Kidô Senkan Nadesico

You know when I saw this first it looked kind of promising but then it got more and more annoying.

In fact I detested the vast majority of the characters because really their attitudes at times are just unbelievable and a few times really made me very, very, very sick! All in all I began to lose interest in this series as it rolled on by which I found the characters more annoying then any kind of drama or humour or whatever.

So after a few episodes I just dropped it. Of all the anime I saw this ranks among the top 10 I saw in 'Worst Character Development' because really the character development was utterly atrocious!

Don't be deceived by the DVD cover that makes you think of Evangelion, Nadesico is one funny series. The series generally points to a show down between "Jovian Lizards" and Earth, but each series, unlike say Gundam Wings, has its own individual plot. Don't get me wrong, the plot does progress but the fact that the writers explore every possibility of comedy within the battleship Nadesico.

Good things I like to point out is that you become VERY familiar with each of the major crew members who range from the super intelligent Ruri to the crazy pilot Izumi. Also there is definately enough action and adventure to keep mecha/sci-fan fans satisfied.

The Nadesico has an OVA, Gekiganger, which is about Akito Tenkawa's favorite anime. There is also an MS Nadesico Movie called Prince of Darkness and as it may sound the movie takes on a darker, more serious tone than the series. These two are not listed on IMDB unfortunately.

Though it only had 26 glorious episodes this show was able to fit more plot twists, great characters, knee-slapping comedy, exciting action, powerful drama and even political intrigue. The characters are given great depth that you like them so much that you want to be apart of their crazy world. It also depicts a war in which both sides are guilty and the soldier are not evil. It is both (in a contradictory sense) intensely believable and laugh out loud ludicrous. If you can try to pick up all 26 episodes. You won't be sorry (especially if you an anime fan). Note that the non-existant anime that the characters watch in the series (a take off of giant robot anime like macross) was actually given a little mini-movie. I got to find that!

First things first: intro and outro songs in this are godly. That out of the way, the first few episodes might not be super gripping, but the meat of this thing REALLY rocks. It knows when to be comedic but when also to pull its punches and dial it back in for more emotional or character driven moments. Ruriruri is evidently a Rei clone from evangelion, but has enough bite and edge that it's an interesting spin on the character. Akito is basically an inverted Shinji, which is a fun play on the character. The end sort of peters out and rushes itself, so it doesn't come to a close too strong, but that mid section really did it for me. Just wish the movie was better.

When I first saw the boxes to Nadesico I thought it was nothing more then an Evangelion rip off, I found out later that it was actually a comedy and a parody of Eva and checked it out, I was not disappointed. Nadesico is a very funny anime series that parodies Neon Genesis Evangelion, and the old cheesy 70's mech shows (think Voltron). It has amazing characters and some of the funniest episodes I have seen in an Anime series. The series does sort of wander near the middle and kind of has an open ending but other then that I recommend it.

There is an OAV that is basically a 30 minute long version of the Mecha show they watch in the series which is very funny and a surprisingly dark movie that is decent, but could have been much better (too much build up not enough payoff)

If you like Nadesico Check out Vandread (very similar to Nadesico but with a lot of CGI and much better animation) or the fantasy comedy series Slayers