1985 side story by Ryosuke Takahashi
An amazing book was published in 1985 by the makers of the fan-run anime magazine OUT. It was titled Votoms Odyssey, and it dramatically expanded the world beyond the scope of anime. It coincided with the release of The Last Red Shoulder, which was the first OAV to expand on the TV series, and series creator Ryosuke Takahashi himself wrote a side story to weave the two more closely together.
This story occupied eight pages of Votoms Odyssey, illustrated by Character Designer Norio Shioyama. When I decided to add the Votoms hub to ArtValt and thought about which side story to translate first, it was no contest.
It took over 35 years, but here it is at last.
THE CHIRICO
This illustrated story by Ryosuke Takahashi, the general director, brings Chirico’s hidden week into vivid relief!
This is an excerpt of a few chapters from Takahashi’s novelization of Votoms.
(Quick note: that’s the text in the lower right corner of the first page, but the “novelization” it refers to was apocryphal. A true novelization didn’t appear until 2002, and it didn’t contain this material. The chapter numbers herein are also apocryphal, so I choose to interpret this as excerpts from an imaginary novel that didn’t exist yet.)
Chapter 3: ESCAPE
At that moment, my body curled like a shrimp, leaping two feet in the air. The leather belt that held my limbs to the torture table was torn to shreds, and the clamps scattered.
Damn, these guys were running an express train through my body. Lightning struck my brain. My body twitched. My ears were ringing. I couldn’t see right in front of me. Both eyes must have been bleeding.
“Is he all right?”
“He can’t be dead, can he?”
“There’s a pulse.”
“It’s three times normal! Captain, don’t do anything rash.”
“Doctor Fusen, this man is a Red Shoulder. The normal human scale is unreliable.”
“Even a Red Shoulder is a human being. There is a limit.”
“You’re a military doctor. This is your specialty. Take care of it.”
“Captain! I am a doctor, but…Commander Battentain, if we continue, I cannot guarantee Chirico’s life.”
“Well, he’s no good to me if he’s dead.”
I was thankful for that, at least. They were worried about my body.
“He’s bleeding from his eyes and nose.”
“His limbs are stiff, too.”
“Commander…”
“Captain, that’s it for today.”
That’s it for today. That’s it! No kidding. I couldn’t stand this daily routine. I thought about complaining, but decided against it. It was a pity that if I showed anything energetic it would just encourage them to continue their hobby.
“Hey! Take him.”
Apparently, they were going to send me back to that detention room with the exterior lock and not a single keyhole in the door. The footsteps of the people who had surrounded me began to move away. The footsteps of two more approached and stopped.
“He’s a tough guy. He still won’t talk.”
“It’s only a matter of time against Captain Rochina. Take his hand.”
I relaxed a little so they wouldn’t notice the rigidity of my body, and they’d be able to carry me easily. But my hands continued to clench as if the bones in my fingers would shatter.
“Look at him, his limbs are stiff from the shock.”
A small piece of metal was digging into the center of my clenched fist with a definite pain. It was one of the bolts of the belt clamp that held my limbs in place. This bolt was all I wanted now. Maybe my one chance. Maybe half a second in time.
It was hot. The tips of my feet were hot, being dragged on the floor. But I didn’t move at all. 50 feet to go… 30 feet… 10 feet… 3 feet…. One more step. We were there.
The door opened with a low electronic beep, and my body was thrown into the room. Not yet. The two people stepped back out of the door and pressed the button for the electronic lock. The thick door started to close, hiding me from their gaze. I had been waiting for this moment, just before it closed so tightly that not even a razor blade could pass through.
My body, which had feigned rigidity, burst into action to achieve its goal.
When the electric shock made me leap three feet and slam to the floor, this thing was lying in front of me, glowing. Faster than I could think, I was clutching it. From that moment on, I kept running this trial through my imagination over and over again. I couldn’t miss this chance.
The thick door descended with a low electronic sound, and the rectangular space below it narrowed infinitely. A light raced between my fingers toward that space.
