Voltage Fighter Gowcaizer, Round 1

Ok, I read Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time, and while I admit I didn't understand every single little nuance of Stevie's wonders, I got the basic gist: the universe as we know it is pretty unknowable (but we do have some clever ideas). Voltage Fighter Gowcaizer, from the director of Battle Arena Toshinden (reviewed in VL-3/97), on the other hand, doesn't seem to make a spark of sense--even by anime standards, which are admittedly loose. This is what I gathered: some creep named Ozaki can mentally set off earthquakes and such, and is training a bunch of exceptional students (whose idea of advancing the human condition is to meet after school, transform into flying super-powered mecho-humans, and pummel the bits and bytes out of each other) for further mayhem. Various forces are arrayed against Ozaki and his techno-brats, including a charming kid couple who are, apparently, incestuous. The fights are so-so animation-wise, the teenage male audience will find some titillation in a nudie shower scene, and the dialogue is less than Shakespearean in quality (sample exchange: "This must be a trap." "I knew it.") Battle Arena Toshinden kicked butt (and I mean that in a complimentary way); Voltage Fighter Gowcaizer is more like a 40-watt effort. Not recommended. (R. Pitman)