Well, as some are aware now, an anime called Future Robo Daltanias was slated to be part of the "Voltron Trilogy".

Anyone who's followed any of my posts knows that I have something of an obsession regarding Daltanias due to the fact that I had the Godaikin-Bandai America toy and I loved it.

To learn that I might have known Daltanias as "Voltron" was incredible to me.


This has lead me to embark on a semi-joking campaign to convince fellow Voltron fans that Daltanias would have made a better "Voltron II" or "Voltron of the Middle Univers" than Albegas.

A couple of fellow Voltron fans here kindly pointed out that this was a bit rash of me considering I along with most Voltron fans have not had opportunities to see either Albegas or Daltanias. I found this to be very true and made me cool off a bit. Although, I still think that from a pure asthetic standpoint, Daltanias resembles a "Voltron" far more than Albegas. Anyway....

Ok, so now I've finally had a chance to watch the first 4 episodes.

So to anyone interested, read on....

Well, I guess I'll start with my overall first impression.

As much as I hate to admit it I am a little disappointed. The story and over-all tone of this series does NOT do the fantastic Daltanias design justice, IMO. I was probably better off with my own childhood imagination for this robot.


Don't get me wrong, it's still great to see Daltanias in action, engaging in battles. The problem is I was expecting something more mystical like GoLion/Voltron, story wise.

Regardless, I still think this series would have worked just fine or at least as good as Vehicle Voltron as a Voltron series. Does that mean I still think it would have been better than Albegas as a Voltron series? Well, I still prefere the Daltanias design, but I must admit that if Albegas has a better story, maybe Albegas was a better choice. I don't know until I've had a chance to see it.

What was almost eerie is that the start of the Daltanias story is distressingly close to Justin Mark's Voltron movie script!!!

The Story:

The year is 1995 and Earth has been conqured by an evil inter-galactic empire(sound familiar?).

We are immediately introduced to our young hero's. There is like 6 or 7 of them. Quite a motley crew of odd balls which includes a pig.

The human survivors of the alien onslaught now live under the empire's rule. The humans seem to be able to go about their business of day to day survival providing they do not exhibit any kind of rebelious tendencies. But life is hard. Tokyo(?) has been decimated and is now in ruins. Some buildings still stand but are ruins. There is no electricity and the survivors must resort to old ways of living.(IOW, your standard, sci-fi, "post-apocolyptic earth" setting) There is a rather effective scene where we see a mother and her child shoping around the drab, make-shift street merchants. The poor starving child pleads to her mother to purchase some food, to which the mother has no choice but to decline. That was sad.

Anyway, our heros have perfected a method of stealing large amounts of food from the merchants.

This is the first thing we see them do.

We see more of their drab existance, how the "Kieth/Jeff" dude of course had such a horrible past(watching his mother die).

Jump cut to:

They are being chased by some vengful merchants, stumble into a cave - which of course really a hidden alien space fortress/command center.

The only remaining crew member is an old scientist(surprise, surprise!). Suddenly, for reasons that are not apparent without being able to understand the dialogue, the "Kieth/Jeff" type guy, along with the "Lance" type guy(there are only two pilots) get sucked into some kind of automated thing that makes their new uniforms, sends them on the ride (think of the sled's that leads to the Lions in GoLion/Voltron and the conveyer transfer seats that get the pilots to their crafts in Dairugger/Voltron) and bam - the Atlaus(the techno knight/robot that forms Daltanias's head, shoulders and arms) and Gunper(a space shuttle/jet that forms Daltanias's feet and lower legs) are in action, fighting the empire forces.

They fair well. However, when they return to the base, the old scientist dude is not happy. Something's missing: Velorose - the Gold Lion I always champion as one of the major reasons that Daltanias would be great as a Voltron.

The old scientist reveals that (from what I can tell) he is originaly from another planet. He was in the middle of developing Daltanias when his planet was attacked by the empire. He escapes in the big space fortress that they are in now. During the trip to Earth, emperial forces pursue the space fortress. During the chase, Velerose is lost. The old scientist shows them that if they could locate Velerose, they could form Daltanias. Velorose forms the chest, stomach/abdomen and upper legs of Daltanias.


Cut to:

Atlaus and Gunper are getting owned by emperial forces. "Kieth/Jeff" get's knocked out. But before he looses consciousness, he mentally calls out to Velerose. When he's out, a big light Iron Cross( think GoLion/Voltron's chest) beakon type thing shines into the sky ala the Bat signal. Velerose arrises from where he landed (back during WWII) and joines the battle. Naturally he saves Atlaus and Gunper, they form Vol-er, I mean Daltanias and ...you know the rest.


Again, for me, I firmly believe this could have worked as a Voltron. As I pointed out before, there is a child character that resmembles Chip & Pidge. This despite this anime did NOT live up to what I personaly hoped for. (although perhaps nothing would have).