KLANK!
With a sound louder than I expected, the door sucked the bolt into its mouth. There may not have been any sound, but to my ears, focused on it with all my attention, it was like a cup dropping in a library.
The latest electronic equipment was fussy. Even a tiny speck of ash, less than an inch in diameter, would cause a booing sound of discontent.
“Hey, it’s not closed.”
“It isn’t?”
“The buzzer’s ringing. Let’s check it out.”
The door to freedom began to open before me as I waited. I struck at the opponent’s emptiness. It’s the primary methodology to multiply limited combat power by several times. Pailsen had drilled it into my bones. The first soldier to pass through the entrance crumpled to the floor, not knowing what happened to him. The next soldier saw either my face, or my fist before he passed out.
Sirens rang throughout the base. But I succeeded in escaping. That day, unbeknownst to me, the Hundred Years War ended with a truce.
Chapter 5: RED RAIN
It was once a battlefield. Now it was a graveyard of iron behemoths that had breathed fire, packed the sky, and roared over the earth. Three days after getting off the trailer headed for Doville, I kept walking westward. By now, the city of Uoodo should have been in sight. But what I saw hadn’t changed much over the past three days. Burnt red earth, bones of giant beasts, and thick clouds of acid in the sky…in the evening, there was always a red rain.
Suddenly, my boots kicked sand and my body slid under the corpse of a giant metal beast. It looked familiar. It was a TH-32-AT Fly transport helicopter. I remember its nickname was “hangman,” or something like that. After all, while hanging from this thing, you became a perfect target for anti-aircraft fire.
I listened intently from under the familiar belly of my old friend. The faint sound of an engine was approaching. It was in the sky, flying in heavy dull clouds. I couldn’t see it. I couldn’t tell if it was a civilian or military aircraft. There was no fear that they would sight me. The thick, annoying clouds were convenient for such a situation.
The Engine sound faded away. It probably came from Uoodo. The city was getting nearer. Five hours after that, Uoodo descended below me. Lights twinkled like deep-sea fish luring small fish from the depths of a destroyed, multi-tiered underground structure. Each twinkle was as sweet as a trap. But I couldn’t take advantage of it yet. As usual, I would wait here for three days watching the comings and goings of the army.
It was late in the evening, time for usual red rain. Maybe it wouldn’t rain today. If so, that would be a relief. It was cold. Should I build a fire? There was no shortage of things to burn.
There’s a shrub called chekov, probably a member of the rose family. It grew abundantly in this rough terrain. It was easy to pull out by hand. The fire burned as well as if it had been dead for a long time, and the roots were very long-lasting. What I had to be careful of were the thorns. They’re slightly poisonous. Only a little, but if it gets into the blood vessels, you’ll hallucinate for a few days. The bad kind of hallucination.
Flames burning chekov are pale for some reason. As I stared at the flickering flames, I kept thinking about that one day.
I was being hunted because I saw that thing. I heard that it was a classified military secret. That’s what made me valuable.
I’d been subjected to electric currents that shattered my brain. There’s no reason to be hit so hard that your spine creaks. It’s natural to run away from that. I couldn’t be blamed for the deaths of people blocking the road in front of me. It wasn’t my fault. It was my superior’s order, and I’m just a soldier.
What could I have done, just because the place I attacked was a secret allied laboratory? First of all, I didn’t know anything. I didn’t… I didn’t…
I’ve dreamed about it a lot in the last six months. But I didn’t have nightmares. She didn’t seem to be fearful at that moment, either. She was just staring at me through the blue light.
It was always the same in the dream. She was just staring at me. Her eyes seemed to want to say something, but of course, just like that time, she didn’t say a word to me. It was more like…it seemed to be a source of emotional support for me as I traveled alone through this rough terrain.
The flames were getting smaller. I was about to pick up a branch of the chekov tree when I felt a prick. A sticky red drop fell off the back of my hand. I felt an involuntary jolt in my hand holding the branch. I dropped the twig onto the small flame and sucked hard on my stuck finger.
