Ok, as most of us know, when WEP started working on Voltron, they were considering two other series to bring over before they got Golion; Daltanias and Albegas. Curious about how differently Voltron could’ve been, I decided to look up those two series. I’ve picked up the episodes from this place, and now I’ve seen both of those series.

This post may by slightly rambling as I’m writing off the top of my head. Also, I don’t speak Japanese, so most of my impression is based on the gist of it.


First; Daltanias, since it’s the older series. There’s already another topic summarizing the first four episodes, so I won’t get into the setup. First thing that struck me is that this series is, as was said in that topic “halfway a comedy”. There’s quite a bit of physical humor here, quite a bit centered around the kids and their pig. In fact, early on, they make a goofy-looking turtle mecha that they drive around in. I kid you not (yeah, the space mice in Golion got their own ship eventually, but I don‘t recall the ship itself doing any sort of slapstick comedy). Trying to think of this as part of Voltron is a little jarring, since the Voltron we know never got that goofy.

Another thing is that in term of overall look and feel, it doesn’t quite seem to fit in. By this, I’m talking about the animation. I don’t know how quite to explain it, but Daltanias has more of a “Made in the 1970s” look to it (it aired in 1979). Whereas Golion, Dairugger and Albegas all has a “Made in the 1980s” look to them. If this has aired back in the days, I’d be wondering why this Voltron looks older than the other Voltrons. Also, the pilot uniforms for the heroes don’t really match what’s seen in Golion and Dairugger. The Albegas uniforms looks like they’d fit in better.

On a more positive note, the series gets much better in the second half. I heard this series was big in Italy. If I’d only seen the first half, I’d be wondering why that was. But now that I’ve seen the whole thing, I can see why it was big over there. The plot then takes several turns and by the time we get to the last dozen episodes, the series is building and building up to the epic climax. By the time I got to that point, I was really interested in it since quite a bit was going on. The finale(which takes a few episodes to play out) is action-packed and ends the series on a high note.

The main mecha itself is quite cool looking, and from a visual standpoint, one could argue that it bridges the gap between lion Voltron and vehicle Voltron (it’s part robot, lion and vehicle). Also, from this screenshot, I get a Big O vibe from it(it‘s the chin). I can’t help but like it more just because of that.

Overall; the series is decent on it’s own terms--it helps if you don‘t mind slapstick humor--but it would’ve been a tough sell as part of Voltron. I also wonder how they would’ve handled certain parts. Daltanias and Albegas has more Japanese “culture stuff” than Golion and Dairugger did, and apparently, WEP wanted to remove that sort of stuff from Voltron. Some of which I have a hard time seeing how it would’ve been done without making a mess of the episodes.


EDIT:

On Albegas

Most of us know that Albegas was also considered for Voltron, and that the toys were released in the states. I wonder how far WEP got in planning before they switched over to making more lion Voltron episodes. I can’t help but think they must’ve *some* idea how to fit the various series together. As a Voltron, Albegas would’ve fitted in better in some ways than Daltanias, but not so-good in other ways.

I have to wonder; how would they have tried to make this fit in the same universe with an intergalactic Earth and space explorers? We’ve got Voltrons of the “far” and “near” universe, so presumably, Albegas would’ve been “Voltron of the middle universe”. Problem is; it’s really, really obvious this series takes place on contemporary Earth. Yes, I know that in Robotech, they took Southern Cross and acted as if that story took place on Earth. But at least that series actually *looked* like a futuristic sci-fi setting. Albegas takes place in the present, or at least the very near present. The buildings looks like Earth building, everyone is wearing normal looking clothes and there are men wearing suits and ties. Not futuristic looking at all. Daltanias also took place on contemporary Earth(1995), but that showed a world in ruin and devastation, so I guess they could’ve made up something about technology being destroyed. Also, there's no "space exploration" in this series. They did go to the moon a couple of times, but aside from the aliens' space fortress, this series is almost entirely Earthbound. Daltanias, at least, had a bit more of this.

