光速電神アルベガス / Lightspeed Electroid Allbegas / Arbegas El Rayo Custodio

These teens did pilot the Eva.

Writing reviews is taking longer these days. Not because I'm lazy or busy with my adult life or something. I always disliked people saying things "I don't have time for that anymore". That's not true. When you truly want to do something, you do it anyway.

Today's review, I hope is finished and posted by my Birthday next Wednesday, is about another giant robot Animé that almost made into the roaster of shows that made Voltron. Legend has it, some toys were licensed in hopes of a future release with the Voltron tag on them. Long story short, nothing happened and Lightspeed Electroid Albegas would eventually reach western audiences as its own thing. The show was produced by Toei Animation, and originally aired in Japan from 1983 to 1984. The series was also later moderately popular in Latin America, Spain and Italy during the late eighties. 45 episodes were produced, clocking in at approximately 25 minutes each. The series is also known by other translations of its title, such as "Arbegas", "Arebegas", "Lightspeed ElectroGod Arbegas" and "Arbegas: El Rayo Custodio".

Hotaru's suit is a bit tight today.

 

State-of-the-art Mecha.

The plot is the classic, clichéd at this point, story of three teenagers, Daisaku Enjōji, Tetsuya Jin, and Hotaru Mizuki, who create award-winning robots as part of their school competition. At this time, the evil Derringer (デリンジャー, Derinjā), an invading alien race, plots to control the universe so its ambition is also to conquer Earth. To combat this threat, Hotaru's father, Professor Mizuki, takes the three robots and modifies them for battle. Hence, Albegas, thesuper robot, is born. The Japanese fascination for forcing teenagers into the most dangerous work is a trope of any Animé involving robots, transforming or not. Daisaku is the sometimes hot-headed leader, while Tetsuja compensates with more of a loner/mature approach . On the other hand, Hotaru is the beatiful woman everyone falls for, which leads to several episodes where she is faced with stereotypical situations that can only occur to a woman just because she is one. Other characters bring the comic relief to life, but it gets a bit tiresome by half. For example, professor Mizuki is an overweight single lady that is always looking for candidates for marriage. Moreover, she's too dumbed down to be a teacher of any kind. Then you have the most annoying of all: Goro Kumai who's nothing but a pale copy of Mazinger Z's Boss. His quest for earning Hotaru's love is dead lame. Now, don't get me wrong, not everything is bad in Albegas. The character and mecha designs are good. 80s good. Some episodes are excellent as well, but  the episodic nature of the show makes it  really difficult to get to the 45th episode. 

School can wait.

Combiners!

Plot wise, it is not very clear at first why the Derinja have targeted Earth as their next expansion project. The episodic nature makes the bad guys seem very childish. They build one "mecha fighter" after another, then try to root for it until it's torn to pieces, and they're back on ground zero to survive another day. On the other hand, the good guys motivations are equally childish: "Bad monster comes to attack the city, heroes protect city, and blast monster into oblivion". One thing that always had my attention during the episodes is the fact you never see the police or military doing something to stop the alien attacks. Although they're seen defeated in the first episode, boom! next episodes we have no clue where the hell are they. Besides, Professor Mizuki is a man with a reputation for knowing what to do, so nobody ever questions his decision of sending underage kids to battle monsters while they should be in school doing chores instead. By the way, I know it's a fictional show aimed at kids before you tell me I'm being too harsh on it. 

 

Each episode runs around 24 minutes counting the opening. The formula gets tiresome very quickly: Open episode, heroes either wait for something to happen, or one of the main characters has been tricked/manipulated by the Gerinja to deliver vital information to their operation, whatever the operation is. Then, one hero realizes something's out of place and tells the others, giant monster shows up, battle unravels, Albegas sword wins the day, everyday, always. 

 

 

Hotaru is good at everything...

...Even providing light fanservice.

