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Mamoru Oshii Directs New Armored Trooper Votoms Anime
posted on by Rafael Antonio Pineda
Bandai Namco Filmworks announced on Thursday that Sunrise and Production I.G are collaborating to produce a new anime in the Armored Trooper Votoms franchise titled Sōkō Kihei Votoms Haiiro no Hexe (Armored Trooper Votoms: Die Garue Hexe or literally, Armored Trooper Votoms: The Grey Witch), with Mamoru Oshii directing the anime.
The new anime celebrates Sunrise's 50th anniversary.
Ryōsuke Takahashi directed and created the original concept for the original 1983 Armored Trooper Votoms anime. The anime is an iconic entry in the so-called "real robot" subgenre of mecha pioneered by Mobile Suit Gundam, characterized by robots as mass-produced military machines (with limitations in operation akin to real-life war machines) and gritty and grounded stories about war and its bitter costs.
The original 1983 anime is set during the ebb of a century-long conflict between the two nations of the Gilgamesh Confederation and the Balarant Union. The unit that dominates the battlefield is the VOTOMS (Vertical One-man Tank for Offense & Maneuvers), a class of powerful yet extremely vulnerable mecha, known as much for their firepower as they are for the high casualty numbers of their pilots due to thin armor and lack of safety measures. The protagonist, Chirico Cuvie, is a member of an elite Gilgamesh VOTOMS unit that becomes a pawn in a vast conspiracy that brands him a traitor to Gilgamesh, and leads him to cross paths with a mysterious woman.
Section23 Films' Maiden Japan imprint most recently released the anime on Blu-ray Disc in 2019 and 2020.
The series has inspired a number of spinoff anime, including Armored Trooper Votoms: The Last Red Shoulder, Armored Trooper Votoms: Big Battle, Armor Hunter Mellowlink, Armored Trooper Votoms: Red Shoulder Document - Roots of Treachery, Armored Trooper Votoms: Pailsen Files, Armored Trooper Votoms: The Heretic Saint, and Armored Trooper Votoms: Alone Again. Armored Trooper Votoms: Alone Again, the latest entry in the series, debuted in 2011.
Source: Press release
