Monday Madness Media for 7/15/19
Media: Retro Anime series (Chōdenji Machine) Voltes V
LET’S VOLT IN! Do you hear that awesome and epic music this anime has??? It’s iconic! I haven’t done an MMM since February, and I wanted to do a surprise post today about one of the most obscure shows out there and probably the FIRST EVER anime that I have ever got into when I was about 3-4 years old. My family had all the complete volumes of this show on VHS, and I can remember watching these tapes (alongside my Pokémon original series VHS collection) over and over again! Before shows like Voltron, Neon Genesis Evangelion, or even Gundam, there was Voltes V that aired during the 1970s.
This show was far from just marketing and selling robot toys, but it told a story about war and protecting the people you love. In summary, this story revolves around an armada of horned humanoid aliens known as “Boazanians” trying to take over the world, and defeat Japan’s Super Electromagnetic Machine Voltes V. It is led by one of the series’ main antagonists Prince Heinell (Zardoz). Voltes V is a robot composed of five "Volt Machines", and each of those five machines can stand alone as formidable weapons. The main characters who piloted those machines are Ken'ichi (Steve), Daijiro (Big Bert), Hiyoshi (Little Jon), Megumi (Jamie Robinson), and Ippei Mine (Mark Gordon). Each has their own story that plays an important role in the show, and helps you emotionally connect with their characters being a part of Voltes V when they all “Volt in” together forming its complete form as a single powerful unit getting rid of the Boazanians. There are A LOT of twists and turns when it comes to the story that I don’t really want to spoil on, it’s very similar to the storytelling of Star Wars’s original trilogy. I’m just so grateful that I somehow was able to discover this series thanks to the tapes my family bought as entertainment for me (despite having a lot of death and violence throughout the series...parents probably weren’t aware, so it’s not their fault I was exposed to it at an early age). I was born in the 90s, and not everyone my age even knows about this.
I would recommend it to anyone interested with retro mecha anime, but this series is hard to find online and it’s really rare to try and give it a watch if you don’t have any sources to binge it from :\ I had the complete collection dubbed, and I wish my VHS player is still working so I could rewatch it again...sigh
This is a part of P J’s #Monday Madness Media variety blog series
