It Takes Real Lions/Friday the 13th

Okay, this is a more pedestrian episode for me.  I guess this is where the series started to become routine for me . . .

It Takes Real Lions

Planet Doom.  Bad-face Lotor is standing on a rock outcropping.  He's watching a crazy looking three-eyed robeast as it fights three robeast lions.  The robeast lion designs are actually pretty cool looking, though the main robeast is too bizarre for me.  During the fight, Lotor flashbacks to an argument he has with Zarkon.  The robeast has swords it pulls out of its knees, and glowing laser rope thingies that it uses like lariats.  It also shoots beams out of its head-eye.  The other two eyes are on its chest (what is with these designers and repurposing nipples?

On Arus, the team is practicing in their lions.  Allura is having trouble staying in formation.  Damn azimuth.  Keith coaches her, and then the team uses a mountain for target practice.  The black bazooka has a new design I kinda like.

The animation in this episode is a little different.  Farmed out to a different animation studio to make up for running late?  The cockpit models are a little weird looking.  Basically, they're drawn in a style very different from what we're used to.

The team lands in the lake in blue lion (How'd they all get there?) and go swimming.  Aaand Allura loses her bikini top.  *sigh*  And then, just when thngs couldn't get more annoying, Nanny.  *blargh*

Nanny and Coran see Allura lounging on the lakeside in her pink bikini, and then I'm not really sure what happened.  Possible traumatic brain drama from smashing my head against the wall.  Clearly, the Arusian royal court hasn't seen much of what passes for British royalty the last couple of decades.

Whew.  Back to Haggar's gnarly looking workshop.  Lotor (who keeps switching animation models) and Haggar see the Voltron force hangin' out at the beach in Haggar's crystal ball.  Lotor launches in his flagship.

Allura, back in her Enchanted Kingdom dress, is bored with studying.  The night sky is lit up by a strange light she sees through her window.  The team sees the same light in the rec room.  They run to castle control.  Coran enlarges them on the screen to reveal a space coffin and the batplane.  Coran urges them to launch without the princess.  What?  Why?

I guess the last few episodes overshadowed illogic like this with rampant coolness.  So far, there's nothing really cool or memorable happening.

The team buzzes the robeast.  Bad-face Lotor deploys the robeast.  The goofy-looking thing gets out of the coffin and supersizes itself.  The team does a flyby, and Lotor, who's apparently just learned to count, realizes the blue lion isn't out.  He veers off and heads for the castle.

The team bounce off the robeast, and it throws Hunk down and steps on him.  The rest of the team open fire, and then the robeast lassoes the three of them.  Lotor approaches the castle.  Apparently, the castle hasn't gone on defense like the first time Lotor attacked.  Lotor sees her standing at her window.  He draws a pistol and shoots a grappling hook (?) into her room.

In castle control, a computer read-out indicates trouble in the princess' room.  In her room, Lotor has princess backed up against the door--which opens and two guard run in with submachingeguns.  Coran rescues Allura, and she rushes to her lion despite his (and Nanny's) protests.  A veritable stampede of guards drives Lotor out.

Allura reaches the team as the robeast tosses them around with the lassoes.  Blue lion slices through the ropes with her ion knife (that's what they're callin' it these days).  And what?  They say she accomplished that with perfect form, and she says "Does that mean I'm on the team?"  Haven't we already established that?

Then they form Voltron.

Voltron kicks off the fight with eyebeams, and then both sets of lion torches (hands and feets).  Then the robeast uses it head-eye beam, knocks Voltron down, and brandishes its knee-sword.  Yellow lion hits it with a missile, then they form blazing sword and lop off an arm.  The robeast spins around, then explodes. 

Back on Castle Doom, Haggar tells Zarkon how Lotor took Arus completely by surprise--and lost.  Then, at the castle, Allura stands in her window and vows never to bow to Lotor.  And she now knows she can be both her peoples' ruler and defender.  Again, hasn't all this been established already?!

Friday the 13th

Sincline calls the beastman Kauman.  Is that like "cowboy?"  He has spurs, too.  And Kauman's opponents are leopard beasts.  Daibazaal is angry at Sincline for not defeating Golion, and the absolute rule of Galra will be threatened.

Kogane's treatment of Fala is much harsher than Keith's of Allura.  And they smash the mountain with a maneuver called "V-spin." 

The backgrounds of the split-screens in this episode are unusual, too.  I really think a lot of the animation was handled by a different group then usual.

The space mice theme plays during the topless swimming scene.  Oddly, I don't think Voltron cut any of that out.

Ugh.  Hys.  That voice is worse than Nanny's/  Or, maybe it's the second time running through these scenes.  Gods.  I'd gouge my eyes out, but I'll need them later.

We get more of Honerva's "El roy mu el roy mu," and the crystal ball tells Sincline to attack tomorrow.  So that's what he does.  There's a whole weird time sequence that basically works out to Friday the 13th.

And, Raible has brilliantly locked Fala in her room and grounded her from training and . . . fighting?  Seriously, guys, haven't we covered all this before?  Is this your idea of development, or is this just a filler episode that got rushed and farmed out to some other studio?

Oh, and Sincline kills some of the guards who rush in to rescue Fala.  He attackes them with a sword while they're using submachineguns.  It takes a wave of reinforcements to drive him back out the window.

At least they form Golion to the blue lion song.  Again.

Okay, so I just don't like this episode.  The animation is dodgy, and it takes a few step backwards in terms of character development with the princess.  Basically, it's filler.  If this were based on a manga, I'd be guessing that they're waiting for the manga writer to catch up.  But they're not, so they must just have been behind schedule.  God, even the beastman explodes in a way that annoys me.

The Deadly Flowers/Phantom Space Flowers

And another favorite in a row.  A new plot (biological warfare), a new planet, and Lance is actually showcased in this episode.

The Deadly Flowers

Arus.  In space.  With pink things floating down to the planet from outerspace.  And the Invid Flower of Life takes roo--er, no.  Other pink flowers.  Of death.  They take root in the desert.  And Peter Cullen narrates the opening for the first time.  The Arusians are overjoyed at this miracle.  The mice (disease vectors if I ever saw one!) bring Allura flowers.  she proceeds to dance around her room like a 5-year-old.

And then Zarkon is upset that they've sent flowers to another planet.  But this is no bouquet.  These are evil flowers.  On Arus, people start keeling over from the flowers.  The mice run back to their mouse hole and decontaminate themselves with a watering can.  Allura orders Coran to contact Dr. Gorma, who says the flower disease can only be cured by flowers from planet Lira. 

Lance returns from burning all the flowers.  The team expains to him that they need to ge to planet Lira--but, naturally, it's protected by a magnetic field.  Blue lion, however, can somehow circumvent the magnetic field.  We don't get to hear exactly how, because then Allura passes out.  Lance takes off in blue lion,

Lira looks more like a gas giant from orbit.  Oh well.  Lance has already landed, and uses the blue lion's tail as a periscope.  But, in a palace thing that looks an awful lot like an Invid hive, Lotor is hanging out with the king of Lira.  They watch blue lion land and Lotor gets all excited.  He sends troops to capture who he thinks is the princess.

Lance lands, climbs a mountain and eats "honey" from some sort of rock basin.  Then guys with arrows ambush him, let by a girl.  She explains that the roses of Lira are the source of all their livelihood and only their supreme ruler can give anyone permission to use the roses.  Then the Doom snowmobiles from the last episode appear and take Lance before Lotor.

Lotor is upset he got Lance instead of Allura.  He backhands him onto one of the flying snowmobiles.  The girl explains that he is here because the princess is ill.  Lance cuts his bonds on the front grill of the snowmobile, and a sword fight ensues.  Lance has Lotor up against a wall, and then he gets his sword stuck on a magnetic rock.  Lotor knocks him into the river, and then sends troops to blow up blue lion.

The king here apparently has his own troops that look a lot like Lotor's brand of Doomites.  They even have similar uniforms.  Doomite mercenaries?  The king tries to haggle with Lotor--that doesn't go so well for the king.  Lotor gets both the medicine, the gold, and destroys all of the flowers.  And . . . doesn't kill the king.

Lance returns to blue lion, and discovers that the pool he's in is full of flowers.  Then Lotors troops start blowing up the flowers with WWI era German hand grenades.  Farla (the girl introduced earlier) confronts the Doom troops, but they throw her into the pool and "stun" her archers.  Lance rescues Farla and she gives him seeds to the Roses of Lira. 

Lotor's fleet attacks the Castle of Lions.  He delivers an ultimatum to the castle.  They launch the three remaining lions against him.  Lotor launches the new robeast against them.  Four arms, and we've still got the services of the good Robeast designer.  The three lions try to attack him with their lion blades.  It doesn't go so well.

Allura gets out of bet to help them, actually tossing Nanny aside.  Desparation makes you strong.  The team is bombarding the robeast with everything they've got as Allura joins them in the red lion.  The robeast bombards red lion, then tosses black lion around.  And I'm not even going to mention Nanny's stupid dialogue.

Lance reappears and knocks Keith free.  They form Voltron.  Voltron forms spinning laser blades and actually mouths the words.  Huh?  They then use their stingra missiles and the electro saber to further tenderize the beast, and then cook it with the blazing sword.  Lotor's fleet withdraws.  He explains to Zarkon that he has a lifetime supply of Lira's flowers to keep Zarkon alive in perpetuity, and got all his gold back.

The team poses on the castle balcony as the newly-healed Arusians clap, and Allura smooches Lance.  And the mice kiss Pidge.  Lance vows to replant the seeds on Lira, and Allura offers to join him.  The two fly blue lion--did they take turns?  Or did Lance insist on driving the whole way?

Phantom Space Flowers

We open with the pink flower . . . seeds?  Spores?  Tryffid transportation modules?  Whatever they are, they land on Altea with an explanation by the narrator, as in Voltron.  When the space mice bring the flowers to Fala, they're accompanied by their theme song.  Which sounds like Wizard of Oz Munchkins on an acid trip.

There's a painting or a portrait in Fala's room.  Is that a royal ancestor's portrait?  Or something she snipped out of Tiger Beat?

Fala is the one who orders Raible to have Dr. Gior bring the sick to the castle.  And the problem is that the flower's pollen causes a severe allergic reaction.  That can only be counteracted by flowers from Amazon.  And, luckily, the orbits between Amazon and Altea are close at this moment, and Fala thinks maybe Amazon's magnetism would be mitigated by . . . *GAK*.

Yeah.  Same as in Voltron.

That blue lion tale periscope is cool.

The king of planet Amazon is King Amazon.  Actually, that might be a titular thing.  Like Bob, the archduke of Buckingham gets called "Buckingham" in official documents.

Jeez, some animators should try actually rock clombing once in a while.  It'd make sequences like Kurogane scaling the mountain look a little less generic.  Still, it's not as bad as some of the old Sunbow GI Joe episodes.

When he is apprehended for stealing amazonian honey, Kurogane doesn't react to the fact that Galra red army soldiers pick him up.  Come to think of it, maybe they haven't seen this Galra ethnicity outside of Sincline.  Their uniforms are much different from the gray and black Lego Castle outfits the black army soldiers favor.  There's also much more variation in bodytypes amongst these troops (the three Sincline sends after Kurogane look like the three stooges).

