>> INFORMATION
Country: Japan
Year: 1998
Runtime: 90 Mins
Language: Japanese (subtitled)
Distributor ADV FIlms
Director: Tatsuo Kato
------------------------------------------
Venue: TBA
Date: TBA
Time: TBA
>> SYNPOSIS

Three years after the end of a prolonged solar war, the Jovian Lizard menace has been dealt with at last, peace has returned, only for a new kind of war to break out on the frontier.

Nadesico’s origins lie with Star Trek and Gundam, and in their desire to create a lighter-hearted antidote to the Evangelion clones that dominated Japanese animation in the latter half of the 1990s. The result is a hybrid mix of portentous alien menaces and squabbling co-ed crews, who sometimes take time off their galactic conflict to work on their anime fanzine. For once, this movie follow-up to the TV series genuinely does stand alone.

More hectic than a cat injected with petrol, the Nadesico movie is a fitting capstone to the series, but also a great introduction for newcomers. Remarkably, even though it comes at the end of a long story with some mind-boggling plot twists, it manages to avoid giving any of them away. Which is lucky, because if this is your first encounter with the crew of the Nadesico, you are going to want to find out more about their earlier adventures, and Tatsuo Sato’s movie nobly does not spoil any of the surprises.

Jonathan Clements

>>
IF YOU’VE SEEN THE 26 EPISODES OF NADESICO THEN THIS MOVIE SEQUEL FEATURES SOME OLD FRIENDS, SOME SURPRISING TWISTS, AND A MENAGERIE OF ALL-NEW CAST MEMBERS. BUT IF YOU’RE A NADESICO VIRGIN, YOU’RE STILL GOING TO LOVE IT.