EganTheVile1 (Level 20)

Sven's defeat

After a long break from Anime Vice, I am back and continuing with the blog series I left with, sit tight friends and freaks, I am going to make up for lost time by talking about how 5 episodes were changed, in minor and major ways in the GoLion-Voltron series, and the BIGGEST change occurs in one of these episodes.

Episode 3: A Ghost and 4 Keys (GoLion Title: A Ghost and 5 Keys)

Not much is changed in the early going of this episode, the first obvious change is that Haggar and Zarkon refer to the team as the Voltron Force, though they have not even found a single Voltron Lion yet, this was kind of a Americanized moment though, referring to the team as you plan to refer to them as for the rest of the series prior to them finding the thing that gives them the title.... LOL, sounds like I am talking in riddles, another major change is that the Bat-Fish Robeast is not shown finishing off it's opponent in the Doom arena... The title of this episode is oddly more appropriate, as only four of the lion keys were found and the fifth key was missing. Not a huge departure from the original.

Episode 4: The Missing Key

The Space mice are useful, go figure...

The episode starts where the last left off, Keith in the green lion, Sven in the blue lion, Lance in the red lion, and Hunk in the yellow lion are taking on the Bat-Fish Robeast, while Pidge is trapped amongst local Arusians driven to hide in caves and the black lion key is missing, Yurak wants the glory for beating the team, as does Haggar, honestly this episode did not change much between countries. But Voltron is fully assembled for the first time so dont skip it.

Episode 5: The Princess Joins Up

Allura joins the team by manning a gun turret in the newly discovered Castle of Lions, a structure which was under Castle Arus and emerges from it's rubble in time to take down the Gladiator Robeast, the only notable change is that the Gladiator Robeast's tournament against other robeasts is toned down a bit. This episode contains the iconic stills of the Voltron Force standing on the heads of the lions for the first time.

Episode 6: The Right Arm of Voltron

Here we are at the episode that changes everything, those who know Voltron, even if your knowledge is only of the current series, Voltron Force, knew Sven would not be a longterm member of the team, but this is a huge departure from the Japanese version in many ways, Sven's fate is changed quite a bit, he was killed in the GoLion version of this episode, but only injured in the American version, an entire funeral scene was cut from this episode, Sven returns in future episodes of Voltron, and I will explain how later in this blog series. Character death was generally a no-no back in the 80's in America, so Sven was simply injured at the close of this one.

NOTE: Hulu mislabled this episode with the title of the next episode.

Episode 7: The Lion Has New Claws

Allura pilots the blue lion for the first time, Nanny makes her first appearance, the main thing cut from this episode was that the robeast in it slaughtered some innocent people, and even some of that slipped by censors if you watch the castle of lions monitor closely. A bit of common anime eroticism usually cut from American adaptations of the era is also seen in both, when Nanny spanks Allura. The Japanese version of that scene had what I found to be some pretty funny dialogue with the line "A thousand spankings for not calling me lady"

NOTE: Hulu mislabled this as the aforementioned episode The Right Arm of Voltron

That's all for this installment, watch said episodes on Hulu, and look for my next installment where we go from Prince Bokar to Prince Lotor.

You can also view the original Beast King GoLion versions on Crunchyroll.

EDIT: Since I pointed out that Hulu mislabeled 2 episodes they have since corrected the mistake, episodes 6 and 7 are now correctly titled

So all the guys want to do her is a crude but accurate assessment of the newcomer,,,,

Original Voltron Force

It is basically a plot point from this point forward, the stunning beauty Allura has all the boys fighting from here on out. Lance and Keith maintain an ongoing love triangle with her, while Pidge has some hysterically funny perv moments with her, and Hunk and Sven.... well there is a reason Sven never chases after the Princesses affection, and Hunk just digs the damaged psychic types as you will see later.

Anyways where to begin...

Hopefully you read my last installment in this series, otherwise, all I can say to catch you up in a nutshell is the heroes basically got captured, forced to fight monsters, and escaped the clutches of Zarkon, and are now on Arus where they meet Princess Allura and Coran the guardians of Voltron.

Now the forces of Doom are of course pissed the boys escaped and thats about it,,,,

Yeah this one was pretty bare bones, it was heavy on explaining things and not a great episode for action and excitement, you get to meet the princess, the guys get their uniforms and that's about it in either the American Voltron or Japanese GoLion series.... Really this episode just served to introduce a couple characters and further the plot.

Not a fave but a must see for the sake of the story, check out the Voltron episode below from Hulu, and be sure to see the GoLion version on Crunchyroll too

So when all is said and done slavery and forced combat are made kid friendly.

Voltron is the perfect example of an Americanized series, the blood and gore are removed to allow child friendly merchandising, the heavy concepts of slavery and rape are thrown away to make room for kid friendly space mice driven plots, characters who die simply get severely injured and disappear, and completely unrelated series get amalgamated into the story, which in turn also get toned down, and alcohol becomes orange juice....

So why the hell do such terrible ideas work so well? Read on.

Voltron is the exception to the rule, a series where terrible tropes actually work, and the toned down concepts may have actually made the series MORE enjoyable. I am anything but a prude, I love my sex and violence in anime, But oddly in the case of Beast King GoLion, I tended to find the moments of ultraviolence a tad crude. Were they story killers? Not by a longshot, but they did turn me off a bit.

I mean moments of women being squeezed until they exploded by sadistic robeasts on a mindless killing spree was a bit harsh.

So along came Voltron, a Americanized series, and it did the unthinkable.... It made less violence an acceptable adaptation, and in fact, worldwide, GoLion is LESS known then Voltron. Over the course of this series we will discuss this further, but for now watch the first episode thanks to Hulu, and if you are on Crunchyroll, check out GoLion 1 as well.