NADESICO (BOOK 2)
September 4th 2010 21:52
Category: Manga
Publisher: CPM Manga
Writer & Artist: Kia Asamiya
Translation by: C B Cebulski & Noriko Furuhata
Retouch & Lettering: Dan Nakrosis & Dano Ink Studios
Design: Veronica Casson
Cost: AU$4.95/US$9.99
Well having now actually managed to watch the series Martian Successor Nadesico online I can safely say that the manga has similarities with the anime but it’s gone on a completely different tangent. This particular work still uses a great deal of the elements that one can find in the anime but there are significant differences, so much so that it is in effect its own unique creation. It would be easy to classify this manga as a mecha parody or science fiction parody though I think the parody is rather understated, rather this seems to be more of a coming of age kind of tale set against a backdrop of cataclysmic and seemingly pointless conflict. The two primary protagonists; Yurika Misamaru and Akito Tenkawa are not quite the people they need to be, they’re are young and full of energy but they have not yet settled into their vocation, their chosen path in life. Akito wants to be a cook whilst Yurika feels that her role as captain of the Nadesico is her role. But there are doubts; there are reservations that they both have in the direction that they have embarked on...
When we last left the Nadesico it was in approaching Mars engaged in a furious clash with the United Earth battleship Kaguya commanded by Captain Kaguya, a rival of Yurika not only in terms of ability but also for the affections of the slightly hapless Akito. What one would expect to be a clash of forces over such matters as ideology and the implications of the Nadesico’s mission under a corporate banner is forgotten in the fires of affairs of the heart as both captains seek to settle once and for all the matter of Akito. Not the kind of thing you’d expect in an engagement between two colossal vessels in deep space, but this is precisely what Nadesico is all about...taking the usual conventions of mecha/sci-fi manga and subverting them. Let’s face it you wouldn’t see Darth Vader duelling Darth Maul claiming that he was a cooler Dark Lord of the Sith...although...
So whilst this spat is happening in Martian space a Jupiterian Fortress is planning to do something about both intruders, something suitably painful and devastating. And neither captain is actually paying any real significant attention to this looming danger – so caught up in their own foibles are they, even after receiving information from their respective crews and sensor readings. Somehow though Nadesico manages to survive the foibles of its captain as well as an attack by the Jupiterian fortress and though badly damaged as a result descends into the atmosphere of the Red Planet, limping its way to an abandoned Nergal research facility.
Arrival on the Red Planet marks a watershed in the story, although with a series that is only four volumes long, major turning points are bound to come thick and fast. First amongst these turning points is the revelation that there is the means to boost the Nadesico’s capabilities lying around in the bowels of the research facility. Apparently the researchers managed to develop a gravity blast booster unit at the Mars facility whilst the Nadesico was being built back on Earth. This booster unit along with various spares and supplies are just sitting gathering dust amidst the ruins of the facility, waiting expectantly. Inez Fressange, the mysterious ship’s doctor makes the suggestion about upgrading the Nadesico and guides a team to where the goodies are to be found once the vessel makes landfall.
And the current captain having been injured in her spat with Captain Kaguya is lying recovering in the sickbay prompting a change in the command structure. Ruri Hoshino the precocious girl genius who serves as the science officer is promoted to be acting captain in the absence of Yurika. It’s an interesting choice that eventually leads to Yurika herself coming to the realisation that perhaps both vessel and crew might be better off with Ruri as the captain once she has recovered. Stranger things though are bound to happen...Ruri is not what she seems and as the story unfolds it seems neither is Inez Fressange...
The backdrop that the escapades of the Nadesico and its oddball crew have been set against is the ongoing war between Jupiter and Earth. Though no one has ever actually seen the Jupiterians, all that have ever been seen are their various warships and combat units. No one knows what they look like or even why they have engaged in a relentless war against the people of Earth and their various interplanetary colonies. Both Mars and the Moon have suffered severe catastrophes over the course of the war and the Earth itself has had monorises dropped on it that allow the Jupiterians the means to deploy their attacking units. Yet at the end of the day no one can answer just why all this is happening, why the two sides are engaged in a life and death struggle.