The red rain began to pound the earth with increasing force. Far away from the city of Uoodo, an alarm rose low and long and drifted into the wilderness.
I ducked into the cockpit of an AT I had my eye on. The tiny space! The smell! Stretching out my hands, I pulled down the hatch. It squeaked, and the air shook with a bang, cutting me off from the outside world. The darkness! Ahh…
My stuck fingers ached. I wondered what the poison of the chekov would make me dream.
Chapter 6: HALLUCINATION
“It shouldn’t have happened.”
He ended his two-hour speech with this. He continued to stare at us for about ten minutes.
He was the creator of Red Shoulder, Major General Yoran Pailsen. And we were Senior Chief Gregor Garosh, Corporal Baiman Haggard, Corporal Muza Merime…and me. The four of us had been tagged together for a long time. And now we were in trouble again.
It all started ten days earlier during a mission on the planet Sunsa. Our mission was to disrupt the Gilgameth space force’s opposition. It was a mission, but we didn’t like it. The operation itself was an easy one, with no appreciable risk. It wasn’t even much of a mission, just destruction and slaughter.
The planet Sunsa belonged to Balarant, but it was a frontier planet with no military equipment of any kind. That’s why they were not well prepared at all.
Here’s what we said about it: We are soldiers and killers, but we are not butchers. First of all, slaughtering human beings is not allowed in this world.
Gregor took his accumulated vacation time as a shield. Baiman complained of physical discomfort, and Muza questioned the purpose of the operation. I tried to get into the brig by bumping off our second-in-command, Hoylop. In the end, Pailsen would have none of our petty concerns.
We set out on a safe hunting trip with the elegance of an aristocrat.
Sunsa was a red planet. The sky and the ground were red, as if a massacre had already taken place and a lot of blood had been spilled.
The first target was Neo Brami, the largest city on the planet with a population of about 30,000. We were dropped off in the middle of the city by AT Fly. It was already uninhabitable due to excessive attacks by the Melkia Space Force. It was hell. The sky, the ground, and the buildings were all on fire. But there were still people running around. To our eyes, they were only prolonging their suffering.
I pulled the trigger and moved forward like a madman in search of prey.
“I’m a member of the Melkia Strategic Armored Corps Special Mission Group, X-1, the Bloodsucking Squad!”
I screamed and killed, sweltering from the flickering flames and the smell of blood. That’s when it happened. That’s when I saw it!
No, it wasn’t just me. Gregor was 300 yards away. Baiman was a mile to the north. Muza, who was 30 yards ahead of me, also saw it.
A girl, that girl in white!
My AT’s gliding wheels scraped the burnt road surface and came to an abrupt stop. The girl stood there with her arms outstretched, as if she was trying to get through. At the tip of her right hand shone a piece of chalk as white as her clothes.
She looked up at me with eyes that were angry, sad, and above all, appealing to something. She sat down and drew a line on the ground with the chalk in her right hand. The girl stood up, pointed to the white line at her feet, and shouted, shaking her head strongly.
“You can’t come here!”
I couldn’t have heard her. The situation around me could not have allowed a human voice to carry into my cockpit. But to my ears, I heard it loud and clear.
“You can’t come here!”
Gregor, Baiman, and Muza all heard it. The muscle cylinders of our ATs went rigid, and each drive system refused to work. Our guns wouldn’t go off, and our gliding wheels were not moving. We and the girl stared at each other, keeping the same distance as when we had met.
How much time passed? Maybe time had stopped. We were screaming in unheard voices.
“Run! You’ll be burned by the fire! Quickly! Quickly!”
But the girl did not move. She stood there as if guarding the white line at her feet.
We were accused of refusing to fight during an operation. And now we were standing in front of Pailsen. We didn’t open our mouths. They wouldn’t believe us anyway. What we saw must have been some kind of illusion that cowards often see on the battlefield.
Pailsen stood up and said the same line again.
