Voltron: Legendary Defender

Last Summer, Netflix debuted a new original series from DreamWorks Animation and Studio Mir (animators of Nickelodeon’s Avatar) with a reboot of Voltron.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXW1waqRCb0

Season 2 just came out today. Go watch the whole series!

The first season was surprisingly good and ended on a fun cliffhanger. I’m looking forward to watching the 2nd season over the weekend.

Same here. It’s what I have planned for tonight.

Shit, I didn’t even realize the first season came out. I wanna check that out.

Finished the 2nd season. I’m really enjoying the series and I’m looking forward to the next season. I do have a question.

Spoilers

What was the point of jump gating Zarkons flagship to another part of the galaxy? It seemed totally unnecessary and a waist of time and resources. They couldn’t have just engaged Zarkon where he was and upload the virus there?

Spoiler

I also thought that too… although now that I think about it more, maybe it was to separate his ship from reinforcements/scrambled fighters/etc.

[details=Spoiler]I thought the point of it was because they knew they couldn’t entirely destroy the flagship or Kill Zarkon and wanted to strand him in another galaxy, so even if he did recover, and the ship is repaired, as will probably happen, it will buy them time. Also, it prevented reinforcements from entering into the battle.

On a different topic, now that Shiro is missing, will Keith become the new leader like Shiro wanted and the show has been foreshadowing? If that’s the case, will Keith become the new Black Paladin and pilot the Black Lion? This would put the new show in line with the old one where Keith was always the pilot of the Black Lion and the leader of the Voltron Force. And if Keith becomes the new Black Paladin, will Princess Allura become a Paladin? Will she take over piloting Keith’s Red Lion or will Lance become the new Red Lion pilot, like in the original series, and Allura become the new Blue Lion pilot, also like in the original cartoon?

Also, I’m looking forward to hopefully finding out who the previous Paladins were, besides Zarkon. I assume Allura’s father was a Paladin, but who knows.

Really looking forward to Season 3. [/details]

So I tried watching an episode and, it sounds petty I know, but I just loathe when things use that “European anime” drawing style. I just can’t stand it. It’s why I never got into things like Avatar or stuff like that. It just looks so offputting because I get what it’s supposed to be but it just doesn’t ever look right to me. I’d rather people do a more original style like an Adventure Time or something.

I’m not sure I understand what you’re talking about when you refer to Voltron as a “European anime drawing style.” Cowboy Bebop and Crayon Shin Chan are both anime but have vastly different art styles. Anime can be super detailed and realistic, or it can be abstract. There is no one “anime art style.” There’s just art and cartoons that happen to come from Japan.

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To me at least it has a very distinctive style. I think it has to do with the types of color palettes they use as well as where they choose to place outlines on characters and objects. I dunno, there’s just something starkly different to me that’s hard to articulate.

I get what you’re saying, but those different art styles to me look like they were born out of flourishing in an environment where “japanese animation” is so commonplace and it’s similar styles branch off of each other. Whereas I feel like this “western anime” style (I meant European more in the western sense, so I should just say western) is trying hard to emulate a style that falls somewhere in the middle of western cartoons and eastern cartoons and just seems sorta bland by comparison.

Then again, given that Voltron is a reboot of an anime, albeit one produced by a Western studio, an anime-like style is certainly appropriate for it.

Easy way for me to describe something that has an Anime style is the use of big eyes and small mouth. With the use of visual short cuts that are pulled from manga. Example being the sweat drop and the rage vein.

The first episode of season 3 will be screened at SDCC on July 20.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OY3hpm_m1eY

Premieres August 4, and season 4 starts in October.

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Princess Allura dons the Black? :wink:

From my friend today: “I’m just sitting at home alone watching Voltron on Netflix. Nothing like making a japanimation reboot of a great American cartoon.”

After clarifying, I can confirm he was serious.

I’m reminded of all the time in HS when people talked about how awesome it was when [Hot New Artist] released this awesome song, how good [Hot New Artist] is because of their originality with the lyrics. Always about a song that was released in the 60’s or 70’s, almost without fail.

Reminds me of how, when playing the arcade version of Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker via MAME, a bunch of whipper snappers were like, “How come there is an Alien Ant Farm song in a Michael Jackson game?” during the Smooth Criminal-themed level.