It was bound to happen. Fighting games turned into anime have become so numerous that they are rapidly running out of ideas for shows. Of course, the fact that fighting games are already somewhat short on plot doesn't really help. The latest entry into the fighting game anime arena is VOLTAGE FIGHTER GOWCAISER.
This has all the formulaic elements of just about any other show you can think of: a post-apocalyptic Tokyo rebuilt from its ashes, a main character who is confused about his direction in life, another character who wants to "restore his [dead] sister's honor" (meaning, he wants revenge), and a couple of very large-chested women who do enough bouncing to keep an entire staff of animators busy. Oh, and then there are the brother and sister who love each other — in the Biblical sense.
The plot, and I use the term loosely, centers around Ozaki Shizuru, the head of the Belnar Institute, and his plans for the obliteration of mankind. Or something like that - it's not really important. Then there are the main characters who can transform into lethal warriors with the help of special "Caiser stones" given to them, for various reasons, by Ozaki. We switch from scene to scene of the different characters, and it is a full twenty five minutes into the show before the viewer can make any sense of the seemingly randomly-edited scenes.
The character designs are very stylized and take some getting used to; in fact, most of the men look very much like they walked out of girl's comics and put on armor. And the armor is another thing. Armor is an all or nothing deal — giant shoulder pads don't do any good if your entire midsection is bare. Attempts at stylizing the armor make it look like cheap SUPER-SONIC SOLDIER BORGMAN knock offs.
The animation quality and direction is so-so. The fight scenes are decently animated and have average choreography, but the rest of the film suffers. GOWCAISER can't decide if it's going to be hard line, post-apocalyptic, edgy, and dark, or cute and fuzzy. As a result, the jokes aren't that funny and the drama leaves little impression on the viewer. And this show likes to shoot from very decidedly un-PC angles at the strangest times (like during one of the key battles in the episode).
Strangely, the dubbing seems to work well in this program. I'm not sure if it was because dubs are getting better, or because the rest of the show was such a disappointment — or perhaps a little of both. The dialog was no great work of literature, but hey, when the main focus of a show is to get from fight to fight, that is hardly surprising. But the dub certainly did not detract from the viewing experience.
The episode ends as it began — unobtrusively. Suddenly I was watching the ending credits, but not really noticing the difference. In short, though it may have been "based on the hit video game," as CPM claims, it shouldn't have been turned into a show. At least not without a lot more work. And although it was directed by Ohbari Masami, who also directed the FATAL FURY movie and BATTLE ARENA TOSHINDEN, this one is clearly the weakest of the three. With so many other choices for fighting game anime out there, GOWCAIZER is likely to be defeated early on in the tournament.

VOLTAGE FIGHTER GOWCAIZER ｩ1996 GAGA Communications, Inc./Urban Plant, Ltd. English dubbed version ｩ1997 Central Park Media Corporation Central Park Media/U.S. Manga Corps, USM1628 Dubbed in English $19.98