Anime Series: Martian Successor Nadesico

If there is any series Anime fans could enjoy, it is this one.  Martian Successor Nadesico has pretty much everything you could ever want in a series, but here is the awesome part, it acknowledges it with comedy that pokes fun at the iconic and symbolic characters that have been spawned over the life of anime.  While doing that it still tells a fantastic story and draws you in to care about the characters, and still makes you laugh even during scenes you really look forward to.

We get dropped right into the action as Earth has terraformed Mars long ago, but is now under attack from mechanical foes from beyond Jupiter.  Mars shows us military forces clash with a climax of a Chulip, large pill sized object, crashing to Mars and Earth forcing a battleship to ram it off course.

We go to an obvious shelter and meet our first MC, Akito Tenkawa (I assure you his name will be engraved on your soul by the end of the series).  He seems like the typical young, light hearted type that quickly tries to be a hero as robot grass hoppers invade only to see his efforts made useless.  The first oddity is he goes from Mars to a year later on Earth (from our perspective).

Here is where the main series takes off by a private company, Nergal, assembling a crew of experts for the Nadesico battleship.  The crew is of course full of young ladies and archetype characters, including a classic otaku fan of an in series Anime.  Each of the MC is seen being picked up by the character known mostly as Mr Prospector, a man who tries to keep the mission financially sound but who puts far more value on humans than he appears to show.  His counter part Hoary is a large gruff man who makes a great straight man to many of the antics on the ship while still surprising us as the series goes on.

Akito of course knows the captain of this motley group, the pinnacle of airheads Yurika Misumaru, 20 years old but a gifted leader.  I have to give the dub voice on this one credit of being able to keep this character clearly with priorities around connecting with Akito, but being able to make you believe she still knows what she is doing as captain.

The vast cast beyond them includes pilots of giant robots, called Aestevalis, the engineering crew, and bridge crew as the usual ones we see.  A notable one for the show is Ruri Hoshino, a very young girl who seems to be the result of some experiments for advanced humans and interacts with the AI of the ship far better than any others can.  She often delivers the most lines of sarcastic commentary on the ship of 'idiots' as she often calls them.  She is also the character that does the summations of episodes before credits and for any explanations throughout the show.

The characters develop many relationships, often serious and fast, Akito of course is the goal of what seems nearly the entire ship with only a few exceptions.  There is a wonderful scene where the unnamed male crew members demand that if he does not want them he should share.  Akito and friends learn the truth behind the Jovians of Jupiter and Nergal/Earth's complicit abuse of them for their own ends.

We also learn that the advanced machines that are the foes for most of the series are based of ancient Martian tech, including the odd ability of Chulips to jump machines from one end of the solar system to the other is not actually warping space, but time.  Akito is revealed to be the hero, kicking and screaming as he is dragged into it, but still able to make a mess of his relationships with Yurika and several other crew members.

The show explores the common misconception that our values cannot be applied to war, the contradiction that even if you think you are fighting to protect, the war itself can be to suppress and destroy innocent lives.  It focuses on the feelings of people as well very strongly, often with hilarious results.  

The series ends as it began, almost tongue in cheek and with a few loose threads that get addressed in an OVA a bit later.  If you are looking for entertainment, love, and a lot of good laughter, this series is a good match.