The amazonian girl's name is Aimee.

The blue guys working for King Amazon even have the same color scheme in their uniforms as Sincline's solders, red for officers, dark blue/black for gun fodder.  Maybe, since Amazon is apparently a client kingdom, these guys belong to a different Galra army?  Like the Amazonian Green Army, similar to Sadak's Black Army and Sincline's Red Army?  Oh, and this is the first episode where the red army is actually named.

Pink flower peftals juxtaposed with violence is sooo Japanese.  That whole macho sakura petal thing.

Okay, so why exactly does Aimee die?  The Galra soldiers backhand her into the water, and then shoot all of her men.  But she crawls out of the water on her own, gets her arm bandaged by Kurogane, and . . . kicks off?  Does she die of grief?  Hypothermia?  Did Kurogane put the bandage on too tight?

I do like the way Sincline's flagship looks distinct from the rest of his fleet, but all of the ships still share a general layout.

Sincline's words on seeing the three remainng lions, that Voltron is so much scrap/Golion is a lump of iron, are almost identical between both versions.

The beastman's name is Deathbeetle.  Makes sense, since he's obviously beetle-esque.  Not as awesome a name as Killwrestler.

When I was a kid, I relaly liked the fact that black lion and red lion both scratch the beastman on the chest and form an x.  Whenever we played Voltron in the playground, I wanted to do that with every robeast we fought.

We form Golion to the blue lion themesong.  I wonder if these songs were ever released?  There was a Golion toyline (which is why WEP and Matchbox licensed these shows in the first place).

WHY DOES GOLION'S MOUTH MOVE?!?!

The laser magnum attack is called, but it's animated more like a one-handed grand fire.

Daibazaal is upset that Sincline attacked Amazon without his permission.  The resolution is the same as in Voltron.  And the sequence on the castle balcony with the adoring Alteans is the same as in Voltron.  However--apparently I misremembered this, but when I was a kid, I thought Allura/Fala never went back to her Disney Enchanted Kingdom dress after she became blue lion's pilot, that she only went between the Golion uniform and her pink jumpsuit.  Clearly, I was wrong, 'cuz she's welcoming Disney visitors--er, Altean citizens in all of her royal finery.

It'll Be a Cold Day/Altea's Sister Planet

Still in favorites territory.  I partly like this episode because I always like "winter" episodes in my vintage cartoons.  Because I've spent a good chunk of my life in that frozen tundra known as the upper-midwest, and always thought it was funny when cartoons have maybe 1 in 50 episodes set in snow.  When, y'know, most years like this one, 1 in 50 days is WITHOUT snow.

Sorry.  That's just an exaggeration.  For comedic effect.

I also like it because it brings back a thread established a few episodes back, and one that will run through to the end of the series (the Romelle/Amue thing).  For a cartoon from 1981, this is very Babylon 5-ish, to set something up in a way that's pretty casual and then have it carry through to the end.  Of course, anime is different than American prime-time live action science fiction, but it was a sophisticated concept for me when I was 8.

It'll Be A Cold Day

The episode opens on Doom, with Lotor laughing maniacally.  His voiceover continues as the scene changes to Romelle and several other slaves in the Doom prison.  He plans to use her as bait to capture Allura.  He enters her cell, and I bet he's in a bad mood because he put on the wrong animation model--it's a bad face day.  He abuses Romelle for a while, then carries her out.  Later, she stumbles back into the cell alone, and flashes back to the events on Pollux that led her to this state.  The three other slaves tend to her and bring her water.  The begin plotting to escape. 

Romelle has a plan involving fire.

Guards on duty near the spaceport loaded with Skull Slave Galleys suddenly see smoke, and react the way any guards on duty near expensive ships under a totalitarian regime would: They panic.  Romelle and her three co-conspirators board one of the galleys (they were wearing headscarves.  To protect themselves from the smoke?  As disguises?)

Zarkon in having a feast.  Many officers and Lotor are present.  An officer in yet another uniform variant approaches Lotor and apprises him of the fact that Morgil is in pursuit of Romelle, who's escaping.  We next see the galley fleeing Lotor's fleet.  This is the first time we actually see his ships doing things close up (last episode, they just kinda bombarded the team from a distance).  Lotor orders his fleet to use only stun beams.  The stun beams leave the galley tumbling through space, in flames.  That's some nice stunnin', boys.  Romelle gets an S.O.S. off to Bandor.  Haggar contacts Morgil with a plan . . ,

The team is in castle control.  They receive her SOS from the ice planet Neve (clearly named in honor of that frigid bitch from the Scream movies).  They see that Bandor is also en route.  They launch in the lions and form Voltron.

This is also the first time we actually see the Polluxian trireme-ships in action.  Voltron reaches the planet and disassembles into the individual lions (using reversed footage from the Golion opening).  Bandor and his men (who fortunately have snowsuits to wear over their togas) drive to the galley in a slick snowmobile.  Allura is surprised to find Cheesey, the mouse, hiding in her, um, uniform.

They enter the galley.  Allura goes off alone (HOCKEY MASKED KILL-oh, wait) and finds Romelle.  Who is actually Haggar in disguise WITH A CHAINSAW--oh.  No.  Before Haggar can grab Allura, Cheesy attacks her.  Bandor comes in and doesn't quite get it, until Haggar reveals herself.  The blue cat foes after Cheesy, but Pidge very elaborately kicks him.  Bandor goes for Haggar, but she . . . bops him on the head and takes him captive.  The team opens fire, but she escapes.  They follow her on a Doom-built snowmobile (we'll see then later as air-speeder things).

They lose the witch, but hear Lennie Weinrib practicing his Vincent Price--er, Lotor cackling evilly.  Then his ship scrapes to a landing on the ridge above them.  He proposes a bargain--Romelle and Bandor for Allura.  He threatens her with his laser sword, which is pink today (this must be part of his craggy-face animation model).  As the team debates and Lotor gnaws on scenery, a blizzard blows up.

Keith tells Allura to go to Lotor.  And he's got a plan.  Keith tells Lotor to perform the trade simultaneously.  Romelle and Bandor trudge down the hill in the snow, while Allura trudges up and Keith sneaks along with her, keeping in cover.  Haggar orders Morgil to prepare the robeast for when Allura is in their clutches.

Keith gets ahead of Allura and uses his belt buckle to attract snow as a disguise.  He passes Romelle and Bandor and they don't notice he's not Allura.  Just as he reaches Lotor, the Robeast emerges from the snow--and this guy's back to the classic deathhell/Galcia design lineage (I like it, in other words).  The team even engages the robeast all old school, ramming into him.

Bandor vows to go back to Lotor for vengeance.  Romelle goes with him.  Keith approaches Lotor and de-ices and draws his weapon on Lotor.  The cat jumps on Keith's face and Keith finds himself held at bay by Lotor's sword--until Bandor shoots the sword from Lotor's hand.  He tosses the pistol to Keith, then draws his own sword.  Romelle's packing a dagger.  Of course. Lotor manages to reverse things again, with Haggar's help.  Bandor and Keith are knocked down and Romelle is recaptured.  Keith assures Bandor that they'll get her back, then rejoins the team in black lion.  They reform Voltron. 

Wow, two combination montages in one episode.  Was Toei running low on story for this one?

Voltron punches the robeast, who responds with an energy blast "High voltage ray."  Amazingly, they wrestle around some more and then we get the blazing sword.  First they lop of robeast's arm, then cut him horizontally, and then vertically.  Has Voltron been practicing Toyama-ryu? 

In a scene cut from another episode, they threaten Lotor, who . . . agrees to release Romelle?!  And then Voltron lands in the city ruins on Arus and happy villagers rush to him.  Errr . . .

Altea's Sister Planet

This time, we have the narrator explain Amue's situation.  With a lot less moustace-twirling laughter (oh, come on, if Lotor had a 'stache, he'd be twirling it).  Sincline's abuse of Amue is much more obvious in this one.  Again, the narrator does the explaining during the flashback sequence.  And the narrator refers to Amue's situation as being "Sincline's plaything."  Oi.

Huh.  The Galra spaceport fire alarm is the same as Castle Gradam's alarm.

The music the Galra officers like to party to is, as always, completely thwacked out.  Again, Sincline is advised that Gobra is pursuing Amue in her stolen ship.  Sincline apparently catches up, and instead of ordering his fleet to use "stun beams," he urges them to "KILL THEM ALL."

Just a slight change in translation.

They approach Planet Russel, just as a lone fighter takes one last shot at them.  She manages to get off an SOS.  Sincline complains that those Golion jerks (actual translations) might show up.  Honerva decides to use it to their advantage.

And, the SOS is actually in something like morse code when they hear it in Castle Gradam.

They try out some new sound effects when Golion combines (to the instrumental theme song version).

Seriously, just because the planet's named Heracles, do they really have to wear togas and Roman legion helmets?

Apparently Chuchule told Platt to help out.  And when Fala puts Platt back into her . . . uniform to stay warm, Kurogane very blatantly says "I wish I was Platt."

Umm, where'd Amue's fellow slaves go?  Probably best not to ask.

Akira Kamiya's laugh is much lower key than Lennie Weinrib's. 

Fala says she must go if it means saving Amue and Alor--they're like her brother and sister.  Woah, Princess, in the last episode with them, they spend most of the episode plotting to invade your planet!  I guess she's the forgiving and not the vengeful type of monarch.

Oh--Sincline actually uses a pistol to prod Amue and Alor into the exchange.  I think that's the first time he's used something other than a sword.

The beastman's name is Killwrestler.

Kogane disguises himself simply by switching off his suit's heater, rather than doing some tekspeak thing.

We also see that Sincline's flagship is able to transfer a space coffin into the ground.  So that's how they get all the beastmen underground on Altea. 

Galra's tactics, and particularly Sincline's, have mostly been to separate one of the lions from the others so they can't form Golion.  This is yet another of those attempts.  Of course, Sincine is so preoccupied with nabbing Amue again that he sort of just lets Kogane get away and rejoin the team.

For the second Golion gattai scene, they combine to the black lion theme.  And, seriously, the first thing they do is use red lion to punch Killwrestler.  God, they don't watch enough MMA.  I mean, a good grappler is more than a match for any striker.  Oh, shit, Golion's using a sword now.  Nevermind.

Okay.  Killwrestler is dead.  Golion lops the top of Sincline's ship off, and Sincline escapes in an escape ship.  I guess this does actually happen often enough that it's plausible when WEP just sort of mentions it in the dialogue.  And we hear Amue cry out, and Sincline laugh, and Alor collapses to his knees, weeping, while the Golion team all look distraught.

Pidge's Home Planet/Goodbye Earth

Another favorite.

Pidge's home planet

We open on Castle of Lions.  And Nanny.  Blaugh.  Allura has to get married off to a prince consort to be coronated.  And the team's not good enough.  But hey, they'll make great butlers.  Y'know, it's a good thing we don't have to sit through all of that political crap and talking, talking TALKING in Vehicle Voltron.  I mean, watching our heroes in silly Buckingham Palace uniforms kissing the hand of the princess in Disney's enchanted kingdom is NON.  STOP.  ACTION.