“Red Shoulders shouldn’t do what you did!”
Chapter 12: REUNION
It had been almost two months since Uoodo was engulfed in flames by the Melkia AT drop team under Rochina’s command. In search of Fyana, I wandered around the area where the Secret Society seemed to be hiding. But my leads on them were too few. I couldn’t see even a shadow of the organization, and time passed in vain.
Now I was in Ta Bing. The city was full of vitality, caught up in a so-called whirlwind economy. Ta Bing is a port town open to the continent of Lorashil. If you cross the ocean about 85 miles northwest, you’ll reach the Baramil Peninsula, which juts out from Lorashil toward the equator. It’s the most important peninsula in the world. There lies the Kingdom of Kumman.
Kummen emerged on the planet Melkia during the Hundred Years War, and was pro-Balarant. The outskirts remained neutral. Not wanting to make enemies in the belly, the Melkia Central Organization left it untouched. Kummen wasn’t outspoken during the war, but after the war ended, they began to interfere politically and militarily.
In addition to burning the borders, the Kingdom had its own internal fires. Kummen had abolished its monarchy and become a republic several years earlier. The ruling class was nostalgic for the old days. Its third prince, Kanjelman, proclaimed Kummen a sacred kingdom and raised in army in the ancient city of Mulaha.
War is like a hungry pig. Not only weapons and ammunition, but also clothing, food, medicine, etc. …and people.
The city of Ta Bing was bustling with people addicted to war. I was in pursuit of a secret organization in search of Fyana, but I myself was also being hunted by the military. As a fugitive, I appreciated this city. People were everywhere around me. It was the law of this town not to question the mistakes of those who gathered here. Money brought in by the war established the city’s dangerous autonomy.
The mercenary office was located in a corner of the warehouse district facing the port. On the outer wall of the office were flyers for two different types of mercenaries: the Government army of Kummen and the army of the Holy Kingdom. In other words, the job vacancies were listed side by side.
The amount of compensation for each skill and career danced in red. The job postings were based on past military service, the type of firearms you could handle, the vehicles you could operate, and the number of years you had served in the military. Aircraft qualified/unqualified, and…there it was! Jobs for AT riders. Votoms guys.
The main battleground of the Kummen uprising is the jungle. ATs are the main weapon, equipped with swamp clogs for swamp warfare. The pay for Votoms was high.
But for me, the pay was not the issue. The Secret Society was involved in either one camp or the other. Could I find a clue that would take me to Fyana, or…?
She was a top secret in the military called a PS. If that organization was focusing on PS R&D in anticipation of the next war, it was quite conceivable that they were using the Kummen uprising as a testing ground. I pondering this while squeezed into a group of sweaty men volunteering for battle, and I was tapped on the shoulder.
My body and mind tensed. But there was no need to panic. This was Ta Bing. Even the military wouldn’t be able to touch me. I stared at the flyer, pretending to be oblivious. A voice called out to me.
“Votoms riders, don’t be too hasty to signing that contract.”
A feeling of relief spread through my body. I was already familiar with the tone of that voice. I turned around and saw a man standing in front of me, just as I had imagined. He was wearing a satin scarf with fancy embroidery, a top and bottom military-issue field uniform, black shirt, and military shoes with loose and sloppy straps. He was chewing gum with more chin than necessary. I wondered why they all look the same, like they’re in uniform.
“Follow me, and I’ll sell you at a good price,” he said confidently.
Even the tone of their voices is the same. He shook his shoulders and started walking. These guys are Batsong scouts. They commission us Votoms riders to matchmakers to get some money. But if you’re not careful, you can be sold out. The game of your life may not amount to a penny.
I couldn’t decide whether to join the government or the rebel army. I took the man’s invitation and started following his flashy back. It didn’t matter if I crossed the ocean a day or two later. If I went to the Battling venue, I might be able to get some information about the organization or the PS. After all, the PS was supposed to be developed as an AT pilot…
The guy took me to a cafe five minutes from the mercenary office at the port. The front of the cafe seemed to have been bombed, and it was sandwiched between collapsed buildings on either side. There were several trailers parked there with their ATs. I could tell that they were probably dedicated to the Pro Battling players, which meant this place was a hangout for Battling bastards. As I followed the man inside, the Votoms guys gazed at me.
