Votoms Video, Box Sets
The many different LD Box sets are the most extravagant Votoms products you can get, festooned with art and the most deluxe packaging ever created for the series. Laserdiscs are now antiques, but the boxes they came in will never go out of style.
Perfect Collection
Toshiba, October 1990
The first release of the entire TV series on 13 laserdiscs, all featuring model kit box art. It’s a massive box that tips the scale at just over 14 pounds and includes a set of 13 art images by Shioyama and Okawara.
See the interior content here.
Best Collection
Toshiba, July 1991
This set complimented the Perfect Collection by collecting all six compilations and all three OVAs onto six laserdiscs. A bonus “confidential disc” contained text-free OP/ED titles and a large catalog of animation design art in clickable CAV-format. Also included were two booklets: a “Perfect Manual” about the series and an “AT Manual” collecting mecha designs.
See the interior content here
Complete Collection I
Youmex, November 1995
Five years after Toshiba’s Perfect Collection, Youmex released a new edition. This one collected the Uoodo and Kummen arcs onto 7 laserdiscs, augmenting them with a large-format booklet and a unique “Friends of Battling” kit directly from Uoodo City.
What was inside it? Click here to find out.
Complete Collection II
Youmex, April 1996
This box followed up with all of the Sunsa and Quent episodes on 6 laserdiscs.
The bonus items were another large-format booklet and a custom Votoms wristwatch.
See the interior content here
Complete Collection III
Youmex, March 1997
This was essentially a redo of Toshiba’s Best Collection, getting all the compilations and OVAs into another box of their own on 5 laserdiscs.
There was another large-format booklet (not a reprint) and a reissue of the “Confidential Disc” with a new jacket by Norio Shioyama.
See the interior content here
Complete Collection IV
Youmex, April 1999
The collection became truly complete with this box set of Shining Heresy, reissuing all five episodes and the two Briefing documentaries on 3 laserdiscs with two booklets containing story and design materials. This was to be the final LD release of the series.
See the interior content here
DVD Memorial Box
Bandai Emotion, February 2005
Interestingly, Votoms made it to DVD in the US four years before this version came out in Japan, but this edition was the more comprehensive of the two. The TV series and all the OVAs were spread out over 20 discs.
The notables in this set were a cube-shaped box illustrated by Kunio Okawara, a thick booklet, new digipack art, and a metal version of a Takara Scopedog miniature that could be lowered to downform position.
See the interior content here.
Votoms DVD Box I
Bandai Emotion, February 2010
Another five years down the road, and it all happened again. This set repackaged Uoodo and Kummen onto 7 discs and left space in the box for the first two volumes of Phantom Arc, which would be out a few months later.
Votoms DVD Box II
Bandai Emotion, May 2010
The second box followed suit by putting Sunsa and Quent onto 6 discs and giving you incentive to buy Phantom Arc volumes 3 and 4. Wasn’t that generous of them?
Votoms DVD Box III
Bandai Emotion, August 2010
The third set pulled a hat trick by collecting all of the compilations and OVAs onto 7 discs and leaving room for the last two volumes of Phantom Arc. In fact, all the discs were direct reprints from the Memorial Box spread out over three volumes. Just in case you missed out in 2005.
Perfect Soldier Blu-ray box
Bandai Namco Arts, February 2021
This seems to be the final word on Votoms video; a grand omnibus that puts EVERYTHING in a single box. I mean EVERYTHING. The entire TV series, all the compilations and OVAs AND Armor Hunter Merowlink (on Blu-ray for the first time anywhere).
Here’s how the components of the set were organized…
Volume 1: TV series (first half) and a CD of TV series BGM “highlights.”
Volume 2: TV series (second half) and a CD of BGM from Shining Heresy.
Volume 3: OVAs, Merowlink, and Shining Heresy with a CD of BGM from Pailsen Files.
Volume 4: Pailsen Files (series and movie versions) and Phantom Arc with a CD of BGM from Case Irvine, Finder, and Alone Again.
Volume 5: Case Irvine, Finder, Alone Again, and all the TV series compilations with a CD of Merowlink BGM “highlights.”
But there’s more: two substantial books and a brand new CD single with updated (2020) versions of the OP and ED themes by the original artist. Jacket art is by TV series Animation Director Moriyasu Taniguchi.
NOW how much would you pay?
Find out here.
See an unboxing video here.
That wraps it up for Japanese releases, but there’s another corner of the world where things went their own way.
Continue to the US releases page