Just as bored as I am, the team (sans princess) goes to castle control and sees radioactive missiles bombarding the planet Balto, Pidge's home planet.  The team decides to go intervene, but princess, Coran, and palace gaurds come to stop them.  If they leave, they leave Arus without Voltron.  And then, Nanny.  Keith makes the point that Voltronb's duty is to defend other planets in their federation.  Coran places them under house arrest.  They beat up the guards (damn, those guys have a shitty job).  They leave without Allura and the blue lion.

As they fly off, Coran opens fire with the castle's AAA batteries.  To, y'know, give them a salute.  Yeah. 

Ah, planet Doom.  I was kinda jonesin' for that clanky planet Doom music.  Zarkon, Lotor and Haggar all watch the team fly to Balto.  Lotor takes off with his flagship and a flight of other ships.  This is the first time we get a good look at the other ships in Lotor's fleet.

The team approaches Balto, which has been destroyed, wiped out.  They fly over a city swamped by lava.  They near Pidge's village, and land near his old school.  It looks like the people escaped to another planet, but the planet is lost.  Inside the school, they suddenly hear weapons bombarding the position.  It's Lotor's fleet.  He deploys fighters.

Keith shoots fighters down with his proton missiles, while they others fire their lions' shoulder weapons.  Then Lotor launches the Robeast--who is basically Kurt Langstrom, the Man-Bat, with a Haggarian makeover.  He launches missiles out of his shoulders, then flaps his wings real hard to blow the Voltron force out of the sky with a tornado.  Then it commences to strafe them.  Oh, yeah, and he has batwings on his knees.

Allura sits in her room, and they can apparently see Balto through her window.  Keith convinces her to go to their aid through, um, telepathy?  I think it's meant to be a radio transmission, and WEP is kinda pretending they're in castle control.  Coran and Nanny try to stop her, but they don't try very hard.

Lotor observes the princess' arrivle while the robeast knocks the team into a crevasse.  Red lion tunnels through the rock.  As Allura arrives, the shoots a flight of Doom fighters down from behind.  This turns Lotor on.  So he hits blue lion with some sort of energy weapon from the bow of his ship.

Underground, Lance uses red lion's weapons to start a volcanic eruption, separating the team from the robeast, and disabling Lotor's ship.  The team sees the princess, and they form Voltron.  They start the fight with the electro-saber, deflecting energy frisbee things the robeast launches from its mouth.  Voltron throws the sabre, then the robeast pins them to the volcano with a force field thingy from its wings.  Then the volcano erupts more and knocks the robeast over, breaking the forcifield.  They form blazing sword, and destroy the robeast with some weird star-shaped enery blast.

Lotor is angered that they've destroyed yet another robeast, but a robot convinces him to leave before the planet explode.  The team follows suit, shedding a few tears for the passing of Pidge's home planet.  And this is the first planetary explosion we see in Voltron--there'll be plenty more in Vehicle Voltron (well, at least three more).  Pidge wishes he could have seen his back yard again.  Allura offers to make Pidge an honorary citizen of Arus.

After the last commerical break, we get a hodge-podge of scenes edited together to represent Pidge's new citizenship celebration.  Y'know, to make up for all the stuff that was cut out of Golion.

Goodbye Earth

Because it's EARTH that's actually being destroyed, seemingly by a combination of the after-effects of World War III and a meteor bombardment, not by any efforts of the Galra empire.  But even though this is the original Japanese version, I'm not so much of an Otaku that I will claim that the Japanese version of something is ALWAYS better.  The opening bullshit with the princess being told she has to get married off isn't any better in Japanese.  In fact, Hys' voice grates on me even more than Nanny's weird Russian milkmaiden accent.

However, I wonder if the prince Fala is supposedly marrying in Hys' hallucination is a "cameo" of a character from another series, or just a generic character design.

When they go to castle control, they're just looking at Earth out of nostalgia, but happen to catch the meteor strikes.  They're pretty vague about what exactly is happening.  Fala tries to appeal to the team, while Raible is the one who brings out the guards.  And . . . Hys.  But at least I don't have to keep track of a dozen different Drule captains.  That would suck!

And as they launch in the lions, we're serenaded by a thematically weird choice of music.  I guess it's a variant of the black lion theme.  Because they mention black lion in the chorus.  Oh, and Raible is actually trying to shoot them down.  Suzuishi gives Kogane some crap about wanting to stay on Altea (these are really about as far as the hints of a romance between Kogane and Fala get, reams and reams of fanfiction be damned).

Daibazal doesn't think too much of the Golion team, since they're prone to internal dissent.  'Cuz, y'know Galra just kills everyone before they get to the point of dissension.

When they arrive at Earth, they see that entire oceans have been replaced by magma--at least the oceans the animators remembered to draw as magma.  They fly over a shelter near their old Fuji Space School.  And where their families all used to live.  They enter the shelter to see a skeletal hand that scribbled on the wall in blood.  Then a tremor shatters the skeleton and it's all reduced to dust.  And Galra attacks.

Weapons used: Black bazooka, red laser, green gun, (yellow) gatling missiles.  And the beastman is named Batolda.  That's right, Batolda.  I sorta like his design.  He's kinda back to the Deathhell and Galcia realm of beasstman designs.

Suzuishi says he'd be happy to die on Earth.  Seidou calls him a dumbass.  Fala, in her room, is looking at Earth out a window (!?).  And she hears the voices of the team in her head.  She decides she must go after them.  And she is able to reason with Hys and Raible.  It seems as though she simply doesn't want them to be on an obviously dying planet like Earth, not that she knows they're under attack.  But then again, she's not surprised to see Sincline's forces.

When they form Golion, it's again Formation V.  With an instrumental part toward the end.

Heh.  Batolda.  And he talks!  He tells Golion to die, just before the volcano erupts.  They form Jyuoken and use the "Great Whirlwind" attack.  Apparently that's the Golion verson of the Tachikaze or sword wind.

As they leave, Kurogane seems to think making mount Fuji erupt is what destroyed the Earth, but Kogane assures him that it was the "abnormality" they saw back on castle control's monitors.  And Fala offers Altean citizenship (more or less) to all of them.

The Buried Castle/Mystery of Ghost Castle

This is another one of my favorites, if only for its total over-the-top ridiculosity.

The Buried Castle

Summertime in the Arusian woods.  Three kids who must be on lunch break while constructing the school are suddenly fightened by an earthquake.  The day turns dark and cloudy and they see a mysterious, mist-shrouded castle (ornamented by lightning bolts) in the distance.  The girl is afraid it's haunted.  Hmph.  Girls.

The team sees the castle on their screen in castle control.  Coran has to run a search on the computer to see who it belongs to.  During the robot wars (?) a castle was buried because it contained treasures as well as hideous powers.  It was so harmful that they tried to destroy it, to no avail.  And then they buried it.

Pidge decides he's going to go find the buried treasure.  Lance mocks him, and Keith says maybe there's danger.  Allura convinces Pidge to bring the mouse.

Oh, and Coran's search screen actually says this:

"Is Smith?  She has a red rose in her ha--No. 123. .  I want
Failure is the mother of success"

Not as good as the message the SDF-1 gets from Mars in Robotech, but still.

Pidge takes off in green lion, and enters the castle's stormy zone.  He lands some distance away and walks through the storm.  A lightning strike spilts a tree in front of the three kids, and they're frightened by the wind.  Then the girl sees a monster.  But it's Pidge.  Yeah, yeah.  Long story short, they join treasure-hunting forces. 

Oh, look.  The trap is a Haggarian trap.  She summons a skeletal hand to . . . um, scare them closer to the castle?  Oh, and the girl's name is Morgan.  They enter the castle, which is black as night.  And full of bats.  Pidge draws his sidearm to, y'know, scare off the bats.  Pidge lets the kids lead the way.  They enter a room declared to be the "royal treasure room."  They open a treasure chest and become zillionaires.  Pidge starts stuffing his pockets, until he sees Haggar's cat doing a Cheshire cat thing.  He shoots at the cat, then tries to lead the kids out.  The door closes, then skeletal hands grab their ankles.  Daggers pulled out of the treasure chest turn into snakes.  Pidge's treasure becomes a toad.  Pidge sends the mouse for help while the room turns upside down, tractor beams pull them into a bell, and the room turns rightside up.  Haggar lets the mouse go to bring the others.

The others are watching the castle in castle control, but no sign of Pidge.  Then the mouse comes and tells them what's happening.  They go from their uniforms to their normal close back to their uniforms (just watch the footage to see the animation error) and launch.

Meanwhile, Pidge and the kids are dangling upside down in the bell.  Pidge tries to shoot their shackles, but no luck.

The team arrives, and Hunk tries to charge in.  Keith stops him, then sends the others ahead--but Haggar summons some pretty wicked-looking skeletons.  Keith covers them while the others run into the castle.  Every time Keith shoots a skeleton, it falls apart, then reassembles itself.

Allura tells the mouse (giving it a name I don't catch) to lead them to Pidge.  They arrive, but, well, the same thing happens, and the rest of the team ends up in the bell.  Then the bell starts ringing.

Did one of the Toei staff members visit the Disney World Haunted House before writing this episode?!

Haggar looks on as the skeletons drive Keith into a castle parapet.  Then she says she's going to take them to Zarkon, castle and all.  A giant Gamera-like robeast emerges from the ground outside the castle, attaches itself to the castle with huge steel cables, and starts hauling them all to Doom.  Keith decides to climb up the cables to the robeast to stop them.  Haggar communicates with Zarkon in the robeast's control room.

Four fighters fly out of the robeast's mouth and strafe Keith.  He loses his grip in the cable, but lands on a fighter, kills the robot pilot, and crashlands at the feet of the lions.  He launches black lion and uses the lion sword to cut the cables.  The castle--prisoners and all--crashes back to Arus, and everyone is freed.  They run toward the lions, but the Robeast breathes fire in an attempt to block them off.  They launch and rejoin Keith, taking the kids aboard a lion as well.

Aaaand, we form Voltron.

Voltron lands amidst flames and releases the electroforce cross.  Gamera just pulls his head into his shell, and then launches some crazy scale-projectile things.  Voltron forms the lion lariat, which looks more like two sets of nunchaku, and fights his way to the robeast.  The robeast starts fire breathing again, and then Voltron uses wind from red and green lions, then forms blazing sword.

Yep.

As the robeast explodes, Haggar escapes in an escape ship and is confused that her best magic failed.

Back in castle control, Pidge is pretending to be a drill instructor to teach the kids to be treasure hunters.  Lance tells Pidge that there's no such thing as buried treasure, but then the kids say they found real treasure in the form of Pidge.

Urk.

Mystery of Ghost Castle

Another sunny day on Altea.  The three children are walking through the woods and singing.  Thankfully, the earthquake puts an end to that nonsense.  The girl's name is Laran.  And she refuses to enter the castle because the monster living there will clearly go after her, as she's the cutest.

