Martian Successor Nadesico/Characters

Here are the characters from the popular sci-fi anime Martian Successor Nadesico, along with the tropes they represent. Please be aware of spoilers.

Crew of the Nadesico

Akito Tenkawa

• Chef of Iron
• Growing the Beard
• Humanoid Abomination: What he becomes in the movie.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: All he wants in life is to be a chef and watch his favourite anime.
  • by the time of the movie, he has give up with that option, anyway
• Parental Abandonment: His parents died when he was very young, when someone set a bomb in their house.
• Real Men Pilot Pink Mecha
• The So-Called Coward
• Spike Spencer: his dub VA, which lead to some drawing parallels between Akito and Shinji Ikari
• Team Chef
• Took a Level In Badass: In the Movie. In all the worst ways, unfortunately.
• Unlucky Everydude
• Wangst: Sometimes justified. Sometimes not.
• Yuji Ueda

Yurika Misumaru

• Break the Cutie / And I Must Scream: In the Movie
• Bunny Ears Lawyer
• The Captain
• Clingy Jealous Girl: And that's the least of Akito's problems, really....
• Cloudcuckoolander
• Die for Our Ship: Happens sometimes...
• The Ditz
• Dojikko
• Genius Ditz: When push comes to shove, she can be a brilliant strategist.
• Genki Girl: She does seem a bit over-energtic at times.
• Hidden Depths / Obfuscating Stupidity: It's really interesting that during episode when part of crew had reversed their personalities, she was under affect of it and was acting like usually.
• Houko Kuwashima: debut role
• Lethal Chef
• Victorious Childhood Friend: She and Akito get married after the series.
• You Gotta Have Blue Hair

Ruri Hoshino

• Catch Phrase: "..idiots", "Baka bakka. (I'm Surrounded by Idiots.)"
• Designer Baby: And is rather bitter about it.
• Emotionless Girl: Subverted. She is actually quite warm, but tries not to show it.
• Ensemble Darkhorse: She was THE most popular anime character — period — in Japan for a VERY long time.
• Little Miss Snarker: Formerly called "The Ruri".
• Not Good with People: Her best friend and confidant is the ship's computer, Omoikane.
• Omi Minami: also debut role
• Precocious Crush: She's implied to be a lurker in the Akito Tenkawa Appreciation Society; see the lyrics to "I Want to be your Number One", her Image Song from the beauty contest episode.
• Robot Buddy: She builds one (Kyuupachi/98) in the manga's Alternate Continuity.
• Spotlight-Stealing Squad: In the movie. She makes all the other characters superfluous...
• Theme Music Power-Up: Ruri invokes this by playing the Gekiganger3 theme during a key battle in Super Robot Wars W, giving everyone the extra dose of Hot-Blooded they need to save the day. Sousuke and Heero try to resist this, as they must be stoic.
  • Hey now, Sousuke at least tried.
• Turned Against Their Masters: Sort of - when she meets the person responsible for her education (away from an actual family) after several years, she slaps him.

Jiro Yamada Gai Daigouji

• Actor Allusion: In the English dub he's voiced by Brett Weaver, who also played Roy Focker and was scheduled to play Kamina before ADV lost the license.
• Ascended Fanboy
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: An interesting example, in that it was clearly foreshadowed...and he makes a big deal about how a man SHOULD die.
• Ensemble Darkhorse: Which explains why he can be saved from his untimely death in so many Super Robot Wars games...
• Hot-Blooded: But of course! Complete with Hotblooded Sideburns.
• I Just Want to Be Special
• Jumped At the Call
• Killed Off for Real
• Large Ham
• Manly Tears
• The Obi-Wan
• Sacrificial Lamb
• Tomokazu Seki
• Too Cool to Live
• Wrong Genre Savvy

Megumi Reinald

• Clingy Jealous Girl: A lot more so than Yurika, and that's saying something. It took awhile to set in, but once it did, it effectively murdered her chances of getting Akito's affection at all. She actually does gets the seeds of a serious relationship started, but she destroyed it all by trying to take things too far, which utterly repulsed him. Trying to get him to leave the crew of the Nadesico to their fate when they were in trouble didn't help either.
• Heroic BSOD: A brief one in Episode 4, after the destruction of the space station.
• Lethal Chef
• Naoko Takano
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: She's a voice actress who shares the same name as a certain real-life popularity...

