Choujin Gakuen Gowcaizer: The Voltage Fighters

It is the dawn of the 21st century. The cataclysmic earthquake which reduced half of Tokyo to a broken landscape of twisted steel and shattered stone was only the first sign of the impending apocalypse.

Athletic and popular, Isato Kaiza was an otherwise ordinary student. But nothing could've prepared him for the day he was given a Caizer Stone by fellow student Kash , alias Hellstinger. Armed with the mysterious crystal, Isato now possesses the power to transform into the armored hero: Gowcaizer!

To save the Earth, Gowcaizer and Hellstinger must join forces against Omni Exist, the manifestation of all negative human desires, and the force behind the recent disasters, before the entity obliterates the human race!

Kaiza, Isato Main

Hiyama, Nobuyuki Japanese

Sun, Hualing Main

Sakurai, Tomo Japanese

Shu Silveianu, Shaia Main

Touma, Yumi Japanese

Fudou, Rampou Supporting

Hori, Hideyuki Japanese

Asahina, Suzu Supporting

Nagashima, Yuko Japanese

Kubila Supporting

Ohmoto, Makiko Japanese

Oosaki, Shizuru Supporting

Hayami, Show Japanese

Sigurd, Kyousuke Supporting

Okiayu, Ryoutarou Japanese

Mizutani, Kash Supporting

Midorikawa, Hikaru Japanese

Asahina, Ryou Supporting

Ishikawa, Hideo Japanese

Oobari, Masami Director, Storyboard, Chief Animation Director, Character Design

Mima, Masafumi Sound Director

Nakayama, Takehiro Storyboard, Key Animation

Endoh, Masaaki Theme Song Performance

Reviews

Jan 7, 2009

Ilyaoh

Recommended

Let me remind you people, this is a anime out of the late '90s

Let's begin with the story, our main protoganist is given a Caizer Stone. Armed with this mysterious crystal, Isato posseses a power to transform in the hero, Gowcaizer. But for the higher purpose, To save the earth, Gowcaizer and his partner in crime, Hellstinger must fight the evil Omni Exist, a manifestation of all negative desires, and of course the source/force after behind the recent disasters.

It'...s a pretty cool story, they brought it well in this anime, actually nothing to say, except is is a good story.

The art is from a lesser ... level, but hey, it's old. Aside that it's a pretty good style to draw, the animation is of the "90s" level too, but it's extremely good for that time. Same goes for the sound.

The characters, not much to tell there, everythings standard, we have the standard hero with his friend as sidekick, the needed women to bring up the odds and the guy who we think is bad.. but is actually good. As far as the enemy's go, we've got some slime monsters with tentacle's, the mastermind who's all powerfull and the needed minions who match the good guys. And of course one character that gets possesed by the evil force and has to be rescued.

Pretty standard right.

But it's an enjoyable anime, if you like good animation of this time and quality, then it's not an anime for you, but if you don't give a shit if it's old or new, or don't care about quality, then this old anime is something good to see.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Oct 31, 2022

Gsarthotegga

Not Recommended

I don't drink alcohol, but I want to pretend I was drunk to counter the fact that I was like "No, this actually isn't that bad, and you just don't appreciate classic '90s OVA anime with unique character design and occasionally very good animation. It's a short action piece and you have to confront it similar to how you would look at a kung fu film. Quit being a whiner and go watch your stiff as a board seasonal anime with 3D backgrounds, generic MC, and characters who all look the same other than their swappable rainbow hair." Okay, it actually just sucks. I'll admit ... it. A rating of 3-4 seems doable if you REALLY appreciate certain aspects, but the pacing and writing are atrocious enough that this does get boring, and boring is not something you want for even a second with a brainless fighting game adaptation. Typical of those, it's too short for the characters to have any depth or for there to be anything but a compressed story, but it's just long enough to drag.

The story is generic. It's something about a bad boy principal at a school and stones they can use to turn into like half-naked bondage soldiers. They basically get big shoulder pads, spikes, gems, and random bits of armor, and it gives them superhuman strength and they can say words to do attacks from an old NeoGeo game. Kast takes the basic dumb-dumb good vs evil story and tries to turn it into some more vague and complex dualism, but it's just longwinded and doesn't really work—the staff winks at the audience by having the female character fall asleep during his tedious explanation. There's a similar scene in Tamala 2010, a much better film, where I thought that worked as a joke. Here, it feels more like an apology: "Sorry, guys, I know this sucked. I was too busy drawing weird, messy character designs from an alternate dimension to bother with scripting." The writing is the junk food equivalent of post-modern philosophy, which is filled with trite, stupid, society-destroying ideas, but wrapped up in fancy dancing and clunky language to instill depth that isn't really there. This is similar, only everyone knows this is stupid because it's a Masami Obari freakshow.

Seriously, it's a freak show. These are like garbled malformed meat men with bodies that shift into new meaty forms every frame. Obari has created hentai, and he definitely is known for low-brow trashy anime with plenty of fanservice, scantily clad females, bouncing breasts, visible nipples through fabric, and very revealing butt shots (they are usually more than panty shots because of the silly thonged-up costumes) from creative angles. He actually does a pretty good job with some of the selected shots, if you're into that kind of thing. The problem is... um... look at the COVER! Obari has a hard enough time with proportions and not creating warped abominations, and the faces are especially ugly. You can tell the women are just there to be sexy (they're not necessary to the plot at all other than dog woman, I guess), but the faces are so distorted sometimes these might as well be the nurses from Silent Hill. The manly men suffer from the same problems, but at least Obari isn't trying to make them look sexy! Just look at pink-haired Mr. Tumblr's funnily shaped head. I'd say the same about the main character, but I feel like we never get a clear idea of what he looks like because he looks different in every frame!

