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Judgment Call: Voltron (TV) and GoLion (TV)




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areaseven
Encyclopedia Editor


Joined: 11 Dec 2002
Posts: 1486
Location: Makati, Philippines
PostPosted: Tue Apr 22, 2008 9:11 pm Reply with quote
Over the past year, I've been lobbying to have the Voltron entry on the Encyclopedia altered to have it separated from GoLion. Unfortunately, one of the higher-ups doesn't agree with me, stating that heavy editing doesn't necessarily constitute a change in Age Rating.

My proposal is to have Voltron listed as a U.S. TV title, composed of GoLion and Dairugger XV (and Albegas, though somewhat unofficially). By doing so, Voltron will retain its OC rating while GoLion will be rated MA as it should be. This will also prevent potential headaches on our side caused by fans posting error reports on GoLion's proper Age Rating.

So I want the masses to make a judgment call: Should Voltron and GoLion have their own separate entries?
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R.G.



Joined: 16 Nov 2003
Posts: 686
PostPosted: Tue Apr 22, 2008 10:30 pm Reply with quote
I suppose so,if only to clear up any confusion.
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Moomintroll



Joined: 08 Oct 2007
Posts: 1600
Location: Nottingham (UK)
PostPosted: Wed Apr 23, 2008 5:28 am Reply with quote
Similar arguments could be made for splitting Battle Of The Planets from Gatchaman.
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dormcat
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Joined: 08 Dec 2003
Posts: 9902
Location: New Taipei City, Taiwan, ROC
PostPosted: Wed Apr 23, 2008 9:31 am Reply with quote
Moomintroll wrote:
Similar arguments could be made for splitting Battle Of The Planets from Gatchaman.

Not exactly. With the exception of 7-Zark-7 footages, Battle Of The Planets was still composed of Gatchaman only, while Voltron was composed of GoLion and Dairugger in a way similar to Robotech was composed of Macross, Southern Cross, and Mospeada.
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Moomintroll



Joined: 08 Oct 2007
Posts: 1600
Location: Nottingham (UK)
PostPosted: Wed Apr 23, 2008 10:16 am Reply with quote
Agreed. But I would have thought that the big differences in plot / script / tone would, when combined with the edits and the new material, constitute a quite distinct show.
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Dan42
Chief Encyclopedist


Joined: 02 Jan 2002
Posts: 3786
Location: Montreal
PostPosted: Fri Apr 25, 2008 11:33 am Reply with quote
areaseven wrote:
heavy editing doesn't necessarily constitute a change in Age Rating.

More like: a change in Age Rating is not enough to qualify as an entirely new series.

dormcat wrote:
Voltron was composed of GoLion and Dairugger in a way similar to Robotech was composed of Macross, Southern Cross, and Mospeada.

That may be so, but remember that our recent-ish M.O. is to split any anime that can be split. As such, it seems to me that
GoLion = Voltron season 1
Dairugger = Voltron season 2
with the two Voltron seasons having such completely different stories & characters that they might as well be considered different series.

Still, I don't remember enough of Voltron from my childhood to make a firm decision, so I'm open to debate.
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areaseven
Encyclopedia Editor


Joined: 11 Dec 2002
Posts: 1486
Location: Makati, Philippines
PostPosted: Sat Apr 26, 2008 12:42 pm Reply with quote
Dan42 wrote:
dormcat wrote:
Voltron was composed of GoLion and Dairugger in a way similar to Robotech was composed of Macross, Southern Cross, and Mospeada.

That may be so, but remember that our recent-ish M.O. is to split any anime that can be split. As such, it seems to me that
GoLion = Voltron season 1
Dairugger = Voltron season 2
with the two Voltron seasons having such completely different stories & characters that they might as well be considered different series.


Yes, but if you watch both Voltron and GoLion, you will see just how different their stories are. Right now, the Voltron entry has the plot summary for GoLion, which is incorrect for Voltron's continuity.

To give fans an idea of the differences, here's a video trailer:

GoLion Uncensored Trailer (Contains graphic material)
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Mad_Scientist
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Joined: 08 Apr 2008
Posts: 3011
PostPosted: Sun May 04, 2008 1:00 am Reply with quote
Hmm... given that it seems Media Blasters is themselves releasing the uncut version in the US under the title of Beast King GoLion, after having released the cut dub as Voltron, I'd suggest splitting them. But then again, I haven't actually seen either series myself so I may not be the best person to comment.
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Case



Joined: 09 Apr 2002
Posts: 1016
PostPosted: Sun Aug 03, 2008 3:09 pm Reply with quote
I was watching GoLion this weekend and came here to look up some voice actor information, only to find no page for GoLion, which is why I'm posting here today.

