Kidou Senkan Nadesico: The Prince of Darkness

Two years have passed since the end of the "Martian Successor Nadesico." Akito and Yurika have disappeared. The Jovians and the Earthlings have joined forces and Ruri is now captain of Nadesico B. As the popularity of Boson Jumping grows, a vast transportation network has been developed. Dubbed the Hisago Plan, this network of Chulip portals holds the answers to the mysteries behind Bose particles and their power. If those secrets should fall into the wrong hands, it could mean big trouble. And big trouble there is. A Martian splinter group has launched an offensive, leaving the United Forces befuddled and desperate. So much so, in fact, that the former crew of the Nadesico is called back to active duty for a special unsanctioned mission-to save us all. Does this menagerie of misfits have what it takes? Who will win the race for the Boson technology? And what the heck happened to Akito and Yurika?

Hoshino, Ruri Main

Minami, Omi Japanese

Tenkawa, Akito Main

Ueda, Yuuji Japanese

Haruka, Minato Main

Okamoto, Maya Japanese

Misumaru, Yurika Supporting

Kuwashima, Houko Japanese

Subaru, Ryoko Supporting

Yokoyama, Chisa Japanese

Maki, Izumi Supporting

Nagasawa, Miki Japanese

Amano, Hikaru Supporting

Kikuchi, Shiho Japanese

Uribatake, Seiya Supporting

Tobita, Nobuo Japanese

Reinard, Megumi Supporting

Takano, Naoko Japanese

Fressange, Ines Supporting

Matsui, Naoko Japanese

Shimoji, Yukinao Producer

Habara, Nobuyoshi Assistant Producer

Takahashi, Tomoko Assistant Producer

Satou, Tatsuo Director, Script

Reviews

Mar 2, 2015

Nickholai10

Recommended

Honestly this movie was pretty badly done could of been much better.Overall it was good but the story was too flat. It basically was revolution we found akito and back o the usual gimmicks.The art and everything was good for a 1990's anime.The characters well same off as the tv series nothing new.For the people who liked the tv series i recommend u watch the movie at your own risk it will leave u just like it left u at the end of the show clueless and wanting more

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Oct 30, 2024

Gsarthotegga

Mixed Feelings

(While I don't think there are any true spoilers here for Martian Successor Nadesico: The Prince of Darkness if you've seen all of the requisite prequels, there are heavy spoilers for the Sega Saturn game Martian Successor Nadesico: The Blank of 3 Years and one minor spoiler for extra context for the Sega Dreamcast game Martian Successor Nadesico: The Mission.)

The Nadesico film requires a bit of context to appreciate, and this is one of those instances where even the initial theater-going Japanese audience of the time would have been bewildered and in the dark, not just an outside audience getting only select titles localized, as ... is so often the case. Prince of Darkness was released in theaters in 1998, evidently a month before the Sega Saturn game Martian Successor Nadesico: The Blank of 3 Years (B3Y). The problem here is that the Saturn game was a direct sequel to the original series and PoD was a sequel to the game. Like a lot of notable Saturn games, it wasn't localized in the west or elsewhere, so very few non-Japanese fans know what happened there and are forced to experience it vicariously through often lacking plot summaries. B3Y is also a multi-route game that could run around 10-30 hours, meaning it's longer and has more content than even the 26 episode series to cram in to the middle. Originally, it seems PoD was meant to be part of a film series or trilogy, but after the lack of success of the film, there was just one more sequel on the Dreamcast, called Nadesico: The Mission, which also seems to have an open ending of sorts in relation to a wandering Akito, who Ruri and Yurika continue to search for.

I've read a few summaries that helped me work my way through the film somewhat, and the glossed-over plot details can mostly be filled in through intuition and a few lines of dialogue later in the film. While the film is mostly functional, it definitely feels like you're watching part 3 immediately after part 1, nevertheless, rather than a film that easily stands on its own. Many events are handled without much buildup to process anything well, often expressed in a few brief sentences or images. This can leave the film feeling tightly compressed, which it ultimately is because it's cramming in a fair amount without any backstory retreading in a mere 74 minutes (the running time is 79, but the credits roll for about 5 minutes). They really throw you right into the middle of the action with this arc, for one of the first few frames reveal Akito and Yurika to be dead! They don't even give a basic explanation of what happened in the past following this reveal, leaving you to piece it together over the course of the entire film. The focus goes from Akito and Yurika to Ruri, who is on a mission with two new sidekicks and her own ship, with the main antagonists being the Martian Successors (MS).