The Golion rendition of the history is that the castle is called . . . Ghost Castle, owned by an eccentric king who had it buried in dirt upon his death, becoming his tomb.  Kurogane says he used to go to amusement park haunted houses all the time, but now it's kid's stuff.  Suzuishi mocks him, and then takes Platte to investigate.  We hear the Space Mice Theme Song for the first time as green lion launches.

The kids are Poe, Laran, and Joe.  And they endearingly call Suzuishi "Green Lion Guy."  Really.  I'm not being sarcastic.  I actually laughed out loud at that.  Hey, I'd call him Green Lion Guy, too.  Then beat him up and take his lion.  I mean, for eight years at my old office I sit in my cube every day and wait for Coran or Commander Hawkins to show up and tell me that my being there was all a mistake, and that I was supposed to be a Voltron pilot.  I mean, that was only on the days when I wasn't expecing Hagrid to come tell me I was supposed to go to Hogwarts Adult Education.  Or the days when Gandalf was supposed to come tell me I was actually supposed to be at Edoras working for Eomer.

Oh, yeah.  Golion.  This is totally the kind of stuff you'd find in the haunted mansion.

Hm.  Interestingly, the stock launch sequence was lengthened for Voltron.  In Golion, they go from yelling on the communicator right to shots of the shuttles taking them to their lions.

Honerva names the place Hell Castle. 

Seidou's sleeves keep disappearing when the team is trapped in the bell.

When Honerva (who now names it GHOST Castle) summons the beastman, she also teleports.  Sneaky witch (and I think it was cut from Voltron, or I may have been looking away from the screen during that shot).  This is also the first totally mecha beastman, seeings as it has a cockpit and stuff.  Oh, and Honerva knows the names of the Golion members.  And Daibazaal is looking forward to making stew out of them.

And our Golion combination music today is the first time we hear the green lion theme.  Weapons used:  Cross Beam, Double Rod (the nunchaku weapons that have nifty lions heads on them), and fire tornado, which seems to be all tornado in this episode.  Oh, do I need to mention Jyuoken?

The kids call Suzuishi "big brother" at the end.  Which has all kinds of shades of meaning in Japanese.  Fascinating people, those Japanese.  They also do not mention the name of the beastman, but I think of him as Gamera.  Really neat.  Full of meat.  We believe in Gamera.

Zarkon is Dying/Footsteps in the Forest of Fear

The string of favorites continues.  I liked this one because we see more of the Doom/Galra empire's internal workings.  And I always liked it when the villains tried, subtly or overtly, to work against each other.  I guess this episode kind of prepared me for Babylon 5.

Zarkon is Dying

We open on Doom, but outside one of those weird mutant onion buildings.  Lotor enters a room that could be nothing by a mad scientist's lab.  He speaks to Zandra, a red robed, white-haired wizard who is clearly of Haggar's vintage.  Zandra demonstrates a potion on a flower that turns it into a "Rosebeast."  Yes, he actually says that.  The rosebeast startles Lotor and he shatters the pot.

A soldier in a uniform very similar to Lotor's rushes in and tells Lotor that Zarkon is very ill.  Zarkon is writhing around on a benchlike bier thing with ornamental zenomorph heads when Lotor enters, with Haggar watching over him.  The same messenger soldier enters and tells them that the royal healers are ready, but Haggar says her magic will be enough.

Haggar leads Lotor to a "black altar" on steps behind Zarkons bed-thing.  She makes some sort of invocation that Lotor watches skeptically.  She does some stuff with beads and invokes those who made snakes and spiders.  The string of beads falls apart and Haggar collapses.  Apparently she can read the beads, because they tell her he needs to collect berries that grow only on Arus.  Lotor is skeptical, thinking maybe she just wants him to fight Voltron.  Haggar also does a little wheeling and dealing--she'll serve Lotor just as faithfully as she did Zarkon.

Lotor assembles his robot troops, and Zandra appears with a beaker full of the Rosebeast formula.  Lotor leaves in his battle cruiser.

On Arus, the team is overseeing the construction of a new school.  Allura, Nanny, and the handmaidens go into the forest to pick berries.  Neil Ross and Michael Bell are forced to provide voices for the handmaidens.  Ugh.

Lotor applies the rosebeast formula to a stand of dead trees.  If the scene with the crabby apples trees in the Wizard of Oz scared you as a kid, this'll give you the willows.

In the forest, the princess and the others know something is wrong when they hear a noise like the bionic man.  Allura sees a flock of birds fleeing the forest, and urges them to leave.  Too late, the treebeasts are in upon them.

Keith sees the birds circling over the forest where the princess is.  Keith brings Hunk and Lance with him, leaving Pidge to guard the children.

The trees close in on them, surrounding them by forming an evil hedge, and threatening them with scary flower monsters.  Then Lotor appears, standing on the branch of a giant tree.  He sees that Allura has already collected berries, but Keith and the others arrive just in time.  Keith sends Allura back to the blue lion and rescues Nanny.

Lotor, who has done some pratfalling in the meantime, sends the plant beasts to follow them, and rendezvous with his flagship in the batplane.  The treebeasts can fire beams from the flower heads.  We see footage of the team entering the lions, but weren't all five of them already at the construction site?

Pidge is overwhelmed, holding off the three treebeasts by himself.  The rest of the team arrives, and Lance tries to start a forest fire.  Lotor orders the three beasts to merge into one.  Keith orders them to fire magma missiles.  All of this just makes the robeast angry.  Pidge fires macrodarts from green lion's shoulder launcher, but he and the blue lion get caught and smashed together.  A lot of flying and flailing ensues while the team tries to figure out how to get out of this chokehold.  Keith orders Lance to dive at the beast's legs--he actually tunnels through the ground under it, knocking it over and freeing the two trapped lions.  They form Voltron.

Voltron dropkicks the robeast, but it grabs him by the legs and spins him around overhead.  He slams Volts to the ground a couple of times, and fires missiles out of its trunk.  Hunk and Allura use the fire blasters, get Voltron free, then he forms blazing sword.  Lotor leaves in defeat.  No berries, no princess, no nuthin'.

In Zandra's lab, he plays with a cobra and then pours venom into a beaker.  He threatens Zandra with it, then Zandra says he should tell Zarkon it's the berry juice of healing.  Lotor does just that, but the cobra venom heals him.  Lotor is awed and shamed.  He's not going to be emperor anytime soon.

Footsteps in the Forest of Fear

The narrator tells us this the Galra Imperial Occult Science Research Lab.  And Sincline's wizard is experimenting with the brain extract of beastmen.  It instills lants with the souls of loyal half-beastmen.  However, human souls are too strong, so more experiments are needed.  Then a messenger appears to tell them Daibazaal has collapsed.  He also announces the arrival of three physicians.  This is serious Chinese folktale stuff to me--not any specific tale, but the idea of the tyrant struck ill, his sorceress driving away real physicians, his conniving son . . .

Honerva's invocation is to the god of Galra, and she uses the El roy mu el roy mu chant again.  The god reveals to her that he needs the fresh blood of a human girl (who doesn't?!).  That puts a slightly different spin on things vs. the berry juice in Voltron.

Yep, when we get to Altea, definitely all of the lions are at the building site.  We also get a female-vocal ballad in the background.  Huh.  This is new for this series.  They're picking raspberries, and apparently the forest is recovering after Daibazaal's invasions, or something, because Hys just abou has a heart attack looking at the raspberries.

Sincline urges the beastman souls to possess the trees and bring him suitable victims for a blood sacrifice.  Very lucky that there's a bunch of chicks picking raspberries not far away.  This time, they hear giant footsteps instead of the 6 Million Dollar Man sound.  The handmaiden's voices aren't much better in this version, even considering that they've actually got actresses for the roles. 

What is with the bumbling of Sincline in this episode?  Kogane knocks him over and he hangs off the tree branch before flopping senselessly to the ground.  In a scene that doesn't really get played for comedy.  I mean, Kogane trying to haul Hys through the trees is sort of comical, but it's not emphasised.

The plant beasts combine into Giant Beastman Treeder.  Yep.  TREEDER.  This is an example of Japanese children's shows using English words to actually represent some quality of the character they're naming, but still sound exotic.

The green lion shoulder weapon is called the "green knives."  Other weapons are the black bazooka, yellow bazooka, and blue claws.  I bet you can figure out what lions those come from.  And they form to the fantastic sounds of Foh-mation VEE!!!

When Treeder grabs Golion by the legs, Kogane is translated as saying "Oh, crap!!"  Then he orders a Grand Fire attack.

Sincline cuts the head off the Galra cobra, the poisonous king rade, and pours it into the beaker, then forces his scientist to drink it.  He dies twitching.  Sincline laughs, then decides to offer this to Daibazaal.  When Diabazaal drinks it and gets better, Sincline says "father truly is the devil embodied!"  Also, this is the first time we've seen Daibazaal bareheaded.

My Brother is a Robeast/Challenge from Space

There's a string of favorite episodes we're moving through.  I love the introduction of Pollux/Heracles.

My Brother is a Robeast

We open outside Castle Doom (GASP) with Zarkon speaking to King Kova, who is kneeling with several of his courtiers, including Avok, his son and strongest warrior.  Prince Avok will become a Robeast to defeat Voltron.  Lotor doesn't believe it, and does some boasting.  In the arena, Avok fights a completely generic blue robeast with a tail.  He finishes off the robeast to the Doomites' collective dismay.

Lotor leaps into the arena and draws his laser sword.  He pushes Avok back until his sister, Romelle cheers for him from the stands.  Unfortunately for Lotor, she looks like Allura and he gets distracted, disarmed and held at swordpoint.  Lotor agrees to help them with the plan.  Haggar takes him off to become a robeast.  Romelle and her younger brother Bandor claim Avok is the bravest.  Lotor leaps to the stands and leads Romelle around.  The king stands up and looks upset, but one of his courtiers assures him that his son is in god hands.

Zarkon and Haggar, as usual, discuss the plan for the benefit of the audience.  With Kova old and feeble(?) and Avok as a robeat, that leaves Bandor as the heir.  Lotor has designs of Romelle, which amuses Zarkon.

Lotor arrives on Pollux.  I like the design of Lotor's command ship, which we see close up for the first time (it was in the distance for a moment in "Yurak gets his Pink Slip").  Lotor disembarks with Romelle walking with Lotor's harem.  He describes the robeastification process to King Kova, who approves--Avok was a willing subject, which allowed him to absorb a large amout of super sizification.  He's now resting in a space coffin.

On Arus, the team views a challenge to surrender or fight from Pollux.  Allura's father had told her about the planet Pollux (when she was four?!)  It is the evil twin of Arus.  One ancient king had two sons, one good, one evil.  He banished the evil son to Pollux before he died.

Keith decides it's time to make peace/  Coran agrees and offers to go; Allura says, as princess, it's her place to go.  So they go.  They form Voltron and make their way to Pollux.  t doesn't take long beause the orbit takes Pollux close to Arus every hundred years.

