Trivia / Combattler V

Tropes

• Acting for Two: Masako Nozawa provided the voice for Ropet, Oreana, and Kinta Ichinoki. Osamu Ichikawa did so for Garuda and Warchimedes, Sachiko Chijimatsu for Kosuke and Miia, and Kenichi Ogata for Girua and Dungele.
• Channel Hop: In the Philippines, the English dub of Combattler V channel-hopped from RPN-9 in 1979, GMA-7 in 1982, IBC-13 in 1986, RPN-9 again in 1989, SBN-21 in 1993, and ABS-CBN-2 in 1996. The Tagalog dub, on the other hand, aired first on GMA-7 in 1999 then on Hero TV in 2006.
• Completely Different Title:
  • Arabic: البطل خماسي (The Hero is A Pentagram)
• Dueling Dubs:
  • RPN-9's in-house dubbers responsible for the Star Rangers dub making an unknown English dub of Combattler V in The '70s versus GMA-7 making its own more famous Tagalog dub in 1999 care of Telesuccess Productions, which was also responsible for the Voltes V dub.
  • Combattler V was also dubbed in other dialects aside from Tagalog, including Cebuano and Hiligaynon.
• Follow the Leader:
  • Being a Super Robot Genre show, naturally it used Mazinger Z as its template. Its Five-Man Band twist comes from Gatchaman, though. Ironically, later Super Robot Genre shows that used the Five-Man Band trope also used Combattler V as their template.
  • Although Getter Robo was actually the first heroic combo-robot, Combattler V directly inspired not only similar giant robot anime^note (GoLion, better known as Voltron in the U.S., is actually one of several offshoots of this series), but also the giant robots featured in the Super Sentai Series^note (starting with Battle Fever J and most definitely with Hikari Sentai Maskman and their sentai-first five-vehicle combiner robot).
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: The English dub of Combattler that first aired on RPN-9 in 1979 has been lost to time, with not even a clip available online.
• Marth Debuted in "Smash Bros.":
  • Alongside Raideen, Combattler was involved in a very bizarre instance of the trope. Marvel Comics had indirectly licensed the "Combatra" [sic] name and likeness via Mattel's North American toyline, so their Shogun Warriors comic book series couldn't use any characters, plots, or settings from the show and invented a whole new premise.
  • Most Filipinos in the 1990s believed that the GMA-7 Tagalog dub of Combattler V was the first time it ever aired on Philippine television, alongside GMA-7's 1990s anime block at the time. Unbeknownst to them, there's an obscure English dub that's been airing on Philippine television since the 1970s alongside Voltes V, with it hopping from one channel to another, including GMA-7.
• No Export for You: Not released outside of Asia and Europe until May 2020 when Discotek announced that they're handling retail for the show in Blu-Ray.
• Unfinished Dub: The Arabic dub only covered the first season. Middle Eastern fans who wanted to know what happened in the conclusion of the series had to resort to fansubs.
• What Could Have Been:
  • During pre-production, the robot that eventually became Combattler V was initially conceived as being a nine-piece mecha. This would ultimately be reduced to five in the final product.
  • Aoi Hyouma's name was originally meant to be Shun Nakajima.
  • Juzo Naniwa's name was originally meant to be Yutaro Higashiyama.
  • The Roman Robo Anime Climax Selection reveals that Chizuru's hair was originally permed, not straight.
• Working Title: One of the proposed names was Magnes V

Trivia

• The robot's name is a portmanteau of Combine, Combat, and Battle, and the V is intended both as an abbreviation for Victory and in reference to the five component machines that form the robot as well as its five pilots.
• The word Choudenji (Super Electromagnetic) has been copyrighted by Tadao Nagahama's estate and can only be used in Japanese media with their permission.
• Unlike with its successor Voltes V, where the letter "V" is regarded as a Roman numeral and pronounced as "five" (ファイブ) in English, the "V" in Combattler V is pronounced as "vee" (ブイ) instead.
• This anime series featured the first "realistically" combining giant robot. In this case, Combattler V was five vehicles that combined into one giant robot in a way that can be duplicated by its toy merchandise.
• The toys for this series (provided by Bandai) were so successful that they were included in Mattel's phenomenal Shogun Warriors toy line as well as Bandai America's popular Godaikin line. In the Shogun Warriors collection, Combattler V is renamed "Combatra".
• The "Campbellians" from Planet "Campbell" mainly reference Science Fiction writer John W. Campbell, who helped invent the Space Hero genre. Every place in Planet Campbell is also a reference to famous sci-fi authors, from the Asimov Continent to the Hamilton Ocean as well as Leinster-Miller City and the Heinlein Sun.
• This series is a staple of the Super Robot Wars franchise. It was introduced in Super Robot Wars 3. It took a break from console games starting from the Z series, only appearing in two handheld games (and one of them is only 'semi-traditional'), but returns full force on console games in Super Robot Wars 30.
  • In Shin Super Robot Wars, Combattler V first tag-teams with Voltes V and has done so ever since. It also appeared in the Alpha series, Advance, Reversal, Judgement, L and DD. Of all those games, Alphas 2 & 3 AND Advance are the only ones that had Combattler teaming up with both Voltes and Daimos. Poor Daimos.

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