Name(s): Armored Trooper Votoms: Brilliantly Shining Heresy / Armored Trooper Votoms: The Defrost / Armored Trooper Votoms: The Heretic Saint / The Brilliant Heretic / Armored Trooper Votoms: Shining Heresy / Armored Trooper Votoms – Kakueki taru Itan / 装甲騎兵ボトムズ 赫奕たる異端
Format: OVA (5 30-minute episodes)
Studio(s): Sunrise
Related: Armored Trooper Votoms (1983) / Armored Trooper Votoms: Big Battle (1986)

This review contains MAJOR SPOILERS!

I may not think the original Armored Trooper Votoms is great or anything, but I respect it for a variety of things including its distinct style and tone among both mecha and anime at large. While I have a bunch of shows I’m currently watching at the moment, I felt in the mood to watch something slower and more sullen. This made me start feeling nostalgia for Votoms, so I decided to watch the 1994 sequel OVA released about 11 years after the original.

When things opened up with a brass-led opening that retained the style perfectly I felt at ease, but what at first reminded me of why Votoms‘s grit and pulpy sci-fi setting were so evocative eventually simmered into the realization that Shining Heresy is a not only a predictably unnecessary sequel, but a lackluster and slightly miserable one.

Shining Heresy at least has the feel of Votoms despite the distance from the original material. Its setting is still dystopian and harsh. Chirico is unintentionally awakened from his cold sleep and separated from Fyana, and he becomes involved with a religious cult with vaguely defined beliefs that for some reason worship him as “The Untouchable,” a being unable to die.

Next to no background is given to this church for us to have context about their importance or why Chirico means so much to them or how they even know of him, or how that they should even care about him. The church will soon be naming their pope’s successor, and a devious nominee uses Chirico in his plot to gain power. Chirico doesn’t really give a shit about any of this, and since he’s our only relation to this new setting and characters, neither can we.

Nevertheless, there’s a ridiculous focus on the actual politics behind this fictional religion power struggle as chunks of entire episodes are spent between new characters bickering about the nomination of the new pope even though we never find out why it matters to us, who are only interested in what has to do with Chirico. You never even get a good picture of how much this religion even impacts Votoms‘s universe or what their goals are. It’s a completely pointless use of time and plot focus, pushing Chirico and his goals out of the way.

The only major new character introduced is Teitania, the daughter of one of the possible pope successors and a “Nextant” that’s supposed to replace the Perfect Soldier project. She aims to prove herself by killing Chirico and for literally no given reason, she looks almost exactly like him.

Anyway, they try to kill each other, exchanging next to no words, and Teitania falls in love with Chirico for no reason. Fyana’s romance was sudden as well, but it was at least justified in the story due to the fact that Chirico made an irremovable imprint on her when they saw each other during her programming, and Fyana and Chirico understand each others position as a human weapon better than anyone else. You can possibly make the case for Teitania’s affections with the latter, but it isn’t as believable, because Teitania isn’t as naive or distant as Fyana or Chirico, having lived a relatively normal human life that you figure would make Chirico’s personality incomprehensible to her.

All of this is set up to usher in the worst thing about this OVA, which is that it kills off Fyana. This is spitting in the face of both a beloved and sympathetic character as well as the fans who grew to root for him and his lover after their endless hounding and poor treatment in the series. To just deny Chirico any happiness crosses the point of being a work that’s gritty and dark into being something miserably contrived and mean-spirited.

What did Chirico spend all of the original series fighting for, and for what purpose does he fight now, knowing as we do that the writers will never allow him a victory? And to top it all off, Fyana is replaced by the previously mentioned nonsense affection from Teitania, the very same person who killed Fyana. Unintentionally, yes, but still in a fit of spite.

This OVA ranges from being boring to being a kick in the balls. Whereas it still tonally feels like Votoms, it’s such a poor execution of all those recognizable elements that it doesn’t possess the spark of the original. It had no real reason to be made in the first place, expanding on nothing in the Votoms world we were actually set up to be curious about. In the end, it even manages to make the overarching plot worse with a terribly insensitive, dour twist. It makes you wonder if they even wanted to make another Votoms anime, considering the latter and the attention on creating a Catholicism space opera instead of pulpy sci-fi Chirico adventures. Don’t watch.