Kova meets with his council of bodybuilders and they plot against Zarkon.  The blue cat is watching, and Lotor and Haggar are hanging out with the harem and watching Haggar's crystal ball.  Haggar mentions the cat has a transmitter.  What, NOW you decide magic is implausible?!

The Voltron force is sneaking through the sewers to the castle, doing a pretty good imitation of a SWAT team with their cover formation.  They see a fleet of Polluxian attack ships through a sewer grate, then swim across that body of water that's in the middle of the courtyard.  What is that?  Pidge leads them in scaling the castle wall using ultragrips they all have in their belts.  They basically make a ladder of hand and footholds out of them.  They jump into the castle and run down the hall.

Romelle and Bandor are in a room looking at Arus in the sky.  Romelle tells Bandor that war is nothing to be happy about, and that you can't believe everything Lotor says.  He hears a noise in the hall.  It's Pidge, who's backed into a statue.  Bandor confronts Pidge.  Allura runs up, and she and Romelle see each other for the first time.  Bandor takes them all prisoner--until Hunk just tackles him.  Unfortunately, the cat sees them, and Lotor's troops have the castle surrounded.

Oh, yeah, this is also the first episode in which we see Lotor's adjutant, Mogor.  Or Morgil, as he's usually called,  Who sounds like Yurak.  But has a uniform a lot like the evil Vikings in the old Rune PC game.  The team beats a covered retreat back to Voltron, and then they break into the courtyard.  Lotor's adjutant orders the robeast released.

The space coffin is launched from Lotor's flagship, and a purple, giant Avok emerges and locks two swords together and starts spinning them.  Huh.  I wonder if Pollux has fire dancers?

Avok knocks the blazing sword out of Voltron's grip, but then Voltron knocks the double-sword away with the spinning laser blade.  The two end up in a clinch.  Avok throws him, then goes to grab Voltron by the black lion head-visor.  Voltron breathes fire out of his human face, then they goes tumbling out of the courtyard into a lake.  Voltron electrocutes Avok, then Lotor loses patience and and sends fighters after both of them.  Avok, um, swims away.  Romelle panics, runs, and is grabbed by Lotor's men.  They just wound Avok.

Voltron demolishes Lotor's ship, but he escapes in an escape ship.  But he's low on fuel and blames Morgil.  The team tells a distraught Bandor that he'll have to land on Arus and will barter Romelle for repair help.  What th-?  Then they all hug.

Challenge from Space

The planet is called Heracles in Golion, and that kinda makes their toga-like dress and trireme-esque spaceships a little more understandable.  Still, though, the character designers had some weird fixation on horrifically short skirt-things for male characters.  Fascinating people, the Japanese.

The eldest Heraclean prince is named Samson.  And Daibazaal is not impressed with their proposal.  And Sincline is incensed that they claim to be even better warriors than the deathblack beastmen.

Samson basically disembowels the beastman.  We're not surprised.  Sincline's sword has a glowing effect, but no sounds.  Samson's sister is Amue.  Honerva's voice is super creepy when she takes Samson to her lab.  Prince Alor also has a creepy little-boy crush on Sincline.  And the Heraclean king is upset that sincline runs off with Amue.

The narrator explicitly states the preparations take months.  And Amue looks a bit downtrodden when she follows Sincline off the ship.  She averts her face when Sincline speaks to her father.  And Lotor's adjutant is named Gobra.

The design of the Heraclean castle is a lot more . . . castley and a lot less Enchanted Kingdom than the Altean castle.

Raible explains that Heracles comes close to Altea only every 15-20 years.  The story of the foundation of Heracles by Altean exiles is basically the same.

"Fighting, fighting, Golion!"  Yeah, it's the Formation V song as they combine.

Apparently, Golion has some sort of stealth barrier that allows them to inflitrate Heracles airspace.

Yeah, yeah, the Heraclean master plan is to defeat Altea as a scheme to ultimately defeat Galra.

Have I mentioned that I generally like the mechanical designs for this series?  Each society has it's own basic design philosophy, but you can intuitively tell the purpose behind most of the ships.

Huh.  The Voltron "ultragrips" are called "ultrahooks" here.  How can you 1) sneak up a wall that's within plain sight of all those troops down at the canal and2) sneak up a wall with tools that make a high-pitched *clink* noise all the time.

Amue tries to tell Alor that Sincline is "a terrible person."    And, amusingly, Amue and Fala aren't totally identical.  Fala looks more like Maetel from Galaxy Express 999.

The pistols used by Lotor's troops are a design we've never seen before.  And kinda neat-lookin'.  Aaand, another talkin' beastman.  Golion breathing fire from the human face is "Power Fire."  And Heracles' close-combat training apparently involved pro wrestling.  When Sincline gets irritated at the progress of the battle, he actually tells Gobra "to just blow them both up!"  The fighters blind the beastman, and the two either launch missiles or crash into him.  He turns from purple to normal colored, and then explodes.  His father, angry at Sincline, jumps into a AAA gun and gets blown up by fighters.  Amue gets grabbed and Alor is wounded.

Sincline stands on Gobra's head because he didn't get Fala.

Oh.  They're all standing around the grave of Alor's father.  Alor laments that he saw only Sincline's strength and did not see him for what he was.  And so, this is the second planet they liberate from Galra, sort of (though they didn't liberate them so much as end an alliance between them), and the first major allie they make.

Bridge Over the River Chozzerai/The Legendary Bridge of Love

For some reason, in the interim period between seeing Voltron in its original run and when I rewatched it a few years ago, I had either conflated this episode with the one where Haggar starts a robeast-produced drought, or just remembered it as being much later in the story arc.  Anyway, this is only the second full episode with Lotor as the primary antagonist.  And wow.  His Allura-fixation is serious.

Bridge over the River Chozzerai

Allura thanks the team for helping to restore Arus to its previous beauty.  She tells them the story of the love bridge, in which two youths, a girl (Kia?) from the kingdom of Altair, and a boy (Aldar) from Helena, are in love.  Though war between their kingdoms has destroyed all the bridges between their kingdoms, they try to build their own with stones tossed into the river.  It doesn't go so well, so the goddess of love creates a bridge for them, and they're together.

Allura and her kingdom are rebuilding the bridge, and they're going to reenact the legend with Allura as the girl and one of the team as the boy.  And Lance actually says "icky sticky."  Naturally, everyone except Keith (who looks embarassed) wants to be the one.  Ultimately, Pidge suggests they draw cards.  One of the mice (looks like one of the kids) agrees to help Pidge choose the joker, but double-crosses him.  Hunk wins.  Everyone gushes over the princess's gown, but Hunk's hopes are somewhat dashed when Nanny announces that she's going, too.  They leave in their lions.

The blue cat watches the proceedings, and reports back to Haggar.  And, for the first time, we see Haggar's . . . workshop?  Whatever it is, it's not the chamber she used for Beastman Deathhell, and it's pretty badass looking, with giant eyeballs and optic nevers dangling around a platform.  She, of course, has a plot to take advantage of the separated Voltron Force.

Meanwhile, Lotor and Zarkon are watching two robeasts fight in the arena.  A yellow cyclops dude of a type we will see again, and an elephant with two trunks.  Maybe he's the space jockey?  Haggar appears in their box and tells them Allura is going to the Love Bridge.  Lotor rushes off, but not before Zarkon has him take the new robeast champion.

We are then treated to Lotor's fantasy of Allura serving him wine in a bellydancer's costume.

We caught to Allura and Hunk, at opposite ends of the bridge, in costume, with a crowd of Arusians.  Allura recites the tale again, and she and Hunk run towards each other on the bridge.  They are about to meet when suddenly, Lotor's batplane bursts out of the river and destroys the bridge.  Allura is left on the bridge's suspension spans, and Lotor leaps out of the batplace and approaches her.  Hunk has apparently fallen into the river.

In castle control, the team sees what's happening and launches the lions.  They fly to the river but are intercepted by the now-supersized Space Jockey Robeast.

Lotor backs Allura to the end of the span until Hunk suddenly somersaults in from somewhere.  They struggle briefly, but Lotor knocks Hunk hanging off of the span and Allura into the river.  He runs back to the batplane while Nanny urges Hunk to save her.  The batplane is closing in on the swimming princess, but in caught by Hunk and Nanny in the yellow lion.  Lotor retaliates and the yellow lion crashes into the river, Hunk and Nanny unconscious.

The robeast fires its trunk cannons and missiles at the team and the castle.  Black and green lions are disabled by giant launching paws that grab onto the lions and electrocute them.  Lance attacks the robeast, but its ears fly off(!) and take him out.  The robeast then hits the other two with the trunk cannon.

Allura climbs a giant staircase to her waiting people, and then sprints to blue lion.  But Lotor is waiting.  She draws a gun on him.  He tries to disarm her, but she eludes him and points the gun to her own head.  Refusing to fall for her bluff, she lunges at her but trips on a rock.  She opens fire and drives him back long enough to get to blue lion.  The blue lion enters the river and starts digging yellow out from under the landslide.  They get free, but yellow lion isn't responding.  The batplane starts a strafing run, but the two lions drive him off.

Meanwhile, the Space Jockey is bombarding the castle.  The team reunites, and they devide the only way to form Voltron is with yellow lion in freefall.  Despite the best efforts of a commercial break, it succeeds (and we get a crazy new shot of an acid-tripping hippy's view of the lions entering formation).  They form Voltron with Nanny as a passenger.

Voltron does some fist roaring, and the Space Jockey fires on him.  Voltron stands his ground, forms the electro-saber, and cuts the flying ear weapon in half.  They exchange more fire, but the robeast knocks Voltron down with the electro-paws, then rolls up on his to point the trunk cannons at Volts' face.  They launch him clear with the fire/wind green/red combo, form blazing sword, and the day is saved.

We cut to the desert lion sculpture where yellow lion resides, and we see the lion sickbay for the first time.  Hunk suggests that maybe they could have ended the war if Allura had kissed Lotor, but Allura shoots down that idea.

Lotor is kneeling before Zarkon, getting berated.  Now they have to come up with a new plan to eliminate Voltron.  Lotor vows that Allura will one day be his.

The Legendary Bridge of Love

There's a surprising amount of dialogue that survives from Golion into Voltron in this episode.

In the Golion version of the legend, the youths belong to the kingdoms of Altea and Helena, presumably the same kingdom Queen/Princess Elena is from.  The Altean girl's name is Frida, and the Helenan boy is Yuuji.  The goddess of love is named Roman (short for Romantic?) in this version.  The scene is also backed by music we've never heard before in the series.  Is it stock?  Stolen from another Toei series?  New for this series?

The dialogue where they hassle over who "hugs" the princess, and Suzuishi's bartering chease with the mouse is basically unchanged from Voltron.  Seidou calls Hys an old bag, which is a new kind of awesome.

When the two beastmen fight, Sincline calls the fight over, but Daibazaal throws a sword to finish of the yellow cyclops as it struggles to get back up.  He also says he will now teach Sincline how to rule the empire at his side, and that Fala is not worth his time--he should just leave it to a half-beastman.  Naturally, he doesn't.  'Cuz he's craaazy.

