Why isn't Voltron ever discussed on /m/? I don't think I have ever seen a Voltron thread here.
You just posted one.
>>13510981
There's nothing special about Voltron.
Its concept was already done before with Getter Robo and Combattler V.
Because Golion wasn't really remarkable.
It just got popular in the west. The only real thing of note in the series is killing one of the pilots early on and if that's it for your series that's sad.
I love how in the US Voltron is "the" super robot anime when it comes to normies, but in Japan nobody gives a shit
>>13511076
It stands out in the US for lack of competition. It's contemporaries were Robotech, Transformers and Gobots. Tranzor Z was years prior and obscure even at the time, and the Force Five syndication of Getter Robo G, Grendizer, Gaiking, Danguard Ace and Spaceketeers didn't have nearly the same merchandising effort that Voltron did. You could get Voltron bedsheets and pajamas. That kind of saturation helped it establish a strong presence in the cultural zeitgeist. Saber Rider and even Vehicle Voltron that came later didn't have the same impact as Lion Voltron.
While in Japan, it was just one in a long line of better shows.
The robot itself is pretty cool looking though, however generic the show might be.
>>13511140
GaoGaiGar should have done amazingly in the US
>>13511184
Maybe? It's recent enough that the animation wouldn't throw off potential viewers for its age, but it would take a major advertising push. Part of the problem is that mecha doesn't have a native audience base in the US that it does in Japan. You have to reach a saturation point where kids see it enough to consider it worth watching. Look at how much stuff goes into shows like TMNT, MLP or even Teen Titans. You think GaoGaiGar can support that? I just am not sure. It would need a lot of investment to make it work. Good voice acting. A solid amount of toy support at multiple levels of accessibility. Agreements with chains like McDonalds for Happy Meal inserts, that kind of thing. Then maybe it would take off.
Maybe you could have hit during the peak of the anime boom when kids were cutting their teeth on Gundam Wing, but I don't know if those fans will carry over to GaoGaiGar, which is more earnest as opposed to stylish and edgy like Wing was (relatively speaking at the time). I think you'd face a significant barrier now that anime has receded again.
>>13511184
Eh, it had a bit of a problem with marketing. They tried to piggy back a bit TOO MUCH off of Voltron and when people say Mamoru they didn't give it much of a chance
>>13511227
I can't remember the advertising that went with the domestic DVD release; did they really reference Voltron that much?
>>13511232
I remember references to Transformers
>>13511076
Voltron isn't exactly the same as GoLion, though. Most importantly, GoLion doesn't have the same iconic music that Voltron does. The same footage with that song is remarkably boring.
>>13511076
It's because the US never saw anything like it before.
In Japan, Golion was a C-List series amidst a whole collection of super robots. The 80's was the hey-day of mecha anime.
Speaking as someone who was a die-hard Lion Voltron fan, I have to say Golion is better. The backstory of Daibazaal (Zarkon) eliminating the Altaean Royal Family and how he's the son of Honerva (Hagar) is fascinating.
Not to mention Sincline (Lotor) is revealed to be the rape child of an Altaen woman that Daibazaal to a fancy for. Sincline has a massive Oedipus Complex because he mistakes Falra (Allura) to be like his mom.
Even Shirogane (Sven) having a brother is actually more interesting than Sven going to a hospital planet despite being mortally wounded. At first, I preferred what Voltron did with Sven by having him launch guerrilla war on Planet Doom.
But after seeing Golion in its entirety, having one of the main heroes die so soon made me respect the series. The pilots realized they got too complacent and as a result, they lose a vital member. And Ryo sacrificing himself to kill Sincline really sheds light on how ruthless the conflict against Daibazaal's Empire was.
I also note that nobody ever remembers Vehicle Voltron, which was superior to Lion Voltron in every way. It had a great cast, the 15 vehicles were divided in 3 squadrons (Air, Land, and Sea), and even the villains were treated in a fair light. They weren't simply evil, but misguided people swayed by militarists and paranoia.
I'm currently in the process of watching the original anime, Dairugger XV and it's not too shabby.