Anyway; about Albegas itself; this series--to summarize it real quick-- is about three teenagers(two guys and one girl) that pilots three super robots. The black robot(Alpha) belongs to the main character(Daisaku), the blue robot(Beta) belongs to the secondary guy(Tetsuya), and the red robot(Gamma) belongs to the girl(Hotaru). The three robots combined makes Albegas(name is from ALpha BEta GAmma). The series starts with aliens invading the Earth, the three heroes use the robots they made for their high school science projects(yes, seriously) and try to stop them, but get their butts kicked. Hotaru’s father takes the three robots and rebuild them to make a super robot. Then they kick the aliens butts. From then, the series goes down the super robot formula(good guys enjoying normal life, bad guy disrupts life, bad guy sent the monster down, good guys combining the robot, form their sword and slices monster, good guys resume normal life) with the occasional plot-related episode.

In terms of overall look and feel, I think Albegas would’ve fit in better with the other Voltron series than Daltanias. By this, I mean the animation. As I’ve said before, the animation has that “Made in the 1980s” look it that Golion and Dairugger does. So I don’t think it would’ve been as jarring to watch as a Daltanias-Voltron. Plus, the hero uniforms looks much more inline with what we see in Golion and Dairugger. They’re much more how a “Voltron-type” uniforms should look. At least to me anyway. Also, most of the aliens in this series are purple-skinned, so that’s another visual link that’s easy to see.

Also, one thing that bothers me in Daltanias is that only two characters actually pilots the main mecha, which seems like way too small of a team to me. It seems a little more balanced in Albegas with three characters piloting the main mecha. Plus, for whatever reasons, the characters comes off as more likeable than the ones in Daltanias.

However, one thing I didn’t care about too much was some of the humor presented. Like Daltanais, there’s some goofy expression and slapstick comedy at work here, most often with the goofy sidekick character and an annoying fat teacher. For the goofy sidekick, much of the humor revolves around his obsession with Hotaru(we sometime see his PG-13 level fantasies), or how he helps out with his own robot in a bumbling manner. The teacher, I prefer not to get into. One episode towards the end is a very strange and goofy dream sequence. You have to see it to believe it. There’s also one use of “female hitting guy with a hammer” type of humor at work.

Another thing is that the mecha design for this series is kinda “meh”. The robots have faceplates, which looks a little odd when placed next to the other Voltron, which have more humanoid faces. Daltanias seems to fit in better from an aesthetic standpoint. Also, the transformation isn’t very dramatic. They go from three humanoid robots into…one humanoid robots. Er, yeah… Five lions or 15 vehicles forming a humanoid shapes comes across as more dramatic.

The biggest thing that bothered me about this show is that even though it’s pretty short(only 45 episodes), it wastes a lot of time. There are three clip shows episodes. Yes, clip shows… worst yet, one of them is towards the very end of the series. Why the heck would you waste time with clips instead of gearing up for the ending?

Speaking of which, I got the impression that the series was cancelled before they had time to properly prepare for an ending. Most series of this type last around 50 episodes or so, and I think they were expecting the same thing here. It doesn’t feel like it’s towards the end until the last 3 or 4 episodes. And the ending feels somewhat rushed and flat. I could tell they were going for something epic, but it didn’t feel that way. I was left thinking “err… is that it?”


Anyhow, despite my rambling above, I still think this was a decent series overall. The ending drags it down some, but most of it is watchable and fairly entertaining. Like Daltanias, I think it’s better watched on its own terms, rather than as “trying to see it as Voltron”. I think the Voltrons we got are better than what was planned. Though if these two series ever comes out on dvd, I wouldn’t mind picking them up.

Agree with your thoughts about Albegas fitting in slightly better with the established Voltron mythos than Daltanius -- I've seen roughly six or so episodes of each series, and maybe it's what you mentioned about the greater "slapstick" quotient at the beginning of Daltanius, but Albegas just edges it out, 'tude-wise, in terms of being able to slip right into the mythos.

Still, you've now got me interested in checking out the complete runs of both shows, Daltanius in particular.

Also, from what I gathered watching Albegas, I would really have had no problem with the series' locale getting retconned as being an Earth colony-world out in the Middle Universe, with many slight parallels and trappings of modern-day Earth still around. In fact, series like Macross Plus and some of the recent Gundams, to give two examples, did a very similar thing, so this could've been very easily finessed, had the World Events writers decided to go in that direction (the reverse of the Robotech "Southern Cross" adaptation scenario).