From: James Boren <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: (spoiler) VOTOMS Re: [gundam] (OT) Letters from Iwo Jima
Date: Sun, 4 Feb 2007 15:14:19 -0700
Here's a character I'd like to see evaluated by the list, at least as
far as talent goes: Chirico Cuvie from VOTOMS. Seems like VOTOMS
sticks very closely to real-world talent levels (or at least as close as
you get in anime), and even at the end of the series with Chirico at the
height of his Perfect Soldier talent, plenty of Chirico's foes manage to
score hits on him. Same goes for shows like Gasaraki and Blue Gender.
Haven't seen VOTOMS, but I thought Blue Gender handled this pretty well.
Same with Macross, like I said; even Max wasn't superhuman by any stretch
of the imagination.
Ah VOTOMS...It's not made that clear in the anime but there is one super
big spoiler that changes your view of Chirico. Takahashi seems to be fond
of these last minute revelations as he did the same thing in Gasaraki. And
ruined both series in my opinion.
-James
Anyway, ready for the supreme Votoms spoiler?
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grrr...it cut off my spoiler. I guess I gave it too much space. Here it is
again.
Chirico is an Overman, the only one of his kind and a being far beyond a
mere perfect soldier, far beyond a newtype, coordinator or whatever those W
gundam pretty boys were. You see, millions of years ago a super computer
called Wiseman was made. Over time it became so powerful that it could
manipulate the universe itself. Chirico is its sole heir. Wiseman watches
over Chirico and will not let him die. Oh it'll let him be severely
injured, but never die. Wiseman will change reality to protect Chirico. If
you put a gun to Chirico's temple and pulled the trigger, it would jam, or
some other incredibly rare event would happen that would let Chirico live.
He can not die. Of course finding out about this at the end kind of kills
the realistic mecha show you had been watching previously. At least it did
for me.
I was aware of Chirico being an Overman (finished the subtitled VOTOMS a few
months ago), but that particular bit about Chirico being truly unkillable
only seemed to come out in the Supreme Survivor graphic novel that came
along in PDF format on Central Park Media's mail-away extras disc. Is that
truly canon? And is it a direct result of Wiseman's intervention, or is it
more like Kyouske's supposedly outrageous luck in Super Robot Wars:
Original Generation?
Likewise, even an Overman isn't entirely invincible -- those who built
Wiseman were Overmen, who had returned to Quent after being defeated and
exiled across the Galaxy.
From the series itself, I was under the impression that Wiseman's ability to
manipulate the universe was more a matter of political and social control
through the Secret Society rather than direct, God-like ability to affect
such minute events. Without his Secret Society flunkies and whatever
instrumentality on Quent and Wiseman Station he controls directly, Wiseman
struck me as otherwise just a big electronic blowhard. Some "God" who can't
even figure out his chosen heir is royally pissed off at being manipulated.
Ironically, I wonder if Chirico would have had a better shot of getting to
live out his life after the series in peace if he'd actually taken Wiseman
up on his offer, albeit on his own terms, and then used that position to
dismantle the Society and remove the artificial agitant for the Galaxy's
wars...
FWIW, most English translations seem to put Wiseman as around 1,000 years
old, with the revolt of the Overmen and the abandonment of advanced
technology on Quent happening 3,000 years prior to VOTOMS. Is this
accurate?
On another note, which revelation ruined Gasaraki for you?
-James
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