Votoms, Armored Trooper Stage 4: God Planet Quent -

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Mania Grade: C+

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  • Audio Rating: B
  • Video Rating: C+
  • Packaging Rating: B
  • Menus Rating: B
  • Extras Rating: N/A
  • Age Rating: 13 & Up
  • Region: 1 - North America
  • Released By: Central Park Media
  • MSRP: 34.95
  • Running time: 325
  • Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
  • Disc Resolution: 480i/p (mixed/unknown)
  • Disc Encoding: MPEG-2
  • Series: Votoms, Armor Trooper

Votoms, Armored Trooper Stage 4: God Planet Quent

By Chris Beveridge     August 25, 2006
Release Date: August 08, 2006

Votoms, Armored Trooper Stage 4: God Planet Quent
© Central Park Media

What They Say
Once, the planet Quent was home to the most advanced race in the galaxy...until they unleashed a power so terrifying that they destroyed their own civilization. This power now lies at the heart of Chirico Cuvie's destiny. When he finds it, the culmination of an ancient experiment will propel him to a position of Godhood...if the combined might of two galactic armies doesn't destroy him first! Contains Episodes 40-52 on 2 DVDs.

The Review!
The fourth and final arc of the series runs through in much the same manner as the previous arcs but it gets a fair bit more epic and unfortunately a bit too repetitious.






The last thirteen episodes of the series make up this fourth and final arc in the VOTOMS series as Chirico heads to the planet Quent in order to find out what his real history is all about. After getting hints that he'll find all the answers he needs there during his time on and around Sunsa, he and Fyana make their way off there after escaping from the various forces that were staging in Sunsa. We saw some of how that journey went in the last volume and get a brief flashback to it here as well but it's the time on Quent where the show spends most of its time now.

Just like the previous locales in the series, Quent is an interesting place and not like a lot of others. The original civilization on the planet was once so highly advanced compared to everyone else that they feared their own power and it went to hell in a handbasket pretty quick as they let it consume them. They withdraw from the galaxy in a prominent way and shifted their own civilization so that it fragmented into a couple thousand tribes instead of what they were. The warriors of Quent are still in demand though and through the single modern city that offworlders use there, they hire themselves out as mercenaries. When Chirico ends up on Quent in search of a Quentian, he's surprised to find that they're actually rather hard to come across. During the entire fourth arc in fact, we only see two true Quentians that I can recall.

The Quent arc has Chirico acting alone for a lot of it as he tries to figure out what it is about this planet and potentially someone on it that's behind the way his life has been led up until now. Everyone else in the series is making their way for Quent though and upon arrival find that there are a lot of forces coming here to see what's going to happen. The three rival forces that happen to have Chirico's friends in tow as well are still keyed into the Perfect Soldier storyline and the acquisition of Fyana is still high on the list. But as they get closer to Chirico, they find that on the planet Quent that there is an amazing ancient technology that has been guiding Chirico's life for some time and has chosen him to be the successor/inheritor to the wealth of power that the planet has control over. Suffice to say, Chirico suddenly becomes the hottest property in the galaxy, especially after the planet displays its power in eliminating several of the Ballarant and Giglamesh fleets.

Little different than previous arcs, a lot of this show is focused around the various action scenes and lots of AT action. Similar to Sunsa, we get an interesting mix of locales with it in that Quent is a fairly rough and barren planet but it has a mix of new buildings that are already rundown as well as the really old but significantly advanced structures that are hidden within the old towers that the Quentians abandoned. Unlike some of the past arcs though, Fyana and the others don't get quite as much screentime or action material for them and it's kept much closer to Chirico. There's plenty to do with Ypsilon and others throughout it but the focus on Chirico becomes even stronger as it goes forward.

Something about this arc just didn't register in the same way the previous ones did. The focus on Chirico certainly isn't a bad thing and it didn't detract from the show since this was basically something of an origin story for him, but the concept behind the Quent intelligence and how that played out just felt like it was lacking somehow. When taken in context with the number of fleets that were being thrown at the planet and the importance of the entire Perfect Soldier concept that has carried the series so far, having it become not only secondary as this arc progressed but completely marginalized just felt like we went through so much stuff and saw suffering by Perfect Soldiers all for nothing. And the reasoning behind why the Quent intelligence had chosen Chirico was never truly clear; was it just that he was the first Overman born outside of Quent or was it really something more that he had that made him suitable? Whereas in previous arcs the number of episodes helped to explore the theme and the characters in order to tell the story, I think they had too many episodes here to tell it and it resulted in things being drawn out just too much and too repetitious in some ways with the battles.

In Summary:
With news of there being a new VOTOMS release of some kind in the works in Japan, the ending to this show takes on a new meaning. This show has a definite ending to it and it's quite good as it goes through the last couple of episodes run through as Chirico's plans come together. There are some things I'm not exactly thrilled about with this last arc though as it seems to push aside important themes of the series in favor of just what they want to cover now but overall I'm glad to have finally seen the entire series and what kind of influences its had over the years. CPM's release of this show is leaps and bounds over what we got back years ago through NuTech Entertainment and hopefully has been seen by a lot of new fans who will appreciate some good classic mecha anime.

Japanese 2.0 Language,English Subtitles

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