Armored Trooper VOTOMS

That day, the accursed war which had so disrupted my destiny had ended. But its end was ultimately meaningless for me. The moment I saw her, my own personal war had begun.

—Chirico Cuvie, the end of episode 1.

Astragius Galaxy, year 7213. For one hundred years the space nations of Gilgamesh and Balarant warred each other for reasons long forgotten. Severly exhausted, they both agree to cease fire. With the peace just around the horizon, some Gilgamesh soldiers turned traitor and attacked the Gilgamesh research station to steal its contents.

Their only problem is that Chirico Cuvie, a last-minute transfer from the Special Forces who is not in the know about the whole treason thing, finds their main objective first: a strange woman locked inside a container filled with blue light. Almost dying from the traitors' attempt to silence him, Chirico is picked up by the Gilgamesh forces, who brutally interrogate him about the operation. He escapes, and sets out to find the truth behind that day and that woman.

Armored Trooper VOTOMS is a 52-episode Anime series that ran from April 1, 1983 to March 23, 1984, directed by Ryosuke Takahashi. It is divided up into four separate arcs, each one with their own unique mood and setting. Several additional VOTOMS OVAs have been created, such as the Pailsen Files, set before the events of the main series, and the Heretic Saints/Shining Heresy, set 32 years after the events of the series, as well as several other one-shot OVAs detailing the life of Chirico Cuvie, the series protagonist. A spinoff, Armor Hunter Mellowlink, was also created; it is set in the same universe as VOTOMS, but involves an entirely different cast of characters.

Tropes used in Armored Trooper VOTOMS include:

• Absent Aliens - Although we do see some subspecies of humans, like the Quentmen and the purple-skinned Nor Barcoff from Pailsen Files.
• Ace Custom - Considering how simply designed an average AT is, it isn't a surprise that quite a lot of individual mods exist. Most notably, there are the Turbo Custom, Red Shoulder and Burglary Dog derivatives of the regular Scopedog made and used by Chirico. Subverted in that they break as easy as normal ATs and the difference is usually a bunch of extra guns strapped to it.
• Alien Sky - The planet Sunsa
• Anti-Hero - Chirico, to Byronic levels. Also, Mellowlink, a "hero" in name only.
• Arc Break
• Badass Normal - Chirico Subverted, because the last story arc reveals Chirico to be superhuman
  • Played straighter than any show should be allowed to with Mellowlink. He's basically the Golgo 13 of the VOTOMS universe.
• Berserk Button - It's probably not a good idea to play the Red Shoulder march anywhere within the earshot of Chirico.
• BFG - Chirico's handgun resembles a sawed-off shotgun more than your average pistol, and he can take out an AT with it, shooting the pilot straight through the armor.
• Big Brother Mentor - To some extent, Gotho
• Blood Sport - Battling on Planet Uoodoo.
  • Paygan takes this to the extreme in Case; Irvine, going as far as firing into the crowd just to have Irvine fight him in his upgraded Blood Dog.
• Born Lucky - Mellowlink. Although he has some pretty cunning tactics and prepares for the worst when he can, many times he survives his fights simply because fortune favors him. Also, one of the more important factors for Red Shoulders and Abnormal Survivors is luck, or at least Pailsen believes so.
• Clingy Jealous Girl - Coconna
• Conspicuous CG- The Pailsen Files, although not as Egregious as some other CG adaptations of older anime it's still cheap looking enough to set off some fans who preferred the conventional animation of the older OVAs.
  • While it does indeed stand out when compared to the rest of the show's animation, at the same time the CG itself has some quite fluid animation for the Armored Troopers, especially in servo and joint manipulation.
• Cool Old Guy - Gotho, in spades.
• Crapsack World - Melkia seems to have deteriorated into this following the Gilgamesh-Balarant conflict, if Uoodo and the Kunmen region are anything to go by.
• Determinator - Chirico, Yipsilon and multiple other characters. Though Mellowlink tops all of them.
• Does This Remind You of Anything? - The entire Kunmen arc is more than a little reminiscent of the Vietnam War, complete with the jungle villages, the harsh conflict between the stubborn natives and the brutal mercenaries, the moral ambiguity...and the fact that it takes the form of a proxy war between the Melkians and the Secret Society.
  • The first scene of the Pailsen Files is D-Day, plain and simple. The show doesn't even try to be subtle with it.
    • Lampshaded by the fansubbers by having inserting on-screen during the eyecatch "was it me, or was that whole scene just D-Day with robots?"
• Earn Your Happy Ending - Arguably subverted, in that while Chirico, Fyana, Gotho, Vanilla, and Coconna presumably go on to live happy and peaceful lives, the galaxy is plunged back into war, this time without Wiseman guiding them, and an entire planet has been destroyed, displacing all its inhabitants.
• Expy: The Scopedog is modeled after mooks of Gundam franchise, Zakus.
• Faux Action Girl - Surprisingly, Fyana, despite her being really tough in the first arc, she quickly descends into a Damsel in Distress. Later remedied somewhat, fighting alongside Chirico, but her dependance of Jijirium radiation often leaves her incapacitated
• Fun with Acronyms - The titular VOTOMS stands for Vertical One-man Tank for Offense and ManueverS.
• Gambit Pileup - Much of the series, but the final showdown of the Kummen arc in particular.
  • Everyone having been manipulated by Wiseman.
• Girl in a Box - Fyana
• Guns Akimbo: Mostly used as concentrated fire in the general direction. The effective use of different targets in different directions variant is restricted to the Super Soldiers. Barcoff, already fatally wounded, stands in the open and keeps firing left and right to take as many Balarant ATs with him and to buy time for Chirico and Zaki.
• History Repeats: Phantom Arc.
• Honor Before Reason - Chirico trying to save Fyana even though he could easily walk away and in doing so would probably escape from those who are after him. Coconna also, when she tries to save him, forcing Gotho and Vanilla to come along with her early on in the series--when the three of them could just as easily escape and leave Chirico behind, especially considering Chirico doesn't always want their help.
• Lightning Bruiser: Strike Dog and Rabidly Dog in TV series. They're heavy-class AT like Standing Tortoise, but has better performance than Scopedog. Strike Dog suffer from short operational time, but Rabidly Dog fix that. The Last Red Shoulder add Blood Sucker and Big Battle add Ecrevisse to this trope. It's worth to note that while Chirico can stand up against Strike Dog and Blood Sucker with just modified Scopedog, he need Light Scopedog to keep up with Ecrevisse.
• Made of Explodium - Polymer Ringer's Solution. The fuel that allows the AT to move in a fluid human-like motion, but it's so volatile that the sufficiently hard impact and even the exposure to the wrong temperature will cause it to ignite without a warning,
• Mighty Glacier - Technically, Standing Tortoise is this to Scopedog. It has thicker armor and can carries more missile. But it isn't as fast and also harder to control, notable for fact that it can't turn the head camera, the pilot must look sideview by sliding shutter on cockpit's side and look with his own eyes.
• Mini-Mecha - The four-meter tall Armored Troopers, expendable to the extent that they are usually deployed in thousands or perhaps hundreds of thousands. Of which it is unlikely for even a tenth to survive. While sufficiently equipped to wage war anywhere, from difficult terrain to open space, they are still quite vulnerable and easily destroyed.
