Comments on: Armored Trooper VOTOMS: Pailsen Files (Final thoughts)

By: Touche

Touche — Sat, 16 May 2009 06:25:27 +0000

Well, after watching this and Last Red Shoulder, I’m convinced that VOTOMS was one of the ‘forgotten” series; one of the many excellent names that got lost before it could really take off.
This, and its contemporary, Code Geass (the first, not R2), marked, at least in my mind, the pinnacle of the real robot genre, and anything proceeding from there will just turn out to be disappointing to any of us with prior experience. I already saw Code Geass become Gundam SEED when all of the mecha started flying, and the ultra beam-rape guns appeared to wipe out armies. Quite frankly, this actually makes me glad that VOTOMS has stayed under the radar. I mean, just imagine if Sunrise got their emo-prettyboy hands on it. I;m already shuddering at the prospect. A scope dog with shields and a beam cannon with some overriding energy sword. No, lets not go there, terrible, horrible things abound in that realm.
Anyway, what I meant to say is that the VOTOMS series is the unseen master of a dying genre, and we can only hope that real robots straighten themselves out and get back to the more ‘real’ part.

By: Zentari

Zentari — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 05:46:31 +0000

Seems like another series that I must watch , kinda liked the original series anyway …

By: Crusader

Crusader — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 20:47:54 +0000

@f@@k sunrise
Well its much more traditional mecha than CG and they are going off on tangents for the sake of going on tangents so it helps streamline this series immensely.

@Dorne
Don’t forget the Scopedogs, one of the best grunt suits ever devised.

@justam
its only 12 episodes long so it is short. If you like gritty and simple Pailsen files is for you just understand that there will only be one Xantos gambit and lots of huge mecha battles.

Here’s a guy with some youtube clips enjoy. This should give you a good feel for the series. I hope you take it up.

http://ca.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=HaRDeStWaY&search_query=votoms

By: justam

justam — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 13:54:49 +0000

In short though Crusader, is this show worth watching if I have limited download quotas each month? While it sounds promising, I’m unfortunately in a position where I can’t really afford to waste bandwidth, else I end up capped… which sucks. God I hate my internet plan.

By: Dorne

Dorne — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 13:51:19 +0000

“no gundam robots that are there to sell toys”

@f@@k It’s all about the grunts.

By: f@@k sunrise

f@@k sunrise — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 11:34:22 +0000

This looks like a good series, no emo main characters, no writters fucking with the main characters to see how much pain to give them, no Character dieing THEN COMING BACK TO LIFE (Im looking at you N-word) no gundam robots that are there to sell toys, just good ol fashioned mecha wars. Personally as much as people like R1 and view R2 as a retarded step sisterm I think many more people would be drawn to this, especially since there will be no Trolling of the viewers here.

By: Crusader

Crusader — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 09:37:22 +0000

@IKnight
Episode 9 I think was the most darkly humorous episode of the series, it didn’t detract as much as it could have and after the Kochak the Science Guy bit they also treated us to the officer’s shoddy detective work. In terms of homages I think that the Pailsen team did enjoy themselves, the invasion of Monad would have made Heinlein proud.

I can see why they would be throwing in their support for Code Geass, but it need not be the only series they feed to their formidable hype machine. I still think that it’s sad the Pailsen Files passed under the radar and will not be released outside of Japan or in my case NA. The only reason why I found it was initially because it was on /m/. Moreover since the Code Geass team took a couple pages from the Gundam team I just wish that they would have stuck with R1 combat by consulting the VOTOMS guys since they made it work. Part of why I enjoyed R1 was because the mecha combat was radically different from most mecha series and helped differentiate it from Gundam. There’s nothing wrong with being more like Gundam but it would have been nice if CG was the series to bring VOTOMS mecha combat back into the mainstream.

It would be great if they would do The 8th Knightmare Team OVA, but after establishing itself as a sort of anti-thesis to real robot in general I can’t see it happening. Right now the landspinners, Harken slashes, and escape pods seem superfluous since the introduction of float packs. The landspinners now look out of place given that almost everything can fly now.

By: IKnight

IKnight — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 09:09:01 +0000

I must say I thought that chemical mixing scene was quietly hilarious. I guess you can't be a proper amateur Polymer Ringer Liquid engineer without tasting things and then setting them on fire. Presumably the Geass team are well-funded because of their success and because they're still establishing the franchise. Mind you, much as I irrationally love Geass, I do wonder what a The 08th Knightmare Team standalone OVA about Britannians piloting grunt Knightmares somewhere deep in (say) Central Europe would be like . . .

By: Shutting the Files: CG Mecha Done Well « The Animanachronism

Shutting the Files: CG Mecha Done Well « The Animanachronism — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 08:57:58 +0000

[...] about the show as a whole; it’s already received a succinct review from psgels and a somewhat longer treatment from Crusader, who rightly points out that the VOTOMS universe has superhuman pilots instead of [...]