The official website of the upcoming two-part anime film Armored Trooper VOTOMS: Die Graue Hexe (“The Gray Witch”) has shown a teaser trailer and visual and announced the release date of the first part — November 20, 2026. The release date of the second part has not yet been announced.
Project Team and What Was Shown in the Teaser
The teaser visual features the slogan: “An endless battlefield ruled by madness”. The new anime will be overseen by Mamoru Oshii, while Ryosuke Takahashi, the author and director of the original Armored Trooper VOTOMS, serves as a supervisor.
The mechanical design team includes Shinobu Tsuneki, who worked on the mech design for Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Die Neue These, and Yoshihiro Sono, also known as the illustrator of the manga Armored Trooper Votoms: AT Stories. The music will again be composed by Kenji Kawai, a long-time collaborator of Oshii. Sunrise, which created the original series, is working on the project together with Production I.G.
The original Armored Trooper VOTOMS is a mecha series in the “real robot” format, meaning a story that focuses on more grounded military technology rather than fantastical super robots. The anime aired in Japan from 1983 to 1984 and consisted of 52 episodes. Die Graue Hexe will be the first completely new project in the franchise in 15 years.
The events of the original tell the story of Chirico Cuvie — a young soldier who is betrayed after accidentally discovering a secret weapon during an unauthorized covert mission. As a result, he becomes a fugitive amidst an intergalactic war.
