Nadesico Vol. 6 |
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The sixth disc of Nadesico marks
the end of another series. While reading that last
sentence, the lack of an adjective may have struck you as
odd. Is this the end of another great series, or the end
of another mediocre series? While some of Nadesico is
hit-and-miss, it's hard at this point to sum up the
entire show in one word. I'm not quite sure what to say
about the overall quality of Nadesico, but I can tell you
my thoughts on this last disc. The last five episodes surprisingly feature a pretty tightly-woven story arc. Surprisingly so because of all of the wandering done on the last five episodes(Nadesico Volume 5). It was nice to see them get back into the main part of the story(the conflict with the Jovians), but it seems like a little bit was rushed towards the last two episodes. In fact, there was a little wandering during these episodes. Perhaps the story editors weren't quite sure what to do towards the end. The first episode on this disc features one of the most dramatic departures of the series, that being the crew's departure from the Nadesico. Yukino, the Jovian sister of Tsukumo who has fallen in love with earth woman Minato(stop me if the names get confusing here), sneaks onto the Nadesico with the intent of taking it down on a suicide mission. Unfortunately for her, she quickly gets found out but soon takes a liking to the lovely Minato. The earth government soon finds out that the Nadesico has a Jovian on their ship, and plans to eliminate her, for fear that the news that the Jovians are human will leak out. Akatsuki turns out to secretly be(gasp!) the head chairman for Nergal, and takes over the Nadesico. Most of the crew does escape to earth, along with Yukino. The next episode was kind of fun as it shows most of the crew back on earth, and back to their normal life. This echoed the first episode, which I really enjoyed, so this episode was a hoot to watch. Nergal is tracking most of them, and the crew is living like near prisoners because of pressure from Nergal and the government. If the truth about the Jovians got out, all plans by both antagonists would be null and void. It's always fun to see the good guys kick some tail, and this is no exception in Nadesico as the crew takes back the ship with a little action. Once again, this echoes the beginning of the series as the crew escapes from earth on the way to Mars to stop the fighting. Episode three was the one that did a little wandering, as most of the plot deals with the entire ship attending a Gekigangar 3 convention(held on the ship of course). As with most of the plots in the show, most of their battle tactics draw from their dear old anime, so they decide to have a marathon of all of the episodes in order to find a solution for peace. Surprisingly, this episode along with the past few had tons of development with Miss Minato, one of the characters that I complained had no personality in the past. While it was nice to see her actually do things in the show, it seemed a little strange that there was so much focus on her all of a sudden. Even with so many characters, Nadesico was able to flesh out a good ninety percent of them. The romance increases between Minato and the Jovian Tsukumo, but ends as he is shot by his brother at a so called "peace talk" between the Nadesico and the Jovians. The Jovians got their battle tactics from Gekigangar as well, and decide earth is an evil empire that has to be stopped. The series wraps up as the Nadesico travels to Mars, this time the focus being on the ruins where the ship got most of its technology from. It turns out that the "boson jumping"(teleporting) much talked about during the show is actually a form of time travel. The Earth and the Jovians both want control of these ruins because whomever holds the power of the ruins holds the future of transportation and technology in their hands. Yurika decides to blow up the ruins, but fails despite multiple attempts. After a lot of technical mumbo-jumbo, and a startling relevation about Inez, Akito and Yurika somehow end the conflict between the two forces in the span of one minute. Then the series abruptly ends. I was sort of confused about what happened there. No, completely confused. After reading up on some materials on the internet, I came to the conclusion that Yurika and Akito needed to kiss in order to boson jump to safety what both sides were after. I could be wrong, but what really agitates me is that the episode really only needed a few more minutes to make what happened clear. Adding insult to injury, over the credits there is a speech by Ruri explaining that some of the mysteries of the show will never be discovered and that the fighting will probably continue. In my opinion, that's not closure, that's a cop-out. Most series don't come out and blatantly address the audience about aspects of the show that are ambiguous or not explained. That's just sloppy writing. At this point in my review, I would address the technical aspect of the disc. However, not much has changed since the third disc, and I really don't want to sound like a broken record here. Nadesico is one of ADV's better looking shows, and while not outstanding has a very solid presentation. Speaking of presentation, I did like the cover art much better than the last volume. However, I think it would be more fitting if they used a group shot rather than some secondary characters. Alas, there are no extras. At this point, I'm used to it. All in all, it seems like Nadesico tries to do too much while forgetting the main point of the show. There are way too many love triangles, and the filler episodes come in long stretches and in awkward places. The characters make up for these shortcomings, however. Even though some were under used(Jun), it was a whole lot of fun seeing this group together for twenty-six episodes. With a little tighter writing and a less abrupt conclusion, Nadesico could have been a much better series. It is an enjoyable show, above average in my book, but it really doesn't rank in my top ten. Still, if you're looking for a nice space opera, you can't get much better than Nadesico. -Bob Mackey |
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| All text, original pictures and HTML © 2001 Bob Mackey. All rights reserved. |