Voltron: Legendary Defender

As a child of the 80s, Voltron was my favorite cartoon. My brother and I rented the videos almost every weekend and watched them over and over. That said, this new incarnation both meets and surpasses the old one in many, many ways. The animation style is very much like the origin and yet looks tons better. The voice talent is really good. The story lines do a great job of keeping your interest and making you crave what comes next. The battle sequences are really exciting, and the comedy is very typical of popular anime series. If you like action animation styled like Japanese anime, you'll absolutely love this series. It's probably one of the best to come out recently.

The last season of this show sucks big time. Besides that, its really great.

Overall, I would say that I enjoy this show. It has great animation, excellent voice acting, and characters with potential. Unfortunately, my attachment to this show seems to be relying solely on potential I see that has yet to be met, even after 2 seasons.

The main issue with this show is that it has no idea what its strengths and weaknesses are. It tries to do a TON of different things, just trying to see what sticks. Another big issue is the conveniences. Many characters are capable of or learn special abilities in the show, yet they seem to only work once and NOT when they're most needed.

The series has arguably 7 main characters. While I didn't enjoy Keith or Shiro in the first season, they were virtually the only characters that had any sort of...well, CHARACTER in Season 2. Everyone else is abruptly shoved to the sideline and shoehorned into a single defining trait, making them dull and repetitive. Hunk is the food-obsessed fat guy. Pidge is the tech geek. Lance is the comedy guy. That's all they are, nothing more. The villains are also about as compelling as a cardboard box, as we are given nearly no backstory or decent motivation for them at all.

It's overall pretty disappointing to see people who worked on such great shows like Avatar: The Last Airbender, Justice League Unlimited, and The Legend of Korra write such a sloppy show with so much unused potential. What could be episodes focused on developing characters and working towards the plot are spent on pointless side quests with more-miss-than-hit comedy, most of which having to do with fueling their ship. None of the character balance, consistent pacing, compelling story, atmosphere, or depth from the staff's prior work seems to be fully realized in this project.

That being said, the show is not completely doomed. It still has a lot of potential. If the next season(s) spend more time making the characters interesting and creating a more compelling story, it could definitely live up to the hype. I don't want this show to be bad, and I'm going to continue watching it in hopes that it realizes exactly how great it could be.

S7:E13 was the most thrilling animated episode I have ever seen. So full of intense action and glorious animation, this was also a visual treat as well. Kudos to the writers and animators on this one. This episode should win some sort of award.

For anybody who has seen the previous series that debuted in the late 90's early 2000's, this is series is a major improvement over what we were given last time. The pilot episode starts out a bit sluggish, but considering what they need to establish in it that is to be expected. I think the biggest problem with the series is that to many people are looking at the series from the 80's that we got direct from Japan and are comparing it to that instead of letting it be a series unto itself.

The voice acting is excellent, and Rhys Darby is critically underused in seasons 1. Hopefully he will get more screen time in season 2! Some characters were given more screen time than others, but again that tends to happen early in a series when you are attempting to establish these characters. Season 2 should help even out the screen time and give other characters more time to develop as fan favorites