I think the pages should be split. I spent 10 minutes trying to figure out where the GoLion page is before finding this thread and figuring out that the information was in the Voltron article.

Besides being somewhat hard to find in a query for GoLion information, the content and layout of the existing page is just a confusing hodgepodge that doesn't describe either series with full accuracy: The series description is GoLion canon and doesn't even mention Voltron; series length shows 52 episodes while there are 72 episode titles (honestly, if you include the Fleet of Doom episodes in the total count, you really should count Vehicle Voltron too since the plot overlaps both); the release date information is split up three ways between two articles which makes very simple information suddenly very confusing; and the releases section is a confusing mess that even includes 1 disc of dubbed Voltron that shouldn't be listed there if we're keeping the Dairaga episodes seperate!

For the sake of clarity, accuracy and authoritativeness, I agree that GoLion should be split from Voltron.
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Dark Elf Warrior



Joined: 26 Nov 2007
Posts: 228
PostPosted: Sun Aug 03, 2008 8:19 pm Reply with quote
Back in March I watched some episodes of Voltron, and I just now saw the uncut preview. Wow. Golion is definitly different from the edited version. People complain about the Cardcaptors and One Piece dubs, Voltron had the worst.
GoLion is surprisingly graphic. It should have a TVMA rating.
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Dan42
Chief Encyclopedist


Joined: 02 Jan 2002
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Location: Montreal
PostPosted: Mon Aug 04, 2008 4:13 am Reply with quote
I'm still not 100% convinced that the series deserves to be split. All the comments about how *mature* and *graphic* and *uncut* GoLion is compared to Voltron... are entirely missing the point. What matter is if the story is different.
* Bob is brutally murdered vs. Bob simply stops showing up in episodes ==> same story
* Bob is brutally murdered vs. Bob keeps showing up in episodes ==> different story
I wish someone would actually post a plot summary for Voltron, so that I'd be able to judge just how different it is from GoLion.

But anyway, assuming that we agree on splitting, here comes the hard part: deciding WHAT to split. Since most of the user ratings are for Voltron, we're going to have to
*keep anime 1452 as Voltron
*create a new anime for GoLion
*move some info from Voltron to GoLion
*move some info from Dairugger to Voltron

Or should we have two series, Voltron 1 and Voltron 2? Because there's a big gap of time between the first 52 episodes and the last 20 episodes of Voltron. And usually how we handle cases like that is that we consider them different series. But then we'd be back where we started, with Voltron III and Voltron I as separate series. So wtf?

It seems obvious that anything tied to the english dub is Voltron and anything tied to the english sub is GoLion.
Japanese credits: GoLion
English cast: Voltron
English staff: moslty Voltron???
English companies: moslty Voltron???
French credits: ???
Spanish credits: ???
Italian credits: ???
German credits: ???
Tagalog credits: ???
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Case



Joined: 09 Apr 2002
Posts: 1016
PostPosted: Mon Aug 04, 2008 7:34 am Reply with quote
At least 3 characters who died never to return in GoLion, lived and simply "went away" for various reasons only to return in the finale episodes of Voltron. More information @ Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voltron#Changes_from_the_Japanese_version

As for the international dubs: I wasn't the one who submitted that information originally and I'd be hard-pressed to find information for those versions online I think, but I'm guessing they should probably go under GoLion unless they were sublicensed from World Events Productions/use the adapted Voltron footage.

As for ratings: Are they really accurate and worth keeping? I'm inclined to believe that people's ratings are just as much a hodgepodge as the article itself; most people perhaps having given their rating based on lion Voltron, some probably having rated GoLion, and perhaps others submitting a rating with the whole franchise in mind including the Dairugger plot elements. If it were up to me I'd wipe that data and let it repopulate over time, more accurately this time around.
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darksuperman48



Joined: 27 Mar 2012
Posts: 1
PostPosted: Tue Mar 27, 2012 5:51 am Reply with quote
Dan42 wrote:
I'm still not 100% convinced that the series deserves to be split. All the comments about how *mature* and *grapc* and *uncut* GoLion is compared to Voltron... are entirely missing the point. What matter is if the story is different.
* Bob is brutally murdered vs. Bob simply stops showing up in episodes ==> same story
* Bob is brutally murdered vs. Bob keeps showing up in episodes==> different story


Well in voltron Sven doesn't die like in go lion and even comes back to fight lothor in the final episode where they fall off the cliff
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Spoofer



Joined: 03 Aug 2003
Posts: 356
Location: NY
PostPosted: Sat Apr 28, 2012 11:54 am Reply with quote
Since we're already dredging this up again... Very Happy

I'd like to see Voltron and GoLion separated as well. I've seen both versions, though the last time I watched Voltron was close to 20 years ago, so I'll use Wikipedia to point out most of the relevant facts. From least compelling to most:



1) Most graphic violence, or scenes of torture and cruelty have been cut

Not much to say about this. The amount cut is pretty substantial. Probably not a big deal on its own.



