Voltron

Defender of the Universe

[Picture extracted from http://www.cs.bc.edu/~silvamd/Voltron/volt.htm]

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[Some of the information here was verified or lifted from http://www.cs.bc.edu/cgi-bin/silvamd/Voltron.Cgi]

In the future, a galaxy is being terrorized by the evil dictator King Zarkon of planet Doom. The only thing that can stop the evil King is a giant robot of legend named Voltron. Voltron resides on planet Arus in the form of five giant robot lions. When the lions are brought together, Voltron is formed.

King Zarkon or one of his henchmen are continually creating and sending Robeasts, that is, usually giant robots of their own, against Arus and Voltron. The Robeasts are, in turn, always defeated by Voltron.

The current pilots of the five lion pieces are five space explorers sent by Galaxy Garrison to find and use the legendary Voltron. When one of the member of the team is lost, the first princess of Arus takes over as one of the members of the Voltron Force.

Yes, quite.....

This heavy adapted piece of anime seems similar to watching an animated version of the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, except it isn't quite as silly. The series suffers from being sanitized. I think it is pretty clear that the Robeasts are probably living monsters or at least monster cyborgs. Apparently it is ok to kill off robots, but not organic living things. It is also quite clear that some of the good guys or some of the good guys friends and family are killed, not taken away or "just asleep". Apparently it is not ok to allow good guys or good guys friends and family to die. The series also suffers from some rather poor dubbing and editing in the first few episodes. It is, however, a very long series with something like 55 episodes in all and they do get better at dubbing and editing as the series goes on. In my opinion, however, the series is flawed by a mediocre adaptation. I felt that other adaptations such as the Robotech and Teknoman series were done better.

Voltron: Defender of the Universe aired on the Cartoon Network until January 10th, 1998. It is still shown on certain independent stations across the U.S., currently.