Voltes V

There are very few movies and shows that make me go all squishy poo.  I posted about a couple previous animated films called Heidi's Song and Aladdin And the Wonderful Lamp.  One other one is Voltes V, spoken as 5.  It was made back in the 70s, a trilogy robot series from japan.  Voltes V was the second series Tadao Nagahama.  The first series was Combattler V, and the third Daimos.  

None of them were really sequels to each other though.  But they were what started other series like Voltron.  Anyway, I only knew of Voltes V as a kid, parents having bought me a random cartoon VHS tape they saw SOMEWHERE.  It was pretty much the first 5 episodes condensed into a movie length.  Can you imagine my surprise when about 12 years later I actually find out there was a 40 episode tv series and the movie was just the beginning?  It blew my fucking mind! 

Getting any sort of anime back then was pretty hard.  There wasnt really an internet setup for that.  You had to either find the stuff on the shelves of the video store, and back then there were very few things from japan you could watch here, or be lucky enough to get some magazines from overseas that spoke about all of that stuff.  It basically took me about 10 years after that to track down the entire series.  Unfortunately the first time I got it the series was dubbed by fans from Malaysia I think.  I was furious since I wanted the proper voices.  A couple years later I finally got my hands on a subtitled set that someone had sat down and translated since there is no official translation.  

My next step was to try and get a replacement for my very worn VHS tape since that one had been dubbed in english by an american branch.  And the voices were great.  The only problem I stumbled upon now was that there were 2 versions.  Everything was the same except for the intro and the transformation scenes.  The music for those had been totally changed from the japanese song to some bullshit rock guitar crap.  Far as I can tell the version I have is no where to be found.  And mine is sort of worn out from the years unfortunately.  I was planning to do some hardcore editing and slap the sound from my movie onto the picture of the other version I got a while back but I've been horribly lazy.  Plus my VHS player died a while back.  Those things are stupidly expensive now to replace.  But lo and behold someone uploaded their copy onto youtube a while back.  The beginning has like 3 short cut outs of the sound but I think thats probably the only issue with it, havent watched the rest.  I had to stop myself.  Either way if you plan to give it a watch then go for it, video is below.  Its awesome and brutal at times.  I love it to death.  I have no words for how much I love this show.