#Tenkawa Akito

[therosecrest]

[cephalopadre]

Mechtober Day 18: Manifesting for SRW (part 3). In a shared universe, all these guys would be Gekiganger 3 fans, of course. (Bravern spoilers under the cut!)

Okay okay also. Also. In an SRW game the events of Nadesico and Bravern would happen contemporaneously. Which would mean there is the possibility Akito could see Gai and Smith killed basically at the same time. I am evil cackling right now over the absolute mental breakdown he'd have.

[captaintylorslog]

Martian Successor Nadesico

(1996-1997)

[bluecube92]

Same Voice Actor #17

[over-the-time-flow]

Super Robot Rollcall: The Nadesico Crew of The Past

Yurika Misumaru

"You can't tell people fighting on the frontlines, people who don't know if they'll even return alive, that they don't have the right to know anything!"

Source Material: Martian Successor Nadesico Age: 20 Height: 166 cm Hobbies: Jigsaw puzzles, singing Favorite Food: Anything sweet Voice Actress: Houko Kuwashima Character Designer: Keiji Gotoh

Yurika Misumaru is the seemingly airheaded captain of the Nadesico. Between her difficulties adhering to social norms and her fervent affections for Akito, it's easy to think that's all there is to her, but in truth, she's a combat genius, and passed military academy with frightening scores. When everyone's back is to the wall, she's liable to make up for her lack of experience with her tactical gifts to create miracles.

Much like with Noin, her stats do not reflect her canonical skills, being painfully middling even for battleship captain standards. SRW R hates to see a girlboss winning.

Her spirit commands are fairly decent, however, with a lot of fringe support utility that you won't find in many other learnsets, which is especially handy to have on a unit that's gonna be forcibly deployed most of the time.

Fun Fact: She has a near photographic memory, and seems to have a knack for linguistics.

Nadesico

Source Material: Martian Successor Nadesico Length: 300 meters Power Source: 2 Phase Shift Engines, 4 Nuclear Pulse Engines Real World Designer: Rei Nakahara

A civilian battleship designed by Nergal which far outclassed anything the Earth military had in their possession at the time. This fact, coupled with the fact that it was heading for Mars for a seemingly suicidal rescue mission while the Earth Sphere was embroiled in the bloody Lizard War created a lot of enmity between Nergal and the military, leading to a lot of the conflicts early into the story.

It's the Nadesico B if it had missiles (meaning it's not completely EN dependent). I don't know what you want me to say here, it certainly is a battleship.

...If i'm gonna be a bit more charitable, it is fairly funny that when you think about it, this thing is a straight upgrade over the B, which is meant to be a successor to this thing.

Fun Fact: The Nadesico is an amalgamation of quite possibly the three most iconic space battleships in japanese sci-fi nerd culture at the time the show came out; its large, flat upper hull is reminiscent of Star Trek's Enterprise, the protuding "legs" are a homage to Mobile Suit Gundam's White Base, and the Gravity Cannon is obviously evocative of the Yamato's Wave Motion Gun, to say nothing of how the two names combined form Yamato Nadeshiko, a name emblematic of the idealized "japanese beauty".

Akito Tenkawa

"I finally watched the last episode of Gekiganger V."

Source Material: Martian Successor Nadesico Age: 18 Height: 175 cm Favorite Food: Earth cuisine Voice Actor: Yuuji Ueda Character Designer: Keiji Gotoh

A cook who felt completely aimless in life. He lost his previous life on Mars, he lost his job due to his PTSD from his experiences with the Jovian Lizards' assaults on Mars, and through a series of convoluted circumstances, he ended up landing a cooking job on the Nadesico... only to be further roped into being a pilot as well.

Throughout it all, the few things anchoring him were Gai, Gekiganger, and Yurika. His struggles to balance these influences on him with his dreams, ideals and values are the crux of the story of Nadesico. He loses sight of himself multiple times, but in the end, he manages to come out of it with a better understanding of both himself and the things he holds dear.

He pilots the pink Aestivalis unit.

Akito and Gai are very much a set. Akito has a more Real-oriented spirit learnset, better Evasion and worse Defense, but better Ranged... sadly, since the aforementioned Double Gekigan Flare is gonna consistently be his best move, it's easy to consider Akito to be a simple add-on to Gai, and he doesn't really feel like a protagonist for much of the game.

Even so, as the game progresses, he'll get a few ways to differentiate his playstyle, and by the end, both him and Gai will be a lot more interesting... though ultimately, you'll still realistically need Gai (who can actually draw out the full power of the DGF thanks to his higher Melee stat) if you want to use Akito to his fullest. It's easy to joke then that Gai is the real protagonist of Nadesico in this game, but in my opinion, we haven't yet encountered the character who truly takes up the mantle of Nadesico protagonist in SRW R...

Ryoko Subaru

"Did i just find it...? My own evening star..."

