treatment Posted November 6, 2003 Share Posted November 6, 2003 Ok. Fallen behind sharing some anime-reviews, so might as well do one on my newly-received Nadesico-movie region-1 dvd. This movie's been delayed from being released here in Region-1 territories for quite awhile now and this release was just recently review-slammed at www.animeondvd.com, so here' my own review on it to share with you Nadesico-fans here in MacrossWorld. image of the R1 dvd cover [*]Movie title: Martian Successor Nadesico - Prince of Darkness movie [*]dvd-region: 1 [*]screen: 16x9 theatrical-widescreen non-anamorphic [*]audio: English 5.1 and 2.0 / Japanese 2.0 [*]running time: 90 minutes [*]studio: XEBEC [*]distributor: ADVFilms [*]original-release (japan): 1998 [*]retail-release in US: 11/11/03 rankings: [*] Story-Content : C to B+ for series-fans. : D for casual fans and newbies. This is kinda tough to classify for content-review, as series-fans here in the States are primarily split on this, afaik. Some giving it a C and even D, while others like me gives it a B+ rating. [*] Art and Animation: B+ This was a 1998 release and it still looks gorgeous and vibrant. The 2003-transfer was pretty good. The art is of the updated Dai-Guard (another xebec title) quality and variety. Transitions are smooth and the animation was pretty much standard. The mecha fight-scenes were done very good. Links to images I captured are below: pic 1 pic 2 pic 3 pic 4 pic 5 pic 6 pic 7 pic 8 pic 9 pic 10 pic 11 pic 12 pic 13 pic 14 pic 15 [*] Voice-acting: : A for the japanese-dubs. : D for the english-dubs. With the exception of the excellent english-dubbing on baddie Hokushin, the rest of the english-voices were horridly mis-casted and painful to listen to. Better stick with the Japanese-dubs with the subtitles. [*] Subtitles: A Nadesico is primarily dialogue-driven and ADVFilms did a very good translation-scripting. The jokes/humor came across clearly with no typos or grammar-structure weirdness compared to some other ADVFilms titles. [*] Packaging: A Clear-case with reversible covers; default cover is the region-1 art, while the reverse-cover is the original japanese cover-art. [*] Menu and Extras: D The menu is simple and pretty much generic. No extras besides some ADVFilms dvd-title catalogue. I guess ADVFilms did not secure the rights for the region-2 extras such as the trailers and promo-clips of the sexy ending-song "Dearest". Check the pic below: R1 menu-pic [*] story-review: Ruri pic Synopsis: Two years after the end of the UnitedEarth-JovianFederation war that ended with the peace-alliance between them, another secret menace or two started wreaking havoc and destruction upon the alliance planets. The planets/areas being targetted and destroyed are all part of the Hisago Plan project. Nobody knows who this new enemy is until the just before the destruction of the station where the Hisago Plan was HQ'ed. The enemy calls themselves the Martian Successors. They possessed instantaneous accurate teleportation (called boson jumping) that is quite an advantage over the Alliance's militaries. and is led by the former Jovian leader Kasukabe. The Martian Successors successfully provoked a large defection to their side of governments and militaries from both the UnitedEarth and the Jovian-Federation . There's another group led by a black-mecha that is also fighting the Martian Successor besides the Alliance, but no one is certain if it's a friend or a foe. It's up to the Nadesico team to save the universe. Again. But the two main characters of Nadesico-TV series are presumed dead before the start of the Martian Successor revolt. It's now all up to Ruri, the captain of the Nadesico-B. Prince of Darkness is a tight and dark movie-sequel to the Nadesico-TV series. It retains the excellent humor and dynamism of the TV-series characters and sports updated animation and art sequences, alongside a couple of new characters. Be aware that very much like the TV-series was, this movie is also pretty much dialogue-driven, both in drama and the unique Nadesico humor. You need to pay attention to the subtitles, unless of course you decided for some odd reason to listen to the english-dubs. This is quite a busy movie, as well, with lots of goodly mecha-action. The central characters from the TV-series still plays a critical role in the very interesting overall plot and theme of the movie, even tho the two were presumed dead. Sufficed to say, you really just need a good background on the TV-series plots for you to follow what the movie was trying to present. It is quite a departure from the TV-series presentation, however, because of it's seriousness. Overall, it's still enjoyable to most series-fans, but casual-fans and newbies surely might have problems of getting what the movie was about. If you like an action-packed, dark, dialogue-driven, and giggle-to-lol humor anime, this movie is most likely a good rental for you. Try it before making a purchasing-decision. --treatment-- Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrDisco Posted November 6, 2003 Share Posted November 6, 2003 i found the movie to be a huge snooze fest. all the humour and quirkiness was taken out from the original TV series to create another generic sci-fi movie. