Reinard, Megumi Supporting

Takano, Naoko Japanese

Uribatake, Seiya Supporting

Tobita, Nobuo Japanese

Fressange, Ines Supporting

Matsui, Naoko Japanese

Greenfield, Matt Producer, ADR Director

Ikeda, Shinichi Producer

Satou, Tatsuo Director, Storyboard, Planning

Tanaka, Hideyuki Sound Director

Reviews

Oct 10, 2024

MAGNUS8M

Recommended

After the success of Gundam and others like it in the 80s, many new giant-robot anime began to populate Japan, and eventually the rest of the world. It became such an overused theme that parodies began to slowly invade the airwaves.

Martian Successor Nadesico tries to ride the line between serious-anime and giant-robot parody(as well as being a lite-harem), and manages to do so very well, for the most part.


At it's core, Nadesico introduces an early mystery - who are the aliens using robots to attack Earth, how does the main character Akito have mysterious powers, and what awaits the crew at every turn. The ... main cast of characters essentially steal an advanced space battleship/carrier(The "Nadesico" itself) and use it with the intention of rescuing a Mars colony from alien infestation, only to find things are too far gone to help out. This sets up for a 'new' adventure they don't really know or understand, aimlessly wandering the skies and the universe without really knowing what to do; but as they continue in search of something to fight for, they accidentally uncover a lot of mystery along the way.


Why do I consider this a parody?

For one thing, giant-robot usage is very tongue-in-cheek - since their controls have hand-nanomachine-interfaces with their minds, the 'Aestivalis' robots can spin, twirl, point, and otherwise do things that most "real-robots" don't usually have the advanced controls to perform. Many times they do jokingly-cutesy acts and don't take themselves seriously too often.

Secondly, this anime has its own in-universe anime called "Gekiganger III"(later called Gekiganger V), and many references are made to it throughout. Characters will often say "it's just like that anime, Gekiganger", or they will use the advanced nanomachine-interface to act-out Gekiganger style actions or poses with their Aestivalis. In-universe, many characters associate what they're doing as imitating an anime. They even hold their own anime-convention at one point.

The premise might be giant-robots, but it's also riddled with romance/lite-harem. Even though the situation itself should be serious and full of grief or anxiety(which DO occasionally happen), here it's filled with super-deformed moments, logical-mishaps that make people fall over from shock or annoyance, or unexpected joke-endings that make all their worrying seem pointless as everything turned out fine anyway. Beach Episode? Yeah let's have a Beach Episode.

In general many references to other giant-robot anime are made, so it's clear that they wanted to joke around with the whole 'this is a giant robot anime BUT DIFFERENT' thing. It has its own moments of seriousness as well as its own solid identity as a definitively-good giant-robot anime, but it rarely takes itself seriously unless the situation is intended to be.

However, if you don't know about it BEING a parody, by itself the show might seem relatively normal...until the jokes and digs taken at other anime occur. The show is self-aware and even calls itself out at times.


If I like it so much, why do I rate it a little low?

Well..... in general, I feel that parodies end up becoming a victim of themselves and what they tried to parody. What do I mean by that? In this case, it's a giant-robot-anime - they tend to end with a late/last-episode-battle that is supposed to resolve everything, but doesn't. So does Nadesico. For most of the 26 episodes they faff around and joke here and there, but it also has all the trappings of a giant-robots negative traits throughout, and that culminates into a rushed ending that doesn't resolve anything. And then the movie happens, and it gets worse.

Overall Nadesico is a lot of fun, but I've also watched it so many times I just can't handle the nostalgia too well any more. In fact, I bought the full-DVD-case as my very first purchased-anime. It's filled with a ton of memories and even talking with others about it often... going back to it again after many of those things have passed-on is hard. However I'd say the rushed-ending is what hurts it for me.

Most of that is superficial, though. If you love giant-robots and space-drama, and don't mind a mostly-joking anime, this really is one of the peak shows of the 90s, and it really shines bright amongst others.


In terms of English-dub-quality, this is from the mid-90s from ADV, and it shows. Honorifics are not used, which is understandable since not every character is strictly Japanese nor does it take place in Japan. However the main "issue" is that almost all jokes are replaced with English jokes and they don't always work as well.

In addition, this is a 90s ADV dub, and they very loosely adapt it to be "more adult" when it maybe didn't need to be. If you use subtitles with the dub, not a lot matches up, and things are often more-perverted than they were in the original, just to make it more edgy. While it doesn't change characters too much, it's a bit annoying knowing that if you later try to watch the original-JP-voices you could be disappointed or at least confused why they talk a bit different.

I still think the dub is good, though. This just comes from an earlier time when ADV didn't respect the original versions very well, so it's very loosely written.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Jan 7, 2024

WillNeot

Recommended

Do I recommend Nadesico? Yes, but kinda.

Nadesico is a classic mecha anima based a lot on other even more classic mecha anime, but it doesn't stand up to those inspirations, it traies to do too much at the same time and in the end it doesn't do any of those things really right, it has charming aspects but overall it feels like a jumbled mix of a lot of ideas that don't function that well together.

When the series tries to do it's story seriously it's actually great, but every time it pivots to something else it crumbles imensely.

So overall, Nadesico is great at a few ... points, but it loses itself on so many other that is difficult to praise it more.

- Will Neot

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Aug 5, 2012

Hectotane

Not Recommended

There was a guy I know back in 90's Sacramento known as Steve McIntosh. He introduced me to Nadesico... I have never heard from him again and I guess, maybe, it's a good thing for me. Back when I was watching Nadesico; I was "super-naive" and thought I could accept anything. I was also a "(damn) fool."

Onto my so-called "review" and WHY I consider this animu "THE WORST EVER CREATED second only to Evangelion."

* The "harem animu" elements ruined its "serious mecha anime" elements.

* Akito, the shounen lead, is "afraid of women" (an element required for the otaku-base to self-insert into). His inability to handle ... women and his own hormones transfers into his (in)ability to fight in his mecha.

* And while this "love-shape" is going on with Akito; every other guy is getting dumped and sidelined, sometimes for comical effect at a guy's expense.

* I lean more towards "real robot" shows like Tomino's / UC era Gundam (than "super-robot" shows). But even a thin-skinned, no-talent hack can create better enemies to fight against than this. Then again, I guess I'd feel a little better if the enemy had been squared on the first episode; as opposed to being trolled because a creator doesn't have a clue on how to make convincing enemies.

Speaking of being thin-skinned; I reminded myself of how horrible my experiences were from watching this poorly-written, by-and-for the otaku harem animu masquerading as a mecha anime. I didn't get a chance to watch all of Gundam Wing but it was a pretty good show; one that can remind people of how much better a mecha show can be without focusing on harem antics as some cute girl's behind.

Reviewer’s Rating: 2

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