Why????
"Martian Successor Nadesico" follows the crew of a battleship named, er, Nadesico, as they travel through space while battling alien forces. Having watched this show, it's quite clear that it's the inspiration behind "Vandread" - you can see that just from the strikingly similar character design styles with their ultra round eyes . "Martian Successor Nadesico" itself also seems to be derived from "Super Dimensional Fortress Macross". Perhaps it's trying to parody that classic anime, but it's hard to tell, since I don't find "Martian Successor Nadesico" to be very funny despite its best attempts at comedy. The comedy is the kind that I loath. Occasionally, some parts did made me laugh, and most of these involve the anime's parody of old, cheesey mecha anime from the 70's and 80's. I remember one scene in particular where a bunch of guys are scrutinising one such anime called "Gekiganger 3", and one of them made a side-splittingly funny comment on the fact that the pilots are constantly shouting out the moves they use. Man... what a classic line that is, so I won't spoil it for you here :P Other than its piss taking of old mecha anime, most of the rest of the comedy is pretty rubbish. Most of the jokes fail miserably, and in fact sometimes I didn't even realise that a joke has been attempted till a few moments afterwards because the punchlines are so understated.
The production of "Martian Successor Nadesico" is not great. It has such a strong outdated early nineties/ late eighties feel to it that I couldn't believe my eyes when I read that it's a show from 1996. The animation looks old-ish, the audio is a bit on the quiet side and sounds slightly muffled most of the time, causing the voice acting to sound flat. The worst thing though, is that everything seems to happen in such a casual manner, and there is no emphasis on key events when they occur, resulting in most of them flying straight past me without me noticing. The story feels like it has a lot going on, but I found it difficult to follow, partly due to the aforementioned under-emphasis on important moments, and partly because I found things were often moving too fast for me to pick up what was going on. It's a good example how NOT to build up and execute twists in the plot. All of this adds up to a rather lacklustre, detached viewing experience for me, as though I'm watching it from afar and not really feeling engaged with the anime.
I sense the characters has some substance, but the constant slap stick comedy makes it hard to tell, since you need to cut through such a thick layer of crap just to get a better idea. And in Ruri they have another one of those stereotypical anime girl with a deadpan voice that usually bugs the hell out of me. But wait! This one actually has a reason for being the way she is, and so I'll overlook this small annoyance in the her case. In fact, the episode uncovering Ruri's past is arguably one of the finest in the series.
On the whole, I found "Martian Successor Nadesico" to be a laborious task to watch. The whole thing feels dull and amateurishly put together, and even though the last few episodes are relatively exciting (key word there being "relatively), the plot is even more difficult to follow in those episodes. If this series is more exciting, like "Last Exile", then I might be more motivated to try and work out the story, but in the case of this "Martian Successor Nadesico", that just feels like a waste of time - why try and work out something you don't particularly care about? At the end of the day, it probably says a lot that I rather have watched that "Gekiganger 3" anime that the crew of Nadesico was watching than "Martian Successor Nadesico" itself - at least the former looks like it's rather entertaining, and it reminds me of the likes of "Getter Robo" which I used to love when I was young. As for "Martian Successor Nadesico", I'd have to be tortured before I'd watch it again... in fact watching it itself can be considered a torturous activity.
