Prince of Darkness is a movie loosely followed from the popular 1990s anime Martian Successor Nadesico. Maybe fans wanted a movie of the series and the studio decided to make one, so here it is. Colorful but storywise, what choice did they have, typing this?! I saw the movie back in 2003. I grew up watching Nadesico and when I was 17 (in 2003), with I started to work and have money, having to purchase the TV series DVD box set and then the movie, it's went I sat and watched it, before I went rushing in watching all the movies that I could get, as I slowly forgot about the Nadesico series, for me to decide to review it and give my opinion on what I thought about it.
Unlike the TV series, the film's central character follows Ruri Hoshino who was seen in the first film who helped on board the first Nadesico in the TV series but this time, she takes control of a new battleship named the Nadesico-B, a successor of the previous battleship.
Ruri and her new crew take on board a mission where Ruri later finds herself meeting up with old crew members from the former Nadesico battleship, which rails the story to making it the follow up, for what it is trying to do. Due to this, the two main central characters from the TV series, Yurika and Akito are later revealed with their story arcs. Since the TV series departs from Akito and Yurika getting each other, so it's hard to imagine how a follow up from them would be but somehow this movie makes it work. It just seems tacked on, with how the fit their story arc into this movie and did whatever they could to get it different because of that dynamic. Of course they want to be left alone but it feels very forced and rigid with the follow up.
During the film, Akito finds himself trying to recuse Yurika who is kidnapped and placed in a ruins for her energy, where Atiko tries to save her, where Ruri finds herself trying to help him and try to reunite the rest of the crew. As the film follows from the TV series and aims to unite the previous characters with Ruri and allowing them to team up with her new crew-member. It gives a chance to see where those characters are up, too before embarking on that mission to help Atiko save Yurika.
The film takes a heavy glimpse in city life, unlike the TV series. The TV series was mostly bold, natural like settings such as rocky to forest terrain, city ruins and of course, outer space. In this film it's mostly set in and around a lively inhabited city. More or less, the kind of vibe you get from Tokyo. It maybe allows to get a quick glance into the lifestyles of various characters, they're trying to get back onto the crew, to give this sense on how they moved on but because there were so many stories for these characters in the TV series, there's almost little time to settle in with those characters, with their lifestyle back in their civilian lives.
It makes the movie feel more zany then the relaxed vibe that was from the TV series. Makes me wish this was more of a TV series, even if it was a short as 6 to 12 episodes, it could have fitted it well as the sequel it is making itself, out to be, giving those characters the time to form stories to a similar or even slightly shorter length to what was found, then. Clearly it was maybe a movie to anyone new to the Nadesico series but I think they would just feel a bit lost and maybe having more fun, watching this film then anyone, like myself who watched the TV series, before watching this.
There's is a change, a minor change in almost all the characters, maybe just to get to recognize them from the first film but maybe worth noting that the most dramatic change of character design is the central character Ruri Hoshino, who is a young girl in the TV series and with the movie set two years later, where she's sixteen and is a captain of the Nadesico-B. Maybe fitting to notice that, which does help with the continually to help the film take off and get into but maybe would have been fitting if all the other characters had a bit more added to explain where they are up to. The other characters were interesting, so it was a shame they weren't portrayed as well in the film unlike the TV series. It feels like the movie was quick to end and didn't care how almost all the characters were, other then, they moved on and are pulled, for that one last mission, I think they could have just taken their time with it and not place it as a film. Take a quick buck from the fanbase who enjoyed the stories across all characters, told from the TV series and have this film distract us with a colorful pop culture, style presentation.
