Zoids

In a remote desert on the Planet Zi, a boy named Van discovers an abandoned, dilapidated facility. Inside, he finds an opaque cocoon that breaks on its own, and a dinosaur-like robot known as an "Organoid" emerges from the shell. Van names the creature Zeke and claims it for himself, but a group of bandits come after him to seize the Organoid. The bandits are equipped with "Zoids," beast-like mechanical units that are used for combat. Van is able to fend off his pursuers by reviving and fusing with an old Zoid dubbed the "Shield Liger."

Van returns to the facility with Zeke in tow and finds a new cocoon. He is ecstatic that he may have obtained another Organoid, but when the cocoon breaks, a girl emerges from it instead. Unaware of her origins, the girl only remembers that her name is Fiona and that she has to locate an object called the "Zoid Eve." Determined to solve the mystery behind her existence, Fiona ventures out alongside Van and Zeke to uncover what the Zoid Eve truly is. The trio runs across many friends and foes in their adventure, encountering various dangers and experiencing slices of light-heartedness as they travel.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Flyheight, Van Main

Kishio, Daisuke Japanese

Linette, Elisi Main

Ohmoto, Makiko Japanese

Zeke Main

Suzuki, Takuma Japanese

Raven Supporting

Saiga, Mitsuki Japanese

Irvine Supporting

Fujiwara, Keiji Japanese

Schubaltz, Karl Supporting

Ueda, Yuuji Japanese

Reese Supporting

Hidaka, Noriko Japanese

Moonbay Supporting

Watanabe, Kumiko Japanese

Shadow Supporting

Suzuki, Takuma Japanese

Prozen, Gunther Supporting

Chino, Takatoshi Producer

Hiramatsu, Kiyonori Producer

Nakazawa, Toshihiro Producer

Morotomi, Hirofumi Producer

Reviews

Jul 16, 2007

VK11

Recommended

Zoids is a mecha anime about people who control beast-like units. Unlike Gundams, they aren\'t really used in space (at least in this particular anime) but are used for purposes such as transportation and of course, battles. This anime was the starting point of the Zoids franchise, and after watching the anime a few times (both in English dubs and Japanese subs), one can point out that it was a great way to start of the Zoids phenomena.

The story, although your simple "country raised kid rises up to the challenge of saving the world from evil," is very good and has ... enough plot twists in between to leave you on the edge of your seat and wanting for more. What made this Zoids saga different from the others were the miniature Zoids organoids that were able to fuse with their larger counterparts and in essence, bring the Zoid to life with more power than before. What really makes the story great is the epic battles they have between many Zoids.

These epic battles for the most part, are animated very well. For being an older anime (debuted in 1999) it still holds up to today\'s standards fairly well and really does not disappoint. The characters themselves look a bit bland at times, but it isn\'t to the degree where its unwatchable.

The sound is so-so. Because it\'s been awhile since I saw this anime, I don\'t remember a lot of the scores used, but I do remember for scores used for the battles and they fit just right.

All of the main characters have very distinct personalities and you\'ll come to have your favorites most definitely. Van and Fiona have believable strengths and weaknesses given their environment and always seem to have an enemy, or rival, to go against up with. There really isn\'t a boring moment where you\'ll find that the protagonists are superior to everyone else.

All in all, the anime was a great start to the Zoids saga. Though a lot of the following stories after were not as great, this is still a classic. The stirring romance between Van and Fiona again is something you\'ll fall in love with as the story progresses and is one more reason to give this show a try. To end with, if you\'re one of the younger anime audiences out there and like mecha anime, but haven\'t given the original Zoids a try because of the lackluster performances of the others, I urge you to give this one a shot.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Dec 9, 2012

ggultra2764

Mixed Feelings

Preliminary (34/67 eps)

Do note that my thoughts in this review focus more on the first half to Chaotic Century that I had rewatched recently and do not include anything coming from the second half of the series, Guardian Force. With that said, onto the review:

Nostalgia can be quite the strange little thing at times. Sometimes, it can make you think of times that you believe were better than they are now. Other times, you may have rose-coloured glasses on how you believed certain things were when you were younger. The latter was the case for me when I seen Zoids: Chaotic Century ten years ago on Toonami. ... Just starting out my fandom in anime, I thought of it to be a decent mecha adventure series focused on the exploits of Van, Fiona and their pals on Planet Zi as they become entangled in war between two rival kingdoms and deal with the threat of a powerful legendary Zoid towards later in the series. It is still recognized to this day by older anime fans as the most memorable part of the Zoids franchise as it actually had an ongoing storyline and was seen as not so bland and merchandise-driven as other parts of the franchise like New Century Zero and Fuzors.

Coming back to it ten years later with more experience, exposure and some jadedness in viewing anime, I can't necessarily say Chaotic Century's aged too well with what I've been exposed to in the past decade. The series carries a blend of the typical cliches you could find within mecha and shounen action anime. Many characters within the series carry some sort of archetype typical of both approaches such as Van your typical young, energetic, adventurous, dense and naive male lead; Irvine the aloof and troublemaking partner with a heart of gold; Raven the psychotic and merciless renegade with his eyes set on the lead; and a nice number of antagonists who are cruel, merciless and desiring power for no particular reason other than the fact they are evil. There are some interesting characters that stuck out for me not being so bland like the mercenary pair of Rosso and Viola plus Major Schubaltz, but they're mostly supporting characters to the otherwise mostly bland lead characters. I don't even want to think of the number of times I felt the urge to whack Van atop the head for his "fight first, ask questions later" mentality he exhibited at many points throughout Zoids that you would expect of enough plucky leads from shounen action anime titles.