>>13511266
>nobody ever remembers Vehicle Voltron
Yeah that's a travesty. Vehicle actually depicted the front lines of the war the Galaxy Alliance was in. Zarkon and the Lion Force was just a sideshow compared to the full might of the Drule Empire.
>Speaking as someone who was a die-hard Lion Voltron fan, I have to say Golion is better. The backstory of Daibazaal (Zarkon) eliminating the Altaean Royal Family and how he's the son of Honerva (Hagar) is fascinating.
>Not to mention Sincline (Lotor) is revealed to be the rape child of an Altaen woman that Daibazaal to a fancy for. Sincline has a massive Oedipus Complex because he mistakes Falra (Allura) to be like his mom.
I was shocked to see how different Golion was to the Lion series. It was watching a completely different storyline. It's like my reaction to the original scripts of DBZ like Piccolo plotting to kill Gohan after dealing with the Saiyans.
I remember the episode where the guys went to Earth and discovered it was annihilated. What a bummer.
>>13511184
Too many seizure lights. Wouldn't fly on TV.
>>13511266
>I also note that nobody ever remembers Vehicle Voltron
I don't think they showed it in my area. I saw the lions but never saw Vehicle in the show. Saw the toys of course, and Albegas/Gladiator.
>>13511266
Watching Go Lion back then was a huge surprise as to how Voltron massively edited the whole Go Lion series. There parts in the story that was pretty serious and it was good.
Though the violence factor was way on Go Lion plus I think there was an implied rape scene when Lotor took Alura's cousin (?) to God knows where and later was returned to her cell crying.To think it was directed to kids in Japan with all that cheerful music in the intro. Sure I've seen some violence in mecha animes but this really surprised me.
>>13511234
That's honestly pretty fair.
>>13511729
Whoever thought those scenes with the Zonder bigshots was a good idea was a fucking idiot.
Daltanious was supposed to be the anime that Lion Force was to be based on, but Toei sent Golion by mistake. Would it have been as popular with Daltanious' footage?
Also Albegas was supposed to be the 3rd installment in Voltron. Lion was the Defender of the Far Universe while Vehicle was the Near Universe Defender. Albegas' Voltron was to be the Middle Universe Defender.
>>13514778
Probably not. A better question is what kind of mecha show it would take to get Americans interested in the genre today.
I think it actually would have to be something like Go Lion, not only to piggyback off of Voltron, but also because everyone in the West still likes Power Rangers for some reason and a an anime similar to that in the modern day wouldn't be much of a stretch.
The only other thing that might work is if Sunrise started to market the shit out of Gundam in foreign countries given how much Gundam is already established, but I don't see that happening.
>>13514800
I think the time has finally come for Doozy Bots Zeta.
>>13514800
>A better question is what kind of mecha show it would take to get Americans interested in the genre today.
I want to say another Getter Lagann, but all the normies I know love it because it's "not a typical mecha anime," and a "deconstruction," because it "doesn't take itself seriously, like other mecha anime."
Honestly, I don't know. I don't know what seperates TTGL from GGG or Neo Getter. A new hotblooded series would need the same memetic spark that TTGL had, but I don't know what that was. Was it the dub? Was it Sci-Fi's shitty anime segment? I want more good mecha anime to be popular, if only so I could talk about Eva and TTGL with the people who actually appreciate those series for what they are instead of what they look like.
>>13514800
But they did do a new Voltron series, just within the last five years or so. They updated the robot and everything was fairly modern tv-grade CG. The big innovation was that any of the five lions could become the central unit and that changed Voltron's weapons loadout. It was Getter Robo-level fuckphysics and mass shifting but it was a nifty concept. The show still only got moderate fan responses and didn't entrench like some other nostalgia relaunches did.
To be honest, I'm not sure what would 'take off' in the US as far as mecha goes. Build Fighters is probably the best shot because it isn't so dependent on tons of backstory, the animation is good and the characters are endearing. It's also really low on the 'real' violence so parents won't be too alarmed.
They should put it on Hulu or Netflix at least with a decent dub. The era of broad network saturation might be over. Custom streaming is where its at.
