Voltron the Anime first began running here in the US in 1984. Voltron was the story of a group of pilots, 5, who operated gigantic robotic lions and as the title proclaims, defend the universe. Well if operating a gigantic robotic lion wasn’t enough, at times when something extra was needed the five lions could be formed together to create one single enormous robot called; Voltron!
Fact of the matter was there was actually 3 different Voltrons. The first Voltron or the one referred to as Lion Force Voltron was the first one that viewers in the US were exposed to. However his designation was actually Voltron III. He was originally planned to be the Voltron defending the universe, farthest away from Earth. The Voltron closest to Earth was designated as Voltron I or as we refer to him here as Vehicle Force Voltron. The third Voltron was the defender of the area between the other two and therefore was designated Voltron II. Here in the US he is referred to as Gladiator Voltron but he never actually aired on American television.
Popularity between the two Voltrons (Lion Force and Vehicle Force) has always been split. Some like the original while other liked the second one better. While I remember seeing Voltron it really wasn’t something that I grew up on. That was toward the end of my teens and I remember watching it with my niece and nephew. It seemed like it was a fairly cool cartoon that I was wishing had been on when I was younger. I did see enough of the shows to see when they made the transition from Lion Force to Vehicle Force which didn’t make a lot of sense to me.
Here’s the breakdown of how each of the Voltrons formed. As I said Lion Force Voltron was formed by combining 5 gigantic Lion Robots. Vehicle Force Voltron was formed by combining 15 vehicles consisting of cars, vans, planes and helicopters. The final Voltron, Gladiator Force was formed by combining 3 huge humanoid robots into one……yeah that one was real creative. Ok so while the Vehicle Force Voltron was supposed to be “more powerful” than the Lion Force it was made up of vehicles. I mean come on now, if you were going to pilot something would you want to pilot a car or a gigantic cat. So while Voltron was not really one of the cartoons I grew up with, well the cats got my vote.
Besides being a giant robot with super strength, Voltron could also fly and could form an energy weapon called the ‘Blazing Sword’ which could seemingly cut through anything. He also looked kind of cool. I’ve seen enough of the shows to know that it was a pretty cool show and from what I can tell the first concept of multiple things coming together to form something bigger and stronger than the sum of its parts.
Next week while not an Anime another import from Japan that combined robots into a greater whole. It’s the Power Rangers Zoids.
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One Christmas my folks surprised me by buying me a Golion action figure set by Bandai. It had missles and discs that could be fired out of spring loaded cannons. There was an amazing surplus amount of chrome weaponry included with it. In a way I'd always wanted to have Transformer toys that other kids were playing with but this toy blew them all out of the water because no one else had it. My folks really did their best for us kids.
ReplyDeleteThe Voltron TV show was ok. I remember watching it eagerly after Robotech was taken off the air on WPWR channel 60 but it was never able to match the dramatic levels of Robotech with its adult themes and main character deaths.