Minato Haruka

• Cool Big Sis
• Dating Catwoman: She falls in love with the Jovian Tsukumo Shiratori. It ends badly.
• Heroic BSOD: Has a minor but pretty intense one when Tsukumo Shiratori is killed.
• Maya Okamoto
• Ms. Fanservice: just look at the outfit
• Hidden Depths: Who would've thought a secretary would be the best qualified helmswoman for a state of the art battleship?

Jun Aoi

• Butt Monkey
• Demoted to Extra
• I Just Want to Be Badass (This gets rather subverted)
• Jun Fukuyama
• Unlucky Childhood Friend: Poor guy, Yurika never thought of him as anything else than a good friend...
• The Woobie: At least, if you listen to his fangirls...

Goat Hoary

• Bunny Ears Lawyer: Literally!
• The Comically Serious
• Gentle Giant
• Heterosexual Life Partners: With Mr. Prospector
• Jurota Kosugi

Mr. Prospector

• Badass Mustache
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass
• Heterosexual Life Partners: with Hoary
• Kenichi Ono: Yes, this is before he went on to voice SANGER ZONVOLT, THE SWORD THAT SMITES EVIL!!!. Prospector's surprisingly mild-mannered compared to him.
• Miser Advisor: ALWAYS has a calculator handy, and never fails to point out the incurred expenses that will result from whatever the crew or nadesico does/has done

Ryoko Subaru

• Action Girl
• Berserk Button: Do not try to harm Akito. It will not end well for you.
• Bokukko
• Refuses To Spit It Out: Unlike Yurika and Megumi, she never managed to confess to Akito...though it's more out of pride than anything
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Minor streak, but occasional subconscious referral to Akito as "My Tenkawa" and the aforementioned Berserk Button do seem to give this impression.
• Stellar Name: Subaru is the Japanese name for the Pleiades...
• Tiffany Grant: her dub VA
• Tsundere
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Mentioned in a flashback.
• You Gotta Have Green Hair: However, it turns out it's dyed, evidenced both in the above mentioned flashback in the show and through the entirety of the movie, which shows she's entirely given up on dyeing it.
  • Her natural hair color is purple, so the trope still applies.

Hikaru Amano

• Action Girl
• Ascended Fangirl
• Genki Girl
• Love Hurts (due to unresolved issues with her ex-boyfriend she is one of the few not chasing after Akito, and also has to let Uribatake down gently when he tries to start a relationship with her)
• Meganekko
• Otaku Surrogate
• Parental Abandonment: Both her parents are dead
• Yaoi Fangirl

Izumi Maki

• Action Girl
• Broken Bird: Two dead boyfriends will do that to you.
• Cloudcuckoolander: And when you discover why she's this way, it becomes a lot less funny. Poor girl...
• Cold Sniper: She seems to be more proficient with ranged weapon. This is especially underlined in Super Robot Wars, where she has penalties for close combat, and bonuses for range.
• Dreadful Musician: how she was able to make a living out of it after the series is a mystery
• Incredibly Lame Pun: She's a master of these.
• Miki Nagasawa
• Peek-a-Bangs
• Pungeon Master: And she's the only one who laughs at her jokes...
• Sad Clown
• Tall, Dark and Bishoujo: Subverted. She's tall, dark, and more than a bit off kilter.

Seiya Uribatake

• Berserk Button: He has two of these: 1) Seeing Akito 'get all the chicks', and 2) people breaking his Aestivalises.
• Cargo Ship: He went head over heels with glee at the sight of the Aestivalis piloted by Nagare Akatsuki.
• Dirty Old Man: Played straight and subverted and played straight again. Part of the reason he came aboard was to get away from his wife and (theoretically) spread some wild oats. Later on, people think there's something going on between him and Hikaru. Then they find out that she's helping him build a diorama with 1/48 scale plastic Aestivalis models. Then Hikaru has to let him down easy when he does try to start a romantic relationship with her.
  • And then subverted again later in the series when he makes a heartfelt promise to his wife that he'll return to her once the fighting ends.
• Mr. Fixit and The Engineer (specifically, a Mechanic)
• Nobuo Tobita
• Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys?: Justified; he makes most of the special gear used by the Nadesico by embezzling Nergal company funds, but they turn a blind eye to it as it means they get new equipment to use.

