Nadesico: Prince of Darkness

More like incomplete rather than totally horrible.

When i finished watching the anime series of Nadesico i also watched the movie adaptation called Prince of Darkness which i watched raw since i can't find any subs version and the Dub for this series is horrible. I understand why Nadesico fans completely hated the movie as it takes 180 degree turn on the original anime though i would say Prince of Darkness is a victim of its time itself. I heard the movie was initially planned as trilogy but ended up as a single movie which is why the series seems to explain a lot less.

The movie takes place 2 years after the anime series ended where the Jovian Lizards and UEFA settled a truce. The Vice captain of Nadesico, Ruri Hoshino is the main protagonist this time and had become a captain and command the latest UEFA battleship, Nadesico II. In the movie she was tasked to go to one of the Space Colony, Amaterasu where she witness a fraction Jovian Lizards decided to rebel once again led by its previous leader. Ruri also had a fateful encounter with Akito the main protagonist of the Anime which was thought to be dead along with his lover Yurika who is now driven on vengeful Quest against the ones who responisble for kidnapping and putting him and Yurika with horrible experiment due to their Boson Jumping abilities. Once again Ruri had to go to Mars in order to end the conflict for another time along with the former crew of Nadesico.

Prince of Darkness turns the series into Grimdark one which completely differ with the anime which has some grimdark moment as well but mostly lighthearted which is why the former fans hated the movie. However the primary reason why Prince of darkness gained negative reception from the fans is that it is really lackluster overall as a movie (which is even worse than Gundam 00 Movie which i thought to be horrible) due to trying to introduce too many things and leaving too many unconcluded questions in the movie . For instance the new character especially the villain are barely getting any characterization at all which makes their motives harder to be understood. Secondly you don't see to much mecha actions(despite Nadesico is not strong on this one) and even Aestivalis team only get to kick some ass in the final battle which is also concluded way too fast.

Nevertheless the movie had some good stuff as well, without the movie we will never get to see Black Sarena in action. The shipping stuff between Akito and Ruri is nice as well since Ruri could be a better partner for Akito compared with Yurika.

With the failure of the Movie, i think it is hard to see this series get any continuation at all due to the era of current anime where mecha doesn't sell anymore despite it is still open for it and we will never get to see the unanswered stuff left from the movie to be concluded properly. I could see that there are some third hidden faction which is responsible to trigger all events that happen in the movie. However you can play ACE 3 and SRW W or MX to be able to appreciate the movie better since they portray some of the stuff better compared to the movie and even MX featured its own conclusion for PoD where Akito is seen to rejoin the Nadesico again with new look. I hope the series could be featured in the future SRW Z series which may give a chance for Nadesico to get a continuation.