Well as you might have heard, we had a supertyphoon pass through our country recently, which was supposedly stronger than Hurricane Katrina. It knocked down our power lines for a week and Internet for two. Sorry for the delay :)
Anyway, what I'd like to talk about today is the greatest giant robot series of our youth here in the Philippines. They were so popular that Ferdinand Marcos had to ban them for their "violent" effects. So most of us here hate President Marcos not because he was a dictator and stole a lot of money. Nooo. It was more because he took away our Voltes V.
Here, anyway, are our greatest giant robot series from our youth.
Now, unfortunately, since I don't know how to post youtube videos on this site, I'll just have to post links. If someone can tell me how to post videos directly, it will be great appreciated.
VOLTES V
The grand poombah of all giant robot series here was Voltes V. A story about five earthlings who piloted different spaceships and when they combined they became Voltes V. Mind you, this was before Voltron. This series was so popular that it was shown in its entirety again recently in the Philippines and the Voltes V movie was revived in the theaters. This in turn spurred a whole new resurgence of anime watching in the Philippines which we haven't let go off to this day.
DAIMOS
The second most popular giant robot, Daimos was a truck that turned into a robot, pre-Optimus Prime. Daimos' enemies were winged humans, and in typical Romeo and Juliet fashion, the pilot of Daimos fell in love with the princess of the winged humans. Daimos' end move was the double blizzard followed by a punch.
And how cool is that, he cut through a wave with his sword, lol.
MAZINGER Z
My favorite giant robot, Mazinger Z could melt his enemy robots with his chest laser. And he had a "girlfriend" named Aphrodite A whose boobs became missiles. In fact, there is supposedly one episode where Mazinger takes a ride on Aphrodite's boobs because he couldn't fly. Ah, the innocence of youth, lol.
On a side note, Mazinger's pilot, Japanese national hero Coji Cabuto, also flew the UFO in Grendaizer, another giant robot series.
MEKANDA
Mekanda was the kitschiest of the giant robots, his theme song will show you. I don't really remember much about this guy except the fact that he had spinning shields on his arms.
Other giant robots were Dangard Ace and Dragon robots (?),which were three robots combined into one. There was a Dragoon, Radar and Poseidon.
And there were other non-giant robot series like Queen Cosmos and Starblazers.
So there that was my short trip down memory lane. Thanks for reading.
Milenyo was supposedly not as strong as Katrina, but on par with Hurricane Andrew. At least that's what DZMM and DZBB were claiming. Meh.
Either or, Voltes V would've blown it away easily. Hohoho. When the series was re-released in 1998, some of the people who grew up watching during Martial Law celebrated with joy. I recall my history teacher giving us a 10 point surprise quiz on the show in honor of the re-release.
"Chodenji Machine Voltus V" (1977) was part of Toei's so-called "Super Robot Romance" trilogy which comprised of "Chodenji Robo Combattler V" (1976) and "Tosho Daimos" (1978). I love these series and definitely agree that Voltus V is the best of the trilogy (although Daimos is pretty good as well). Toei recently released the entire series of both Combattler V and Voltus V on R2 DVD. I've seen the MagnaVision/Telesuccess releases of the Filipino versions of "Voltes V" and "Daimos" and have always been amazed with their popularity in the Philippines (along with the live action Tokusatsu show Bioman). The dubbing on those versions is quite good and they real captured the melodrama feel of the anime. I'm curious to hear more about what other Japanese Anime showed in the Philippines (Steel Zieg? GaiKing? Getter Robo?).
wow! those were the fun days. thanks for making an article on this.
voltes v with hi-ro (cookies) and pop cola.
yes, i do remember jeeg robot, getter robo and ufo grendizer. with some stuff from star rangers and g-force too.
Oh crumbs. Ultraelectromagnetictop! ;)
I swear when Eraserheads called their 1st album "Ultraelectomagneticpop", that was very much Voltes V-inspired.
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