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New Votoms Anime Films' Trailer Unveils Cast, More Staff

The official website for Sunrise and Production I.G's Sōkō Kihei Votoms Haiiro no Hexe (Armored Trooper Votoms: Die Graue Hexe or literally, Armored Trooper Votoms: The Grey Witch), the two new anime films in the Armored Trooper Votoms franchise, revealed the full trailer and character visual for the anime on Friday. The trailer reveals the anime's cast, as well as more staff members.

Miyuki Sawashiro plays Ash Vamps (left in visual above), a notorious and feared AT pilot called the Grey Witch. Mabuki Andou plays Maki Stauffenberg (right), an officer secretly assigned to look into Ash's past.

Other cast members include Shinichirō Miki, Yūki Kaji, Yūichi Nakamura, Satoshi Tsuruoka, Tomokazu Sugita, Kenta Miyake, Chafurin, Hōchū Ōtsuka, Daisuke Ono, Takayuki Sugō, Takahiro Sakurai, and Sumire Uesaka.

The newly announced staff members include:

• Original Character Design Concepts: Kazuchika Kise (xxxHOLiC, Made in Abyss, Fate/Grand Order The Movie Divine Realm of the Round Table: Camelot)
• Character Design: Shingo Ogiso, Takashi Kojima, Tetsuya Nishio
• Original Mechanical Designer: Kunio Ōkawara
• Mechanical Design: Jū Ishiguchi, Wataru Inada
• Costume Design Assistance: Katsuya Terada
• Art Design: Satoshi Takabatake, Yasumitsu Suetake, Kazushige Kanehira
• Art Director: Yūshi Honjō
• Color Key Artist: Nagisa Abe
• Compositing Director of Photography: Yūki Kawashita
• CG Directors: Yōta Tasaki, Toshihisa Yokoshima, Jō Nakajima
• Editing: Aya Hida
• Sound Director: Kazuhiro Wakabayashi

Mamoru Oshii is directing the two films. Ryōsuke Takahashi, director and creator of the original concept for the original 1983 Armored Trooper Votoms anime, is supervising the film. Shinobu Tsuneki (The Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Die Neue These, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Kaiju No. 8) and Sōkō Kihei Votoms: AT Stories manga artist Yoshiro Sōno are the mechanical designers. Kenji Kawai, who has worked with Oshii in various projects including Ghost in the Shell and Patlabor 2: The Movie, is composing the music.

The 1983 Armored Trooper Votoms anime is an iconic entry in the so-called "real robot" subgenre of mecha pioneered by Mobile Suit Gundam, characterized by robots as mass-produced military machines (with limitations in operation akin to real-life war machines) and gritty and grounded stories about war and its bitter costs. 

The original 1983 anime is set during the ebb of a century-long conflict between the two nations of the Gilgamesh Confederation and the Balarant Union. The unit that dominates the battlefield is the VOTOMS (Vertical One-man Tank for Offense & Maneuvers), a class of powerful yet extremely vulnerable mecha, known as much for their firepower as they are for the high casualty numbers of their pilots due to thin armor and lack of safety measures. The protagonist, Chirico Cuvie, is a member of an elite Gilgamesh VOTOMS unit that becomes a pawn in a vast conspiracy that brands him a traitor to Gilgamesh, and leads him to cross paths with a mysterious woman.

Section23 Films' Maiden Japan label most recently released the original anime on Blu-ray Disc in 2019 and 2020.

The original series has inspired a number of spinoff anime, including Armored Trooper Votoms: The Last Red Shoulder, Armored Trooper Votoms: Big Battle, Armor Hunter Mellowlink, Armored Trooper Votoms: Red Shoulder Document - Roots of Treachery, Armored Trooper Votoms: Pailsen Files, Armored Trooper Votoms: The Heretic Saint, and Armored Trooper Votoms: Alone Again. Armored Trooper Votoms: Alone Again, the latest entry in the series until now, debuted in 2011.

Sources: Sōkō Kihei Votoms Haiiro no Hexe anime's website, Comic Natalie