Martian Successor Nadesico the Motion Picture: Prince of Darkness
Publisher
ADV
Director
Tatsuo Sato
Production
King Records, TV Tokyo, XEBEC
Country of origin
Japan
Format
Film
Running time
90 mins
Year
1998
Martian Successor Nadesico the Motion Picture:Prince of Darkness
By Random Mecha Guy
13th Jun 04 After seeing so many movies being simple rehashes of their respective series (Most of them being Gundam, but I'm not saying they're bad), I'm glad to finally see an Anime movie that's a almost direct sequel. Anyway the movie begins two years after the ending of the original series and the Jovians and the Earth have stopped fighting. Akito, Yurika have been killed in an accident, and Inez is also dead. However, a splinter group calling themselves the Martian Successors have started another fight, and a new Nadesico is being built with the same old bunch of goofballs along with some newcomers... Now, alot of fans who haven't seen this yet may be angry with this movie because the two mainest (is that a word) characters of the series have been killed off, but trust me, don't neglect this movie simply because of that. Besides, everything's revealed about half way through. The movie is quite different to the series in the fact that there is more action then humour, although there isn't a complete lack of it. The characters have all been updated (Ruri the most. She now looks considerably older) and we get to see what they have become after the series (for a few examples, Yukina has moved in with Minato, Hikaru has become a doujinshi artist and Izumi has opened a bar). The new characters crew members (Hari and Saborouto (who I think actually made an appearance in the series as a Gekigan-type Tetsujin pilot) also fit in with the old characters, being idiots in their own way. However, the movie doesn't really give you an introduction to who most of the new characters that aren't part of the crew (Hokushin and Lapis) are, and the only new character who gets a considerably large role is the title character, the Prince of Darkness. The Animation is quite good (as far as I can tell, however, I'm not an expert at that field), as is the sound quality. The extras that come with the DVD are very few however (but that's the way with most Anime, isn't it?). All it has is the customary language and subtitles, trailers, credits, scene selection along with a (at least in in my copy) non-existent reversible cover. As for the minor details, Gekiganger (the Getter Robo spoof) has a few cameos in this, along with Natural Lychee. A few of the older characters get about 5 minutes of screentime (Megumi, Inez, Uribatake or whatever he's called) though, and we never really find out about the origin of the Black Serena (Prince of Darkness' new mecha) along with many other things. All in all, it's a good movie, albeit too short. My final rating for it is as follows:
Animation:9
Sound:9
Story:8
Characters:8
Extras:6
Overall:8
-- Random Mecha Guy 13th Jun 04
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