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  • Full Frame
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  • English: Dolby Digital Surround
  • Japanese: Dolby Digital Surround
  Subtitles
    English
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  • 4 Teaser trailer - Bubblegum Crisis: Tokyo 2040, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Gasaraki, Martian Successor Nadesico
  • Production notes
Martian Successor Nadesico 1 - Chronicle 1
Madman Entertainment/AV Channel . R4 . COLOR . 100 mins . PG . PAL

  Feature
Contract

The year is 2196 and human life on Mars has been wiped out by a mysterious race of lizard-beings, known only as Jovians. Technilogically out-matched, the United Earth Forces fight a slowly losing battle to protect the mother planet, holding off the attackers only through use of a many-layered defensive shield surrounding the planet.

A UEF contractor, Nergal Heavy Industries, has constructed a new battleship, the Nadesico (pronounced na-DESS-ko). More powerful and advanced than anything in the UEF fleet, the Nadesico looks to be humanity's last hope against the invading Jovians.

This first volume contains the first four episodes of the 26-episode series.

Episode 1: To Go Like A Man The crew of the Nadesico is assembled by Nergal, comprised almost entirely of civilians. Notable crew members are:

  • Yurika - daughter of a UEF admiral, and a tactical genius in her own right, she has been given command of the Nadesico. She was a childhood friend of Akito when they both lived on Mars, and has strong feelings for him which tend to cloud her judgement.
  • Akito - born on Mars, and mysteriously surviving the Jovian attack, he only wishes to discover why his parents died in a suspicious accident. Recruited as an assistant cook, Akito carries within him nano-technology that allows him to pilot the Aestivalis combat robots, though he has no knowledge of how he became a pilot.
  • Gai - a brash and loud-mouthed Aestivalis pilot with an obsession for an old giant robot television show titled Gekigangar.
  • Jun - a member of the UEF, Jun is second in command of the Nadesico, allowing him to be close to Yurika, whom he loves dearly.
  • Haruka - formerly a secretary to the president of a successful company, she is now Helmswoman for the Nadesico.
  • Megumi - offered the position of communications officer, she was originally a voice actress for a number of anime shows.
  • Ruri - a young girl raised by Nergal since an early age, she grew up surrounded by computers and makes the perfect science officer. Highly intelligent, she has a low tolerance for the antics of most of the crew.
Her crew assembled the Nadesico must launch earlier than planned, as the compound has come under Jovian attack.

Episode 2: Leave The Blue Earth To Me Annoyed at the turn of events, the UEF demands that Yurika hand over the Nadesico to them, sending her father in to conduct negotiations. Yurika agrees to a meeting and leaves a powered down Nadesico to travel to her father's vessel, taking Jun with her. During a surprise Jovian attack, she escapes back to the Nadesico, albeit without Jun.

Episode 3: A Goodbye That Came Too Soon Having decided to leave Earth behind and head to Mars, the Nadesico requests that the UEF briefly shutdown the defense barrier to allow safe passage out. Refusing, the UEF prepares to destroy the Nadesico, Jun volunteering to join the assault.

Episode 4: Charmed By Aqua Space Now in open space, the Nadesico heads to a space colony for resupply and delivery of new Aestivalises, equipped for Zero-G operation. Unfortunately for the colony, the Jovians arrive first.

  Video
  Audio
  Extras
Contract

Each episode runs for approximately twenty-two minutes, and includes a "coming next episode" teaser after the closing credits. Rather than separate titles on the disc, each episode will run into the next, using only chapter marks to break things up - each episode having only four chapter marks: beginning teaser, act one, act two, closing credits, next episode promo.

Like a good portion of anime available on DVD, the image quality is amazing. Colours are rich and vibrant, while not stealing from the deep black levels. In fact the only thing that could be described as a problem is very minor aliasing from the line-art nature of the material.

Audio-wise, there is a choice between English or Japanese stereo soundtracks. Both are very dynamic, and will put your two main speakers through their paces with music, dialogue and explosions galore. I'd recommend the English track over the original Japanese in the case of this disc, as there are a few moments with several characters speaking all at once that can make it difficult to follow the rapidly appearing sub-titles.

The extras on the disc consist of trailers for Nadesico as well as three other anime titles: Bubblegum Crisis: Tokyo 2040, Neon Genesis Evangelion and Gasaraki. All are teasers in nature, providing brief video clips set to music, with no dialogue to speak of. A collection of single page character profiles for the characters listed above gives a brief run down on each. Rounding out the collection, and the most interesting extra of the bunch, are the translation notes written by Dan Kanemitsu. The notes are a subset of those on his webpage and provide an interesting look at the work that goes in to bringing Japanese anime to English audiences. Also worth mentioning is the disc itself, given a beautiful, full colour, glossy picture to match the cover image - it looks great and there's no mistaking what the disc is.

If you're an anime fan at all, there's no reason why you shouldn't enjoy Nadesico - there's plenty of action and humour, and references to other anime programs abound. Four episodes of this and you'll be begging for the rest of the series - I certainly am!


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  •   And I quote...
    "The strangest collection of misfits to ever have been put in charge of a battleship."
    - Andrew MacLennan
      Review Equipment
    • DVD Player:
          Pioneer DV-515
    • TV:
          Philips 29PT6361
    • Receiver:
          Denon AVR-2700
    • Speakers:
          Aaron ATS-5
    • Centre Speaker:
          Aaron CC-240
    • Surrounds:
          Aaron SS-120
    • Subwoofer:
          Aaron SUB-240
    • Audio Cables:
          Standard Optical
    • Video Cables:
          standard s-video
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