Three years have passed since the events of the Nadesico TV series, and the war with the Jovians is long over. Teen prodigy and former science officer Ruri Hoshino is now captain of the Nadesico B, whilst the rest of the crew have moved on with their lives- all, that is, except Akito and Yurika, who are missing, presumed dead, following a shuttle accident.

Yet things are about to take a turn for the worse in the Nadesico universe, with the rise of a new terrorist group calling themselves the Martian Successors. When the Martian Successors take control of precision boson jumping (teleportation) technology and begin using it to launch attacks against the Earth-Jovian Alliance, it falls to Captain Ruri to reassemble her old crew for one last mission.

The ending of the Nadesico TV series left things rather open, and although it was tempting to believe that things ended happily ever after for our heroes, Prince of Darkness makes it clear from the outset that this isn’t the case. The beginning of the movie shows us a memorial to the apparently deceased Yurika and Akito, and although it wouldn’t be too much of a leap to deduce that they might not actually be dead, it is clear that Prince of Darkness intends to be darker and perhaps more mature than the series that preceded it.

Despite this, Prince of Darkness does not entirely forget its predecessor- the trademark Nadesico humour is still in evidence, as is the ever-sizeable cast of characters. Sadly, though, this is where things start to go wrong for the film, for whilst it’s no doubt a nice touch for the fans to see all of their favourite characters, packing so many cameos into a ninety minute film is certainly detrimental to the main storyline.

In fact, lack of development is the main flaw in the movie- character cameos aside, the main storyline is rather a weak one. The main villains never really seem to have any reason or motivation for what they do, except of course to provide an excuse for a reunion of the Nadesico crew. And although there have been some interesting and unexpected changes for certain characters, for the most part the story seems to paint rather broad strokes, leaving viewers to draw what conclusions they can about the details. This leaves Prince of Darkness feeling frustratingly incomprehensible first time around, although by the second viewing the pieces do start falling into place.

When it comes to visuals and audio, Prince of Darkness may have a firm basis in the TV series, but at the same time, this is a world that has moved on and matured. Character designs, technology and even background music retain familiar characteristics from the original Nadesico series, but they have all been appropriately updated for this new adventure.

In Summary

With a tighter focus, Prince of Darkness would have made quite a serviceable feature; unfortunately, the decision to cram in extensive character cameos at the expense of story development only hurts the movie and may even alienate casual viewers. For fans of the series, however, the chance to catch up on their favourite characters will be worth the price of admission.