Martian Successor Nadesico Vol-5: Secrets & Lies (1996)
Animation Production: Xebec/TV Tokyo/Yomiko
Released by: ADV Films
Episodes: 17-21
By Jeffrey Couto

Introduction

As we get closer to the end of Nadesico the episodes keep getting more and more interesting as they present us with an ever-extending view of the events that are taking place between the Nadesico and the Jovian forces. The revelations from the previous episodes have started casting their influence over our heroic crew and brought the story to a new high point.

Now that the Nadesico knows who they are really fighting and we as an audience get to see the battle from the Jovian point of view, things certainly keep picking up and volume five of the series keeps that upward trend bravely moving forth.

Story

"Expect the unexpected as the revelations about the Jovians threaten to destroy the Nadesico. Even more gets revealed as the lovely ladies of the ship strip down to their bikinis for a decidedly non-military beauty contest! The fun and games turn deadly, however, when the Nadesico becomes the target of a new Jovian weapon and the entire pilot team starts seeing ghosts!"-- ADV's Martian Successor Nadesico Page

Review

Episode 18, "Echoes of Self, Echoes of Water", focuses on the ever cool & collected Ruri, who as we come to learn (much to our surprise!) is actually a Princess. We also told more about her upbringing in an experimental children’s education center, where the focus was on teaching hard information, skills, history, etc, all while leaving out anything that could be regarded as detrimental to the future of those children, that being life and real world experience.

Episodes 17 and 19 thru 21 are a little more focused on the ongoing war, but they do manage to sneak in some great subplots that allow us to spend more time with certain characters that we have yet to learn much about such as Seiya, Izumi, Hikaru, and Ryoko. This proves to be an interesting exercise in character and plot development as we come to realize what it is that that to one degree or the other motivate these crew members and help make them the people they are.

I would have to say that the episode I most enjoyed from this collection was episode 19, “You're the Next Captain of the Nadesico”, which revolved around a contest onboard the Nadesico to determine who will be Captain for a day. Amusingly most the female cast members we’ve come to known so far make some type of appearance in the contest, each doing their best to win the coveted prize, be it by dancing, singing, or demonstrating interesting skills.

The three highlights of this episode for me where seeing Hikaru singing a rendition of the Gekiganger V song wearing one of the Gekiganger pilot outfits, Yurika’s Idol scene, which was very much a tribute to the greatest anime Idol singer of all time, Lynn Minmei of Macross! The third highlight of the episode which came as a huge surprise was Ruri’s entry into the competition with a singing number!

While I enjoyed episode 19 the most I would have to say the best episode by far in this DVD is 21, “The Meadows We Once Ran Accross”. Unlike everything we’ve seen so far this one uses a non-linear approach to the way the story is narrated, so we start close to the end of the episode work our way up to the middle, go back to the end, then go back to the beginning and... I think you get the idea.

This could have been a disaster if the story wasn’t molded properly to the format, but thankfully the writers pulled it off quite nicely. It also helped that the story itself was rather interesting and led to some deeper psychological exploration of the main cast and their reasons for doing what they do in this war.

Production-wise everything pretty much lived up to what I expected with episode 19 seeming to have some better animation segments than the rest. This time out though the animation finally remained consistent from episode to episode, which made it that much more enjoyable to watch the DVD. The music went a notch up as well mostly thanks in part to all the songs that were in introduced in episode 19, the BGM was on par with everything we’ve heard so far.

The Nadesico: Secrets and Lies DVD included the following episodes:

Episode 17: "A Reunion that Came too Late"
Episode 18: "Echoes of Self, Echoes of Water"
Episode 19: "You're the Next Captain of the Nadesico"
Episode 20: "Run Silent, Ruun Deep"
Episode 21: "The Meadows We Once Ran Accross"

The video transfer was sharp and colorful and the audio came through perfectly on both the Japanese and English soundtracks.

Conclusion

Wow! We’ve almost arrived at the series finale, just five more episodes to go; can’t wait! This DVD comes very highly recommended to all anime and mecha fans. The homage to past anime legends are worth the price of admission all on their own, I think that speaks volumes of how good this one is. What a great anime show this is!

Jeffrey Couto