>>13514842
>Build Fighters is probably the best shot because it isn't so dependent on tons of backstory,
It's based on like 30 years of culturally monolithic backstory.
>>13514800
The mecha shows that were popular in the USA(excluding Gundam Wing,Code Geass and Evangelion) had a lighter tone than the usual mecha anime.So mecha anime like Gyrozetter and G Reco would probably be more popular in the USA if they got dubbed.
>>13510981
Weird, isn't it?
Not even endless shitposting and laughter like with Robotech.
>>13514826
The thing that separates TTGL from GGG or Getter is scale. People got excited over the superficial aspects of it. OMG TEH GALAXI SIZED DRILL BOT!!11!
We've had stuff that's extremely similar, it's just that there's no other mecha show that really has moon sized mecha fighting other moon sized mecha for episodes on end. The characters are kind of unfamiliar to the West as well since, while we all love Getter and such, since the 80s that kinda thing never really took off even in Japan, let alone America. It's no wonder nobody's heard of it outside of our niche.
>>13514853
>usual mecha anime
Is there even a such thing?
>>13514858
Because Voltron doesn't have an autistic fanbase that hasn't moved on from 1985. WEP dicked with Toei, but nowhere near HG's level with Big West and Studio Nue.
I rarely (if ever) met asshole fans of Lion and/or Vehicle Voltron, Starblazers, Battle of the Planets/G-Force/Eagle Riders, or Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs. Only Robotech spawns legions of moronic neckbeards.
>>13514862
>The thing that separates TTGL from GGG or Getter is scale. People got excited over the superficial aspects of it. OMG TEH GALAXI SIZED DRILL BOT!!11!
The first half of the series is your pretty typical coming-of-age story but with mechs in, and all the mecha were pretty small (save for Dai-Gunzan and Shin Dragon). By the time the scale got out of hand, it was already obscenely popular. I won't deny that final fight gained some popularity, but the series was doing well enough before that.
>>13514889
I think there was probably a more obvious plot progression than your typical super robot anime in TTGL, at least in the first half. Usually you see the heroes hanging around some scientist's lab every episode, whereas there were travelling robots in TTGL.
>>13514917
>The first half of the series is your pretty typical coming-of-age story but with mechs in
>>13514853
>>13514842
>>13514826
>>13514800
This isn't the early 2000's. The anime boom is dead in the US. Japanese pop culture was a fad that went obsolete once high-speed connection was possible.
>>13515016
While I agree with you for the most part, I think we risk being overly reductionist to simply say that anime is dead. It's certainly nowhere near as HUGE as it was back then, but you can't discount the streaming channels like Crunchroll, Hulu and Netflix, all of which have respectable libraries of shows to pick from, and in some cases, actual simulcasts with Japan.
That's actually MORE than what we were getting in 2000.
I will agree with you that there was a flashpoint for a while where shows like DBZ and Wing were so insanely popular that they were almost everywhere. The novelty has definitely worn off, at least for the larger swath of the general public, but from a consumer perspective it's a fantastic time to be an anime fan.
None of that translates into having a resurgence, unfortunately, which is why I look at suggestions like GaoGaiGar being the 'Next Big Hit' with a lot of skepticism. I don't know if the US has the base support for giant robot shows the same way other countries seem to. It might actually be an interesting subject for an actual research project, comparing the pop culture trends and more popular entertainment themes across countries to see why certain places are more open to the genre, but that's clearly a more lengthy discussion than what OP is going for here.
>>13514852
Oh, to be sure; and I think you get the most out of BF if you're a Gundam fan, but what I'm saying is that you don't NEED to be a Gundam fan to enjoy Build Fighters. Even if you pretended that Gundam was purely a show that existed within the BF universe, the setting is still very entertaining simply because the writers focus more on Sei's story of growth and adversity than they do on the decades-long conflict of the Federation and Zeon.
>>13515070
I gotta say, I'm amazed that companies like Discotek exist. If anime was truly dead, they wouldn't even be remotely feasible.
>>13515093
They cater to the same niche that anime does in its own country.
