Sean Akizuki's Fantasy Critic

Above is a video by Filipino actor known by his screen name Michael V. Michael presents the history of Telesuccess Productions (a dubbing company in the Philippines that did the oh-so-cheesy English dubs back then). I remembered GMA-7 aired Combattler V by giving English first names and Japanese last names (which ironically made the real first names the dub surnames). Before that, Voltes V was aired by giving very American-English names to the cast of characters. I guess it was that hard to remember and pronounce Japanese names so the dub names were given. Personally, I don't hold a fondness for the dub names these days after seeing the Japanese original.  Voltes V got aired during the Empire of Marcos. I originally had a theory that Voltes V stopped airing straightly after episode 28 when Emperor Zanbazil was revealed. I wonder how true it was that Zanbazil was renamed Ferdinand and General Bergan (Ozlack) was renamed General Fabian? If that were true, I guess we can never find th...

  I guess some shows by Toei are meant to be underappreciated in the modern age. I did watch Voltes V as a teenager followed by Combattler V. There was the Robot Romance Trilogy which was done by Toei Ltd. directed by Tadao Nagahama. This was all before Golion became the thing but didn't enjoy the traction. Eventually, we know that Toei Ltd. decided to shelve the genre to continue with Super Sentai . The team formation may remind some of what came before it namely the Gatchaman Trilogy . The Gatchaman Trilogy series started in 1972 (and the first season had 105 episodes) followed up by Gatchaman II and Gatchaman Fighter . Take note that Tatsunuko, not Toei, was behind Gatchaman . It was in 1976 when Combattler V came. Interestingly, Gatchaman's two other sequels were in 1978 and 1979 after the first season ended in 1984. The team format suspiciously resembles the Gatchaman team in many ways. You have the leader, the rebel, the big guy, the woman (Smurfette Principle), and the c...

Combattler V was known for having two arcs namely these... The Garuda arc. So I guess the artists at Toei didn't hesitate to reuse the model for Prince Heinel. So the Garuda arc focused on Garuda's relationship with his "mother" Oreana who transferred her brain into a gigantic statue and programmed Garuda with false memories. In this arc, Garuda was assisted by robotic androids who were living wall decorations. I thought that for Garuda, he was a pretty menacing villain while having a high level of overconfidence that this plan could defeat Combattler V yet tragic in a way because he never knew hew as a robot which he could have reciprocated Mia's feelings for him. He would be the basis for other characters like Prince Heinel, Prince Richter and Prince Sincline. The second half of the show featured the ruler of Kyanbell, Empress Janera. I really would say she is really one powerful witch who really gets pretty scary. I thought that she has gone...

Golion came later after Voltes, Combattler V and Daimos. Now since it's completely separate from these series, so don't try to connect them. I felt like Golion was created to be a tribute to its predecessors save blowing up the Earth to separate itself from Voltes V and Combattler V which may launch the question, "Where were the Super Robots to defend it from Galran invasion?" Golion's main five characters are obviously followed by Voltes V and Combattler V, all three were combining robot shows based on five mecha.  This was also clearly copied from Gatchaman as well. Even the personalities are pretty close. All three teams had their base that was actually secretly flying mecha. For Voltes V and Golion, both of them invaded their enemy planets to liberate the people from their respective dictators. Professor Raible was obviously based on professors of the past. Raible is similar to Dr. Nambara, Dr. Yotsuya, Dr. Hamaguchi and Dr. Sakunji in Voltes V. Also...