Of course, the main couple aren't dead, and I doubt anyone believed they really could be, given their presence in the original series. B3Y involves a story centering around the Nadesico crew and an amnesiac man who has a mysterious link to the presumably deceased Kazama Itsuki (the girl who replaced Akito as a fighter pilot and got boson jumped out of the story). Given what we know about boson jumping by the end of the original, it's easy to fill in the blank that Itsuki is not dead. This amnesiac man is named Kaito, after Yurika's dog (LOL), and while his story is worth reading into to better understand what happened in the time between these two anime stories, it's not overly important to PoD.

After the original series, Akito and Yurika become a couple. Minato and Yurika have a custody battle over Ruri, which Yurika wins, leading to the couple becoming the guardians of Ruri. They open up a ramen shop. Whereas Nergal seemed to have been a core part of the Earth's military-industrial complex during the original series, their power declined once the Earthlings and Jovians unified, though Nergal still remains a sizable power, and Erina and Nagare play a role in foiling the Martian Successors plot during PoD. What's left out completely from this story, though perhaps hinted at when Ruri asks Nagare whether he is "good or bad," is that, despite being opponents in PoD, Nergal and the MS conspired together during B3Y on a project to make a powerful Aestivalis and ship, with the latter being controlled by a "cybernetic fairy," much like Ruri, but surpassing the need for a crew. The Aestivalis would be potent enough to compete against numerous mech units or even a whole army, and the ship could take out entire fleets. This corresponds with an expansion of boson jump gates, allowing rapid maneuverability over a vast amount of space and various planets.

For this project, they engineer a girl called Lapis who can control the entire ship with her mind. She bears a resemblance to Ruri, is even more super-kuudere, and both were the product of genetic engineering and nanotechnology, allowing them both to directly connect to computers, such as how Ruri interfaces with the Omoikane (the Nadesico's computer) or the Martian technology, though Lapis is presumably more powerful. To consolidate their power, the MS turn against Nergal and abduct anyone who can control the Martian relic or boson jump. This includes Lapis, Akito, and Yurika. Ines fakes her death to avoid being abducted. Yurika is used by MS as a means of learning to control the relic, whereas Akito and Lapis are experimented on, resulting in his senses and her emotions being greatly reduced or removed altogether. Nergal manages to rescue the two, though Yurika remains with MS in the dormant state we see in PoD, integrated with the relic.

Though not on good terms with Nergal, Akito and Lapis work with them to undermine MS. Lapis forms a symbiotic relationship with Akito; because Akito has lost his senses and she lacks emotion, the both of them makeup for a component that the other lacks. This isn't well portrayed in PoD, though it has a lot of untapped potential to make them far more interesting characters than how aloof and secondary they are here. Akito pilots the Aestivalis called the Black Selena, which is paired with a ship called the Eucharis, controlled by Lapis. Due to the symbiotic relationship of Eucharis, Black Selena, Akito, and Lapis, and the ability to boson jump on demand, they become an unstoppable power, easily wiping out the MS. Therein lies part of the problem with the anti-climatic feel of the film, which leads to the MS being a rather tepid antagonist and an unsatisfying conclusive battle, though it has the cinematic flair of a samurai duel when Akito squares off against one of the MS commanders. Even with a planned sequel, this doesn't feel sufficient.

Pretty much the whole cast is featured in some capacity, the most important ones joining up on a new mission, while some others stay behind and help in other ways. One of the odder inclusions to me was the father of the deceased Munetake having a minor role, who isn't even identified as his father, though you can assume it's him because of the hair style. While there is some humor to be found here, especially with old crew members, like the female mech pilots, Jun, Yukina, and interactions between Hari and Saburota, quite a bit of it is clustered during the middle section. The most stark contrast is how the once-goofy Akito, who matured as a character by the end of the original series, is practically a different character, a bit of an emo edgelord, and a non-communicative husk. The development of the character here is understandable but because of the aforementioned problems, the tonal shift from series to film will be jarring for anyone lacking context (even with the context, I imagine!), and it might be challenging to see how such a parodic series could become so much more serious and darker.