I'm of the opinion that Obari's talent was squandered during the '90s OVA boom. The main villain in this is such a massive creepy blob of malevolence, looking like something straight out of a horror film. He should have helmed horror films with constantly off-model character design and a big animation budget—just look at the villain for this, which actually does have kind of a freaky design suggestive of a legitimate horror film. We'd have instant classics for sure. Imagine this guy making Lovecraftian cosmic horror, Edgar Allan Poe, or even Edogawa Rampo! He's got the design work down already for cosmic space aliens and slumbering sea demons. Just let Obari work his magic.

On the bright side, this production sometimes has pretty decent backdrops for the art and creative cinematography, and there is a certain stylization to Obari's direction that is often overlooked due to the focus on bad writing and ugly character designs. The animation is fairly consistent and fluid and is very interesting in light of the design work, and there's a lot of great sequences from Yoh and Kou Yoshinari. Kazuto Nakazawa also worked on this, and while I don't know all of the names responsible for key animation, there's some obvious talent here. You'll see anime staples like Kanada dragon and Itano circus to fair effect as well. All the best scenes are on Sakugabooru, so there's really not much of a good excuse to watch this anymore.

Reviewer’s Rating: 2

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Aug 14, 2015

Colonelfancy

Not Recommended

Masami Obari. Every time I revisit one of your works, I'm reminded of the time I got a second degree burn on my ring finger from touching an overheated lawnmower. I could reach my hand blindfolded in a bucket full of used needles and come out with something more full of substance than Obari's OAV vehicles. He works primarily in hentai now (and those that I've seen aren't good either, like Viper GTS), but before that, Obari spent the 90's wrecking one of my favorite fighting games with Fatal Fury The Motion Picture, a movie that is brazen proof video-based anime are ultimately bad ... ideas. And then there's Voltage Fighter Gowcaizer, a slightly below mediocre NEO*NEO fighting game so obscure and unaware of its own existence, it might mistake itself for World Heroes 2 Jet when questioned.
STORY: So it's bad enough this fighting game that not a lot of people out side of hardcore SNK/NEO*GEO are aware of, Voltage Fighter Gowcaizer premises it's story with the tone of "none of your business". This is 90's anime at its worst, at least until the Tekken Animated Movie years later. Fighting game stories seldom matter, so as long as the gameplay is intense and satisfying, so when transitioning this subject matter to a different medium, i.e. an anime, it's important to add an element that relatable to the viewer not familiar with said product. Fatal Fury 2 The New Battle added Tony, an original character whose sole purpose is to be a plot device to give Terry a reason to rematch Krauser. Tony's wild ambition, stubbornness, and will to never give up reminded Terry of himself at that age. VFG (as its fans have NEVER called it) gives you no reason to care about whose fighting or why. It's a horrible hodgepodge of inane dialogue with another fight crammed in between to break up the monotony, which it fails to do. Things happen with no rhyme or reason, barely makes any sense, and nothing is explained in a manner that would have you want to invest interest. SCORE: 3
ART: Typical Masami Obari character designs at full force here; pencil-thin men with -14% body fat, yet somehow ripped to shreds with muscle. The anorexic, hook-nosed women with round, protruding eyes that take up a third of their heads, topped off with Obari's subtle respect for the female form, the grotesque, gravity-defying bouncing breasts that juggle for weeks if the ladies did as much as take a sip of coffee! This man actually made me sterile to breasts before I was 18, I didn't even think that could happen!! In short, the characters are all hideous, you could swap hairstyles and outfits and barely tell them apart. The costumes look as if you redesigned Saint Seiya armor into S&M bondage gear, which isn't all that much of a stretch. The only thing that I can salvage is that the animation isn't all that bad and the production values seem pretty good for its time period. SCORE: 4
SOUND: The English dub (which I'm not sure if it was done by Ocean Group or Laughing Dog) is mediocre, if not completely forgettable. This is still that period before Pokémon, when the quality of English dubbing, unless it came from one of the more established studios with their own in-house flavor. ADV, Manga Entertainment, for example) was so laughably bad it became good, or downright terrible. U.S. Manga Corps (Man, I really miss them) turned this inconsistency into an art form! You'll watch Dominion Tank Police or Project A-ko, two phenomenally dubbed anime, then you turn on Cyber City 0808 (or E0E8, I could never tell from the box art) and go, "What the f**k am I listening to!? Did he just say, "You wouldn't know a ghoddam vampire if it jumped up and bit you on the end of your f***ing dick."!?. Gowcaizer falls in the middle........no dick biting...or depending on what floats your boat, I'm sorry there's no dick biting here for you. SCORE: 5
REWATCH VALUE: Because I'm like flies attracted to dog poop for 90's anime, this has enough silliness and its flee-flowing, don't care attitude makes it easy to watch if you happen to have an anime club or something. I miss OAVs like this because they don't require a lot of input on your end just to stay invested. With today's anime writing style, I feel I have to make a commitment to watch just a handful of episodes of something and really pay attention to it, otherwise, I'll be lost by episode 4. There are significantly better 90's OAVs I can recommend that make great background noise, like Cleopatra D.C., Elf Princess Rane, or Saber Marionette. At three episodes, running 90 minutes total, it feels like it goes on forever and the lack of substance will probably mean turning it off after one episode, unless by some miracle, a viewer leeched sympathy for these clods and WANTS to know what happens. SCORE 4
OVERALL: Dumb OAV. Dumb director. I will continue to despise his works. Go play Garou: The Mark of the Wolves. FINAL SCORE 3/10

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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