In Search of New Worlds
I vividly remember when I saw this episode. During the intro, I thought "Hey, Voltron has a different helmet!" Then I realized it was a different robot entirely. Then I got pissed. But by the end of the episode, just like with the lions, I was hooked. I was ready to buy into another team that could form another giant robot with another blazing sword.
One thing I should point out, I'm fairly certain this was aired only a couple of weeks into Voltron's run. What I've gathered from interviews and other WEP stuff, the original intention was to actually weave the two Voltrons more tightly together and alternate airings of episodes; they decided this was too difficult to do well, and so then just did the rest of both series in big blocks.
We open on a space battle in progress. It's footage of the Voltron teams fighting Drule fighters. Then we cut to Drule headquarters and Hazar--who sounds a bit like Zarkon. He receives orders to end the battle for planet Lykon. He wants their stuff. Then Brak (before we know he's Brak) appears and says the grand viceroy of planet Doom wants him to deal with an unknown alien spacecraft. Hazar is interested. No one must meddle with his nascent galactic empire. He orders Captain Quark to be sent to deal with the intruder.
The Explorer is shown against a montage of space backgrounds. Commander Hawkins' voiceover explains that they're entering the Kronos galaxy. Hawkins and Captain Newley are looking at a blip on a scanner which may be a new, livable world.
In the lounge, the teams are bored. Hutch and Marvin resort to a fistfight over cards.
On the bridge, Sparks (the first) detects a powerful magentic belt around the planet.
In the lounge, the fistfight goes on. Cliff starts to intervene, but Jeff holds him back. Lisa (Awwww, Lisa <3<3<3) appears and breaks up the fight to tell them that there's a new planet on their scanners and they should be ready to go. Is it weird if I confess that I had a massive crush on Lisa in 3rd grade? Yep. A cartoon. But a hot cartoon.
Hawkins and Newley decide to deploy the teams. Chip, Rocky and Murdock run into the rest of the teams running to launch. Hawkins orders Sparks to set the launch pattern. He says it's set, but crazy.
And then we see THE MOST ELABORATE LAUNCH SEQUENCE IN MECHA ANIME HISTORY. EVARRR!!! Wow. It's dizzyingly complex. Lights go on above the Voltron ships. The teams get on chairs on pylon elevators. One elevator for a team. The chairs go up, then go down team-specific tracks. Then they go into what looks like the cockpit. But NO! It's just a bubble pod ejection seat thingie. Then the bubble goes down another track and finally into their ships.
After all that, Sparks hears Hazar laughing and the ship disappears from their scope. Hawkins has them stand down. We get a montage of the teams at leisure. A silly green robot named Harware gets all ecchi when Lisa and Ginger walk by. Then Sparks gets a fix on the planet. Captain Newley picks up the corded telephone in his office and sends the team back out. Again they take several days just to get to their ships. But, we get to see each one of the fifteen ships launch and form up into formation. Hawkins hopes that it's a good planet and that Quark, Hazar's space pirate captain, won't get his mitts on it.
We see the Drule fleet for the first time. I liked the Doom/Galra ship designs, but I love the Drule/Galveston ships. Quark, sitting in his bridge/ CIC/Whatever decides to attack.
The Voltron force is scouting the planet. Jeff says it looks like Arizona. Lisa wants to know where Arizona is; he says it's from his planet, not hers. The teams split up. Cliff observes that there's a sulfur mix in the atmosphere. Crik observes the ocean--and Lisa sees fish!
Hawkins sees an approaching mass of Drule fighters. He gives the team a warning and a countdown. The ships appear over the horizon--outnumbering the teams 10-to-1. Hawkins and Newley discuss recalling the team; Newley reasons that the team should be able to outthink them.
The dogfight is going fast and furious on the plaent, with the air team outnumbered but disproportionately overpowered; Rocky compares the Drule ships to wind-up toys. The other teams join up. Hawkins is watching the battle on the viewscreen. Sparks says they have no casualties, but some craft are damaged.
Hawking apprises Galazy Garrison that they must set down to affect repairs. Get used to this. There's a lot of repairing in this series. Space Marshall Graham and Commander Steele enter the conference room. There's some debating about what to do back here on Earth. We get some foreshadowing of Voltron and the concept of Volts only having 5 minutes of stored energy. Which is lost after a few episodes.
On the planet, the teams are assembly things. Hawkins appears to to see how the repairs are going.
With his fleet, Quark is angered that the fighters were sent to destruction. He's going to send his ultimate weapon this time.
The repairs continue, and a radar operator with Spark's voice (but different face) sees a mass of fighters returning. The Voltron Force relaunches. Just before they engage the ships, a robeast bursts out of the ground. The first fusilade from the beast drives Jeff back, and the rest of the team take strafing runs. They give it another run. The fighters are about to reach the Explorer, and Hawkins urges them to return. Jeff insists they can handle it. The Drule fighters and the Explorer start to exchange fire.
Jeff orders Voltron's formation. Except they form the torso instead of the body. And he assigns bodyparts by team (which goes away rather quickly). Voltron charges the robeast, dodging energy weapons. They drop kick the beast, who then gets up and knocks Voltron down, electrocuting him.
Quark is watching the battle and weirdly urges the robeast to get up, even though it's Voltron who's pinned.
