Troperville
Editing Help
Tools
Toys
|
|
|
Martian Successor Nadesico
|
alt title(s): Nadesico 
Described as "the most popular anime ever" in Japan, Martian Successor Nadesico is a sprawling Space Opera with a subversive sense of humor about its own genre.
Several centuries in the future, Earth is at war with an alien species — propagandists take advantage of the fact that no one has ever seen one by dubbing them "lizards," and everyone knows that Reptiles Are Abhorrent — that fights entirely by remote controlled robots and ships sent from Jupiter via immense hyperspatial gateways. The war is going badly for Earth when a defense contractor, the Nergal Corporation, decides it's going to cut out the middleman and field its own space battleship, the Nadesico. Of course, it crews the ship almost entirely with a classic oddball gang of civilians. As captain, Nergal selects Genius Ditz Yurika Misumaru, daughter of Earth's head admiral.
Yurika's childhood sweetheart, Akito Tenkawa (a burnt-out, traumatized ex-mecha pilot who can't remember how he got to Earth after the fall of the colonies on Mars) joins the crew mainly by accident. Although he wants only to be a chef in the ship's galley, he is repeatedly forced to use his piloting skills in defense of the Nadesico.
Over the course of the series, the ship and crew go through bright times and dark, joy and sorrow, defeat and victory. Conspiracies are uncovered, secrets are learned, and the true nature of the war — and of man's destiny in the solar system — are revealed.
While it glorifies in being a classic "space war with giant robots" story, it at the same time parodies the tropes of the genre, both overtly and subtly. One of its most famous devices is Gekiganger 3, a classic 1970s-style Super Robot anime Show Within A Show. Although G3 seems at first only a device for cheap laughs, it slowly becomes not only a sly commentary on the main action, but also a major element of the plot in and of itself.
This show provides examples of:
- The Abridged Series
- Actor Allusion (in the dub)
- Affectionate Parody
- Alas Poor Scrappy (The very obnoxious, if amusing, Admiral Munitake gets a surprisingly moving death scene when his time finally comes.)
- Aliens And Monsters
- All There In The Manual (if you want to understand The Movie in one go-around, or have any sort of satisfactory conclusion to the series, you're going to need to find a copy of some tie-in video games.)
- Also shows up in-story when Akito uses his knowlege of obscure bits of the Gekigangar 5 manga that were never animated to defeat a security program based on Gekigangar 3.
- Amazon Brigade Both the bridge crew and the pilots as of episode 3 are almost this.
- Ascended Fanboy (Gai Daigoji, and the Jovian colonists)
- Badass Mustache: Mr. Prospector
- Barrier Warrior ("Gekigan Flaaaaaaare!")
- Beach Episode
- Beam Spam: The Cosmos fires seven of the Nadesico's Gravity Blast Cannons.
- Bridge Bunnies
- Bunny Ears Lawyer (the crew of the Nadesico. The captain crosses the line into Genius Ditz.)
- Taken literally with Goat Hoary.
- Calling Your Attacks (Akito and others calling Gekiganger 3 attack names while piloting mecha. Lampshaded in an early episode when Akito asks Gai if they really need to do this and Gai, being the way he is, responds "Of course!")
- Chaste Hero (The Jovians as shown are all male warriors who put women on a pedestal and are frightened by the idea of sex or even romance. It's quite possible they reproduce asexually)
- Chef Of Iron: Akito cooks as well as he flies.
- Chick Magnet
- Christmas Episode
- Chronic Backstabbing Disorder (at least one person on each side.)
- Clingy Jealous Girl (Akito attracts at least three of these, one actually homicidal.)
- Cloudcuckoolander (Izumi)
- Colon Cancer (Martian Successor Nadesico: The Motion Picture - Prince of Darkness)
- Comedic Hero
- Complete Monster (Haruki Kusakabe, the Jovian leader, is this in spades. Not only did he frame Shiratori for treason and had him killed to prolong the war, but he did all kinds of horrible experiments on Akito, Yurika and Lapis in The Movie.)
- Cool Ship (the titular battleship)
- Conspiracy Redemption
- Corrupt Corporate Executive
- Cosplay (Among other things, the Jovians wear Gekiganger 3 cosplay as uniforms.
- Cut Short (There were meant to be three movies. It might be a good thing this didn't happen.)
- Crew Of One (The One-Man One-Ship project from The Movie)
- Crouching Moron Hidden Badass (Yurika)
- Deconstructive Parody
- Deflector Shields (Distortion Fields)
- Dirty Old Man (Yurika's father has an... unusual obsession... with his daughter's maturation into a woman. Seiya Uribatake is just generally obsessed with young women, at least until he reunites with his wife.)
- Dis Continuity: Some people would like to forget The Movie ever existed.
