Art of Martian Successor Nadesico
/Martian Successor Nadesico is an animation series produced by Xebec Inc. and directed by Tatsuo Satō in 1996. The series features an energetic juxtaposition of comedy and drama, as the characters engage in lighthearted antics in between facing the drama of war. Many of the characters are themselves anime fans (one of the characters was an anime voice actress, another is a fangirl who likes to draw her own manga, and a third is an otaku) and there is often comparison between the campy, sanitized war of the anime within an anime Gekigangar III and the much harsher reality that the crew of the Nadesico faces. The show intentionally includes a number of science fiction anime clichés, including time travel and alien invaders, but turns these concepts on their heads by the end of the series through a number of plot twists. There are many anime references, particularly to the series Space Battleship Yamato. The series includes parodies of Macross anime. The Gekigangar anime show is also an homage (and parody) of many Super Robot mecha anime of the 70s and 80s, most particularly the Go Nagai/Ken Ishikawa collaboration Getter Robo. The battles between Earth and planetary colonies featured throughout the show is a reference to Gundam, while the assortment of odd-ball characters on the ship who prefer to choose their own battles, rather than take sides, is a nod to Harlock. The pictures on this page are a collection of artworks created for this series.
THE STORY
In the year 2196, Earth is at war with a race of alien invaders called the "Jovian Lizards". A company called Nergal designs a space battleship, the ND-001 Nadesico. While the ship is powerful and its crew consists of the top civilian experts in their fields, these individuals tend to have "some slight personality disorders". The primary protagonist, Akito Tenkawa, is a boy with a mysterious past: once a resident of Mars' Utopia colony, he escaped its destruction by the Jovian Lizards and arrived on Earth, with no memory of how he got there but a terrible fear of the invaders…
Ready for more?
Discover thousands of model sheets, concept designs, background paintings from the best animation movies and TV series!