The major elements of the plot to Chaotic Century involve discovering the origins of Fiona's character and the ongoing tensions between the Guylos Empire and Helic Republic. The former does get a reasonable amount of build up as hints are dropped throughout much of the series regarding Fiona's origins and her possible connection to the mentioned powerful Zoid. The mentioned war, on the other hand, is a bit hollow with its plot thanks to the limited amount of fleshing out there was on both kingdoms and the reasons surrounding the war as it felt mostly like a backdrop for any reason for Van and his group to face their adventures and put up with Prozen's later manipulations. I'm all for seeing an anime focused on a fictional war. But if the series isn't even gonna bother properly exploring both sides and their reasons for engagement like the Gundam franchise and Legend of the Galactic Heroes, then I'm not gonna be as invested into it.

Visually, Chaotic Century's animation is on the standard side for a late 90s to early 2000s TV anime with its scenery and character designs, with the CG animated Zoids sticking out like a sore thumb compared to the hand-drawn character designs. There are a number of occasions where the series resorts to animation shortcuts with its battles such as reused frames and speed stripes. Still, some of the concepts for the Zoids when used in battle were quite unique such as how the Geno Saurer can make itself into a charged particle gun and the use of the E-Shields from Shield Ligers as a sort of battering ram.

Still though, I can't say Zoids: Chaotic Century was the show that I remembered it to be from a decade earlier thanks to my exposure to the common cliches it makes use of and having a nice number of hollow elements to its storyline. It does beat out the mentioned New Century Zero and Fuzors in that it doesn't feel as merchandise-driven with its series run and having an actual plot that it follows. But nostalgia for anime I seen years ago can only carry a series so far for me if it doesn't have anything that sticks out with it too strongly.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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May 6, 2019

MrLegitimacy

Not Recommended

Seriously, how do I keep coming back to these Studio Xebec shows? They've produced so much over the years, and some of it is actually decent, but not this one. Zoids (Chaotic Century if you're American) had a huge amount of potential, but was completely watered down with flat visuals, a bloated cast of shallow characters, and way too many episodes of what amount to filler.

This show had all the ingredients to be one of my favorites. It follows all of my stupid rules to make a great mecha show:
-It keeps the same theme song throughout
-There's a robot battle in every episode
-The robots are in ... CG, which is dank as hell!
-They play the theme song at the climax of each episode to reinforce the hype

But none of this could keep me from being bored out of my mind within the first 30 episodes.

I started this show on January 1st, and finished on May 6th. That's 126 days, so 67 episodes/127 days gives just over 1/2 an episode as a daily average. Even giving myself the advantage of watching every episode at double speed, I could not bring myself to watch more than that. Let me not understate how bad that is--I have watched far worse shows at a religious one-a-day pace just to end the pain, but I was so disinterested in this show that I couldn't be arsed to spare 12 minutes a day for it.

Let's examine why this might be:

The direction is beyond uninspired. Every shot is framed well enough so the kids at home can keep up with what's happening, but forget about going above and beyond to add any visual intrigue to the show. The standout eyesores for me were the establishing shots which far outstay their welcome, and are almost unbearably slow even at double speed. The art style, which leans towards realistic proportions, does not lend itself to having expressive characters. Sure the characters are on model very consistently, but half the time they look like cardboard cutouts with a terribly drab and muted color palette. This style may have been a choice to fit with the more rigid lines of the Zoid designs, but they really shot themselves in the foot by taking away the one means by which their boring characters might have had a small amount of visual flair.

These boring characters are all pretty one dimensional. At most a character will have one defining trait, and receive little to no character development throughout the entire run of the series. I can recall maybe one or two episodes focused on developing a backstory or exploring character motivations for each of our main cast. That's one or two episodes out of almost 70. A great majority of episodes do nothing to challenge our characters on a personal level, and just involved the aforementioned regularly scheduled robot battle. The antagonists show similar levels of depth, and are really only relevant to the story if they have a powerful Zoid.

What really confounds me is that they had a lot of great ideas to work with and could have told a gripping story. In episode ONE we establish our heroes are looking for an ancient artifact/location called "Zoid Eve" that seems like it could drive a long running mystery plot, only to be cast aside and never mentioned for a vast majority of the episodes. There is a planet-wide military conflict that our characters become wrapped up in, but almost no focus on what motivated the war or its repercussions on the people of each nation. Near half way through there is a time skip, and it does nothing significant to grow or change our characters. Don't forget that they're on a planet crawling with giant robot animals that they go out of their way to show are sentient, but never pause to make our characters wonder about the morality of people's relationships with Zoids by taking the Pokemon route.

So who should watch Zoids? If you're looking to commit long term to an easygoing shounen series with abundant robot battles, Zoids is a good candidate for you. Those looking for anything of substance should steer clear.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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