Source Material: Martian Successor Nadesico Age: 18 Height: 165 cm Hobbies: Basketball, motorcycles Voice Actress: Chisa Yokoyama Character Designer: Keiji Gotoh

Daughter of a military man, Ryoko is a confident pilot with the skills to back it up, but she struggles with social situations, and can find it hard to act formal.

She's the leader of the trio consisting of her, Hikaru and Izumi (often called the Buttercup trio, as the Aestivalis is named after the Adonis aestivalis, a member of the buttercup family).

She pilots the red Aestivalis unit.

she's also really cute

Gameplaywise, Ryoko is like a midway point between Akito and Gai. Her Melee and Ranged stats are perfectly balanced, and her defensive stats are on par with Akito's, but she has the upper hand in the Skill department. The biggest issue with her though is that much like Akito and Gai have their combination move, she and the other two girls have a combination move... which primarily uses the Ranged stat. As such, you'd really want for her to have higher Ranged, rather than the balanced loadout she has here, which seems to be an attempt to make her better on her own than the other two, but just isn't impactful enough when Aestis are so underwhelming without their combination partners.

Still, she's far from a bad pilot; you just wouldn't really want to deploy her without her two squadmates.

Fun Fact: This is less of a "factual" one and more an experience report, but. I went with her route in the first Nadesico Sega Saturn game because of course i did, which has a mechanic where you can take the girls out on dates to the Nadesico's holodeck and live out a little romantic fantasy scenario. But for some reason, Ryoko seems to have glitched for me, and every single time that she initiated a date, without fail, she'd pick the castaway scenario, over and over and over again.

maybe she just really liked The Blue Lagoon

Hikaru Amano

"I learned the hard way that hobbies and romance don't mix..."

Source Material: Martian Successor Nadesico Age: 18 Height: 152 cm Favorite Food: Pizza crust Voice Actress: Shiho Kikuchi Character Designer: Keiji Gotoh

A quirky girl who's really into anime and manga, being a fan of Gekiganger herself (though never really talking about it much with Akito nor Gai). She's a doujinshi artist and writer (remember, doujinshi here just means fanwork), who plans to break into professionally making manga.

She easily falls for 2D men, is a bit of a fujoshi, and seems to have gone through a bad breakup not too long before the show began.

She pilots the Yellow Aestivalis unit.

In terms of raw stats, Hikaru's a really good Aesti pilot. Her spirit commands, while not amazing, are also more than serviceable. If i had a complaint, it's that like Ryoko, she really needs the other two to function, and even moreso than Ryoko, as her second strongest move, the Distortion Punch, is Melee-based. But if you're deploying all three, she's rather powerful.

Izumi Maki

"I'm a woman who only causes misfortune..."

Source Material: Martian Successor Nadesico Age: 18 Height: 177 cm Favorite Food: Botamochi, inari sushi Hobby: Bad puns Voice Actress: Miki Nagasawa Character Designer: Keiji Gotoh

A patented Weird Girl, she's a gloomy-looking young woman of few words. Usually, she only ever speaks up to make a terrible pun related to something that was just said, but she's not just gloomy-looking; she seems to have had quite the unlucky past, though she doesn't outwardly dwell on it very often.

She pilots the Turquoise Aestivalis unit.

Much like with Hikaru, Izumi is clearly meant to be deployed as a set with the other two. Only real notable difference to point out here is that Izumi has slightly better offensive stats and slightly worse defensive ones than Ryoko.

Fun fact: The second Sega Saturn Nadesico game (The Blank of 3 Years) reveals that Izumi enjoys... dressing in a ninja costume and jumping around in the woods in the middle of the night. Just for fun.

yeah sure why not

Aestivalis

Source: Martian Successor Nadesico Height: 8 meters Power Source: Gravity Wave Antenna, backup generator Real World Designer: Mika Akitaka

A modular machine made by Nergal, made to work in conjunction with its line of battleships. Thanks to cooperation between the machine and its mothership, the weight of a dedicated generator doesn't need to be taken into account, and Aestivalis units are capable of formidable versatility thanks to their various frames.

If you're coming from other games, you basically get the gist of how Aestis work. Pretty good survivability, pretty underwhelming firepower unless they can fire off their combination moves.

Of note, however, is the Artillery Frame, which i feel is particularly strong in this game; though its Mobility and Movement Range are just as bad as always, and it has no post-movement attacks, it manages to make up for it with decent firepower, and perhaps more importantly, there are a lot of maps in this game where you can get away with turtling on base tiles. It's also a tempting way to use Hikaru and Izumi's high Ranged stats without having to deploy all three of them, but don't get too used to that; you won't actually get to keep these to the end of the game. Not as they are right now, anyway.

Another thing of note is the lack of a Ground Frame; as a result, against land-based opponents, Aestis will really struggle to deal damage unless you're using the Artillery frames.