- Disney Death Admiral Fukube
- Doomed Upgrade
- The End Of The World As We Know It
- Engineered Public Confession (Twice)
- Ensemble Darkhorse (Ruri, who pretty much takes over The Movie entirely.)
- Everythings Better With Princesses...or not.
- Expies (dozens of them.)
- Falling Into The Cockpit (Akito was just trying to escape, but ends up being an Accidental Hero.)
- The Federation (Mildly averted, in that the UEAF seems to have little influence on the Nergal-owned Nadesico and its crew for the first half of the series. Although the characters get drafted in the second half, they don't become any more militaristic or patriotic.)
- Festival Episode (a Gekigangar Con. On board the ship.)
- Genius Ditz
- Girl In A Box (Izumi, and technically, Yurika in The Movie.)
- Go Nagai Sideburns (Gai Daigoji, who else? And at least one cast memeber from Gekiganger 3)
- The Government
- Government Conspiracy - ( Practically the whole series.)
- Gundam Jack (first episode Aestivalis Jack!)
- Hair Colors
- Handsome Lech (Nagare Akatsuki)
- Have We Met (Spoken by Yurika to Akito in the first episode)
- Heroic Sacrifice Jun attempts one in the third episode.
- Hey Its That Voice (Prospector is The Sword That Smites Evil! I KID YOU NOT)
- Raidese F. Branstein is a skirt-chasing long-haired Earth pilot! Kyosuke Nanbu is a long-haired bishonen Jovian pilot! The Sage Fox of Shinra is Nadesico's Electronic Fairy!
- High School AU (Parodied by the "Early 21st Century High School" virtual reality program in the Nadesico's recreation room)
- Holographic Terminal (Everywhere)
- Hot Blooded (Gai Daigoji, and it's a major theme of Gekiganger 3)
- Humongous Mecha
- Hypocritical Humour: "If only the humans appreciated life as we do, I would not have to kill so many of them." man, the jovians are wearing irony blinkers the size of the moon.
- I Just Want To Be Normal ("Goddammit, I'm a cook!")
- Improbable Age: Used, lampshaded, and deconstructed
- Indecisive Parody
- Jumped At The Call (Gai Daigoji, who arrived three days early and broke his leg.)
- Karma Houdini (Kusakabe)
- Killed Off For Real Gai, Admiral Munetake, and Tsukumo Shiratori
- But wait, didn't Munetake show up in the movie?
- No, that was Munetake's *father* if This Troper remembers correctly.
- Knight Templar (The Jovians act like this at times. Especially Genichiro Tsukuomi, who kills his best friend Tsukumo for trying to peacefully negotiate with the "evil" Earthlings.)
- Lampshade Hanging (Any mecha tropes that don't get subverted, justified or outright deconstructed get this treatment.)
- Large Ham Gai Daigoji. GAI'S. SUPER. UPPER!!!
- Latex Space Suits
- Left Hanging (twice!)
- Lethal Chef (Yurika and Megumi (and probably Ryoko) nearly kill Akito trying to impress him with their cooking, the real
tragedy joke being that Akito himself is a restaurant-quality chef.)
- Little Miss Snarker (Ruri - former Trope Namer)
- Loads And Loads Of Characters
- Love Triangle (almost a Love Dodecahedron. At least a septagon, by Ruri's count.)
- Male Gaze
- Manly Tears (Gai is especially prone to these and his death is prone to invoking them, but they're often sported by Akito or Uribatake as well. Also the king of Peaceland.)
- Mecha Expansion Pack (the Y-Unit for the Nadesico, and the shield-defeating Field Lances for the mecha.)
- Mecha Mooks (the vast majority of the Jovian invasion fleet)
- Megacorp
- Meganekko (Hikaru. She's spunkier than most of the Meganekko types, though)
- Melee A Trois (UEAF vs. Nergal vs. the Jovians)
- Mildly Military (justified in the Nadesico's case as they're a corporation and not the actual military.)
- Ms. Exposition (Inez. Lampshaded, of course.)
- Mondegreen (In episode 20, Yurika is singing the opening song, and mis-sings the lyric "yume no kakera sa" as "yume no Takeda-san". She even gets called on it in-story)
- Mood Whiplash
- The Movie (meant to be a Grand Finale, the planned trilogy was Cut Short)
- Ms Exposition (Ms. Fressange)
- Nanomachines
- No Fourth Wall (in parts)
- No Sex Allowed (Nergal company policy, after all, the Nadesico doesn't have a daycare centre, the crew seem to ignore said policy towards the end of the series)
- Oracular Urchin Ruri, Lapis does this a bit in The Movie.
- Otaku Surrogate (in addition to all the just-plain-Otaku, you have Hikaru Amano, who is also a Yaoi Fangirl as well.)
'Hikaru (upon seeing Akito and Nagare Akatsuki shaking hands) "This gives me an idea for my next doujinshi".