>>13515093
Remember though that Discotek has a very different business model than older localization companies like ADV; I am almost certain that all their offerings are subtitled only. A lot of money went towards dubbing shows, even if the quality suggested otherwise, and by going pure subs I'm sure Discotek is saving a bunch of operating costs. The shows they're importing are also probably pretty cheap to license because they're older.
>>13510981
Voltron a shitThen again the original version isn't anything special either.
It's become quite the meme to say Golion is mediocre without bothering to watch it, but it's not bad at all.
>>13518173
>mediocre = bad
>>13515255
That's a pretty sweet logo
>>13518180
Yeah, where have you been for the past 10 years? Everyone operates on video game review scales now.
10/10 = great,
9/10 = good,
8/10 = just OK,
7/10 = flawed but acceptable if you're a big fan of the genre/whatever,
6/10 or lower = irredeemable garbage
And remember, if YOU didn't like it, it was fucking trash. You only like good things, and therefore anything you didn't like couldn't have been good.
>>13511719
>I was shocked to see how different Golion was to the Lion series. It was watching a completely different storyline. It's like my reaction to the original scripts of DBZ
I had a similar experience the first time I saw the original, Japanese-with-English-subtitles, Raymond-Burr-less, 1954 Godzilla. It's a radically different movie -- and a much better one, too.
>>13514862
>>>13514853
>>usual mecha anime
>Is there even a such thing?
Yes. It's called Buddy Complex. That is the single most generic 21st century mecha anime in existence.
>>13518319
It's funny how this somehow managed to get licensed and released by Sentai Filmworks, even though it clearly bombed.
To this day I'm surprised Heroman hasn't been brought over US. It aired in my country dubbed but I read it didn't come out of US. Bad blood?
>>13518313
Yep. Really hate how Hollywood has to insert an American actor so that audiences have someone to relate to. I mean what other country does this to this day?
>>13519294
Its just a by product of the times. WWII had ended a decade ago, the Lucky Dragon incident was still fresh, and Japan was still trying to find ways to mend the bridge between it and other countries. Having the original cut of the movie where there are no "Americans" wouldn't sell.
>I man what other country does this to this day?
Japan did it when Transformers Animated aired. They included a family segment which included a Japanese family talking about the show and toys so that it would relate to Japanese audiences.
>>13511266
>Hagar was his mother in the original
WHAT THE HELL MAN
>>13511050
golion was cooler than both
>>13519817
This is the most incorrect I've seen someone be in a long time.
>>13519817
GoLion may or may not have been cooler than Combattler, but it sure as shit wasn't cooler than Psychopaths With Sideburns
>>13518319
Funny thing is Buddy Complex was good because of it's genericness. It didn't try to do anything fucking retarded that ruined it like many other shows airing at the time.
>>13518180
The slang phrase 'not bad' means 'good'. As if I'd say 'people say it's okay but it's okay'.
>>13514108
The 1980's had a lot of casual sexual content and gratuitous violence in TV anime. Especially in mecha.
>>13520153
It would be better if the scenery for the battles weren't just the ocean and the sky. The time travel was actually neat, shame they got no proper second season.
>>13519400
Yeah Lion Voltron omitted a crucial scene in the end where Sincline confronts Honerva. Jaga the cat tried to ambush him, but Sincline slashed in time and kicked the corpse back to the witch.
Then he sliced Honerva. With her dying breath, she cursed at Sincline for being a half-breed born from an Altaen slave. Sincline was stunned at this revelation though he CLEARLY remembers a blonde Altaen woman as his mom in his dreams. She also reveals that Daibazaal is her son. He freaks out and stabs the shit out of his paternal grandmother.
>>13511221
How would you break that barrier down again?
>>13515186
The anime bubble was weird. Anyone else remember that 2 episode OVA for Tristia by the Blue Sea? And how it got licensed for American release despite it just being an advertisement for the game?
It was probably stuff like that lead to the bubble bursting, since series would get licensed regardless of their actual sale potential.
>>13518319
I don't consider Buddy Complex generic because it handled time travel really well.Time travel is one of the hardest things to get right in any series,yet this anime pulled it off.This series is probably one of the most underrated mechas of all time.
