TheThan
2014-04-25, 08:39 PM
Since I’m doing some research for an RPG project I decided I might as well have a little fun and turn it into a lets watch thread.
I saw this show back when it originally aired on cartoon Network. I haven’t seen it since, my memory is quite fuzzy, and so I believe things should be interesting. I’ll probably watch the show in multi-episode blocks and write my review as I go.
Spoilers ahoy! read at your own risk.
Episode 1: the boy from planet Zi.
So the episode starts out with a kid on a hover board (wonder if it can go on water?) being chased by a total nutjob in a guysak. This kid is Van Flyheight and seems to be the main protagonist. He’s being chased because this guysak pilot “bull” wants to test out his zoid… by killing an unarmed, unarmored kid… big man there bull, big man. during the chase the two pass by a derelict liger of some kind, my instincts tell me this will be important later on in the episode.
Anyway, Bull chases van up onto the top of a derelict gojulas and then proceeds to topple it on top of himself, smart this guy ain’t. Anyway Van’s hover board is trashed and he heads into the ruins to find parts to fix it. While in there he finds a capsule. Now this is the part when you yell “don’t open it!” but he does anyway. Out pops a cute little zoid he quickly names Zeke. Before they can get more acquainted Bull manages to dig himself out from the rubble he dropped on himself. He busts through the wall like the Cool-Aid man and decides to take Zeke for his own. Zeke tries to fight him off, but is beat down fairly hard, A for effort in my book. Zeke then gets Van on his back and flies outta there like a motha-******. Geeze that’s pretty gonzo right there.
On the way out they ram the guysak and I assume KO it, then blast outta there and zip past two command wolves and right to the derelict liger I mentioned earlier. Zeke pops Van down in the pilots’ seat and goes Voltron on it, merging with it and revitalizing it. This blue shield liger is ready for battle.
He proceeds to trash the two command wolves, sending them away with their tails between their legs. Its made pretty clear that zeke really is the one in control, and that Van is just along for the ride, at least for now. Zeke then takes Van and the revitalized shield liger back to the ruins and uncovers another capsule. Van thinks it’s another zoid like zeke but it’s pretty obvious it’s not. They pop it open and out comes a cute blonde girl.
New Zoids
Gojulas (wreckage)
Guysak
Command wolf
Shield liger
Episode 2: The Mysterious Fiona
Episode 2 stars off with our bad guys from last episode having returned to their hideout and are being dressed down by their boss. They try to explain why they got punked by a scrub kid and the two leaders, a red head dude, and a woman named Viola think it’s something called an organoid. They plan to hatch a scheme to capture the zoid and hand it over to someone to get back into his (I’m assuming it’s a he) good graces.
Meanwhile, Van and the girl whom they dub Fiona are heading back to the Wind Colony, where Van lives. Fiona’s clearly got amnesia, so there’s not a lot there, it’s interesting to see what she knows and doesn’t know, not to mention the dialog where she confuses and frustrates Van is actually pretty funny. The shield liger is also a two seater, so no sitting on laps.
So anyway, Van takes his two new friends and his newly restored shield liger back to his home, where we meet Van’s older sister Maria. She seems pretty cool, caring and generally nice. Fiona is definitely odd, she was able to count the number of threads in the blanket Maria is sewing. Additionally we learn that Van is 17, but he’s apparently a runt as he’s gotta be under 5 feet tall.
Anyway Van shows Fiona around the colony a bit before the bad guys arrive and start shooting. They want Zeke or they’ll level the place. The village elder, the village priest and Maria decide to meet the outlaws, telling them Zeke has gone. They don’t buy it, and grab Maria. One of them clearly wants to do unmentionable things to her, the monster. The elder and priest decide that the best course of action is to give Zeke over. Van won’t have any of it as he thinks it’s a really bad idea, I think he’s right. Anyway they tie Van up and take Zeke to meet the gang and trade Zeke for Maria.
Van escapes and along with Fiona jump in the shield liger and goes to rescue everyone, noticing it’s much slower without Zeke running things. They zap Zeke with a electro whip thingy, putting him down for the count. Van tries to fight them but the shield liger won’t respond to his commands. Once again showing that Van’s got nothing and it’s all Zeke. Fiona does some sort of prayer thingy and Zeke gets up and zaps back into the shield liger, healing the damage done to it, and allowing them to fight off the gang. Van actually uses some of the shield liger’s weapons for the first time. Hurray he’s not completely incompetent.
lastly Van, Fiona and zeke, along with the shield liger decide to leave trying to lead their enemies away from the village.