2) The plots were often rewritten in varying ways

"The producers had no means of translating the Japanese series into English, so they surmised the plots and created all-new dialogue..."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voltron#Changes_from_the_Japanese_version

Earth was completely removed from the plot, Voltron's origins are quite different from GoLion's (as in, the constructed robot / cursed sentient creature itself, respectively), the antagonists' relationships are altered, as are some of their motivations.

Not mentioned in the Wiki article are GoLion's depictions of full-blown genocide, rape, and suicide, which were the focus of quite a few episodes, and which I certainly don't remember being depicted in Voltron. GoLion was frequently delving into the sadness and misery that the Galra empire was responsible for, whereas I seem to remember the majority of Voltron being fairly consequence-free and always ending on a positive note. I could be misremembering how far Voltron takes it, but I'm positive that they wouldn't dare go anywhere near as far as the subject matter that GoLion explored.

The (idiotic...) actions of the GoLion protagonists frequently lead to the deaths of hundreds and thousands of Alteans, which again I doubt Voltron would have focused on. All the Voltron antagonists received the 80's cartoon treatment where if it's killed, it must have been a robot. Protagonist death as well was quite common in GoLion, and certainly those were omitted from Voltron.



3) More on the deaths of protagonists

As has been previously mentioned, one of the two most obvious examples is the death of GoLion's Shirogane in episode 6 (to make room for Princess Fala as a pilot). His brother Ryou, who looks quite a bit like Shirogane, appears near the end of the series, where he dies as well. In Voltron, "Sven" is merely "injured" in episode 6, goes off to recover, comes back in the corresponding Voltron episode that Ryou appears in, and survives that death as well. Most of this change is probably accomplished with dialogue.

The other example, which involves actual video editing, is the death of Hys, Fala's caretaker. In Voltron, not only does "Nanny" survive, but WEP reused old footage to keep her alive and present in future episodes.



4) Dairugger and the "Galaxy Alliance"

Dairugger wasn't simply incorporated as the second half of Voltron, it was spliced into GoLion from the very beginning. The specifics are now lost to me, but most Lion Voltron episodes that I remember had scenes from Dairugger included, with the "Galaxy Alliance" sitting in a conference room looking on at the events going on with the Lion team, discussing plans, and even communicating with them. Sometimes they even participated directly in the plot (I pulled up a random episode later on in the Lion series and they had active involvement). Likewise, for the Vehicle Voltron portion, the Lion cast are still present in at least some of the episodes, if not all? (don't remember; early episodes I pulled up had the two casts intermingling).

This splicing, along with edits done for the aforementioned reasons, sometimes alters the plots of at least some of the episodes or arcs in the series in significant ways (certainly that random episode I pulled up was quite different). The rewriting to include the Lion team as a branch force of the Galaxy Alliance changes the scope and tone quite a bit by itself. This splicing alone should be enough to distinguish "Voltron" from "GoLion."



Summation!

What if Evangelion (no spoilers ahead) was intitially brought over to America as Super Mighty Astro Robot Team Assemble! With a catchy but trite 80's theme (or 90's, but 80's themes were far superior!) instead of Cruel Angel's Thesis. Whoever was bringing it over didn't speak Japanese, so they just made up their own plot for the more straight-forward episodes (and probably omitted the more complex episodes entirely). All of the Angels were labeled mechanical robots, sent to attack Steve because Steve is good and the evil mechanical robots are evil, and any traces of their organic life were cut out of the footage. No character would ever find their life in danger of being expunged, as American children cannot cope with death. We'll leave out any of the more serious issues presented in the series and just focus on the robots battling, because that's what kids want. We'll also throw in some RahXephon robots to prolong the series, and explain that the Eva pilots merely switched their robots of choice. We'll also have them intermingle with the RahXephon cast in every episode. Ok, I'll mention one Eva spoiler after all: spoiler[And then Kaji is re-edited back into the show in one of the final battles and throws a watermelon at an evil mechanical robot, allowing Steve to take advantage of the distraction to defeat the robot and send it to the evil mechanical robot hospital.] And then later on we'll tack on more of RahXephon itself, as well as Gundam, and just keep it going forever. Is this still Evangelion...?

That's essentially what happened to GoLion in its conversion to Voltron.
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