Now, I am writing this review as a fan of the Votoms Franchise. If this movie had not been part of it, I probably would have rated it higher, but only slightly.
The reason I’m saying this is because of the following: I became a fan of Votoms because of the alternative it provided to your average cheesy and angsty giant robot series. Where series like Gundam and its ilk were full of angst and cheesy morals, it provided a mature storytelling that took both itself and its characters seriously, going beyond characters screaming and yelling melodramatically. And really, I’m all for going into different directions with your franchise, but Case;Irvine does everything that Votoms avoided so well.
In Votoms, the fact that people die in a war was taken for granted. That’s what allowed it to pull so much interesting drama. Case;Irvine meanwhile is all about “war is bad”, “thou shalt not kill”, “oh, I’m the villain so I kill people for no reason at all muaha” and “ooh, I killed many innocent people in the past. I’m very angsty now! And this just goes on and on. You remember that little girl in the promo art? Her entire point in this movie is to angst and remind the lead character of how he shouldn’t fight. This is not Votoms at all. Heck, it’s even too cheesy to be like Gundam.
I’m also am not kidding about that villain, by the way. Case;Irvine could have been at least a decent angst movie if it wasn’t for this guy. While the lead character still had his scenes in which he doesn’t angst, this guy absolutely doesn’t. He’s consistently yelling, sprouting cheesy morals and looking for a fight with the lead character. This guy is completely overacting for the sake of overacting. To make matters even worse, Votoms also stood out in the way that it didn’t have any custom built mechas besides slight upgrades or colour changes. This guy then comes out of nowhere and mounts these gigantic hands to his own mecha, making it look completely silly in the more realistic setting of Votoms. The entire final battle (which takes up a lot of the time of this movie) is reduced to this really boring angst-fest in which the umpth strange robot has to be taken care of.
The sole salvation of this movie is the music. It’s perfect, and really atmospheric and does a truly excellent job of building up the atmosphere. But seriously. Please let Finder and Koei Futatabi not be so ridiculously angsty. Or heck. This wasn’t even angst, this was downright emo.
| Storytelling: | 6/10 – It’s definitely different from the usual Votoms. However, instead of experimenting with a unique new style, it got turned into a generic super robot movie. |
| Characters: | 5/10 – Pathetic villain, way too much angst and none of the characters make any impact at all. |
| Production-Values: | 8/10 – Awesome soundtrack. The animation is there… but not really remarkable in any way. |
| Setting: | 5/10 – Destroys some of the the core aspects of Votoms. Not good. |
Suggestions:
– Mobile Police Patlabor WXIII (an example of how to correctly get a movie to take on new characters and a new direction).
– The Wings of Honneamise
– Jin Roh – The Wolf Brigade
In contrast to your excessive generosity with other titles, this time I’d say you’re incredibly and unnecessarily harsh with a simple 50-minute OVA.
It’s not particularly great but you’re completely out of line by pretending this is a “Super Robot” show. No, not even the last fight can be properly described as such.
As for the angst…there was a valid reason for it on the main character’s side (psychological trauma because of a past event) and the villain was far more crazy than angsty. Which isn’t original, no, but you’re acting like if it were some sort of disease or sin against the franchise (there have been crazy characters in Votoms before).
Finally, it’s worth mentioning that there are other Votoms fans out in the world -including probably the one person who most deserves that title (Tim Eldred)- who don’t agree with your closed-minded approach.
well i have to agree, i really love the votoms shows, but this one? i did not even get the votom feeling, the music was good, i agree with that, but it did not feel like votoms at all, that was some kinda random mecha show, just that they called it votoms and added some votoms models, done
As a VOTOMS fan, I have to say, while this OVA did show a lot of promise to me (No Chirico, no awful CGI, etc.) I was actually kinda excited.
until I saw it.
The villain was a Char proxy. Sunrise…I love Brave/GaoGaiGar, and I love the older stuff like VOTOMS and Layzner and stuff, but, seriously, stop tryingt o make every one of your Intellectual Property a Gundam show. VOTOMS will NEVER sell as well as Gundam or Code Geass, and no amount of masked guys with three times faster red mecha and melodramatic bishonen is going to change that.
So instead of give us a chance to have another awesome Mellowlink-like spinoff, you cop out and force Takahashi and IRVINE’s writing team to make it “Gudametic”. throw in a masked guy and make the combat move fast! and…..eliminate the entire legacy of this franchise.
Sunrise, stop interfering with Ryosuke Takahashi and let him work his magic, it’s not enough you have Pailsen Files and the like Horrible budgets, and put GaoGaiGar Project Z on the back burner, CASE IRVINE is an insult to anyone who likes VOTOMS and prefers it over Gundam.
I actually really liked this OVA, I was scared that it wouldnt be able to tell a complete story and make charachters you cared about in 50 minutes but it did! It had the Votoms feel especielly in the opening sequence was in a location consistent with the setting and the girl managed not to be a standard damsel in distress. My only criticism was with the final enemy AT which wasnt consistent with the setting, in fact could it even have stood up without toppling over with all that weight?
Still can’t top the You’re only allowed to drink *my* juice jokes in Akikan. And if a gikmicmy show like this can’t hit even that mark, you know it’s in real trouble.[]