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JELEINEN Posted November 6, 2003 Share Posted November 6, 2003 Did they continue using the overlays like they did in the TV series? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treatment Posted November 6, 2003 Author Share Posted November 6, 2003 Did they continue using the overlays like they did in the TV series? Nope. There are no noticeable overlay nor any overlay side-effects on this movie, unlike the original vhs and first dvd-volumes of the TV-series. The video and the transfer are very sharp and very good. --trreatment-- Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VF-17 Posted November 7, 2003 Share Posted November 7, 2003 I liked the movie. Not as good as the series. It's way more serious that the TV show was. I heard that you have to read the comics to tie the episodes to the movie. Is that true? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noriko Takaya Posted November 7, 2003 Share Posted November 7, 2003 Yay! More Nadesico! Can't wait. Adding it to Christmas list. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JELEINEN Posted November 7, 2003 Share Posted November 7, 2003 I liked the movie. Not as good as the series. It's way more serious that the TV show was. I heard that you have to read the comics to tie the episodes to the movie. Is that true? The manga and the TV series were made at the same time, but not in conjuction with each other and so are very, very different things. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Effect Posted November 7, 2003 Share Posted November 7, 2003 How are people able to review this when it hasn't even been released yet? Personally I have a fansub copy and really enjoyed it. The series is better but the movie is still. Though I wish this had been split into a small OVA to really add more to the story but still good with a good bit of action. I can't wait to get an english version of the movie. I always felt the english version of the series was better then japanese version. I didn't find the japanese verison that funny which makes me want to see a english release of the movie all the more. I know I'll have a different opinion for the better when I see it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VF-17 Posted November 7, 2003 Share Posted November 7, 2003 Shhhh....... it's a seeeeecret! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treatment Posted November 7, 2003 Author Share Posted November 7, 2003 How are people able to review this when it hasn't even been released yet?Personally I have a fansub copy and really enjoyed it. The series is better but the movie is still. Though I wish this had been split into a small OVA to really add more to the story but still good with a good bit of action. I can't wait to get an english version of the movie. I always felt the english version of the series was better then japanese version. I didn't find the japanese verison that funny which makes me want to see a english release of the movie all the more. I know I'll have a different opinion for the better when I see it. Pre-orders, man. I get it before the retail-stores do. Btw, you're the first person I've encountered that likes the English-dubbing of Nadesico. Fwiw, I was never a "subs-forever" type-of-fan, but I just never could like ADV's english-dubbing of Nadesico-tv. Well, except for Gai's dubbing, of course. Gai just plain r0x0r in any language. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Effect Posted November 7, 2003 Share Posted November 7, 2003 Strange. I've run into a ton of people on forums and in real life that perfer the english dubbing over the japanese version. Granted I watched the english version first with the subs on. I just liked everything flowed better. Then I tried the japanese, just didn't have the same type of flow as the english version did. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stampeed Valkyrie Posted November 7, 2003 Share Posted November 7, 2003 Looks like I am the 2nd person you've met that prefers the english dub in Nadesico. I have had bootleg copy of prince of darkness for a very long time now. I am really interested to see how they translate certain parts of it, or is ADV gonna hack job it, just like the Eva Directors cuts coming out shortly. Guess time will tell when its released I'll pick it up. Rob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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