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Narrative
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 Lion Voltron Form feet and legs! Form arms and body! And I'll form the head!
Famous Combining Mecha cartoon that aired circa 1984. Still considered the combining mecha in areas of pop culture (like, for instance, hip-hop lyrics) that don't have much crossover with anime fandom.
Created out of two different anime series, GoLion and Dairugger XV, by World Events Productions. There was even supposed to be a third, but it was never used. The two Voltron series, Voltron: Defender of the Universe ("Lion" Voltron) and Voltron: Defender of the Near Universe ("Vehicle" Voltron), occupied completely different story lines.
They were not edited together to produce a single story, except for one or two instances, such as Zarkon (Lion Voltron's main villain) being sort of a vassal of the Drule Empire (the bad guys of Vehicle Voltron).
Eventually, additional episodes of Lion Voltron were made with all new footage from Toei Animation, which were not based on anything from GoLion. A special called "Fleet of Doom", which featured both Voltrons, was also produced in this way.
Lion Voltron is better remembered, probably because it was a true Five Man Band.
Vehicle Voltron had a whopping 15 characters (essentially three five-man bands who all joined up in the end), so the target audience -- children -- could barely keep them sorted out then, much less remember them fondly as adults.
In both versions, the Monster Of The Week was always a Robeast. Some robeasts were huge Mecha. Others were apparently non-robot aliens that grew to gigantic size when hit with a special energy beam. Both species of robeasts were always killed by being sliced in half with the Blazing Sword, upon which they would explode. The explosion footage (like much of the rest of the fight scenes) was recycled for all episodes, so all robeasts die the same.
In the United States toy market, Lion Voltron was sold under the name "Voltron III", while "Vehicle Voltron" was sold as "Voltron I". A third Voltron, "Voltron II" was also available. This "Gladiator" Voltron was based on the combining robot anime Albegas, which was scheduled to be released as another in the US Voltron saga, but never materialized.
In the early 21st century, Voltron was revived in the form of Voltron: The Third Dimension, a completely CGI animated continuation of the Lion Voltron storyline. In its second season, Voltron was redesigned as a "Cyber Stealth" model. How exactly a robot that big could qualify as "stealth" even when painted black is anyone's guess.
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