Critical Distance (Day 249)

I've watched the first episode of Martian Successor Nadesico and I liked it pretty well--as expected. I think these giant robot anime series lend themselves pretty naturally to comedy elements since the premise is pretty ridiculous in the first place--although I'm sure many examples of grim and serious exist in this genre. Front Mission, though not an anime, is about as serious as it gets, but tends toward a much more utilitarian and functional design for the mechs in question. It's clear that giant mechanized robots are probably not the most efficient choice for futuristic warfare, but they are ridiculously cool which makes up for that leap of logic.

The first episode actually didn't teach me much I didn't already know since Super Robot Wars J adapts most of the early plot elements into part of the plot of the game itself. Akito Tenkawa is a former pilot who now cooks. He somehow ends up being enlisted as a member of the crew of the great warship Nadesico as a cook but quickly proves his skill as a pilot through inexplicable means. Many scenes from this first episode were reproduced almost exactly in the GBA game, which is pretty interesting. The same is true for many early scenes from Brain Powerd. It makes me wonder if series that frequently make appearances in Super Robot Wars have some kind of continuity. Do they continue to parrot scenes from the anime in which they appear or do they change?

A good portion of the characters represented in SRWJ were introduced in that first episode. Akito serves as the protagonist of the anime and is a former pilot and cook who survived an attack by the series antagonists, the Jovian Lizards, on a colony on Mars. Yurika is the teenage female pilot of the Nadesico who evidently knew Akito when he was much younger--and harbors some pretty strong feelings for him that may or not be reciprocated. Jun is the only male member of the main crew and quite clearly wishes those feelings were directed at him. The other three members are Ruri, Minato, and Megumi, whose personalities are not so clearly defined yet. The tiny Ruri does seem to have somewhat of a superiority complex, however.

None of the other Aestivalis pilots have yet been introduced save Gai, whose broken leg prevents him from going into battle. Just like in Super Robot Wars J, Akito pilots the Aestivalis that Gai leaves behind. Both refer to it as the "Gekigangar" after an anime they both enjoy--that of course only exists within the meta-world of Nadesico.  I'm not sure if Gai recovers later and joins the team. It hasn't happened in the game yet unless he's a secret character, although he does show up in one of the bonus "Puzzle Robo" missions.