I’ve been extraordinarily lucky in my various exploits, capers, thrills and spills as an anime fan. I found my top two favorites early on and made them a part of my life in ways few others did. Those two favorites are Space Battleship Yamato and Armored Trooper Votoms. In both...

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The setting for Votoms is the Astragius Galaxy, torn in half by a Hundred Years War between two interstellar factions, Gilgamesh and Balarant. The primary weapon in this war is the Armored Trooper, a 4-meter tall human-driven robot that can serve practically any battlefield scenario. VOTOMS is an anagram for...

Ryosuke Takahashi started as a writer and made his way up the anime production ladder as one of the few directors who couldn’t draw, but was very adept at storytelling. He added “series creator” to his resume with Fang of the Sun Dougram in 1981 and continued with Votoms, Galient,...

Poster art for Animedia magazine Back to the Hub

The intro page below was created for an online version of Chaser Platoon distributed on Clickwheel.net in 2008 Back to main article

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The intro page below was created for an online version of Chaser Platoon distributed on Clickwheel.net in 2008 Back to main article

Continue to finished pages Back to main article

Continue to penciled pages Back to main article

In Part 1, I covered books specifically devoted to the anime series, its spinoffs, and merchandising. This time I’ll dig into three separate categories: manga, novels, and “related books” that you’ll want if you’re a psycho-fan like I am. Japanese titles are included for online search purposes. Here we goooo…...

Above and below: bonus items from My Anime magazine, June 1983 issue Back to the Hub

There’s no better word for it; the number of books published on Armored Trooper Votoms is simply staggering (which is what you’ll do if you try to carry them all at once). It was a slow start when the TV series debuted in 1983, but picked up steam over the...

Originally written for the Armored Trooper Votoms Field Guide (Central Park Media, 2006) Introduction So what is it about this show? What keeps it going after twenty-plus years? What lucky charm allowed it to escape the obscurity that settled in over so many of its contemporaries? What am I even...

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