The batplane has some sort of VTOL thrusters.  And, presumably, an autopilot, since Sincline jumps out of it to grab Fala.

As they launch, Kogane orders the other two to hang back, flanking him.  Then they see the beastman.  Aaand we get a commercial break (only one in the Japanese format).

Sincline's sword makes lasery noises, but if it's glowing, it's silver instead of pink like last episode.  Mostly it just looks white.  As he's chasing Fala, Sincline kind of zones out staring at her, saying "Just like a Mermaid . . . "  Then yellow lion jumps him, but he gets the upper hand.

The beastman has missile launches in his hands and "knees."  There's a lot of ordnance traded between this one and the castle.

The Altean villager Fala speaks to at the top of the steps gives her a weapon--I missed that in the Voltron version (too busy typin').  Sincline says she has the eyes of a leopard.  And that he's the one who will choose her death.  Um.  Charming, I guess.

We here the blue lion song as Fala rescues Seidou and Hys in the crashed yellow lion.  When they drive off Sincline, they fire three columns of missiles and a column of . . . other projectiles.

The beastman is doing a number of the castle, killing yet more guards just innocently standing around.  Poor guys.  As they form Golion, we hear the Formation V song.  I don't know if that's what it's called, but that's kind of the chorus.  Sometimes, when just walking around or something, I'd overhear my friend Monica singing "fighting, fighting, golion!" under her breath.

Golion weapons: Double sword (cuts the flying ears), laser magnum, foot missiles (both drive the beastman back), fire tornado (blows the beastman off of them), and Jyuoken.  And this beastman is named Galgo at the very end, by Sincline.  Daibazaal doesn't like him haring off after Fala because he will never allow some traitorous princess to kneel before him.

The dialogue at the end about hugging/kissing Sincline/Lotor is about the same.

Give Me Your Princess/Overcome the Phantom of Shirogane

Give Me Your Princess

Mighty subtle titling there, WEP.  We open on a view of Castle Doom, and lodged in front of the castle is Lotor's battle fortress.  He addresses his troops, both the gray, ridge-headed soldiers we've come to expect, and we see his personal army for the first time.  They all look more like him than the other Doomites. and wear different (classier) uniforms.

On Arus, Allura sneaks into the black lion.  'Cuz some day she may have to lead, and, y'know, they wouldn't let her if she asked.  This very same strategy got me in all kinds of trouble.  Lotor's fortress approaches Arus.  The team launches after some hasseling between the princess and the rest of the team.  Lotor's fortress splits into three cylinder-sections and one, um, mushroom of DOOM.  All four components launch waves of standard fighters.  The rest of the team joins the princess, Keith in the blue lion (even though the launch sequence shows him going into black lion).

Allura puts up a valiant effort to lead, first ramming a fighter head-on, then trying to use the black bazooka, but the lion's controls lock up.  Keith says "We need Voltron!"  The team starts the formation, but Lotor, in the Batplane, shoots down the black lion.  He orders his forces to capture the blue lion, and presumably the Princess.  Keith orders the others to cover Allura while he charges Lotor.  Lotor's plane can apparently launch missiles from the same fixture as the beam weapon (animation error?)  The team pulls Allura back and Keith drives off Lotor.

Lotor returns to his fortress and consoles himself with his cotery of bellydancers.  My girlfriend (who performs professionally as a bellydancer, but doesn't dance to the Golion music like our other friend) once asked me if I was dating her so I could be more like Lotor.  I said that theory would have had merit had I done any of the pursuing that started our relationship.  Still.  Lotor's got some style.  Long hair, swords, hordes of minions, hangs out with bellydancers . . .  I could totally get along with him.  Hanging out with the Voltron force would be so weird, on the other hand.

Anyway.  Back in castle control, the team gets all dramatic over Allura running off in black lion.  Keith says "Sven never would have done this" and sends her into an emo spiral.  That is, a downward one.  Later, while Keith is monitoring Lotor's fortress, he wonders if he was too hard on her.

That night, Lotor is trying to see through the windowless castle (do they have shudders?)  He shoots down some trees to clear his view, but he still can't see the princess.  Zarkon calls and checks on him.  He assures his father and Haggar that Arus will soon be in their hands.

Allura agonizes over current events, either dreaming or hallucinating about failing fatally.  The space mice try to cheer her up with pratfalls, but that's not enough to keep Allura from doing something rash.  This isn't helped by her overhearing the team wishing Sven were back.  She opens a shield to look at Lotor's fortress, then imagines her people perishing in flames.  Suddenly she's in blue lion.

The team runs to castle control, looking for her.  Coran assures them he didn't send them away, and for once Nanny tells them to go do their jobs!  Then get in the lions and dive into the lake.

Lotor is sitting in his throne room (sans bellydancers) when the blue lion arrives, tearing through the outer wall of the mushroom segment.  Fortunately, his fortress has lion-capturing pincers that grab and tase the blue lion until Allura falls out.  Lotor tries to kiss her before she regains consciousness, but agrees to serve him (ahem) if he spares Arus.

The team then approaches in the lions, but Lotor brandishes his sword (which is now a pink lightsabre thing).  The team dismounts and approachs Lotor on foot, surrendering.  Keith is about to hand Lotor the keys when Coran launches smoke missiles.  Keith takes a sword blow, but fires a few covering shots to clear the path for the princess back to her lion.  The rest of the team launches, and Lotor relaunches and recombines his fortress, bragging about his "laser ray" the whole time.

Keith, injured (again) urges them to form Voltron, but the laser ray knocks black lion off course.  Allura disables the fortress momentarily, and they form Voltron--some of the footage is from the Golion opening sequence.  Lotor's fortress is in flames.  He runs to his batplane just as Voltron blazingly swords the fortress.

The team returns to castle control, with Allura supporting the injured Keith.  Allura is ready to drop out of the team, but Keith assures her that someday, she will pilot black lion.  The rest of the team chime in with their support.  She's so happy she cries.

Oh, yeah.  There's no robeast in this episode.  One of the few.  And--Lotor's subordinates all have vocodered voices, probably to make them seem more robotic even though they look more like living humanoids than the ogther Doom soldiers.

Overcome the Phantom of Shirogane

Again with Sincline addressing his troops.  I do like the blue uniforms and Prussian-style helmets worn by Sincline's red army.  Also, I didn't mention this during Voltron, but there are two animation models used for Sincline.  One has a more round, youthful-looking face.  The other has more facial details and craggier nose.  Another friend of mine likes to refer to episodes with the craggier model as Lotor's "bad face days."  This is one of them (yes, lots of my friends still watch Voltron.  Weirdos attract other weirdos).

When Fala pirates the black lion, we get unique views of the lion shuttle.

Sincline refers to the three cylinder sections of his fortress as the control towers.  When the Galra fighters attack, we see a few shots of manned castle turrets followed by explosions of unmanned turrets--these weren't cut in Voltron.

The lions use magma missiles (red), gatling missiles (yellow), and black bazooka (black, but failed).  Kurogane comes to Fala's rescue with the missile launcher on red lion's back, which he calls the Jet Arrow.  And blue lion's water attack is called the Water Rod.  Do you ever wonder if maybe the mechanical designers included this gimmick on the off-chance toy designers wanted an excuse for the toys to function as squirt guns?

When the weapons retract into the castle, Coran says "Good.  Self-defense operation complete.  We can hold our own for now."  So the fact that the castle (which often has lit windows at night) is windowsless when Sincline tries his peeping is part of its defensive posture.

When he's hanging out with the bellydancers, he decapitates one who spills wine on his leg.  Oh, and all of his dancers are blondes.  One thing I disagree with him on, but, whatever (the blondes, not the decapitation).

Hys calls the team "barbarians from Earth."  Huh.

Kogane's internal dialogue is that he wants her to surpass Shirogane and become truly strong.

Sincline's standard troops wear the blue uniforms, but he has (a) lieutenant(s) in a red variant of the uniform.

Fala's internal monologue during her dream seems to impy that there's more to flying the lions than, y'know, just flying, that there's some spiritual or "inner strength" aspect to it.

That really annoying missile sound effect from the belt missiles of the first beastman is used for the smoke missiles here, and it's timed much better.

The fortress is called "Blockgod."  Very interesting.  It's also pretty manuverable for being a giant, cylinderical . . . thing.

When Golion combines, the song is the blue lion theme.

Yurak Gets His Pink Slip/Crown Prince of Hell

Here we are.  It only took 14 episodes, but now we introduce the final piece of the classic Voltron puzzle.  Zarkon is a decent villain, for a detatched conqueror sitting in his throne room.  But he's gotta have a catspaw to do his dirty work.  And Yurak just wasn't doing it--neither in-universe, destroying Voltron, nor as a villain the audience really wanted to watch as he chewed the scenery.  Now, we meet Lotor/Sincline.

Yurak Gets His Pink Slip

We open with lightning outside . . . a mountain range on Arus.  Ha HA!  Thought it was gonna be another "outside castle Doom" opening, dintcha?  Yurak leads "the largest attack force ever assembled" (um, that day?) which consists of the Rooster Frigate and a bunch of fighters.

However, the lions are lying in wait.  They roar in anticipation of the coming battle, then start launching missiles, taking out many of the fighters.  Yurak orders a "multi-laser barrage," but the team uses missiles and lion knives to take out most of the ships.  Yurak fires the main weapons mounted on his ship, and Hunk and the princess take serious hits.  Keith counters using the coat of arms device on his lion, blowing the beak off the front of the rooster frigate.  Amidst flame and explosions, Yurak orders a frantic retreat as his robots fall around him.  We can show the casualties, y'know, 'cuz they're robots.  The "largest attack force ever assembled" is now two-thirds of the rooster Frigate and seven damaged fighters.

NOW we get to open on Castle Doom. In a room we've never seen before, we see the "Governors," whom Yurak is begging forgiveness.  Zarkon and Haggar appear in what's basically a box seat balcony sort of thing.  This place was totally designed by H.R. Giger.  The throne box is surrounded by two statuesque Xenomorph heads. 

Zarkon threatens Yurak with banishment.  A Doom Governor whips him.  Then, they are interrupted by the approach of a fleet of spacecraft.  Lotor, Zarkon's son.  Returned from his conquests.

Eeexcelent.

Lotor has been hearing rumors about planet Doom and Voltron.  Zarkon points the finger at Yurak for those defeats.  Lotor stops Zarkon from throwing is scepter thingie at Yurak and offers to make him the vehicle of his own redemption and defeat of Voltron.

Pidge is teaching the space mice acrobatic tricks.  Then the parents run off with the mouslings.

In the ruins of the town, the Arusians are having a market when enemy spacecraft arrive and commence strafing runs.  One attack ship apporoaches the castle.  The team runs out to a glass-enclosed balcony sort of thing.  Lotor is struck by Allura.  Hoo-boy.  This'll end well.  Lotor claims that if they settle the dispute between Doom and Arus by single combat, he will agree to permanent peace.  Keith agrees despite the fact that everyone thinks it's a trap.