Now forget wether it could be Voltron or not, was it good?

Well, if you're a fan of the general "Super Robot" genre, this should satisfy.

It sticks to the standard, by the numbers formula typical of the Super Robot genre.

Nothing about it really stands out(which is what I was hoping for).

Also, I wasn't prepared for just how much it appears to be geared toward children. The main lead doesn't appear to be some idealistic hero but rather a goof ball teen who just happend to stumble into this deal. Same with his "Lance" side kick. They are certainly NOT "specially trained, space explorers". They seem relunctant and basically act like idiots, most of the time. See,I don't dig this tone. It almost seems like this series is halfway a comedy.

The evil empire guys are made up of multiple races. A couple of them look like they walked right off of Planet Spectra and will be answering to Zoltar.

I regretably must say that this is probably a very forgetable series. But that's fine. My understanding is that in Japan, many feel that way about both Dairugger AND GoLion.(Believe it or not)

To me, it's only mainly enjoyable because I get to see one of my all time favorite robot designs in action. Of course, I've only watched four episodes so far, but I've got a feeling it's not going to get any more in depth or unique.

Oh well, I STILL think it could work as Voltron.

If you bothered to read all that, thanks!

Now this is what I'm talking about. From what you've described of this show, it would make a nice addition to the Voltron saga.

Again, I haven't seen Albegas, but it sounds like it could be better than that.

As for the comedy in this series, remember we had the Space Mice in Voltron.

Thanks for posting this.

Thanks for posting this. I don't know much about Daltanius or Albegas, so it's nice to hear a review about one of them.

The pig member is interesting. Like Oolong from Dragon Ball.

How was the action compared to Golion? More or less graphic violence?

quote:

The pig member is interesting. Like Oolong from Dragon Ball.

Yeah, have you noticed that about Japanese anime? They have these various series where it seems like it's for children - where the lead hero's act like The Three Stooges, yet the very next minute, terrible, poignient, tragic disasters occure! Again, more proof that the Japanese culture traditionaly has way different sensabilities as to what is "kid safe" or not.

quote:

How was the action compared to Golion?

If you love the Daltanias design like me, it's ecstasy! So far, he slices and dices, just like Golion. He even has some interesting weapons Golion doesn't have - like his crossbow. Man, I waited so long to see that crossbow in animated form!!

quote:

More or less graphic violence?

Hmmm. About the same from what I can tell. But then, from what I've seen, this evil empire doesn't walk around with swords like SinClien/Lotor. So we don't see them stab people, but we sure as heck see they have no compunction of blasted the crap out of cities killing thousands of humans at a pop.

Don't worry. Zarkon could have them for lunch without even getting up from his throne!

quote:

From what you've described of this show, it would make a nice addition to the Voltron saga

Right. Let's say, for instance, around the time when WEP commissioned Toie to animate Fleet Of Doom and the new season 20 episodes - with some additional animation to tie it in, some good editing, some good story writing, Daltanias would have been splendid as Voltron.

quote:

Again, I haven't seen Albegas, but it sounds like it could be better than that.

Perhaps. I'm willing to admit that. BUT, I just don't care for the Albegas design. I find it boring. It's just three humanoid shapes that combine into another humanoid shape with no interesting wings, or horns or what not. Just not my cup of tea. And I really don't like the idea of a Voltron with 6 arms. I just don't dig it.

For all I know, it's story may rival Lord Of The Rings. Doesn't change that I hate the Albegas design.

Cooler design or good story???


I guess we can't have our astro-cakes and eat them too!!

Nice synopsis. Though it would've been a jagged fit at best with the established Voltron continuity, if they'd somehow retained the original Daltanius Earth-setting.

If we're assuming that this would've been the "Middle Universe Voltron," however, it's quite likely that WEP would've rewritten the series slightly so that it would've taken place on an Alliance colony-world out in the Middle U, or something akin.

This would be very similar to what Harmony Gold did with the "Southern Cross" section of Robotech, readapting the story to occur on Earth itself, rather than a human colony out in the universe, as it was in the original Japanese series ("Glorie"), and hand-painting out Glorie's second moon to match it up with "Macross" and "The New Generation."

quote:

Originally posted by GodaikinMajesty:
Perhaps. I'm willing to admit that. BUT, I just don't care for the Albegas design. I find it boring. It's just three humanoid shapes that combine into another humanoid shape with no interesting wings, or horns or what not. Just not my cup of tea. And I really don't like the idea of a Voltron with 6 arms. I just don't dig it.

For all I know, it's story may rival Lord Of The Rings. Doesn't change that I hate the Albegas design.

I'll completely agree with you on this one -- the Albegas mecha-designs are completely "meh" to me; utterly uninteresting from a visual standpoint. The animation itself is quite good, but the Albegas robot itself was extraordinarily mundane when compared to the Rugger Guard and GoLion mecha.