In many ways, Voltron is a relic of a time long past they just don't make anime dubs like this anymore. One of the pioneering shows during the "golden age" of Saturday morning cartoons in the 1980s, Voltron: Defender of the Universe still holds a special place in the hearts of millions. Its Netflix reboot 'Voltron: Legendary Defender' is also a fan favorite, and now Super7 brings us an awesome Voltron action figure Although this figure doesnt transform or break apart into its component vehicles, its accurate proportions and colors are unsurprassed, and its retro styling coupled with its high degree of articulation results in the amazingly posable toy you wish had existed back in 1984"A mighty robot, loved by good, feared by evil." That's how the delightfully cheesy opening theme of Voltron describes its titular robot.
Voltron showrunner Peter Keefe and John Teichmann applied heavy censorship to the source footage, mostly to edit out many of the violent scenes from GoLion. 15 The First Two Seasons Were Edited From Two Japanese ShowsRewriting the entirety of the dialogue for Voltron and dubbing in due to having no means to translate Japanese into English wasn't the only major change made to the series. In the meantime, here are 15 amazing facts you might not have known about Voltron: Defender of the Universe.
13 There Were Going To Be Three VoltronsThe original plan was to adapt three obscure and completely unrelated Japanese series: Armored Fleet Dairugger XV, Lightspeed Electroid Albegas, and Beast King GoLion, in that order, into three separate Voltron series. Shots of executions, torture, and whipping slaves had to frequently be removed, and virtually all references to death were eliminated. While shows like Robotech, another 90s production heavily patched together from an 80s anime ( The Super Dimension Fortress Macross), managed to retain most of the violence of the original series from which it was assembled, the level of violence in GoLion would have given kids and parent's groups collective heart attacks – dismemberment is common, bloodsport is ever-present, and slavery is a recurring theme.
While asking for the master tapes from Japanese studio Toei Animation, World Events Productions requested "the ones with the lion." Toei then proceeded to send World Events the master tapes for Beast King GoLion by accident. But what many kids in the 90s watching didn't know was that the beloved "Lion Force Voltron" happened by accident.As the story goes, the Japanese series Future Robot Daltanious, another cartoon with a combining robot which featured a lion-shaped starship, was originally planned to be adapted into a Voltron series. 12 Voltron Was Originally Meant to be Based on A Different Show, But the Wrong Tape Was SentThanks to Voltron's cultural ubiquity, most of us are familiar with the basic premise: five color-coded robot lions piloted by five intrepid space pilot heroes come together to form the powerful humanoid robot Voltron, use a sword to defeat the monster of the week and defend planet Arus from the evil Drule Empire. What was meant to be the third series would go on to become Voltron: Defender of the Universe. Finally, the famous "Lion Force Voltron" version we all know and love was designated Voltron of the Far Universe or Voltron III. Lightspeed Electroid Albegas would have been the next mech anime on the chopping block and would have been Voltron II, "Gladiator Voltron" or Voltron of the Middle Universe.
In the case of characters who died in the original GoLion, they were often said to have escaped, returned to their home planet, or sent off-planet to space hospitals to recover from their injuries. In reality, it killed them in great number. In episode 22, The Deadly Flowers, the space witch Haggar creates space flowers that put everyone under a sleeping spell. 11 Sven Actually Died, and Other Character Deaths Were Written OffAs part of the process of censorship to make Voltron fit for kids, they cut out a lot of the blood, guts, and piles of dead bodies. The footage from the GoLion episodes would prove to be the most popular incarnation of Voltron.
10 The Robot Soldiers and ‘RoBeasts’ Were AliveIn the U.S. Version they fall into a body of water and survive. Scenes of both Sven and Nanny's respective funerals and characters visiting their graves afterward were likewise cut.Interestingly, both were "brought back" in a way: stock footage was used to make Nanny appear in later episodes, and in a later plot arc where Sven shows back up to help the Voltron Force siege planet Doom, footage of his twin younger brother from the original GoLion series was used and said to simply be Sven himself.Finally, Sven's brother and Prince Lotor's base character both originally fell to their deaths at the end of their duel in GoLion, but in the U.S. Nanny's base character, too, is shot through the heart, sacrificing herself to save Coran. In both versions, Sven is then replaced by Princess Allura as the pilot of the Blue Lion. Version, his death was changed to him being seriously injured and sent off-world for medical treatment.
In Voltron, a dub was engineered implying that Zarkon had somehow escaped his fate. The Japanese series ended with the destruction of the giant best version of Emperor Daibarzaal (King Zarkon in the English version) by cleaving him in two with the blazing sword. However, something different was done with the Zarkon RoBeast near the end of season one. Some may remember the classic 1987 cartoon series of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles did something similar by making the Foot Clan robots instead of human ninjas, enabling the turtles to use their melee weapons with glee.The RoBeast of the week was always sliced in half with the Blazing Sword, using the same explosions footage in every episode to avoid the violent deaths in the anime. Due to American broadcasting standards at the time, living beings could never be killed on-screen on a kid's cartoon, but robots were considered fair game. But in the original GoLion both sets of "robots" were flesh and blood beings.
For starters, the planet Balto was Earth. Pidge and the others are understandably in tears seeing the destruction of a whole civilization.But don't worry, the GoLion version of this episode is actually much worse. The Force surveys the devastated planet and does battle with the big bads of the week before taking off right as the unstable planet explodes. Pidge doesn't know if his family made it off-world in time.
Cheerful! 7 The Last 20 Episodes Were Original AnimationSo how much more popular was Voltron than the obscure GoLion? It was so much more popular that after World Events Productions ran out of footage to use from the original show, they actually hired Toei Animation to make 20 more new Voltron episodes from scratch under producer Peter Keefe's direction. The only humans we ever see aside from our heroes that managed to get off the Earth were captured by Galra slave ships. Version, Keith remarks, "At least we're sure everybody got safe off the planet." Nope. All the team can do is cry as Earth explodes, with the Princess trying to comfort them by telling them to make Altea (Arus in Voltron) their new home. The ruins the team explores (Pidge's school in Voltron) are actually the school they all went to, and their nearby former homes (which now have skeletons in them).
That's just not a very common occurrence in history, we aren't sure if it has ever happened before. An American company hiring a Japanese company to produce more of the foreign show they made with repurposed animation from the original.
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