>>13522797
>The anime bubble was weird. Anyone else remember that 2 episode OVA for Tristia by the Blue Sea? And how it got licensed for American release despite it just being an advertisement for the game?
That shit happened to Fire Emblem.
>>13511184
I still stand by that the whole thing should have been dubbed because the half that did get dubbed was fantastic, at least for a dub.
>>13522816
Fire Emblem eventually did get a release stateside. Tristia of the Blue Sea will probably remain niche, and the number of non-Japanese who played it is most likely very few.
>>13522781
Maybe if Dragonar was dubbed or Dancougar. Both have good animation and the sort of style that Americans would appreciate.
Or if Da Garn got dubbed. That's a Brave series that utilizes elements from US cape comics.
>>13522833
The OVA was finished in 1997. Melee didn't come out until 2001. The remake came out in 2009.
>>13511757
That was my problem too. I knew it existed was all, mainly due to the toys.
But I could never manage to get any of said toys, it was fortunate enough my folks shelled out the dosh for all five lions. And now, to my infinite regret, those poor lions are lost to the ages...
>>13522824
>the half that did get dubbed was fantastic, at least for a dub.
So it "sucked less" than the rest of the dubs. That's not saying much.
What was better, Golion or Voltron?
>>13523205
>all dubs are bad
Nice one, /a/, butcheck these
>>13523239
>missing dubs as the person above you gets trips
Nice.
>>13522843
All those series are too "dated" for modern audiences to appreciate.
Gundam Wing had some fabulous cel animation and it helped that it was only 5 years old when it debuted on Cartoon Network.
>>13524642
If G Reco was dubbed,it would be a hit in the USA.
>>13523244
>stealing his dubs
Niced
>>13522797
>>13522833
I appreciate that some company was insane enough to just randomly license it since it led me to finding and playing the games (though I can't remember how the hell I even learned about the OVA in the first place) but man was that OVA NOT stand-alone at all.
Now I just wish someone went through the trouble of fan-translating the games so that it'll become SLIGHTLY less niche (don't think it'll ever become an overnight sensation even if it existed in English format)
>>13522781
So after giving it some thought I have a few ideas, but I already know it's going to upset some people. Here's what I think:
You have to go with a new, domestic IP. It has to be something that speaks specifically to the US cultural aesthetic and not an import that just gets dubbed over. This suggestion isn't because I consider the current stable of offerings from Japan wholly unsuitable; quite the contrary, I think there are lots of good shows that have a lot to say. The problem is animation.
The great GREAT majority of shows aimed at kids and young adults in the US are not cell animation but some form of CG. Barring shows like Adventure Time, Stephen Universe and Gravity Falls, the more 'action oriented' cartoons are all CG. I'm thinking of shows like Star Wars: Clone Wars/Rebels and TMNT, or even the new transformers series. I think there is a subconscious association in US popular media that cell animation = kid show, while CG is 'cooler' and meant for older kids because of the 'realism'.
I put all that in quotes because I don't personally feel that way, but I'm trying to think like an American TV producer. I may need a few more ounces of cocaine.
>>13526667
In any case, it needs to be an original IP and it needs to be CG. If you really wanted to appeal as broadly as possible, you need to hit a few well-trod themes in US media:
- sentient robots
- lots of bombast and explosions and general excitement
- clear cut conflict against a fairly stark villain; shades of gray don't play as well to an American audience. The villain can be compelling and maybe even sympathetic, but people tune in to see the good guys fight bad guys. It's a harder sell if you aren't sure who is good or bad
- set in space, or at least in the space age. Weird aliens are cool.
-writers and a setting that can also appeal to more 'in' fans who do have some experience with anime; you can make references to stuff that's been popular in the US before, kind of how some anime make references to stuff like Ultraman and Kamen Rider.
-if you want to BROADEN the market you need to start laying a trail of breadcrumbs that will lead people to the bigger pool of mecha animation. The easiest way to do this would be through characters or robots that are homages to some of the more famous mecha characters.
-a stable of robots or characters that are toyetic enough to tentpole a major marketing and merchandising campaign
-truck loads of money
That's a lot of stuff to juggle, but I think it could be done.