- Paper Thin Disguise Akito takes a page from Lieutenant Quattro's book in The Movie. It lasts all of fifteen minutes, or rather, two minutes of actual screentime.)
- Proud Warrior Race Guys The Jovians
- Perky Female Minion - inverted by Yurika, the one in charge.
- Pervert Dad: Yurika's father, Admiral Misumaru
- Pungeon Master (Izumi)
- Ragtag Bunch Of Misfits
- Real Men Wear Pink (well, Akito does, and he's technically the most male pilot for a while...)
- Recap Episode (In which, the characters of Nadesico watch the characters of Gekigangar III watch a Nadesico episode and try to figure out the ramifications of such a paradox.)
- Theme Tune Cameo
- The Red Planet
- Rocket Punch (The ground-type Aestivalis is one of the few Real Robots to use this)
- Sacrificial Lamb ( Gai Daigoji, although he lasts until the second episode. He's even shot by his own side. Also, Joe Umitsubame, in Gekiganger 3- his death scene foreshadows that of the aforementioned character in the same episode, even though it occurs in the penultimate episode of Gekiganger 3.)
- Selective Obliviousness (Yurika, with regards to Akito's feelings for her... possibly done strategically)
- Shout Out (everything from classic science fiction to Iron Chef to having a whole major character based on Megumi Hayashibara. Even the name of the ship — "Nadesico" is an ironic reference to the Yamato of Uchuu Senkan Yamato by way of the common Japanese phrase "Yamato Nadeshiko" ["Nadeshiko" is an alternate transliteration of "Nadesico"].
- The Japanese title Kidou Senkan Nadesico, or Mobile Battleship Nadesico is almost certainly a reference to Kidou Senshi Gundam.
- Serious Business (see below)
- Shoryuken (Gai! Super! Uppaaaaaaaaaaah!)
- Show Within A Show (Gekiganger 3!)
- For the Recap Episode it was a show within a show within a show within a show within a show.
- So Last Season (The Nadesico's main gun, as of about the sixth episode. Possibly a record.)
- Space Opera
- Spell My Name With An S (Gekigengar/-gangar/-ganger 3)
- Spider Sense (Inez can sense when any other character attempts to deliver exposition.)
- The Spock (Ruri)
- Spoiler Opening
- Stay In The Kitchen (While Earth is definitely an equal opportunity employer, the Jovians are...less egalitarian.)
- Inverted on the Nadesico, as Akito desperately wishes to stay in the kitchen himself, and let the girls do all the robot fighting.
- Strange Minds Think Alike (A particularly large-scale example - early in the show we meet Gai Daigoji, who has modeled himself after Gekiganger III, and think he's crazy (possibly Crazy Awesome). Then we meet the Jovians, who have modeled their entire civilization after the same show.)
- Super Deformed (Tenkawa and Ruri are represented as Super Deformed versions of themselves when they interface with the Nadesico's computer in episode 12)
- Super Robot Wars (Advance, Reversal, Impact, MX, J, and W)
- Surrounded By Idiots (
Pretty much Ruri's Catch Phrase. The Jovians aren't exactly the sharpest mecha-sized knives in the arsenal compared to their leader, either.)
- Red Baron (After a certain point, Yurika is officially known to the Jovians as "the Daring Man of Action"...much to her chagrin.)
- The Red Planet
- Theme Naming (the Nadesico and the Earth Forces ships are all named after flowers, including the ND-002 Cosmos
 which uses the English name.)
- There Are No Therapists (actually, there is one... but you'd have to be really crazy to go to Inez Fressange for counseling. And the counseling is a one-time, throwaway bit anyway.)
- Time Travel
- Token Loli (Guess)
- Took A Level In Badass Akito in The Movie
- Tragic Hero As above.
- Unusual User Interface (the Image Feedback System nanomachines).
- The Unwanted Harem
- Warrior Poet (kinda. Warrior Chef, anyway.)
- Wave Motion Gun (plus a reality-warping upgrade.)
- The Cosmos manages to Beam Spam the first version.
- Who Is This Guy Again (This series is really bad about making the names of key characters clear...)
- Woolseyism (Several of the jokes are made much funnier by being delivered by the English language cast who had just done Evangelion. "You mean episode 26 wasn't the last episode?" is funny. Hearing Spike (Shinji) Spencer say it is hilarious. The Directors openly state that some parts were decided upon due to links with other ADV shows. Akito (Spike Spencer - Shinji in Eva) and Ryoko's (Tiffany Grant - Asuka in the same show) roles are the prime examples.)
- Also a few other Woolseyisms, mostly to make sense of Izumi's lines.
- Worthy Opponent
- The Worf Barrage
- Wrong Genre Savvy (most of the Ascended Fanboys seem to think they're in an idealistic Super Robot show, rather than a Real Robot series where Anyone Can Die, etc. It helps with the Mood Whiplash.)
|
|