Ah.  The Doom vultures, circling over the castle.  We can't go a single episode without this shot.  If we did, I'd have some sort of violent paranoid episode.  Honest.  Anyway, Haggar and Zarkon explain to us, the viewers, that Lotor has brought Yurak with him--and Yurak is now a mightly Robeast.

Keith rides his white horse to meet Lotor.  The two draw swords and charge.  There's a lot of acrobats and sword clashing and Lotor growling.  Keith is driven to a ledge, but disarms Lotor--who just picks up a rock and knocks him off the cliff anyway.

I like Lotor.

In a moment of standard supervillain gloating, Lotor explains that the duel was simply meant to separate the Voltron force.

The rest of the team, in Castle Control, decide to take the lions out to see how the duel is going.

Standing on the back of his batship, Lotor summons the supersized Yurak, who  looks pretty much the same, but his ears are bigger.  The team rushes through the desert and meets up with the giant Yurak.  (Wait, so how many times have they actually seen Yurak face to face?)  Yuri ejects a grenade out of his chest and throws it at the lions.  Recovering from the blast, blue lion breaks off to find Keith.

Lotor had taken the batship down into the ravine to finish off Keith.  He fires a laser that turns into a flamethrower, but is driven off by blue lion.  Keith calls for his horse and rides back to the castle to get black lion.

Yurak continues his battle against the remaining lions.  He fires energy beams from his fingers, missiles from hatches in his forearms, and crazy chain-bolo things from the hatch in his abdomen.  The chain things catch all four lions, allowing Yurak to spin them over his head and throw them into a ravine.  He gloats about how he will be reinstated to command.

Keith returns to the castle and is briefly confronted by Nanny to tells him his too hurt to save the day.  Seriously, is this bitch a planet Doom mole or what?!  He gets back to black lion, knocks Yurak down, and rouses the rest of the team to form Voltron.  As Voltron lands, Yurak makes this comically "Ruah!?" doubletake, then shoots lasers from his ears.  Ol' Volts just pelts him with preliminarys--lops off his ears with spinning laser blades, hits him with heat beams, proton missiles, and then forms the blazing sword.  We know how this goes from here.

As Voltron poses for a picture no one takes, Lotor shakes his fist.  We follow him for some distance as he flies through an Arusian mountain range on his way out.  Then we see Voltron posing in the sunset again.

Crown Prince of Hell

It amuses me how much "robot" death Voltron got away with in this episode.  BECAUSE THEY'RE ROBOTS.  Therefore, there isn't a lot cut in the opening battle sequence.  Sadak sets out on a sneak-attack, and promptly complains tha the lions dishonorably ambush him.  Jesus, he's an early-21st century politician!  "I can use dirty tricks against you, but it's not fair if you do it vice versa!"

I like how a fighter scores a direct hit on black lion, and he completely ignores it to form black sword and hit a few other fighters.  And blue lion's paw weapon is the "blue claw."  The energy blast from black lion's breastplate is the "black beam."

There are varying numbers of the Galra council.  Six or eight.  In one shot there's only two seats on one side of the room.  In most shots there seems to be six, but there are five individuals I can identify.  Maybe six.  I'm not trying very hard, mind you.  Once I get around to actually doing screen captures, I'll catalogue them all.  Some of them are drastically different from either the Daibazaal/Sadak Galra type and the black army troopers, while some have features that might suggest they're an extreme variation of the usual type.

Sincline, the Prince Imperial, arrives.  He has been conquering the Great Goering Nebula.  And he brings a platter with heads of the Great Goering kings!  That's an awesome shot.

The shot just before Sincline in his batship (with an escort of three other ships we see only briefly here, but will become familiar with soon enough) strafes the Altean town seems to imply that the ruins are actually being rebuilt.

It's interesting to me that the show waited four episodes before revealing the main robot, and 14 episodes before we get the real villain of the show.  Daibazaal is just a talking head on a throne, really.  Honerva is sneaky and subversive (and, arguably, the most effective when you consider that she took out one of the original Golion members).  But if we're gonna keep on with the weird Chinese folktale vibe of this show, we need someone to personally oppose Golion.  And that's Sincline.  Sadak was just a career soldier doing his job, basically.  He was cruel and he enjoyed killin' stuff, but you don't get the feeling he has a serious stake in it.  Sincline, on the other hand, is bat-shit insane abou ending Golion.  And gettin' Fala.

Case in point--Kogane disarms him, and he says "hey, this fight is a draw."  Kogane, taken aback and somewhat offended, says "WHAT?!"  And Sincline klubs him in the head with a rock, saying "IT'S A DRAW!!"

Yep.  Crazy.  Almost makes up for Hys, having this guy around.

Beastman Sadak continues the fine tradition of talking beastmen.  At least we don't get as goofy as the talking Mighty Morphin Power Rangers monsters.

The missiles from blue lion's shoulder launcher are curiously spikey.  It's a cool design for a throwaway image like missiles that flash by on screen and then explode.

Not only do we introduce Sincline in this episode, it is also the debut of the individual lion's theme songs.  We get black lion's as Kogane goes to rejoin the team.  We get the elevator-music version of the Golion theme for the formation.

When Kogane arrives and calls out each lion by color, the dialogue is identical to Voltron.  In this case, it could be a translation was available, or it could be that, well, they use the english words for the lions.

When Golion just mercilessy pounds Sadak, he uses the double sword for the first time (the solar spear in Voltron) and impales Sadak just before forming Jyuoken.

As we track Sincline leaving in the batship, the narrator gives us a little bit of foreshadowing, assuring us that, yes indeed, the real bad guy has now arrived.  Sincline, incidentally, is voiced by Akira Tamiya, whom is also recognizable to me for being the Japanese voice of Roy Fokker from Robotech/Macross.  He also voiced Drill Sergeant Zim for the anime Starship Troopers, and has been in pretty much EVERYTHING: Fist of the North Star, Getter Robo, Cutey Honey, Space Battleship Yamato . . .  He's probably the most prolific crazy man in anime I've come across.

The Witch Gets a Facelift/Introducing Beautiful Honerva

The Witch Gets a Facelift
Maybe we can continue the less-Nanny trend from the last episode.  We open up with an idyllic forest scene that suddenly turns dark.  And a space coffin lends.  Haggar emerges and cackles, looks on Castle of Lions.  She and the cat are going to produce a surprise disguise.

A hawk flies into the Castle rec room.  Hunk makes a grab for it, and it goes after him.  Pidge whistles and it lands on his arm.  The others see a message strapped to its talons.  The princess is so excited to here of a message from a distant kingdom she runs out wrapped in just a towel (does she shower with that tiara thing?!)  Ugh.  And Nanny.

The message is from Queen Orla, Allura's aunt. 

Orla is traveling by carriage with a couple of Mycenean Greeks as guards.  Or maybe they're Myrmidons.  Then they hear an ominous cackle.  Haggar . . . stun rays the Myrmidons--well, their entire plan was to "seize her."  Maybe Haggar got her start as a library ghost.  She takes Orla and the ladies in waiting to some ruins, where Haggar assumes Orla's appearence. 

The team is running through the woods near where Haggar nabbed Orla.  The find her passed out near a lake.  Pidge gets nuts.  Orla awakens.  Allura says she's cold--it's just shock.  At Lance's recommendation, they get her back to the Castle where fireworks great her.

And Nanny.  Nanny goes in for a hug or something, and lands on her face.  The mice great Orla in the throne room (?) and Haggar--er--Orla freaks out.  They kick out the mice, and the mice storm out.  In Allura's quarters, Orla tries to strangle the princess while Allura goes though dresses in her closet.  The space mice intervene.  Of course, Allura misunderstands, and chases the muce out again.  Allura tucks her in, and mice see Orla's gnashy claws.

Haggar summons the blue cat from the ruins.  It sneaks in past the guards and immediately goes after Cheddar.  Cheds escapes and moons the cat.  Clearly, this is so much better than that boring Vehicle Voltron.  All this needs is a few more fart jokes and some of the guys getting hit in the crotch.  Then Kevin James could play a live-action Hunk, with Seth Rogen as Lance.

Ohhhh, just KILL ME.

Anyway.  Pidge sees the blue cat.  The team consult Coran and they all agree that it's possible Haggar could be in Orla's guise.  Allura and Nanny don't think that much of the idea.  Hunk, Pidge, and Lance are hunting for the cat.  They find it--and it jumps on Hunk's face and runs off.  Pidge convinces Cheddar to act as bait, and they and some Castle Guardsmen wax the floor.  Hunk slips on the wax.

AUGGGHHH!!!

Cheddar lures the cat into the trap successfully.  There's some tension where they all slide around on the floor, then Keith catches the cat with a rope.  Orla spikes the punch with DEATH and Keith sees her.  Then they confront Orla with . . . Suki(?) the mouse, and reveal the cat.  Keith does a dramatic "jump from the ledge" and goes to make the cat drink the spiked punch.  Orla throws a chair at Keith, the reveals herself as Haggar.  Haggar pulls a Yoda and evades them with some acrobatics and gets Nanny in a half-nelson, telling them to release the cat in exchange for Nanny.  Why, I don't know.  Haggar tries a "stun ray," then makes the room dark and windy.  She drops a chandelier on Hunk and Pidhe with her staff, then catches Keith and Lance in her web-rays.  Then ol' King Deus ex Alfor cancels out her magic.  She shatters a window and flies out of the Castle.

The team pursues her in their lions.  She and the cat are running down a path.  Allura catches up to her in the blue lion.  Just as Allura reach her, Haggar summonbs the "clawbeast.  This is a mostly unimpressing green. . . . amphibian looking thing.  It knocks blue lion into the lake and stands on its head.  The rest of the team follows them into the water.  The clawbeast launches missiles out of holes in its chest and trades a few shots with the lions.  Yellow lion takes a few hits, but they've forced the clawbeast off of blue lion.  The team regroups out of the lake and form Voltron.

The beast emerges from the lake, hits Voltron with a palm-mounted flamethrower and beams from its chest.  Volts forms blazing sword and performs a kesa (diagonal cut for those of you who haven't dabbled in iaido).  This clawbeast stands its ground and launches its kneespikes as missiles.  So, Voltron cuts him again.  That does the trick.

They find the real Orla in the ruins of the cathedral and bring her to the castle.  And there's some back and force between Lance and Pidge.

A little bit about the voice actors here:  Voltron has a cast of six.  All of the voice actors are Screen Actors Guild members.  From what I've heard in interviews, under SAG rules they could each do three characters at their normal rate--any more voices in an episode and WEP would have to pay them more.  With B.J. Ward as the only female voice, that explains all the weird Monty Python old lady voices you hear Michael Bell and Peter Cullen doing.  Basically, then can get away with 18 characters per episode, otherwise it gets more expensive.  With a cast of 15 Rugger pilots alone in Vehicle Voltron, you can see how they get into trouble real fast.

Introducing Beautiful Honerva

Things play out pretty closely to Voltron in the original.  The team is a little more lecherous when they see the princess in her towel.  The falcon is the messenger of Queen Elena, who left the Kingdom of Altea to go to Castle Trebli to be married 15 years ago, before Daibazaal's final attack.

