Voltes V Makes Me Dream
by Ivan Chen

In the Phillipines, Voltes V series was banned on TV by President Ferdinand Marcos because he believed that the movie teached the children to do violence. But many people believe that the real reason is that he feared that the movie will influence people to do a revolution against his dictatorship. As you might know, the main theme of Voltes V series is the discrimination between the horned and the unhorned (may be taken in reality as the rich and the poor or the strong and the weak, where the strong pushed the weak and made them slaves). And the movie plot leads to the rebellion of the slaves which at the end, defeated the unjust horned people.

Is Voltes V movie that powerful? Could be! Voltes V is the anime that has the MOST serious, MOST complicated plot, but doesn’t lose its focus. Voltes V is the story of friendship, of team work, of brotherhood, of justice. For me, Voltes V made me dream ...

Voltes V told about the unfair world, a world that we feel everyday. Love that is not answered, people cause us pain although we do nothing wrong, and so on. At the end, the good wins but the loss is still lost.

After more than 20 years, of course anime has evolved greatly. We have today great animes like Sailor Moon, Saint Seiya, Miyazaki Hayao's animes (i.e: Laputa, Nausicaä),Dragon Ball, Neon Genesis Evangelion, etc. But still Voltes V is the most  interesting anime with the most interesting robot, both in design and as a toy. You can feel that when you have ever played with its Godaikin toy. The story is so original with strong reality and possibility. There are no magic power, other dimensions, hocus pocus, or portal to other world. They keep everything close to science, perhaps more scientific than Star Trek. We can follow its plot deeply and find it so realistic. As one of the anime forefathers, I think Voltes V deserves an outstanding respect and appreciation.

Ivan Chen
Tuesday, 15. Jan 1998

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