Fun fact: In flower language, the Adonis aestivalis can stand for bittersweet or unforgettable memories.

[hardworkandguts]

Martian Sucessor Nadesico

機動戦艦ナデシコ

(Anime)

Space opera / comedy by Tatsuo Sato

Era: 1990s

Rating: A

Plot: In 2196, Earth and Mars are under threat of the mysterious Jovian Lizards, and to help the war effort, Nerval Heavy Industries builds the ND-001 Nadesico, recruits the best people available... even if they might be a bit odd. From Akito Tenkawa, the pilot who'd really rather just be the cook he was hired as, captain Yurika Misumaru, undefeated at every simulation but a complete scatterbrain, Gai Daigoji (not his real name), the ace pilot on board living through the ideals of old super robot show Gekiganger 3, Seiya Uribatake, an ace mechanic who accepted the position just to get away from his wife and child and to chase after women, to Ruri Hoshino, the young computer prodigy who has to witness all that.

Length: 26 episodes

Thoughts: Ah, here's another one I feel should be a lot more popular to this day, although from what I've heard, lacking a coherent vision and tone between manga, tv show and movie really prevented it from getting enough momentum to live past the movie (which really tanked, and everything I've read from it makes me not want to watch it), and we're probably all a bit worse for it. While it is best remembered for its comedy efforts, it plays it very seriously, with only a layer of comedy mostly based on our oddball characters, as the story, one of corporate betrayal, government secrets, love triangles within a big spaceship and the human cost of war is played straight and could be from any space opera from the previous 20 years, if the constant comparison with show within a show Gekiganger 3 didn't make it obvious enough. More than just something to add to the quirkiness (the midseason recap was done as Gekiganger characters watching the Nadesico recap, for instance) it becomes a key plot point layer on, raising even the always important questions of just what the matter is with fandom being so fucking weird about it. Kinda suitable when it feels I can't see, for instance, any long Macross discussion by super robot fans without someone asking why all the singing and love triangles etc. Buddy, that's like asking why track cyclists aren't doing sick tricks off the top of track. Kore wa kore, sore wa sore.

The thing is the show doesn't really hold it's punches - in the third episode, ace pilot Gai Daigoji gets killed, not in the honorable "they'll make him a statue for it" you'd see in a super robot show, but gets shot by escaping prisoners even before he could realise what was happening while he's thinking where to place his stickers for downing enemies in the previous battle, and doesn't even get a closeup, he just falls in the distance, episode over. Other than Akito, everyone just moves on because.... It's a war. On Mars, Yurika has to face a decision to enable the shields to save the Nadesico or hope for the best and not crush the Martian settlers hiding underground. The plot can be quite heavy at times, and scenes like Yurika running from funeral to funeral, in increasingly more bizarre religious getups and ceremonies, only to learn there's even more to be done really sum up the tone of the show. The people are funny and weird, the situation isn't.

You have the most deranged love triangles here, with almost every woman falling in love with Akito (who, once again, just wants to cook) with the combination of completely delusional and very oblivious Yurika at the forefront of it all. I think this is the way Macross should go in the next version, give our main character a, let's call it, protoculture harem of love interests, but remain annoyed by the constant distraction and mostly wish they could be doing something else aboard the Macross. Hey, if this has a onboard idol contest episode to lift morale and make the crew forget the dire situation they're in, Macross could also take things from Nadesico.

Visually it's pretty solid. I do love this mid 90s style of character design, the Nadesico is a fun looking ship, but maybe the best visual elements from the show are the floating holo screens that appear out of thin air, often for great comedic effect.

Recommended to: Ever wondered if there was a gas leak in the ships of one of those old space opera / super robot shows?

Plus:

Baka bakka

That mid 90s character design

It does a decent job of balancing the comedy aspect (character led) with the more serious parts (story led) and the meta commentary (both).

Minus:

I feel "forget it exists" wasn't the right decision after a movie with radically different tone tanked , but you do you, Xebec.

[hotwaterandmilk]

Series: Kidou Senkan Nadesico Artist: Gotou Keiji Publication: Animedia Magazine (03/1997) Source: Scanned from personal collection

[ydotome]

Kidou Senkan Nadesico: The Prince of Darkness - Dir. Tatsuo Satō - August 8, 1998

[grub-dot-website]

Finished painting my Aestivalis!!!! Every day I curse bandai for ruining a well sculpted kit with *Too Many Stickers*

[tekubinet]

[queenofbraves]

[therosecrest]

[roseillith]

[captaintylorslog]

Martian Successor Nadesico

(1996-1997)

[g-a-b-b-i-e--b]

‪inktober day 1! i drew yurika thinking about her love, akito! his hair is too hard to draw and im never doing it again!

[swirlyeyedboys]

Martian Successor Nadesico 10