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New Votoms Anime Unveils Main Staff, 2-Film Rollout With 1st Opening on November 20

Bandai Namco Filmworks revealed on Tuesday that Sunrise and Production I.G's Sōkō Kihei Votoms Haiiro no Hexe (Armored Trooper Votoms: Die Graue Hexe or literally, Armored Trooper Votoms: The Grey Witch), a new anime in the Armored Trooper Votoms franchise, will be two films, with the first one opening on November 20. Bandai Namco Filmworks also revealed the film's teaser trailer, teaser visual, and more staff members.

Ryōsuke Takahashi, director and creator of the original concept for the original 1983 Armored Trooper Votoms anime, joins the film's staff as supervisor. Shinobu Tsuneki (The Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Die Neue These, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Kaiju No. 8) and Sōkō Kihei Votoms: AT Stories manga artist Yoshiro Sono are the mechanical designers. Kenji Kawai, who has worked with the new films' director Mamoru Oshii in numerous projects including Ghost in the Shell and Patlabor 2: The Movie, is composing the music.

Oshii said he was a huge fan of the first Votoms anime, and that it has been his dream project to work on something like Votoms someday. He acknowledged some might view this project suspiciously with a nod to his Tachigui: The Amazing Lives of the Fast Food Grifters efforts, but insists he is treating this as a serious war action story.

Takahashi himself said that directors put their unique "touch" on films, and that he personally is a fan of the Oshii touch. He is looking forward to seeing filmmaker Mamoru Oshii's directorial touch on display in this Votoms story.

The 64th Shizuoka Hobby Show and an online retail site will begin selling a two MoviTicket Card set for the new films on May 16. Bandai Spirits will offer a High Grade Scopedog model kit in Die Graue Hexe desert color this fall, as well as a pre-assembled Hi-Meal R figure under the Tamashii Nations brand. Both will have prototypes on display at the Shizuoka Hobby Show.

The 1983 Armored Trooper Votoms 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 mprint 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