New zoids:
Molga
Reddler
Episode 3: memory
Episode three opens up with Van and Fiona caught in a sand storm. They bump into Irvine and his command wolf. I remember him, he’s pretty cool. Anyway the three share camp together. Apparently in-between episodes, Van and Fiona got separated from Zeke and the shield liger while foraging for food.
Anyway they blab about Fiona’s and Zeke’s origins and their abilities to Irvine who clearly has his own agenda. Idiots. Irvine is gone in the morning so they hit the road and meet back up with Zeke and the shield liger.
They find some ruins that’s being protected by a white Gordos for some unknown reason. They get inside the ruins and take a look around. while exploring the ruins they uncover a sad story, apparently, the commander had to abandon the gordos at the base and the gordos has been protecting the abandoned fortress since that time, 50 years. Like I said pretty sad.
Anyway Irvine shows up and fights the gordos, but Van interferes and challenges Irvine. He retreats, not able to fight due to damage sustained by the gordos. Zeke also merges with the shield liger, revealing that zeke is an organoid to Irvine who we now learn he wants one.
Van picks some apples and then follows Zeke back down into the ruins where they find Fiona staring blankly at a column of ancient text. She has a flashback or something and then promptly collapses.
Later Irvine attacks again this time on foot, capturing Fiona. He tries to trade Fiona for Zeke, but Zeke attacks, and Fiona and Zeke make it back into the ruins while Van is buried under some rubble. The damaged gordos gets him out. Touching scene really.
Irvine intercepts Fiona and Zeke but Van catches up and fights Irvine, once again merging with zeke. When’s Van going stop using Zeke as a crutch? Anyway the gordos saves Van/Zeke/shield liger and Irvine splits, not liking the odds. The gordos heads back to the fortress, despite Van trying to convince it not to.
New zoids:
Gordos
overall review:
So far I like the series. I want Van to start fighting without Zeke as often as possible and become an actual good warrior. Fiona's backstory is just getting going and I'm curious to see where that leads. We've seen a total of seven zoids just far, not counting repeats from previous episodes. The drawn animation is nothing to write home about, average for the era, and no real complaints there. the CGI is... well it's ok, you can tell it's CGI but the Zoids generally do look good. The English voice acting is fine I've heard worse. According to the wiki I'm looking at there's a deleted scene of naked Fiona in episode 1. I don't think I'm really missing anything there. anyway feel free to post comments below.
I saw this show back when it originally aired on cartoon Network. I haven’t seen it since, my memory is quite fuzzy, and so I believe things should be interesting. I’ll probably watch the show in multi-episode blocks and write my review as I go.
Spoilers ahoy! read at your own risk.
Episode 1: the boy from planet Zi.
So the episode starts out with a kid on a hover board (wonder if it can go on water?) being chased by a total nutjob in a guysak. This kid is Van Flyheight and seems to be the main protagonist. He’s being chased because this guysak pilot “bull” wants to test out his zoid… by killing an unarmed, unarmored kid… big man there bull, big man. during the chase the two pass by a derelict liger of some kind, my instincts tell me this will be important later on in the episode.
Anyway, Bull chases van up onto the top of a derelict gojulas and then proceeds to topple it on top of himself, smart this guy ain’t. Anyway Van’s hover board is trashed and he heads into the ruins to find parts to fix it. While in there he finds a capsule. Now this is the part when you yell “don’t open it!” but he does anyway. Out pops a cute little zoid he quickly names Zeke. Before they can get more acquainted Bull manages to dig himself out from the rubble he dropped on himself. He busts through the wall like the Cool-Aid man and decides to take Zeke for his own. Zeke tries to fight him off, but is beat down fairly hard, A for effort in my book. Zeke then gets Van on his back and flies outta there like a motha-******. Geeze that’s pretty gonzo right there.
On the way out they ram the guysak and I assume KO it, then blast outta there and zip past two command wolves and right to the derelict liger I mentioned earlier. Zeke pops Van down in the pilots’ seat and goes Voltron on it, merging with it and revitalizing it. This blue shield liger is ready for battle.
He proceeds to trash the two command wolves, sending them away with their tails between their legs. Its made pretty clear that zeke really is the one in control, and that Van is just along for the ride, at least for now. Zeke then takes Van and the revitalized shield liger back to the ruins and uncovers another capsule. Van thinks it’s another zoid like zeke but it’s pretty obvious it’s not. They pop it open and out comes a cute blonde girl.