Inez Fressange

• Chekhov's Gunman: Remember that adorable little girl that Akito give an orange to in the first episode? well Inez is who she grew up to be. After one too many Time Travels. It's... complicated, okay?
• Hot Scientist
• Explanation Lady: She even has a sixth sense for when something is about to be explained.
• Naoko Matsui

Howmei

• Crazy Prepared: She has over 300 different spices in the ships pantry. Her reason: she wants to make sure each crew member gets to eat exactly what they want, because nobody knows if it might be their last meal.
• Mentor: To Akito, at least where cooking is concerned.
• Supreme Chef

Sadaki Munetake

• Driven to Suicide
• The Neidermeyer
• Heroic BSOD- He was actually a much more moral, upright human being who believed in justice and doing the right thing, but he became corrupted by his own ambition, and after The Reveal on the identity of the Jovian Lizards, he snaps when his guilt over the bastard he became and his horror that what he fought for was a massive lie combine and drive him crazy.
• The Scrappy
  • Alas, Poor Scrappy
• We Have Reserves: When Minato points out that shooting the Nadesico's gravity blast will cause massive friendly casualties, his answer is pretty much "So what?"

Nagare Akatsuki

• Bishonen
• Casanova
• Grey and Grey Morality: That's pretty much his view of the world - there are no good and evil, everyone should fight for himself only.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold (Believe it or not, he did make an honest stab at playing Big Brother Mentor to Akito [and it actually worked to some extent], and he does to some extent join in on the craziness of the Nadescio crew willingly.)
  • Super Robot Wars Judgment and Super Robot Wars W makes this even more obvious, albeit they do acknowledge his Jerkass tendencies and give him NO relationship bonuses to anyone (not even friend bonuses)
• Handsome Lech
• Karma Houdini: Somewhat. Nergal's power is greatly reduced after the end of the anime, in any event, which does count as a bit of a comeuppance.
• Magnificent Bastard
• Ron the Death Eater: Okay, he's not exactly the nicest guy in the world. But so many fanfiction exaggerate his negative traits...
• Ryotaro Okiayu
• The Untwist: Pretty much everyone, save Akito and Yurika, knew he is actually the chairman of Nergal. From day one.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: In regards to his deceased older brother.

Erina Kinjo Won

• Love Hurts (It's implied she knew and had feelings for Akito's father, which might explain why she's so snappy around him)
• Manipulative Bitch
• The Scrappy
• Smug Snake: Never quite reaches her boss Akatsuki's levels of brilliance, and comes across more as an annoying, self-important bitch who cares for nothing but herself.

Jovian Federation / Martian Successors

Tsukumo Shiratori

• Anime Hair
• Ascended Fanboy: Like all Jovians...
• Dating Catwoman: He ends up growing fond of Minato.
• Identical Stranger: Somewhat justified in that he and the character he resembles are effectively styling themselves after the main character of Gekiganger III.
• Killed Off for Real
• Sacrificial Lion
• Tomokazu Seki

Yukina Shiratori

• Annoying Younger Sibling
• Girlish Pigtails
• Hillary Haag: her dub VA
• Minion with an F In Evil: She tries to sneak onto the Nadesico in order to kill Minato, who she believes bewitched her brother. Hilarity Ensues.
  • Heel Face Turn
• Yuri Shiratori

Genichiro Tsukiyomi

• Anime Hair
• Ascended Fanboy
• The Atoner: In the movie.
• Knight Templar: He thinks all Earthlings are evil and even shoots his best friend Tsukumo in order to prevent peace talks.
• Talking to Himself: With Kyosuke Nanbu in Super Robot Wars Compact 2
• Toshiyuki Morikawa

Saburota Takasugi

• Ace Custom (his mecha in the movie)
• Ascended Extra
• Chris Patton
• Handsome Lech
• Heel Face Turn (appears as a Jovian officer in a few episodes of the series, Is part of the Nadesico B's crew in The Movie.)
• Shinichiro Miki

Haruki Kusakabe

• Big Bad
• Complete Monster: This guy is absolutely loathsome and beyond redemption.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive
• Karma Houdini: Many wanted to see him dead. They were disappointed.
  • Super Robot Wars Either you get to kill this asshole in most games, or in J, Rau Le Creuset will Kick the Son of a Bitch
• Knight Templar
• Moral Event Horizon: If he doesn't cross it by ordering Tsukumo assassinated by the hand of his best friend, he certainly does by experimenting on Akito, Yurika and Lapis, and condemning them to a Fate Worse Than Death.

Aritomo Shinjo

Hokushin

• The Dragon
• Humanoid Abomination
• Mismatched Eyes