Pretty awesome old series.
Finished the 52 episodes of the tv series last week and liked it despite the story near the end is getting weak. Votoms is a gritty real robot series in 80s and easily one of the most underrated Real Robot series made by Sunrise. The best aspect of this animation is that the battle choreography are really awesome and probably almost as good as Itano Circus of Macross considering the original tv series is pretty old.
The TV series story is about Chirico Cuvie's adventure wandering aimlessly to escape from his pursuer until he met a woman that he seems to know before. Chirico is an ex-soldier of Melkian army which belong to one of the two Major faction in the Votoms world. Chirico is not an ordinary soldier since he belongs to elite Red Shoulder division which is famous for their cruelty, Chirico is pursued by both major factions not because he is a deserter but for knowing secret that related to the woman he met.
Chirico is one of the most badass Real Robot pilot since no matter what grave danger he met, he will always managed to live on and his skill in piloting ATs are exceptional. I guess Kyosuke Nanbu from SRW OG are loosely based on Chirico considering some similarities they have.
In this series the mecha are known as Armored Trooper or AT, they are 3 to 4 metres tall and equipped with conventional weapons as the armament. The mecha shown above is Scopedog, the Gilgamesh Republic main AT forces which is the lead mecha of Votoms since Chirico is most proficient piloting this AT despite he uses other ATs as well considering the AT durability of an AT is really low. I would say this is one of the most realistic mecha design other than Labors from Patlabor.
The story is divided into 4 major arcs which are roughly 13 episodes and takes in 4 different places. The first arc is about Chirico's attempt to escape his pursuers and had a fateful meeting with the woman whom he called Fyana. In the second arc, Chirico become a mercenary in a warring nation and met his rival, Ypsilon and Fyana again. The third arc starts after Chirico and Fyana managed to escape together and find himself in an unknown spaceship, in this arc Chirico also settle score with his rival. And the last arc is about Chirico's attempt to find his past in a derelict planet which uncover his destiny.
Probably the 2nd and the 3rd arc is the best part of the tv series since most of the good battles are in these arcs. The battles are really intense as hell and you will see explosions everywhere. my most favorite aspect of this series is that even though the main character had intense plot armor, he deserves it because he constantly struggle to live and always find himself between life and death unlike a certain beam spammers. The weak aspect of the tv series is that it begins pretty slow and the last arc is barely making sense for me because of the plot twist shown in the last few episode before the TV series end.
Final Score: 9/10
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