New Zoids
Gojulas (wreckage)
Guysak
Command wolf
Shield liger
Episode 2: The Mysterious Fiona
Episode 2 stars off with our bad guys from last episode having returned to their hideout and are being dressed down by their boss. They try to explain why they got punked by a scrub kid and the two leaders, a red head dude, and a woman named Viola think it’s something called an organoid. They plan to hatch a scheme to capture the zoid and hand it over to someone to get back into his (I’m assuming it’s a he) good graces.
Meanwhile, Van and the girl whom they dub Fiona are heading back to the Wind Colony, where Van lives. Fiona’s clearly got amnesia, so there’s not a lot there, it’s interesting to see what she knows and doesn’t know, not to mention the dialog where she confuses and frustrates Van is actually pretty funny. The shield liger is also a two seater, so no sitting on laps.
So anyway, Van takes his two new friends and his newly restored shield liger back to his home, where we meet Van’s older sister Maria. She seems pretty cool, caring and generally nice. Fiona is definitely odd, she was able to count the number of threads in the blanket Maria is sewing. Additionally we learn that Van is 17, but he’s apparently a runt as he’s gotta be under 5 feet tall.
Anyway Van shows Fiona around the colony a bit before the bad guys arrive and start shooting. They want Zeke or they’ll level the place. The village elder, the village priest and Maria decide to meet the outlaws, telling them Zeke has gone. They don’t buy it, and grab Maria. One of them clearly wants to do unmentionable things to her, the monster. The elder and priest decide that the best course of action is to give Zeke over. Van won’t have any of it as he thinks it’s a really bad idea, I think he’s right. Anyway they tie Van up and take Zeke to meet the gang and trade Zeke for Maria.
Van escapes and along with Fiona jump in the shield liger and goes to rescue everyone, noticing it’s much slower without Zeke running things. They zap Zeke with a electro whip thingy, putting him down for the count. Van tries to fight them but the shield liger won’t respond to his commands. Once again showing that Van’s got nothing and it’s all Zeke. Fiona does some sort of prayer thingy and Zeke gets up and zaps back into the shield liger, healing the damage done to it, and allowing them to fight off the gang. Van actually uses some of the shield liger’s weapons for the first time. Hurray he’s not completely incompetent.
lastly Van, Fiona and zeke, along with the shield liger decide to leave trying to lead their enemies away from the village.
New zoids:
Molga
Reddler
Episode 3: memory
Episode three opens up with Van and Fiona caught in a sand storm. They bump into Irvine and his command wolf. I remember him, he’s pretty cool. Anyway the three share camp together. Apparently in-between episodes, Van and Fiona got separated from Zeke and the shield liger while foraging for food.
Anyway they blab about Fiona’s and Zeke’s origins and their abilities to Irvine who clearly has his own agenda. Idiots. Irvine is gone in the morning so they hit the road and meet back up with Zeke and the shield liger.
They find some ruins that’s being protected by a white Gordos for some unknown reason. They get inside the ruins and take a look around. while exploring the ruins they uncover a sad story, apparently, the commander had to abandon the gordos at the base and the gordos has been protecting the abandoned fortress since that time, 50 years. Like I said pretty sad.
Anyway Irvine shows up and fights the gordos, but Van interferes and challenges Irvine. He retreats, not able to fight due to damage sustained by the gordos. Zeke also merges with the shield liger, revealing that zeke is an organoid to Irvine who we now learn he wants one.
Van picks some apples and then follows Zeke back down into the ruins where they find Fiona staring blankly at a column of ancient text. She has a flashback or something and then promptly collapses.
Later Irvine attacks again this time on foot, capturing Fiona. He tries to trade Fiona for Zeke, but Zeke attacks, and Fiona and Zeke make it back into the ruins while Van is buried under some rubble. The damaged gordos gets him out. Touching scene really.
Irvine intercepts Fiona and Zeke but Van catches up and fights Irvine, once again merging with zeke. When’s Van going stop using Zeke as a crutch? Anyway the gordos saves Van/Zeke/shield liger and Irvine splits, not liking the odds. The gordos heads back to the fortress, despite Van trying to convince it not to.
New zoids:
Gordos
overall review:
So far I like the series. I want Van to start fighting without Zeke as often as possible and become an actual good warrior. Fiona's backstory is just getting going and I'm curious to see where that leads. We've seen a total of seven zoids just far, not counting repeats from previous episodes. The drawn animation is nothing to write home about, average for the era, and no real complaints there. the CGI is... well it's ok, you can tell it's CGI but the Zoids generally do look good. The English voice acting is fine I've heard worse. According to the wiki I'm looking at there's a deleted scene of naked Fiona in episode 1. I don't think I'm really missing anything there. anyway feel free to post comments below.