  • The upgraded version of Blood Dog in Case; Irvine almost broke tradition.
• Morality Chain - Coconna, to Chirico and company.
• The Neidermeyer - Capt. Kan Yu of the Assemble EX-10 mercenaries. While he actually is a fairly proficient soldier and AT pilot, he sucks as a team leader. He is short-tempered, refuses to listen to anything his subordinates say that isn't obsequious agreement, guns down civilians at the slightest provocation (real or imagined - half the time, the civvies die simply for breathing), and has compromised at least one covert op simply to show what big balls he has. Then, there's the little fact that he despises Chirico yet keeps getting his ass saved by him, which just adds fuel to the fire of his hate...
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero - In Pailsen Files, After Chirico, Godan and Zaki blow up an entire PRL tank deposit, the explosion created a massive dust cloud that completely blocks out the sunlight, causing the entire planet to turn from a hot desert into a snowy tundra, thrown in with an impending super cold air-mass as cold as minus 250 degrees.
• Only Known by Their Nickname - The official names for various AT's are never revealed. Some are only known by their Battling ringname like the Purple Bear (a scout variant of Scopedog) or Strong Bacchus (heavy armored Scopedog), while the Balarant Union's AT's are known by Gilgamesh's silly English codenames (e.g. the Fatty), with the sole exception being the Ecrevisse (French for "crayfish").
• Pimped-Out Dress - Coconna wears a dress with feathers on the sleeves in the Kunmen arc.
• The Power of Friendship - Gotho, Vanilla, and Coconna are somehow always there to save Chirico whether he wants their help or not. Early on Coconna had to somehow force Gotho and Vanilla to come along and help rather than leave Chirico to die.
• The Power of Hate - What drives Mellowlink in his quest for Revenge.
• Reality Warper - Abnormal Survivors. several are speculated to be these, but only Chirico seems to truly incarnate the often insane survival skills seen mainly in Roots of Ambition, Pailsen Files and the last episode of Shining Heresy.
  • To be more specific, it's believed (or at least Pailsen thinks so) that Abnormal Survivors subtly influence given probabilities of things happening around them, causing lethal situations to become non-lethal or even harmless.
• Real Robot - One of the early pioneers of this genre. Armored Troopers are mass-produced, have a very basic design, have limited ammunition, require refueling, and are basically bipedal tanks.
• Screw Destiny - In the final season, Chirico is offered godhood by Wiseman, an ancient computer system that has been manipulating civilization for millennia. He has been groomed by Wiseman for this fate his entire life. Naturally, he destroys Wiseman, first by shooting it, and then by dismantling it piece by piece.
• Shirtless Scene: Chirico gets a lot of these.
• Short Anime Movie - Over the years many OVAs have been released, expanding the storyline and character details and filling in some of the loose threads of the series. With no lack in efforts to sub the latest releases, the series holy grail that is Shining Heresy finally had subtitles released via a combined effort of the /m/ board in 2010.
• Shout-Out - To 2001: A Space Odyssey. The destruction of Wiseman is very obviously based on HAL-9000's death scene.
  • Teitania is a Terminator. Even the music when she is chasing some "freelance cold capsule contractors" is similar to the score of the films.
• Sinister Minister - Borough. While the nature of religion in the Votoms universe is largely unexplained (until Shining Heresy), his garb is unmistakably that of a high religious official.
• Stuff Blowing Up - Everything, from a lowly Scopedog to a mighty space battleship blows up very easily. And in droves. Taken to the limits in Pailsen Files where an entire armada and a fortress planet with garrison is destroyed.
  • Taken a step further in episode 33 where a Standing Tortoise Mk-2 blows up just by having the side of a bazooka round collide with it.
  • You can usually tell how close to the end of an Act in the original series you are by the amount of explosions seen in an episode. Generally by the arc finale EVERYTHING will be blowing up, including vehicles, AT's, and random scenery.
  • The show's love of applying this trope led to an imageboard argument that concluded "The tech in Votoms honestly isn't realistic, in fact it may be less so than even some Gundam series. Votoms tech is cheap, highly prone to exploding, and would generally give a safety review board heart attacks."
• The Stoic: Chirico Cuvie, to a degree that vastly exceeds many other mecha protagonists (or even anime protagonists in general), only rarely changing his expression, and then usually not changing beyond dull surprise or pain. It's such an iconic part of the character that literally every picture of him when he appears has him wearing this expression.
• Super Robot Wars - the original series, The Last Red Shoulder, Red Shoulder Document: Roots of Ambition, and Pailsen Files are all set to debut in Super Robot Wars Z 2. Cue rejoicing fans.
• Super Soldier - The Perfect Soldiers Fyana and Ypsilon. The "Nextant" Tietania in the Shining Heresy OVA. Also, what Red Shoulders strive to be. Chirico too, although his origins are shrouded in mystery.
• Tracking Device: Gilgamesh has one injected in Chirico, which is removed at the start of the Kummen arc.
• Transhuman - The PS's arguably inspired Zeta Gundam's Cyber-Newtypes
• True Companions - Chirico, Gotho, Vanilla, Coconna, and later on Fyana, though Chirico isn't that requiting and often runs off to do things on his own, particularly early on in the series.
  • Coconna especially due to her strong infatuation toward Chirico.
• Used Future
• Villainous Breakdown: Kan Yu suffers this after losing his position as the commander of Chirico's special team in a secret mission.
• White-Haired Pretty Boy - Ypsilon
• Yamato Nadeshiko - Fyana.
• You Gotta Have Blue Hair - Chirico has blue hair, along with a few other minor characters. Most of the other major characters have normal hair colors.