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?
(James runs to check his sources)
Dear lord! I really got that screwed up. Sorry, it's been at least 10
years since I'd seen VOTOMS and I inflated the years a little bit. 1
million? 1 thousand? Okay, a lot. Actually you are the first person
I've met that has actually seen VOTOMS. Oh every mecha fan knows
about VOTOMS, apparently few bother to see it. Mark Simmons hasn't
even seen it, for god's sake! So I've never been able to discuss
Votoms with anyone else. Anyway regarding Chirico's
indestructibility, I read the graphic novel right before watching the
series so it likely colored my interpretation of the series. I mean
that's a pretty brazen thing to stick in the G novel if it wasn't
true. And if Chirico wasn't immortal, then why seal himself up in the
capsule at the end?
On another note, which revelation ruined Gasaraki for you?
The alien or aliens. I forget which. Didn't that just happen out of
the blue in the last episode? I guess my complaint from both VOTOMS
and Gasaraki is that they are perhaps the most realistic portrayal of
mecha in anime, only to have some last minute revelation overthrough
that sense of realism. I guess a similar feeling would be in Star
Wars where the Force is considered mystical, then Lucas throws the
Midiclorians in and all of a sudden your sense of how that universe
works is undermined.
-James
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