Suddenly, new ships appear without explanation and turn the tide in the Explorer's favor.
Jeff turns on the Stabilizers and breaks free of the robeast. He tenderizes it with the spinning laser blades, then forms blazing sword and finishes the beast off. Quark does some fist-shaking, then vows to get them next time.
Voltron stands over the burning remains of the robeast as the Drule fighters recede into the distance and the GG ships hover over the new-won planet, and Hawkins says Voltron is there to protect them from evil.
Galactic Clash
I'll mention this over and over again, but Dairugger really is a super-robot version of Space Battleship Yamato. Many of the character designs, the theme of a fruitless war continued by arrogant generals, the continuing stream of said arrogant generals who appear in several episodes and then die, the single Earth ship challenging many enemies (yeah, there are many reinforcement fleets, but few of them last very long).
We open on a view of space. A small, lifeless planet. Then, in a closer view, we see the Rugger Guard on its exploratory mission. We hear crewmembers discussing the lack of habitable planets thus far on their route. They've been out for six months and studied three planets, none with any life indications.
On the bridge, Captain Dick Asimov (Newley) and Captain Ise (Hawkins) discuss a new planet. Rewatching Voltron, I realized that Newley and Hawkins had their responsibilities reversed--Newley is regarded as basically the ship's driver, but Asimov is actually in charge of the overall mission; Ise is just in charge of the Rugger teams.
The brawl over cards happens, the debate to stop them happens, then Kaga (<3<3<3) appears and breaks up the fight. One radar unit has made a contact. On the bridge, Ise and Asimov look over the radar operator's shoulder at the object, and decide to sent the Rugger team out to investigate. That ridiculously overblown launch sequence happens--to some pretty good music for early 80s anime, I might say. Just as they are ready to launch, the radar contact disappears, much to Aki's irritation. He's even more hotheaded than Kogane. Ise promises that they'll be at planetary system 8 soon.
They reach the planetary system and prepare to launch. Again. This time to survey a likely looking planet. Asimov has the bridge crew prepare a transmission back to Earth. The Rugger team flies over the planet--and damn, a good chunk of their animation budget had to have gone for the backgrounds for this planet, 'cuz they're gorgeous. The teams go about their surveying, launching probes, radaring vegetation, and chasing fish. Kaga is apparently in charge of team communications--she relays the findings back to the Rugger Guard.
And then the radar operator finds the weird radar contact again. Ise advises Aki, but he's not worried. I am--the music's gotten pretty ominous. Then, a huge swarm of ships appears. They open fire on Aki's team. Another bridge operator reports on this development; Asimov suggests that Ise have the Walter and Keats teams reinforce them. The fight looks ridiculously lopsided, just like in Voltron.
A quick word about the ship designs--crazy! That's why I like them. Those purple chariot fighters? I was watching this with a friend, and she said "What do you do wrong to end up assigned to those things?!" In later episodes, the red fighters are shown to have transparent canopies, but they look like open-air fighters here.
On the bridge, the radar operators pick up the fleet that sent the fighters.
Back on Galaxy Garrison, they discuss this strange turn of events; an attack by unidentified forces. Several members of the Garrison council call for the withdrawal of the Rugger Guard. The Director decides that it must continue, and that they are at defense level 4.
The Rugger teams are building a temporary base on the planet when Ise arrives on a motorcycle to tell them that their work is to continue. And the earth is sending a reinforcement fleet.
At the enemy fleet, the captain wants to proceed without notifying the frontline base and commander Teles of what's been happening. Then their own reinforcements arrive.
The bridge crew is watching over the base installation when they get more radar contacts--and the swarm of kooky fighters. Aki starts to peel out of formation to take them on when a Battle Machine bursts out of the ground. The team makes a pass at it, then returns to support the Rugger Guard just as the fighters reach it. Ise orders them back to the battle machine while the Rugger Guard's defenses are turned against the enemy fighters.
Aki orders Dairugger Fighting Formation, ON! And they form Dairugger (which directly translates to "Big Rugby Player." No lie).
The enemy captain laughs and tells the battle machine to show them what the Galveston Empire can do. Then, one of his crew warns him that an Earth reinforcement fleet has arrived. Dairugger breaks free and, interestingly, Aki calls out "Rugger Sword" (normal rugby equipment, right?), he pulls the rotors from Dairugger's shoulders, and cuts up the battle machine before using them to form the Rugger Sword.
The music is mournful vocals as Aki, Walter, and Keats take their helmets off and looks over the flames. Then it goes back to action music as we see Dairugger standing in the flames.
Okay, another quick word--this time about the name of the Galveston Empire and the generals. Yes, I choose to spell it Galveston despite many transliterations to "Galbeston." In Japanese, V and B sounds aren't distinguished, and are indicated by the same character. Also, the empire name is a clear reference to Galveston Island off the gulf coast of Texas. Between 1816 and 1821, a colony on this island was used as a pirate base by Jean Lafitte--the captain we know as Nerok in Voltron is named Lafitte in Dairugger, and Voltron's Brak is Barataria, a gulf coast bay in Louisianna used by LaFitte. Emperor Zeppo is called Emperor Corsair in Dairugger, and that name should be pretty understandable in this piratey context. I'll point out the others as we come across them (these are the ones I remember the most readily).
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