Story:
The basic premise of Gowcaizer is about Isato, an ordinary highschool student that one day receives something called a Caizer stone from one of his classmates with whom he now has to fight the evil power called Omni Exist who basically represents all bad emotions of humanity and threatens to destroy earth. This already showed through several catastrophes that point out that apocalypse is about to happen.
This setting already is where the first huge flaws are to be found! Why you ask? Because the viewer basically doesn't have any idea about it! The movie does a terrible job at explaining itself and the viewer is basically left alone to find out what the heck is going on, which is almost impossible by watching the movie in itself! Personally, I went into the movie without having read the Synopsis and if I wouldn't have read it half way through it, I probably still wouldn't have any idea what it is about! However, even if the viewer does know what the movie is about, it really doesn't help a lot in understanding what is going on! The pacing for the movie is absolutely horrible in every way! It often seems to be dragging on for ages and if it doesn't, it feels rushed to the point where it's hard to determine what exactly is happening! Every plotpoint feels completely out of context and none of them get any explanation at all! They're simply left as they are and as it stands make absolutely no sense! And that pretty much summarizes the whole plot: Nonsense! There's not a single thing in the show that seems to make any sense, ranging from the physics, to the random Mahou Shounen transformation scenes, to the character interactions and what's left and actually understandable is absolutely generic! Any plotpoint that actually doea get somewhat clear is part of the typical Genre cliches! From the Shounen Power-ups, to the pseudo-philosophical themes of how humanity are the ones being evil, that get touched once and never again, to the character archetypes used! There's absolutely nothing that we haven't seen before and gets boring incredibly fast! Of course the movie is from 1997 and as such from a time where all that may not have been all that overused, but for today's standards, there's nothing original about it!
Characters:
The characters suffer from exactly the same problems as the story! They often enough act incredibly illogical and it at times is really hard to follow their thoughts. Not only that but every single one of them is extremely one-dimensional and have nothing to them but a single character trait! There's the typical Shounen Main Character that actually doesn't want to kill anyone, but occasionally does grow a backbone and ends up doing so, the typical clumsy moe love interest that in this specific case actually is able to fight and isn't all too moe...the antihero kind of character that seems to be evil at the beginning but in the end turns out to actually be the good guy and so on and so on, you get the idea! In general I really don't have a problem with Anime archetypes as long as they are used well, but in this case they just really aren't! The character interactions are painfully bad and there's not a single case of dialogue that is somewhat well written or interesting! This only gets worse through how out of character some of the characters act at times! They suddenly say something that doesn't fit the character at all only for the sake of advancing the plot and at times they don't even do it for that, but just to have that one certain moment that every Shounen needs to have! The character development feels the same way! It is incredibly rushed and there is nothing static but characters just take a 180 turn from one second to the other, making them feel like a plot device and impossible tofollow! This leads to them getting even more boring as they originally were already thanks to the stereotypes they all fulfill and don't step away from. I do give the show credit for at trying to develope the characters, which a lot of shows don't even attempt to do, but it just doesn't work having them be completely different this suddenly! Another point that makes this shows characters just absolutely awful is just how unsignificant they seem to be! Some of the characters literally don't seem to have any purpose and only exist for the purpose of showing their skin and crotch and bouncing their boobs!
Sound:
The Sound for Gowcaizer may or may not be the only redeemable thing about the show! While both the Opening and Ending is a rather standard for the 90s the Soundtrack is surprisingly enough not all that bad! Some of the tracks even wouldn't sound all that bad if listened to outside of the show and often enough they fit the scenes really well! However often enough, kind of isn't enough! The show has places where it horribly misuses tracks in parts where they really shouldn't be used! One of the character entrances uses a harmonica right within one of the most intense fights of the show and completely destroys the mood of the scene! Often enough, the show doesn't use any track at all, when it clearly should! While the OST itself isn't even half bad, it's the placement that ruined it in total!
Gowcaizer Character Designs
Those character designs actually hurt my eyes....
Animation:
The Animation for Voltage Fighter Gowcaizer was done by J.C. Staff and let's say it that way....it isn't all too glorious! The OVA was rather Low-Budget and for that and considering it is from the late 90s, it doesn't look all too bad, but it really isn't good either! There are a ton of scenes in the show where the animation itself isn't fluent at all and while the fight-scenes are actually animated somewhat decent, the rest is filled with still-screens and so on and it really doesn't contribute to the quality of the show overall! In fact if that actually were possible it'd make the show even worse! However something else takes that job over already! The character designs: OH GOD ARE THEY AWFUL! I have to be completely honest here and say I have rarely seen character designs that looks worse than this! They are often enough absolutely irritating and honestly probably were one of the worst parts of the show! Art style usually doesn't concern me too much...I mean I sat through the entirety of Aku no Hana and ended up enjoying that BUT THIS? NO THANKS! The chins are way too long, the eyes either incredibly huge or horribly misplaced, sometimes even both! The other part that made the show even worse was the fanservice! Looking at the Opening I already got to see what I was getting into, giving me more boob bounces, crotch, ass and panty shots than all of Highschool of the Dead. Throughout the whole OVA, women in skin tight clothes were walking around hitting people while sneaking in more panty, crotch, ass and boob shots. It's incredibly irritating to see all that fanservice shoved into your face like they didn't even try to make it an actual good thing, but just a silly excuse to get some quick money for giving some guys a good time and that's what it ended up being!
In the end Voltage Fighter Gowcaizer is a bad excuse for an OVA and has nothing going for it at all! The plot is nonsensical and generic at the same time, a combination of bad things that I didn't even know was possible but the amazingness of this show has apparently proven it is very much possible to do it! There is no connection between any of the plot points and the pacing is absolutely awful! The same is for the characters they fall completely flat (Altho the characters certainly aren't flat at all if you know what I mean) due to generic sterotypes and some of the most sudden and nonsensical development in all of Anime history! There is nothing good about this OVA series and as long as you are not a masochist that feels like experiencing 90 minutes of pure pain I definitely would not recommend this to anyone! It's an abomination and I really don't see anyone liking this....STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM IT!
