Hyakujuu-Ou GoLion

Go Lion, localized in English as Voltron, is a bottom tier imitation of Mobile Suit Gundam, Robotech, and Space Battleship Yamato that somehow became a hoot among the science fiction community in North America.

• Every single aspect of this series, seems to be like a Korean bootleg of what should be considered good. There's even the same stereotypes, much like Sayla Mass in the original Gundam (even though her brother is one of the most powerful Newtypes, she can't even pilot a Gundam), there’s the stereotype that women can't pilot robots because, y'know, they're women. Go Lion is definitely a period piece, if you ... want to call it that.

• First, the characters are literally just empty stereotypical husks that talk. The original Saint Seiya isn't a show know for anything more that two-dimensional character writing, but Go Lion makes it look like it's some kind of next-level psychological Neon Genesis Evangelion shit. It stands to reason that my favorite character is this entire series is Buffalon. The giant buffalo alien, hell yeah!

• My love of kaiju aside. The story is forgettable. It's just another tyrannical, alien ruler and his asshole son. You're not going to find a Dessler or Gihran in this series. The story was pretty discombobulated because of the episodic nature, but what was more jarring was that there is little to no continuity, except for multi-parted episodes, and the characters don't grow and aren’t affected by anything at all.

• Even though, on some planets, the bargain bin Zendradi are, I don’t know, mass-murdering and enslaving people. But, hey, who gives a fuck about that, this is a kid's show and we have combining robots.

• With that description out of the way, this series is more of a Power Rangers thing than shows that actually have heavy political messages like Space Battleship Yamato. If you want some silly mecha shows that's retro and aimed at mentally-challenged children, I'm sure you could find a better one. I give this series a super scathing rating of 2/10.

GoLion is the subbed verison of what would be later localized into 80s Voltron. I'll keep this spoiler free.

Story: The overarching story is okay, but nothing super original or anything to write home about. Pretty much your standard "heroes need to overthrow a tyrannical, alien ruler" story. Most of the episodes are formulaic with a few exceptions that hint at the overall plot. But I still wish that there was more continuity in this series and it had a serialized structure like a lot of modern shows.

Now is a good of a time as any to bring this up. This series has ... some dark elements such as: excessive gore, people drinking the blood of the dead, decapitation, cannibalism, off screen rape, suicide, animal death and things like that. This didn't both me as much, since I'm a fan of a lot of darker animes and tv shows. But if you're squeamish, this is something to keep in mind before watching this.

Characters: This is pretty scattered across the board.

The heroes, outside of a couple exceptions, are pretty meh. They're aren't hateable. But they're rather sterotypical and nothing to write home about. Amue are my favourites in the cast, being the most fleshed out of the core cast.

The villains, for the most part, were completely one dimensional. Outside of doing disturbing actions, they had very little character and lacked any motivation for their actions. They came off like pieces of cardboard for the heroes to fight more so than anything else.

The only exception to this was Sincline. While his character concept was rather interesting and he was the most complex out of the main three villains, he's nothing to write home about. Parts of his backstory also make no sense when you think about it. (Not gonna get into why, because spoilers)

Hys and Raible, who are both more heroic characters, were flat out unlikable. Not in a "love to hate them sense" like a villain. But they were such unlikable douchebags that it made me want to launch them into the sun. Hys was very condensing to the main characters and super sexist. And Raible was pretty sexist himself.

The side characters were okay, but nothing to write home about either.

Art/Sound: Voice acting was decent. Nothing amazing, but nothing super horrible either. I could always make out what the actors were saying and what the sound effects were.

Character designs are were decent as well. Although, I question some of the character's fashion choices.

Same can't be said for the art and animation, which shifted back and forth being okay to being pretty bad. Characters like Sincline would often go off model a lot of the time. Even the OP animation wasn't the greatest. Some of the backgrounds and shots were good, but those were a rarity in this series.

Enjoyment: This a decent anime with a bunch of good, bad and outright terrible aspects. It was interesting to see where elements of the reboot originated. I had fun predicting where the reboot might go by what went down in this series while it was still airing.

Over all: If you're a fan of any of the Voltron series, including the reboot, you should be able to get this through this fine. For everyone else, however, I recommend giving this series a pass. Because there are far better mecha series that are worth your time over this.


Story: 6
Art: 3
Sound: 4
Character: 4
Enjoyment: 5
Overall: 5

SPOILER FREE
PROS:
*Unique art style: Loved Golion's horror/gothic vibes with witches, black magic, space ships with skulls, flying coffins, organic architecture.

*Action: dynamic fights ranging from hand to hand, Lion mech to peon soldier/tanks, Golion to giant monster. There's a variety of weapons that evolve with time. The finishing blows are all uniquely animated

*Characters: I was surprised by how well certain characters are fleshed out and their dramatic stories. Significant recurring characters, episodic characters, and more. Admittedly, the central male protagonists felt less developed by comparison, but I still found myself getting invested in characters that I wasn't expecting

*Mature themes & imagery: You probably know about Voltron, ... but these aren't the same. Golion really wasn't suitable for being edited into a kids cartoon. They removed apocalyptic wars, slavery, death, blood, lots of violence, SA, and more.

*Plot: it's probably going to feel slow for the first half, but it really picks up towards the end. If I were to rate each quarter, I'd say it's 6,5,6,8. It comes off like an episodic super rorobt anime, and many of its episodes truly are episodic, but there's also characters, technology, history, etc gradually revealed through these episodes, so it kinda snowballs towards the end.

*Conclusion: Golion had a really solid final quarter. Conclusive and enjoyable ending I felt somewhat emotionally attached to.

CONS:
*Characters: Central male protagonists could have been fleshed out more in comparison to the other characters

*Opening scene: Each episode starts with an opening scene set in the distant past, I felt this gave me false expectations and felt like the anime was poorly planned. I suggest not putting much stock in it, and just watching the episodes for what they provide.

*Plot: First half does feel slow and a little boring at times, but I think it's worth finishing

*Action: Although there's a variety of weapons, it seems like the lions were supposed to have specific elements, and they do explain this to some extent, but I felt it was poorly implemented as the water lion would be seen shooting fire out its mouth, the fire lion shooting air attacks, etc. They do some cool elemental combination attacks like fire tornado, but they don't really experiment with the elements as much as i'd like. Most of the weapons are generally rockets, lasers, swords, etc.

Overall: I know this is a little barebones, but I have a full video review on my youtube and I'm honestly tired of talking about it by now. I just wanted to leave something positive for Golion since there were 0 recommended reviews at the time of posting. I think it's a good anime that often gets overlooked because of Voltron and its slow start. I was a little bored at first, but I'm glad I stuck with it, and I think It's one of those anime that I'd appreciate more with time, as I venture through 70s and 80s super robot anime.

Other recommendations: If you like fun SR, check Daitarn 3 and 1980s Tetsujin 28. If you like the dark/mature elements of this, check Space Runaway Ideon.