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krpalmerNetflix made fewer new episodes of Voltron Legendary Defender available for the show's "third season" than it had for the first and second groups, but as I'm not really into watching lots of half-hour doses of one single program one after another, to the point of noting some trying to pack gluttonous overtones into the perhaps joking term "binge-watching," the shorter season didn't bother me too much. Once I'd watched my way through those new episodes at a measured once-a-week pace, I wound up feeling a bit impressed by how much seemed to have been put into them.
Moving on from the cliffhanger at the end of the second series, the remaining characters had to shuffle around to fill the sudden space, thus restoring the mismatches between pilot and robot lion colour-coding of the original series. Beyond that, a new version of the memorable villain Prince Lotor was introduced, although perhaps making him a "competent multi-level threat" has me thinking back to "space-fantasy campiness" and its own appeal. There were also smaller references to the original series and to the original anime Golion itself that could perhaps be noticed instead of having to be recognised to get the point. With all of these nods back, though, I might have been inclined to think of one regular character of the original series who hasn't appeared in this new one, if for "the former noble advisor handles a lot of the comedy relief now" reasons among others.
I am still conscious that watching Voltron Legendary Defender isn't much of a step away from the potential self-criticism "there's much more out there than anime" (just as watching RWBY isn't much of a step away either), and of recognising what seem attempts to sidestep the safety of "nobody ever dies in a cartoon" can still feel subtle to the point of leaving that feeling of safety get a bit numbing sometimes (even as having watched a few older anime series lately did remind me there can be problems in "the handful of heroes gun down endless ranks of enemies who aren't 'robots'"). In any case, though, by pacing myself along there I was surprised to recognise there'd only be a short gap between another new block of episodes arriving.
Moving on from the cliffhanger at the end of the second series, the remaining characters had to shuffle around to fill the sudden space, thus restoring the mismatches between pilot and robot lion colour-coding of the original series. Beyond that, a new version of the memorable villain Prince Lotor was introduced, although perhaps making him a "competent multi-level threat" has me thinking back to "space-fantasy campiness" and its own appeal. There were also smaller references to the original series and to the original anime Golion itself that could perhaps be noticed instead of having to be recognised to get the point. With all of these nods back, though, I might have been inclined to think of one regular character of the original series who hasn't appeared in this new one, if for "the former noble advisor handles a lot of the comedy relief now" reasons among others.
I am still conscious that watching Voltron Legendary Defender isn't much of a step away from the potential self-criticism "there's much more out there than anime" (just as watching RWBY isn't much of a step away either), and of recognising what seem attempts to sidestep the safety of "nobody ever dies in a cartoon" can still feel subtle to the point of leaving that feeling of safety get a bit numbing sometimes (even as having watched a few older anime series lately did remind me there can be problems in "the handful of heroes gun down endless ranks of enemies who aren't 'robots'"). In any case, though, by pacing myself along there I was surprised to recognise there'd only be a short gap between another new block of episodes arriving.