Interesting.  So Altea gets a little more depth.  There are other kingdoms and other places with survivors on the planet.

When Honerva attacks Elena's carriage, she flambes the guards.  The last two agree to attack her together, showing a little more tactical foresight than "GET HER!"  She takes Elena's form with the chant "el roy mu el roy . . ."  This is the first time it appears.

They find . . . Princess (?) Elena and Suzuishi is smitten.  The dialogue about her being cold is identical to Voltron.  So, again, they must have had translations for some episodes.  Elena doens't know Hys.  Probably blocked her out of her memory.

The narrator helpfully explains to us that Honerva hates mice, and that why she keeps the space cat Jaga with her.

Platte can whistle.  And the mousehole is right under a sign to the control room.

Fala claims Elena is acting weird because she's tired.  Actually, that's probably true.  I mean, I get to where I want to strangle people when I'm really tired.  I don't often spike punch with DEATH when I'm just trying to get some sleep, though.

The sound editing for Jaga is . . . bizarre.  His normal meow is some weird electronic (?) sound, and he has some tiger growls when Kogane catches him with a rope.

Among the things on the dinner table?  Otard Cognac.  Otard?  I think I'll skip that brand.  As the witch flees the room, in Voltron we saw her raise her witchin' stick and launch another "stun ray."  Here we see her actually nuke a pair of Gradam castle guards.

As Fala closes in on Honerva in the blue lion, rather than summoning the beastman (who is not named in this episode), she merely goes "Oowaiyaaaa!!!"

I wonder if the storyboarders confused the animators at some point during the fight.  The beastman is shown to fire missiles once, and then it's firing a beamlike weapon that uses energy discs.  I wouldn't even bring this up as an animation error, but in one shot black lion is firing his shoulder harpoons, and in the next the beastman is taking hits from annihilation discs (the lions maybe borrowed some Invid technology?)

The closing scene with Elena mirrors somewhat the scene in which Honerva is brought to Castle Gradam earlier--without the embarassing crap with Hys.

Bad Birthday Party/Evildoing of the Emperor

When Golion was released in 2008, I remember one review I read complained that the main characters were all just archetypes (just look at their nicknames!).  I thought that was a strange thing to criticize--as long as whoever was doing to criticizing had been exposed to a fairly wide variety of anime.  Because most characters in anime are stock characters.  Male protagonist type A3 (young, sullen boy with mysterious, traumatic past) and female protagonist type B1 (cold, distant, but efficient young woman who gradually warms up to the protagonist over time).  Or, male protagonist type C2 (headstrong boy with prodigious piloting skills) and female protagonist type G7 (energetic, positive girl with unknown past).

I was having a conversation today with a friend who is newish to anime who was exclaiming that every anime he sees now has a character that's basically the same personality or character design as Misato from Evangelion.  Stock characters.  Plus, there's a principle of anime and manga, for which I forget the Japanese term, which is often translated as stable cast.  That's why all of the protagonists in Go Nagai's series look like Kouji Kabuto.  Or why there are so many series that aren't explicitly Super Sentai, but sure look like them (our very own Golion, Saint Saiya, Samurai Troopers Yoroiden).  And why the crews of Space Battleship Yamato and of the Rugger Guard (from Dairugger) all have the same hairstyles and facial types--except the captains.

Bad Birthday Party

This is one of my favorites.  It introduces a planet that comes back later in another of my favorites, we actually see for the first time that Zarkon has other planets in his dominion, and the Robeasts at the end are kinda neat-looking.

We open not on Planet Doom (for once!) but out in the electrical field surrounding the planet Nimon, where they make Nimonium.  We learn this from a voiceover posing as a message from planet Doom.  And we hear that tomorrow is Zarkon's birthday.  On the surface of Nimon, Doom soldiers and the human Prince Tabor (Zarkon's nephew) are driving the prisoners to complete a special project.

Two young slaves, Tal and Jai, begin complaining about the garbage brought as food to the starving slaves.  The two youths decide they need Voltron (which is millions of miles away on Arus--jeez, read a little astronomy--MILLIONS IS TOO NEAR!!!)

That night, the Doom soldiers are having a pre-party party.  Jai commandeers a Doom ship.  The guard captain sends a pursuit flight.  Jai is caught in a meteor shower as the ships open fire on him.  His stolen ship takes a few hits and crashlands on Arus--right in the moat surrounding Castle of Lions.  The team looks over him after the crash.

Prince Tabor is upset at the escape.  The guard captain has an idea about handling the situation.  He addresses the slaves, telling them that the escapee is dead.  On planet Doom, outside the castle, Zarkon reminds us that Nimon was conquered by him.  And he complains about his fool nephew who let someone escape who might bring Voltron.  Haggar suggests he torture 100 slaves for the one that escaped.  Zarkon then stands up, and the robots cheer.  And we get footage from the first episode.

In the Castle of Lions lounge, the team discusses their guest.  Lance says he looks like he might be one of the desert weirdos on Nimon.  Well, he doesn't say that, but he does comment on his turban and "funny" clothes.  Oh, the eighties.  At least he's not from Karbombya.  Keith announces the spaceship is from Zarkon.  They're all set to help his oppressed people.  Coran brings up a view of . . .a solar system?  And Nimon is . . . one of the neighboring planets?  Huh.

Jai enters the control room and is distraught that they may not rush out to help his people immediately.  Keith listens and shakes his head, in sympathy.  Allura seems swayed.

Zarkon arrives on Nimon with Yurak and Haggar--and he drove in style.  This is the first time he see his personal command ship.  He sees the statue Tabor has built in his honor.  The Doomites have a serious H.R. Giger influence.  Apparently, there are some lazy slaves pretending to be sick over whom Zarkon walks.  He threatens Tabor about the escaped slave.

The team drops into their shuttle bay.  Hunk is carrying Jai.  Keith drops in last, asks if they're ready.  Lance runs at him and throws a punch Keith catches.  He tells Lance to save his energy.  Then they launch and for Voltron.  The dynotherms sequence is a little off in this episode. 

They enter the meteor storm outside Nimon.  It's just another rock concert.  Ol' Volts gets klunked by a couple of meteors, but they activate thermoblasters (fire from the yellow lion) and melt their way through.

On Nimon, Zarkon is sitting on a throne overlooking the desert.  No, wait!  There are people buried up to their necks in the sand.  Zarkon says this is punishment for a slave's escape, and the robots will practice their swordsmanship.  Tal is among them.  However, Voltron makes it just in time to hack the statue of Zarkon apart and drop it in front of the robots.  Zarkon has Yurak . . . threaten Tabor with a sword.  Zarks, Haggar, and Yuri flee to the ship.  Voltron lands and . . . chases off the robots.  Jai and Tal then reunite.

Zarkon's ship lifts off.  Voltron pursues and strikes the thrusters.  Yurak, who's chilling with the guard captain, implores Haggar to do something.  Haggar launches a pair of robeasts who are supersized on the upper deck of the command ship.  They cross swords, and then the yellow and blue lions each bite one on the leg, causing them to tumble to the ground.  The robeasts get to their feet and throw their shields, which Voltron destroys with the blazing swords.  The green twin launches a missile at Voltron,which knocks him off balance.  The twins chase Voltron as he crawls on the ground, stabbing at him in a pretty cool sequence.  Voltron then takes the high ground and dispatches the robeasts (did I use the right dispatch?  Or is it despatch?)  Then Voltron poses on the pedastal formerly occupied Zarkon's statue while the people of Nimon cheer.  Then he flies back to Arus.

Evildoing of the Emperor

No "Voice of Doom" relaying a message to a planet here.  Just tense music and the narrator introducing us to planet Jarre (on the edge of the Great Dark Nebula).  We see a Galra base, a landing field with a Rooster Frigate, and a statue of Daibazaal.  We discover the people of Jarre are being whipped into building a monument to Daibazaal.  A slave passes out, begging for water.  The gaurd commander puts him in his place.  He has a few words with the Viceroy, who is apparently a puppet ruler native to Jarre.

Near sunset, the people of Jarre are scrabbling over a few drops of water when Galra guards bring a trough of bones and rotting flesh.  From other dead Jarriens.  Two youths plot to escape and bring Golion to Jarre.

That night, Galra troops enjoy some revelry--and native women--in a building that looks like a xenomorph hive.  The youth makes it past guards to a ship and escapes.  The ship is not identical to the one Lisa used when she tried to pose as a Galra-escapee, but close enough in basic layout that I like the way we have a general Galran design philosophy.  The kid (whose name I missed) gets beyond the rings of Jarre, but is then shot down by the Galra fighters.  The team finds him facedown in the moat.

The viceroy and guard commander discuss how to best deal with the situation.  On Galra, Daibazaal's troops are apparently wishing him happy birthday.  He is happy the viceroy is done preparing his monument--but Honerva dismisses him as a sycophant.

In Castle Gradam, the boy want to take Hys' cooking back to Jarre with him.  Fala assures him that Golion will go help, but Kogane says Golion can't make the journey to Jarre.  Jarre is the closest planet to Altea--but the boundary zone of the Great Dark Nebula is full of Galra's bizarre energy, preventing them from flying.  The boy makes an impassioned plea.  Fala vows to go, even if alone.  All but Kogane go with her.

Daibazaal's ship is a pretty slick design, I think.  It's got the skull motif and looks more . . . robust than the chicken ship.  Daibazaal is celebrating his 500th birthday--and the viceroy sets it up to he walks across the back of Jarriens.  This is the Chinese folktale monarch I enjoy watching.  He is displeased that these vermin have built his monument, and vows to dispose of them in an entertaining way.

This time, Kurogane takes a swing at Kogane 'cuz they think that he's going to try to stop them--however, he says he's outvoted 4 to 1.  And they launch the lions and form Golion.  The elevator version of the main theme accompanies all the gattaiing.  They fight their way through the Galra Uncanny Energy Field .  They go feet first (that's actually what Kogane says) using Grand Fire.

Same thing, the slaves are buried, soldiers will behead them.  Daibazaal offers fresh liver and thigh meat to the one who cuts the most heads.

Golion appears, and Sadak executes the viceroy.  The boy brings a package of food to his friend.

The Beastmen are named Twin Titan.  I like the photo-negative design they have using the red and green. This is overall a pretty good fight.  When he's struggling to his feet, Golion lops the hand off the green Titan.  Then takes the high ground and they're both history.

This episode is something of a departure from the formula.  It's the first we see of the Galra empire in the rest of the Great Dark Nebula.  And it looks like a real empire, to an extent.  There are Vichy governments who've capitulated to the tyrant for their own personal gain, etc.  What's also interesting about this episode is that, well, Galra has twice sent agents to Altea posing as someone else.  And yet, they seem to take the high road and initially take the boy at his word.  Fortunately, it turns out that he was actually an ally.  And the whole Voltron thing that the super robot is only for defense, never for attack.  Nope.  Not in Japan!  In the episodes where Raible resists taking him off the planet, it's because it leaves Altea open to attack.  But this episode is also the first in which Altea begins to make allies among other planets subjugated by Daibazaal.  That, to me, seems to be a major theme by the end of the series.