Contributed by “PRomanIV”
I read in one of the dozens of over-analyzations on this site that Japanese “children’s” anime has a tendency to allow a bit more violence than western cartoons. This got me to thinking: Have you ever noticed just how ridiculously far Voltron (the original, I’ve never seen the new one) goes to insure that NO ONE DIES.
I’m doing this from memory, but let me site the examples I can think of:
- In order to show just how cruel Zarkon is, they constantly show him observing gladiatorial bouts in his arena. And yet, they make a point (in pretty much every episode) of mentioning that the gladiators are robots. So, in effect, Zarkon is just watching the Universe’s Most Elaborate Mortal Kombat Game.
- Prince Lotor (I think that’s how it’s spelled), in a fit of rage, cuts up a bunch of his father’s minions with his laser sword. Then, once it’s all over, he mentions, for no apparent reason, that they’re all just robots.
- In another episode, Lotor kidnaps a whole busload of peasantfolk and holds them hostage, ordering the Voltron boys to surrender. His bluff is called, and, in order to prove his toughness, Lotor orders a random peasant shot. Blast blast, the man goes down. Then he says “That was just a stun ray, but the next shot will be real!” or something to that effect. At this point, the Voltron Force gets all scared, decides “he’s serious” and surrenders.
- There is one episode where Zarkon causes it to rain fire or lava or some such down on the planet, causing some nasty damage to the local flora. Later in the episode, the princess mentions that EVERYONE made it safely into the caves.
- In one of the very last episodes, Lotor usurps his father and has him imprisoned in a robeast. He sends the robeast out to battle Voltron. Naturally, Voltron wins, and destroys the robeast, which blows up quite impressively. Next shot is a close-up of daddy Zarkon’s face, hastily saying something to the effect of “I managed to escape, some day I will wreak my revenge on my treacherous son!” He is never heard from again.
- In the final episode, Lotor and Sven are fighting it out in Lotor’s palace. Sven draws a knife and comes at Lotor, cut out there’s an explosion, the two are struggling, they fall into a lake. Sven emerges shortly thereafter saying “I’ve finally defeated the evil Lotor!” But then the narrator cuts in an announces, “And yet, unbeknownst to our heroes, Lotor has escaped!” Then he makes the obligatory “I’ll get you next time!” bad guy curse, and climbs into this escape pod that came from lord-knows-where.
The only exception to this “no death at any cost” mentality is when Zarkon’s first general (no idea what his name was) gets turned into a robeast and blown up. I’m fairly certain we are left to assume he went boom with his robeast, but I don’t particularly remember. Either way, he is never heard from again.
My point in all this? Well, let’s examine #3 for a second, as it is the most airtight proof of my theory that I have. In that scene, the mention that it was “just a stun ray” completely kills any tension that previously existed. Even an eight year old would have to pick up on just how ludicrous it is for the Voltron Force to be kowtowed by a villain who can only stun his hostages. It would have been much simpler for them to just surrender before Lotor did anything, if they didn’t want to show a hostage get killed. The whole stun ray statement is said rather quickly (even for a dubbed cartoon) and doesn’t seem to fit into the flow of the conversation. All the other “I’m not dead” statements are the same way, and the pictures that accompany them in #5 and #6 seem equally out of place, either displaying no background whatsoever, or displaying an entirely different background than the rest of the scene.
Then, going back to #1, in one of the very first episodes (maybe THE very first episodes) we see Zarkon pitting helpless looking (and obviously organic) slaves against his evil minions (who are explained to be robots in later episodes, but I’m fairly sure no mention of this fact is made in the episode I’m talking about now). Also, the one exception that I mentioned above also takes place relatively early in the series. So, what does it all mean?
Most likely, the original Japanese version included some fairly dark and disturbing scenes (like Zarkon’s arena and the fire rain episode, and even the hostage crisis), but, when it was shipped to the states, somebody in the chain of command panicked and backlashed, forcing the introduction of several extra scenes and lines of dialogue designed to insure this was an entirely “kid friendly” show. I think it’s also safe to assume that some scenes have been removed entirely from the translated version. If anyone speaks Japanese, can get their hands on the original version, and has WAY too much time on their hands, they can check this phenomenon out for themselves and see whether or not I’m right (I’m fairly certain I am).
If you watch the “making of” featurette on the first DVD set, the producers explain how they had to cut out death (Sven’s, for an obvious example) to make the show marketable to American audiences– that they didn’t agree with the changes, but that in 1984 they were necessary if they wanted to get the show on American TV.
It’s not so much that “some scenes” have been removed as it is that Voltron is an entirely different animal from Golion– episodes aren’t straight dubs from Golion, but they are spliced from bits from all over the episodes. Scenes have been removed, moved around, etc. and the dialogue isn’t translated; it’s entirely new. The stories are very different. It’s not at all the same show.
There is a lot of extreme violence, torture in Golion, and most of what is referred to as a robot in Voltron is organic in Golion. There’s a decent rundown on those sorts of changes on wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voltron
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That’s not entirely true, because in the episode with the Iron Maiden, it’s obviously many of the prisoners were killed. Then there was the episode where a man was pushed over a waterfall by Hagar’s cat.
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