The villains are somewhat lacking in depth and don't get a lot of screen time. Kusakabe, the leader of the antagonistic MS, was a Jovian commander in the original and fought against the crew of the Nadesico on a few occasions in the original series. One thing I'm uncertain about is whether or not Earthlings are part of the MS at all; their origins were as a Jovian group, so it's likely the case that this is a plot for Jovian supremacy over the solar system and beyond, as the Jovian upper brass attempted before the peace treaty, but even this basic point is not especially clear in the film, making it obvious how the pace is too quick and the writing becomes vague as a result. I've seen some mention of fascistic imagery, and it's there, but they mostly resemble some kind of mystical cult with their matching outfits in this case, attempting to utilize boson jumping to travel through space-time instantaneously, which would allow them to centralize the entire solar system in a new order. The name Martian Successors is a nod to the aliens that briefly stopped at Mars and left some of their technology there, and the MS would be the inheritors of that legacy. Japan had a boom of UFO cults, just as many other countries did, and I reckon some of those were influence for crafting the antagonists, just cross them with Yukio Mishima's activism or something.

Is it worth watching for fans of the original series? Well... with context, I think it is probably worth it, though it's a much different experience, plenty flawed, and difficult to view in a fully satisfactory way. I've hopefully provided all of the most important points for approaching and understanding PoD. From an audiovisual standpoint, it's vastly superior to the original. I tended to not even notice the OST in the series, other than the catchy OP and ED, but the orchestral score here drives the scenes along in a more memorable fashion than anything in the series. Many shots in the original are decent enough, but the cel animation in the film is often lovely to behold, featuring vivid coloring, more inventive angles, transitions, and far more creative sci-fi imagery. Mostly, it's just pleasant to see what happened to a cast that you spent so many episodes with already, now that many of them are older and more mature, trying to figure out what to do with their life, and with the hangover of Gekiganger having long passed.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Oct 10, 2024

MAGNUS8M

Not Recommended

I personally believe that the TV series "Nadesico" was a parody of most giant-robot anime of its time. I liked the comedy that came with that, as well as subverting your expectations for what a normal giant-robot anime could be, but ultimately it seemed to include all the trappings and faults of the series it tried to parody.

What about the movie, especially as a conclusion to the rushed-ending of the TV series? Unfortunately it not only doesn't fair any better, it's also much worse.


I have a specific disgust for most TV-sequel anime-movies.

They often open by introducing a new conflict. This conflict requires that ... the original cast and crew, as many are still alive, be gathered back together into their group once again.

They spend almost 50% of the movie gathering up their old crew, or visiting them in their new lives if they can't come. It's basically a "where are they now" but wastes so much time building up to the major conflict.

The major conflict is barely the last 10 or 20 minutes of the movie. There are some small skirmishes in between, but it's mostly just a slow montage of collecting old characters and getting READY for the battle.

Much of the last battle comes down to a 1-on-1 showdown where the main character wins. Hooray.

In some instances, the final epilogue is just a short 5 minutes to clear things up and maybe explain things.


"Prince of Darkness" has mere SECONDS of epilogue. Nothing is resolved. The main character rides off into the sunset, but the other characters believe in him, that he'll be back some day. The End.

For how little the ending of the TV-series explained, Prince of Darkness does NOTHING. In the end, it's a mere showcase of good-music, showing where the characters ended up afterwards, and how basically useless they all are in the final battle. It also changes a lot of characters I liked into something I don't(Ruri is completely different, and Akito is as overly-emo as he can possibly get).

It's almost a slap in the face. You liked these characters, you liked this showcase of parodied giant-robot battles, we give you none of that except in very sparse sections, and we hope you enjoy it.

Are there even any real giant-robot battles in this? Barely. Instead, we have a scene where Ruri reaches out with her nanomachine powers and the Omoikane computer system to disable every enemy vehicle in the area, except for the main bad guy's giant-robot. We have all this build up for the final battle and she just shuts them down. Done.

I did not enjoy it. VERY little explanation of what happened after the TV-series ended, almost no epilogue to explain what happens after. We just assume that the problems Akito and Yurika have from their exposure to Martian nanomachines and alien technology will be cured one day. I don't think any other media continued afterwards....so... it's basically just a dead-end street.


As far as I'm concerned, you do not need to watch this to 'complete' your TV-series watch of Nadesico. If you can stand the idea of skipping it, skip it. If you MUST watch it, lower your expectations and see it just to watch the crew of characters you love be gathered together and do nothing as the last 1-on-1 showdown is made to be the main star of the show in its typical "we make one rushed-slash at each other at the same time, but only one of us is fatally wounded" glory.

At the same time.... yes, I have a certain nostalgia for this 'movie', and some of the music is SO good... but nothing about it is worthwhile. I'd rather just listen to the soundtrack and be annoyed remembering how it fit to each scene.


Dub quality was as-good as the TV-series, but a bit more drab. Ruri is basically the main character now that Akito is gone 90% of the time, and while she talks more, she's older, less cute, and she's actually less interesting. But the voices are otherwise just as good.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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