Normal sci-fi/mecha genre manga and stories would eventually give some kind of valid explanation, something to do with survival, with politics and/or ideology or even just a hell bent desire for fighting. Fairly standard kind of rationales for engaging in the most irrational enterprise known to humanity. Nadesico doesn’t give us that kind of explanation, it gives us something a bit more oddball, in fact something that bears a lot of similarity to a concept originally used in the original Star Trek TV series and later employed in more detail in Deep Space Nine and The Next Generation – the mirror universe....With the Nadesico captured by United Earth Forces after escaping from Mars the vessel and its crew enjoy a hiatus on the reclaimed Luna colony. Both Akito and Yurika are pondering what fate has in store for them both, wondering in what direction they will now go. And here we have the major turning point of the saga...the one where courtesy of Ms Fressange we finally learn just who the Jupiterians really are and the fact that they have a marked interest in Yurika...Nadesico is an enjoyable, entertaining manga with an oddball story and equally oddball characters, well worth trying to track down and read.
Writer & Artist: Kia Asamiya
Translation by: C B Cebulski & Noriko Furuhata
Retouch & Lettering: Dan Nakrosis & Dano Ink Studios
Design: Veronica Casson
Cost: AU$4.95/US$9.99
Well having now actually managed to watch the series Martian Successor Nadesico online I can safely say that the manga has similarities with the anime but it’s gone on a completely different tangent. This particular work still uses a great deal of the elements that one can find in the anime but there are significant differences, so much so that it is in effect its own unique creation. It would be easy to classify this manga as a mecha parody or science fiction parody though I think the parody is rather understated, rather this seems to be more of a coming of age kind of tale set against a backdrop of cataclysmic and seemingly pointless conflict. The two primary protagonists; Yurika Misamaru and Akito Tenkawa are not quite the people they need to be, they’re are young and full of energy but they have not yet settled into their vocation, their chosen path in life. Akito wants to be a cook whilst Yurika feels that her role as captain of the Nadesico is her role. But there are doubts; there are reservations that they both have in the direction that they have embarked on...
Arrival on the Red Planet marks a watershed in the story, although with a series that is only four volumes long, major turning points are bound to come thick and fast. First amongst these turning points is the revelation that there is the means to boost the Nadesico’s capabilities lying around in the bowels of the research facility. Apparently the researchers managed to develop a gravity blast booster unit at the Mars facility whilst the Nadesico was being built back on Earth. This booster unit along with various spares and supplies are just sitting gathering dust amidst the ruins of the facility, waiting expectantly. Inez Fressange, the mysterious ship’s doctor makes the suggestion about upgrading the Nadesico and guides a team to where the goodies are to be found once the vessel makes landfall.
And the current captain having been injured in her spat with Captain Kaguya is lying recovering in the sickbay prompting a change in the command structure. Ruri Hoshino the precocious girl genius who serves as the science officer is promoted to be acting captain in the absence of Yurika. It’s an interesting choice that eventually leads to Yurika herself coming to the realisation that perhaps both vessel and crew might be better off with Ruri as the captain once she has recovered. Stranger things though are bound to happen...Ruri is not what she seems and as the story unfolds it seems neither is Inez Fressange...
The backdrop that the escapades of the Nadesico and its oddball crew have been set against is the ongoing war between Jupiter and Earth. Though no one has ever actually seen the Jupiterians, all that have ever been seen are their various warships and combat units. No one knows what they look like or even why they have engaged in a relentless war against the people of Earth and their various interplanetary colonies. Both Mars and the Moon have suffered severe catastrophes over the course of the war and the Earth itself has had monorises dropped on it that allow the Jupiterians the means to deploy their attacking units. Yet at the end of the day no one can answer just why all this is happening, why the two sides are engaged in a life and death struggle.
Normal sci-fi/mecha genre manga and stories would eventually give some kind of valid explanation, something to do with survival, with politics and/or ideology or even just a hell bent desire for fighting. Fairly standard kind of rationales for engaging in the most irrational enterprise known to humanity. Nadesico doesn’t give us that kind of explanation, it gives us something a bit more oddball, in fact something that bears a lot of similarity to a concept originally used in the original Star Trek TV series and later employed in more detail in Deep Space Nine and The Next Generation – the mirror universe....With the Nadesico captured by United Earth Forces after escaping from Mars the vessel and its crew enjoy a hiatus on the reclaimed Luna colony. Both Akito and Yurika are pondering what fate has in store for them both, wondering in what direction they will now go. And here we have the major turning point of the saga...the one where courtesy of Ms Fressange we finally learn just who the Jupiterians really are and the fact that they have a marked interest in Yurika...Nadesico is an enjoyable, entertaining manga with an oddball story and equally oddball characters, well worth trying to track down and read.
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