I have to start off by saying I like this series. Kikou Ryohei Mellowlink got me introduced to this whole new mecha world from sunrise that is everything I wanted the majority of gundam to be.
No more young kid finding himself inside an overpowered killing machine kicking ass left and right. No more masked rival with a mysterious past. No more newtype bullshit that makes you invincible and allows you to shoot magic laser beams or have people disappear only to reappear as someone else for no reason other than to make people go wtf.
I won't go into detail on those, but if you follow, you know what I mean ;)
Ever since seeing Gundam 08th MS team, I've been looking for something with a bit more grit. I've seen just about every UC gundam out and nothing quite catches the realism that MS team had. Votoms is the closest thing I've seen thus far.
The good:
I love the world of votoms. It's so far into the future, that the galaxy itself has infinite possibilities when it comes to story. I'm sure they did this on purpose as a way to expand the IP, unfortunately though, this doesn't seem to be the case as there was never another full blown series after the first as far as I can tell besides some OVAs. There seems to be some compilation movies made probably in an attempt to get more funding for future projects much like how the gundam movies did. Obviously, it does not look like it did anywhere as well as Gundam.
The AT designs are pretty cool overall. Most of them tend to look kinda like Zaku IIs which is a plus in my book. After watching the series though, I couldn't tell you what their models are at all. I know they may have mentioned the names a few times through the series, but I don't think it was all that often whereas with gundam, I can name most suits. Even the zeta ones.
The fights were pretty awesome; especially early on in the series. They didn't constantly reuse animations as say gundam wing did, though they did sparingly. Though, it was more obvious/frequent later in the series which is understandable.
The characters that Chirico befriends are all great, but can be annoying at times. I have problems with some of the other characters, but I'll get to that in a moment.
The bad:
Everything but the last arc were quite enjoyable. I loved the whole urban/dystopian arc along with the jungle/vietnam arc. There isn't much to say other than I wished it was good in the end as it was in the beginning. What gets me is the last arc/over arcing plot. There are a few loose ends I would like addressed and would love to hear your thoughts on.
(Begin summary)
Let me do a quick summary of things for my sake: Chirico's unit steal Gilgamesh's secret weapon known as the PS for the secret society. The secret society's ultimate goal is world domination through the use of producing Perfect Soldiers.
Chirico isn't privy and is made into a scapegoat. Rochira, who is currently working with the Gilgamesh, tortures the shit out of him. Chirico escapes, finds out the secret and kinda falls in love with the PS. Oh, he also discovers friendship again with 3 weirdos. lol. He then swears revenge on the secret society and wants to save the PS.
Chirico, after all the bullshit in the city, looks for a change of pace by going to the jungles to kick more ass. His friends happen to be there. He makes some new friends and goes on a few sorties. He discovers a new PS and discovers it's a dude (honestly thought Fyana became a dude and it was going to get weird) and finds out they are with the rebels.
To speed things along, the secret society is using the war as a testing ground for their new PS as Fyana was practically useless unless they killed Chirico with her watching. That doesn't work out. Rochira shows up again and fucks everything up. Almost forgot this tasty bit, the fat priest dude dies.
Fyana and Chirico escape on the king's escape shuttle and then they get picked up by an unmanned battleship and this is where the show starts to go "Anime."
The unmanned ship goes into forbidden space and gets the attention of the two main factions as well as the secret society. The ship mysteriously keeps reminds chirico of his past for some odd reason. They keep getting attacked and then crash land on the planet sunsa.
Rochira is now with the Balarant and basically captures everyone because his friends suck. Yeah, they are here too for some reason. Such a small galaxy. Rochira now has an interest with Chirico and makes him fight the male PS. Chirico kicks his ass and Rochira somehow knows Chirico is special and tells him to go to Quant to learn his past.
Really speeding things along, he gets to Quant, meets an old friend, talks with the locals, discovers ancient ruins, god tells him he needs to go to some space station in the middle of nowhere to achieve godhood.
Chirico, Rochira, and friends gets captured by the secret society and they all get merry and meet with the god. Then, god tells him he needs to go back to Quant to become a god? lol.
So Chirico, determined to become a god, goes back to Quant, sacrifices his friends to his enemies, shoots his friend a couple of times, shoots at Fyana a couple times, climbs a tower, and takes out HAL9000. Rochira shows up, gets pissed, tries to reboot HAL. Planet explodes for no reason.
Then, Chirico and his gal get into a cryochamber naked and get thrown out into space. Also, the war continues.
(end summary)
Let me just say this. When Chirico said "We'll be asleep in 20 mins." I was thinking he might want to blow his "Shooting Star" at the moment of freezing so he could be in perpetual bliss until the time of their revival.
Joking aside, the end has some problems. First off, how can the "God" not notice Chirico wasn't serious about becoming a god. Chirico never shot to kill either Shako or Fyana. The god can see the outcome if he's truly all seeing. Though, Chirico did sacrifice his friends which was pretty brutal. I don't know how he could have ensured their safety.
That said, the God getting killed was kinda dumb. Chirico did mention he wouldn't have a weapon in the room, but you would think he'd have at least a teleporter in the room if shit got real for him. I mean teleporters on Quant are as common as doors anywhere else.
Also, how the hell did they escape the planet when it blew up? That's probably the biggest loose end that isn't even eluded to. The war starts up and they just strip down to their privates and jump ship in the end.
Also, what with the war starting up again. It's like Chirico's sacrifice of power had no impact at all. Nothing changed with the god being gone.
It appears that the 'God' would have taken control of his body, but there was no way Chirico would have known that at the time. So, he must have done this to save humanity right? Naw, the technical God of war didn't have shit to do with the world being at war as it started back up again. In fact, the war stopped when the God was in power. So, if anything, one can blame the war starting up again on Chirico's sacrifice. That's extrapolating, but still. It's all kinda pointless.
I love the series, but damn it on it's ending. It just becomes a bit of a car crash, not quite a train wreck. The ending had some interesting ideas, it just wasn't fleshed out enough. It's like they ran out of time/funding as is common with a lot of anime back then and even today.
I'll be checking out the OVAs/Movies as I truly have become a fan. I even bought the Complete collection on bluray (which was a disappointment due to frame issues on fast scenes).
All in all, was cruising for an 8, but just fell short... 7/10.
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