Anime Rebirth

Review - Hyakujuu Ou Golion

Review by Roriconfan

Value: 6
Voltron (Golion in Japan) is an old but quite famous mecha adventure. We can say that it’s the series that advertised the mecha genre in America and eventually to the rest of the world. It opened a path for the later “good” series (Macross, Gundam, Patlabor) to cross with ease. That gives it some value, but otherwise it’s just another ridiculous mecha series.

Animation & Sound: 4
Very old, very simple, very pathetic.

The leading mecha design is ridiculous. The main motifs on it are five lions that combine into one, but their cool look gets easily worn off.

The opposing monsters are too dumb-looking to be scary. They usually die in a couple of minutes and always with the same sword slash, finishing move.

Character figures are uninteresting, special attacks are unrealistic, voice acting and sound effects are amongst the worse I have heard. And stay away from the American version, by all means. It makes what is already bad, to sound even worse.

Story & Characters: 4
The American version is watered down a lot, so pay no attention to it. In general, alien “bad guys” attack a human planet and 5 “good guys” of Earth alliance find a powerful mecha and try to stop the invasion. That is the whole story.

There is hardly any character development, as in the norm of all old series. There is a thin story continuity but with no interesting plot twists. At least, there is a fair share of deaths amongst several important characters, making some really “drastic” character maturity.

Shall I point out the fact that a single mecha is able to beat an entire interstellar army? Maybe that the ingenious bad guys sent only one big monster at a time, instead of their entire army and end this story in half an episode? Don’t look for deep meanings in here.

Enjoyment: 3
If you have watched any decent mecha series or even a couple of Power Ranger seasons, this title will seem like something you would watch just to appreciate those blurry Gundam graphics you didn’t like at first.

Verdict
I regret to inform you that the patient has left us. But worry not, as his ideals keep living inside his descendants.