>>13524642
Dancouga reminded me of Top Gun almost the whole way through. Americans still like Top Gun, right?
>>13526667
I doubt you'll get people to like anime with a domestic IP. People have tried and it never works. Megas sure as hell didn't do shit and neither did Symbionic Titan, Pacific Rim, Transformers, etc
>>13526682
Depends completely on the level of homoeroticism present
>>13526678
So let me try and put together a show that I think hits all these items to the best of my ability. Honestly I think the US already has something it can draw from in the past to use as a launching pad for a new show; this is important too because producers are skittish and 'remakes' or 'reimaginings' are what get greenlit more often than not these days.
I suggest remaking an old collaboration between MGM and TMS Entertainment that aired on US television back in the 80s: Mighty Orbots.
I won't go into the original show too much, but it was, in my opinion, the closest the US ever came to actually producing an anime-style giant robot show. It hit all the notes, except they never called out their attacks. The animation was gorgeous too. It only lasted a season because the merchandising was awful; there never actually was a purchaseable Mighty Orbots toy, which to me seems like a ridiculous oversight since it was basically just a recolored Godmars.
- Your primary heroes would be Rob Simmons and his team of Orbots; they work for the Galactic Patrol and Rob maintains something of a super hero secret identity as the masked Orbots Commander.
- Immediate allies would include Rondu, leader of the Galactic Patrol and his daughter, Dia, who is arguably their most capable agent. Your requisite shipping would be Rob -> Dia -> Orbots Commander in the same way Clark -> Lois -> Superman.
- Villain would be the supercomputer Umbra and its minions in SHADOW. If you really wanted to play to the zeitgeist you could give SHADOW vague ISIS-like similarities, imagined as a scattered organization bent on causing mayhem for their own gain. That Umbra itself is an AI makes for direct contrast to the 'good' AI of the Orbots, and makes it very hard to stop. I think of it more like Ultron than Pasdar, if that makes sense.
- Episodic, with an overarching story of defeating Umbra.
That's all pretty boilerplate. We need to change things up a bit.
>>13526682
Megas was a gag show, and if my theory that for the US animation is immediately associated with a kids show then you can start to understand why it didn't take off. There was zero merchandise available for Megas too. Same with Symbiotic Titan, which is one of the reasons it got cancelled.
Again, I'm just spitballing here.
>>13526707
So continuing the brainstorming, my thought would be to make the overall plot centrered around Rob trying to become the hero he imagines himself to be.
Each episode would feature some plot by Umbra they need to foil, but more importantly, each one would feature some homage to an anime mech in the vein of Tech Romancer. For instance, one episode could involve them trying to stop the theft of a prototype Galactic Patrol weapon system that is more or less Getter Robo. Another episode might involve helping defend a planet that is reminiscent of the one from Voltron, complete with having to awaken an ancient guardian from slumber. That kind of thing. The focus needs to be on fun, like a weirdly localized SRW.
Now, depending on how really insane you want to get, you can either leave the plot fairly simplistic like that or you can add a layer of complexity that might not sell as well. I would personally go for the latter because I think the longer lasting shows are ones that make people think, at least a little.
>>13526728
The best stories always involve heroes that are intrinsically connected to the villains in some way. A hero is, after all, only as good as his villain is evil. So in order to do this, I would propose this 'twist' that can be revealed at some point in the series:
The Orbots and Umbra were part of the same weapons program by the Galactic Patrol, helmed by Rob's parents. Something went horribly wrong, and Umbra went rogue, potentially killing the Simmons' and leaving Rob orphaned.
That's edgy already, but taking it a step further: Rob himself is a construct, like Umbra and the Orbots. He's just not aware of it, and doesn't discover this till later in the series. He's the most advanced of the AI models because he truly doesn't know he's a construct; everything about him though is fabricated, his memories of his childhood programmed. The story becomes one about whether we can surpass what our created intentions are (as Rob tries to) or whether we are bound by what we are made to be (as Umbra is).
I'll stop here. It's already a long shot, and to be honest I'm sure there are better ideas for how to appeal to the US market. I'm curious to hear what other people's solutions might be.
