Mika Nakashima sings Toshihiko Takamizawa's "Na mo Naki Shijin no Yo ni" for Mamoru Oshii's VOTOMS: Die Graue Hexe
Four weeks before Part 1 opens on November 20, Sunrise released a final trailer, a theme-song trailer and a main visual for its 50th-anniversary VOTOMS film, and revealed the Fatty and Blocker mecha.
THE ALFEE's Toshihiko Takamizawa, a fan of Mamoru Oshii's films, wrote the words and music and did the arrangement for the theme of Oshii's Armored Trooper VOTOMS: Die Graue Hexe (Soko Kihei Votoms: Haiiro no Majo). Mika Nakashima sings it. The song, "Na mo Naki Shijin no Yo ni" ("Like a Nameless Poet"), goes out digitally on November 20, the day the first film opens, followed by a Sony Music Labels CD single on November 25 (AICL-4994, 1,450 yen).
Both artists sent comments. Nakashima said that hearing the intro of Takamizawa's demo pulled her straight into the story, and that she wants to keep singing the song with care. Takamizawa said he set strings, standing for fate, against guitar riffs for human will, and praised her voice as one that neither shouts hope nor sinks into despair.
What the final trailer shows
Sunrise put out a final trailer and a separate theme-song trailer on October 23. The final trailer opens on Maki Stauffenberg gazing up at Armored Troopers in a repair hangar and follows her investigation of Ash Vamps, the penal-unit pilot called the "witch" because she always comes back alive. One line warns that the enemy is not only in front of them. It also gives the Balarant Army's Fatty its first on-screen outing, alongside the older Blocker. According to the official mecha notes, the rounded, shot-deflecting Fatty was developed after Balarant studied captured Scopedogs and is replacing the Blocker on the front.
The new main visual, an original illustration by character designer Takashi Kojima, puts Ash in a Scopedog cockpit holding a rifle.
Oshii in the VOTOMS universe
The film is set near the end of the Hundred Years' War, earlier than the 1983 TV series, which ran 52 episodes. Oshii co-wrote the screenplay with Kei Yamamura, Kenji Kawai composes the score, and original creator Ryosuke Takahashi supervises. Kunio Okawara's original mechanical designs are credited, and Production I.G is assisting Sunrise, for whom the film is a 50th-anniversary production. Miyuki Sawashiro voices Ash and Mabuki Ando plays Maki.
Bandai Namco Filmworks distributes. On opening day, Oshii, Sawashiro, Ando, Shinichiro Miki and Yuki Kaji will appear at two stage greetings at TOHO Cinemas Shinjuku. Part 2 is still undated.