The guy looked back at me and cocked his big chin toward an empty table. I sat down and he raised one hand as if to say, “Wait a minute.” He walked over to the counter and talked to the barman about something. Judging from the look in the bartender’s eyes, he must have been talking about me. Saying something about how he brought in a nice pair of balls or something. Maybe the bartender would be able to connect me to a matchmaker.
The man returned to the table with a bottle of whiskey and a glass.
“Well, have a drink.”
He poured the amber liquid into the two glasses and looked at me as he put his to his lips. The Votoms in the bar were all pretending to be unaware of my presence, watching to see if I would touch the whiskey or not. In other words, they were evaluating me as a Votoms rider. I don’t want to use alchohol, which slows down my reflexes when operating an AT, when 1/100th of a second is at stake. But that didn’t mean there weren’t some Votoms who couldn’t stand the strain of battling and escaped to alcohol.
When the guy saw me not touching my glass, he emptied his own glass in one gulp.
“Good, that’s what I’m talking about,” he said with a smile.
At that moment, the bartender called to the man. He had a telephone receiver in his hand. The man stood up, put his face in my face, and whispered with strong whiskey breath, “I’ll sell it to you for a good price. Show me your skills at the game and I’ll get you a good price at the mercenary’s office, too.”
He took the receiver and started his business meeting with a stupid laugh.
I turned my attention from the man and looked around the place. One of these guys might be my opponent in tomorrow’s game. It might be the guy squinting at the cigarette smoke by the window. Or it might be one of the four at the center table, playing cards. Or maybe the guy over there, biting into a steak dripping with blood.
Well, in any case, I didn’t intend to have a Real Battle. That’s what I decided. I’m comfortable with that until I find you, Fyana…
I noticed a staircase by the counter. There was a hotel above the cafe. Okay, when he came back to his seat, I’d ask him for an advance payment. He couldn’t say no to this. I was a good candidate to him, so he could tolerate a little expense until he got me a contract with a matchmaker. Well, it was a necessary expense. First bath in a long time, a meal with soup that almost burns your tongue…
I’m sure there would be enough of these guys to stave off the unresolved thoughts in my mind. Then a guy who came down the stairs revived one of them.
“Muza!”
I stood up, making a noise with my chair, and Muza looked at me.
“Chirico!”
“You’re alive?”
Muza sat down at the table, staring at my face like a hole in the wall, not answering my question.
The man who had been loudly selling me to a matchmaker dropped the receiver on the counter like he was throwing it away. He scooted over to the table and took a bite out of Muza.
“Hey, he’s my exclusive. I don’t need any help from you!”
Muza stared at the man and growled at him.
“He’s my comrade from the Red Shoulder days. When did he sign a contract with you?”
The man’s eyes widened as if to pop out, and a muffled voice escaped his mouth.
“R-Red Shoulder?”
He took a couple steps back. Muza didn’t wait for the man’s answer, but turned his face to me.
“Chirico, Gregor is looking for you.”
“The sergeant? He’s still alive?”
“We know where Pailsen is.”
Pailsen! I felt a lightning bolt in my eye.
CODA
Mapping out a timeline for this side story goes as follows: Chapter 3 recounts the climax of TV Episode 1. Chapters 5 and 6 occur just prior to Chirico entering Uoodo City in Episode 2 (the end of a six-month gap). Chapter 12 occurs between the end of the Uoodo arc (TV Episode 13) and the start of The Last Red Shoulder, a period of two months.
Very observant fans will notice that Chirico’s encounter with chekov thorns tracks almost line for line with a scene in Battlefield, the 5th episode of Armor Hunter Merowlink. When you come up with a good framing device for a story, you don’t let it fade away after one use.
