In general, I agree that it wasn’t impossible to make a serious Nuku Nuku, but it was difficult. What made it very close to impossible was the decision not to have a clean sweep of supporting characters. The only series I’ve seen thus far that has been able to balance pathos and insane humor fairly well is Martian Successor Nadesico. And if you try to take anything seriously, even it falls apart. (I’m talking about the series, not the movie, which sounds like a near-trainwreck).

Oh well, I’m about due to write another review; I just can’t decide which one of the series I’ve seen recently. Najica Blitz is the only one I’ve completed, since Godannar, Maburaho, and Mars Daybreak are still running, and I’m waiting on Nadesico #5 before I view #6. What with local happenings though, I haven’t been able to justify taking the time away from the City Hall mess.

Speaking of Higuchi: “Only now he’s a selfish bastard and just wants to take Nuku Nuku away to Germany with him because she looks like his dead girlfriend.” My favorite line of the whole review, bar none. It just sounds so cigar-chomping mercenary; a strange adjective I don’t use often or lightly.

As far as reading the liner notes goes, you aren’t missing out on a whole lot. There are some interesting tidbits, such as the Japanese language significance of the catbot sisters’ names (Nuku=”warm,” Rei=”cold”), but far too often the notes’ philosophical weightiness threatens to exceed the maximum payload of the series they’re written for. Very first line of the Vol. 1 liner notes: “What is destiny? As a child, it’s hard to grasp the concept of and the inevitability of death.” Okey-dokey then.

In regards to explaining the ending, it’s strange that I even care so much. I mean, this sort of thing is hardly new. For instance, Chrono Crusade–a series that is superior to DASH! in pretty much every respect–also has a last-minute non-sensifying epilogue, but I was able to shrug that off more or less immediately.

I suppose my concern over DASH owes to a couple of different things. First, the fact that I’m one of the honored (or at least mildly smug) few who actually prefers the quiet, troubled, green-haired Nuku Nuku over her other iterations (at last count, there were about five of us on the whole planet). I feel the character deserved more and better (it bears mentioning that there’s some evidence in the liner notes that seems to point to the series having been ended prematurely).

Which ties into the other reason: The series itself strikes me as only actuating about 10% of its total potential. Some say that the formula was flawed; that the writers or whoever should’ve realized that making a serious Nuku Nuku would invariably end in failure. I disagree.

Granted, the chances of success in such an endeavor are slim, but if DASH! had had a creative team capable of pulling off the necessary balancing act, it could’ve been amazing.

I guess that’s what bothers me most of all. I can see in my mind’s eye what this series could’ve been, and it breaks my heart.

Retraction: That sounded overwrought, so I’m going to say instead that it breaks my pancreas. Because it’s smaller and I don’t know what it does.

On the rebuild, he might have had some help from Higuchi, or maybe not since Higuchi would want to keep Nuku Nuku for himself.

As for the liner notes, I’m bad about not reading them. Most of the ones I’ve glanced at tend to have very small, light print, on a dark background, and I have trouble reading that. I also am a believer in the liner notes adding to the show, not explaining it!

As for closure, here’s my explanation of the ending (and the thesis for a bit of fanfiction I’ll more than likely never get written) which, despite its moderate flimsiness, will nonetheless be accepted as canon unless somebody wants to come up with a better one:

Nuku Nuku does the sparky gloves bit on Rei Rei. Rei Rei explodes. Nuku Nuku is critically damaged. Professor Dad finds Nuku Nuku somehow–same way he found the helicopter, I guess–and takes her back to the lab, managing to stay incognito the whole time.

He plunks her into the stasis pod or whatever that thing is, and proceeds to (very) gradually bring Nuku back from the brink by making piecemeal repairs whenever he can find the time, resources, and confidence that he isn’t going to screw something up worse (recall that Kyusaku was portrayed as being somewhat in the dark regarding Nuku’s inner workings). Eight years pass in this manner, and voila! Ryunosuke gets the best graduation present of all time.

Speaking of Ryunosuke; he holds top spot as the biggest wrench in the gears as far as making my scenario work goes. I’ve already got a pretty good rationale for why Kyusaku would want to keep him out of the loop–Nuku Nuku’s condition is so frail that he reasons it wouldn’t do any good to clue Ryo in, only to have her end up dying–but the execution is a mite trickier.

The idea that Ryo would spend four more years with Nuku Nuku effectively right under his nose and never find out isn’t so inconceivable–he could’ve been raised under a strict imperative to never enter his father’s lab, and there’s also the whole density thing–but the part about Kyusaku locating Nuku Nuku’s battered form amidst the rubble and getting her back to the house without anyone ever knowing is a tad dubious.

Then again, I guess if a guy can use a helicopter to successfully perform a rescue of someone falling from above, he can pretty much do anything.

I don’t think the girl on the beach was an illusion/memory. Looking at it again, it may have been someone else he mistook for Nuku Nuku, but I don’t believe so. While such ambiguious endings are all too common (I’m currently avoiding Maburaho until I know for sure it doesn’t have one), I think this was its close cousin, the “Open Ending.” Those are almost as bad; if I want ambiguity, I have real life. Fiction should almost always have closure.

However, I find your interpretation of the very end to be especially intriguing. Mainly because I’m not 100% sure that it is actually a last minute cheater happy ending.

Eight years is a considerable stretch after all. Also, during the final scene, the indication seems to be that Noriko can’t see Nuku Nuku, and the oft-overly-philosophical liner notes for the DVD even say something to the effect that she wasn’t really there, it was just Ryunosuke pining for the good ol’ days.

Then again, if she was meant to just be a ghost or hallucination, that makes her picking up the kittens a pretty neat trick.

I don’t know. I think the epilogue may have been specifically designed to defy interpretation. Endings of that type seem to not be especially uncommon in anime.

There were some more borrows I think I heard in TWHE, but I didn’t note them when they happened, and after finishing it, I’m not going back and watching the whole thing again just to catch them. Though I might watch some of the less objectionable episodes….

Sigh. Such a cool idea…. The stone golem getting potted in one shot from the tank is a classic “Denied!” moment.

On the other hand, I’m a big fan of Ringo, Weber, and Flint; Baen’s authors may crib their plots from history or fantasy wish-fullilment, but they have stories to tell. Character-driven stories like Firefly and the entire Banner of the Stars series are my forte. Of course, a little action and some fan-service are almost always plusses in my book too.