Out of all characters, Hotaru Mizuki remains the most interesting. Here's why: She's a good student, an excellent tennis player, the most responsible from the team, and quite a great pilot. Moreover, she gets more character development since she's the only female in the group. Men follow her, yet she chooses to ignore them. She's the school most beautiful student, and yet she doesn't give a rat's ass about it. She's a humble character with feelings. On the other hand Daisaku and Tetsuya are merely the male stereotypes of a heroic figure that doesn't seem to have anything else to do with their lives but to kill monsters, and occasionally try to see girls showering or in their underwear. A very common stereotype from the past. Kids would device plans to see their classmates undies during breaks, and there was nothing sexual about it, it was just a game of humiliation. Bad taste, I know. 

 

Unfortunately, Hotaru also falls prey to stereotypical situations just because she's a female character. Kidnap, mind control, falling in love with the enemy without knowing it, not being strong enough as to escape by herself, and frequently having to deal with men chasing her just because. Her commitment to the cause is commendable, though.

 

You can still find the toys on E-Bay.

 

Too young to smoke, young enough to pilot a giant robot.

Plot holes are very frequent on the show. We never see why these kids were chosen to pilot state-of-the-art mecha probably the military would have handled better. The only explanation is on the first episode where these kids participate in a robot building contest in school, and win. Later these robots would be repurposed, very quickly to fit the episode, into Albegas by professor Mizuki, who with all his scientific knowledge and expertise, chooses his daughter and her two best friends to do what no adult is willing to do because they know better. 

 

Morishita Kouzou directed the show, and to date he's the managing director of Toei animation. His resumé includes work ranging from earlier mecha animé like Kotetsu Jeeg, Magne Robot Ga-Keen to popular franchises like Dragon Ball Z & Saint Seiya. As above mentioned, the animation quality, including character, mecha & background designs are all superb according to the decade standards. The transformation sequence where the Alpha, Beta & Gamma robots combine into Albegas gets permanently attached to your brain, and although is reused in every episode, you never get tired of it. Neon retro grids in the background, pieces fitting together zooming in and out, and the final superhero pose with bursts of energy scream "Buy the toy while it's hot". 

 

Still waiting for giant robots to lead the war on peace.

Retro grids hit different when you're 40 something.

Now, contrary to the belief an episodic show has no clear ending, Lightspeed Electroid Albegas does come to a satisfying conclusion in its final episode, or so it seems. Being a show aimed at children, killing all the bad guys while blowing their home planet to pieces, seems like a fitting end. Nevertheless, even an adolescent mind would question whether this is the right solution to the conflict, as our heroes basically do the same the Derinja are doing to planet Earth with far worse consequences. Anyway, it was the 80s and the producers weren't expecting the show to build a lasting legacy amongst Anime connoisseurs. These shows were made to test how well toys would sell provided the right animated story. Let's not forget the Dyaclone toyline had been out for 3 years in Japan, and the next year, 1984, Hasbro would license the Car-Robots toyline along with the Microman's Micro Change toyline from Takara to create the Transformers, igniting the worldwide robot craze of 1985.

 

Science with the cool schoolkids.

 

Beta as piloted by Tetsuja.

 

Gamma as piloted by Hotaru.

 

Voltron II

 

When World Events Productions began work on Voltron: Defender of the Universe, the intention was to adapt three anime into one shared universe. The series began with a run of episodes based on Beast King GoLion, followed by a run based on Armored Fleet DaiRugger XV. The intention was then to feature Albegas as a third arc, with the mecha of the three shows being retconned into having all been variations of Voltron. However, due to the unenthusiastic response to "Vehicle Voltron" episodes, plans to adapt Albegas fell through.

In spite of this, Matchbox released a toy of Gladiator Voltron labeled Voltron II, in addition to Voltron I (Vehicle Voltron) and Voltron III (Lion Voltron).

Decades later, and to appease fans who wanted to see a spawned feature from the Voltron II toy, Gladiator Voltron made a brief, one-panel appearance in Devil's Due comics in 2004. Character dialog indicated that it was an earlier failed attempt in the efforts to duplicate the Lion Force Voltron's technology (efforts which, in this continuity, resulted in the creation of the Vehicle Force).
 

All three Voltrons appeared together in the fifth issue of Robotech/Voltron, during a page which showed potential alternate dimensions.

 

The "Voltron II" Matchbox toy.

Hotaru won't fit her suit no more.