What Voltes V: Legacy says about Philippine television in transition
GMA's remake of the Japanese animated series much loved by Filipinos isn't exactly a missed opportunity—and it says so much about the flux happening in Philippine television.
When the GMA Network announced that it was going to produce a live-action remake of Voltes V, I was excited—never mind that I wasn’t alive yet when the animated series premiered in the Philippines in 1979.
I was alive, though, when the show got a second airing on the same network twenty years later. The legend was pretty strong. Voltes V was among several anime series that was ordered banned by then president Ferdinand Marcos Sr., saying its “violent” action scenes were “harmful” to children. Of course, this was during the height of Martial Law, a 14-year period where civil liberties were suspended ostensibly to squash the communist threat, but instead saw political rivals imprisoned, activists disappeared, and power consolidated under one man and his cronies. Inevitably people thought the president just didn’t want people to have any ideas about revolting against an abusive, corrupt pres— I mean, emperor.
The series’ last four episodes would only be seen by Filipinos twenty years later. It was a huge event. Those episodes were compiled as Voltes V: The Liberation and released in cinemas. I managed to watch that, as well as the reairing of the first 36 episodes, and was soon caught up in this fighting robot series that held a particular place among those who grew up during Martial Law—and now, their children, who had the sense that this was a Big Deal.
And so it was a big deal too that the show was going to be remade. Sure, some of it was trepidation. Voltes V transformed into a nightly melodramatic affair, like most other dramas that air on Philippine television? Sure, the original did have a love triangle, and children looking for missing parents, but wouldn’t those arcs be overwrought in the hands of Filipino writers? And what about the fighting scenes? Our computer graphics on television don’t exactly have a strong track record. How could this show keep up, especially if it has to air nightly?
Well, it took us four years to find out. The project was first announced on the last day of 2019, and, you know, the pandemic happened.
When Voltes V: Legacy finally premiered last May, it did so in a television landscape that’s completely different from when the project was first announced.
In the over three years since the series was unveiled, GMA’s biggest competitor, ABS-CBN, lost its broadcast franchise, a move widely seen as political payback by then president Rodrigo Duterte. That started a complex jumble of movements: TV5 attempting to capitalize and finally become a competitive network; billionaire Manny Villar wading into broadcasting, and not so much fail spectacularly as receive wide apathy; and most importantly, the breaking down of the Network Wars, as ABS-CBN pivoted into being a content creator and having its shows air on both TV5 and—unthinkable in 2020—GMA. Suddenly, “exclusive” artists could appear in other networks to promote their shows.
The franchise denial also accelerated ABS-CBN’s pivot to online viewing, something that it had tentatively started in response to the rise of Netflix among Filipino viewers. Now without a free-to-air franchise, it had to rely on its own streaming service (alongside its own cable channels and distribution deals with other networks) to get their most popular (and still ongoing) news and entertainment programs out there. For Filipinos stuck at home, or wherever they had to stay for work, watching It’s Showtime or TV Patrol via YouTube was now acceptable.
It also allowed ABS-CBN to be more liberal when it comes to its programming, at least the ones that get a first airing on iWantTFC. Take the return of the teen series, very much updated from the aspiratorial tone of 90s classics TGIS and Tabing-Ilog. Series such as He’s Into Her and Teen Clash are bright and peppy, an aesthetic that bleeds through into the network’s newest primetime offering, the soapy Senior High.
Also take its focus on underserved communities, such as the drama series Drag You & Me and the YouTube queer dating series Sparks Camp. The network has tapped into these programs to fill its schedules, exposing a wider public to dramas that are different from the normal afternoon and primetime fare, or the sort shown on drama anthologies like the much-missed Maalaala Mo Kaya.
Meanwhile, the networks that still air on free TV have surprisingly remained conservative. GMA coasted along in the belief that it now has even larger ratings because its biggest rival can no longer broadcast. The network’s primetime offerings did well, sure—historical fantasy series Maria Clara at Ibarra was a rare victory for the network; if it’s available on Netflix in your side of the world, do check it out—but it still mainly programmed towards an older audience, usually from lower income classes, who had their TVs on day and night and never changed the channel.
The eventual premiere of Voltes V: Legacy therefore had a lot going for it. It had to appeal to the so-called Voltes V Generation that watched the series in the 70s and continue to hold on to its legendary status to this day, while also appealing to those who consumed Filipino TV in the past ten years. That’s a broad church. There will be people who only have it as background noise, and there are people who will dissect everything and talk about it on social media—not as intense a fandom as you’d see on American television, but somewhere along those lines.
Did the show succeed? Having watched all ninety episodes, I can say that it really depends on how you’re watching it. Spoiler warning: you know what lies ahead.
It definitely works as a nostalgia hit. Again, I’m not a Martial Law baby, but watching the series’ volt-in sequence for the first time give me chills. (And it helps that Julie Anne San Jose’s cover of the Voltes V theme was competent, even if it took a little getting used to.) The kids in us will always find satisfaction in watching the robot come together, unleash its weapons and vanquish the Boazanian beast fighters—and in high definition, even. It helped that the show was shot with a limited number of episodes in mind. (That said, GMA couldn’t resist and added five more episodes towards the end, with an original story that was ultimately inconsequential, considering it was in the lead-up to the final battle.) The animation is excellent and, when it’s as its best, can be really awe-inspiring.
There were concerns that the show would be bogged down in melodrama, especially when it was revealed that it would add some storylines to fill in the characters’ backgrounds. Here, the results are mixed. I appreciated the efforts to flesh out the Armstrong family’s history, establishing the stakes early on and eliminating the original Voltes V’s tendency to just drop plot twists at a convenient point to wiggle its way out of a story. We knew early on that Zardoz (played by Martin del Rosario) and the Armstrong brothers (played by Miguel Tanfelix, Matt Lozano and Raphael Landicho) are related; that gives a subtle tension as the series went on.
At other points, though, they felt flabby. For instance, the explanation for why Mark’s (played by Radson Flores) parents are gone felt tacked-on, if not a bit cringe-y. Worse, when it felt like his parent issues were resolved, they wrote him back to being a whiny, woe-is-me-for-not-having-a-dad character. His reactions when it turned out he was just Jamie’s (played by Ysabel Ortega, incidentally Tanfelix’s off-screen partner) boyfriend so she can get back at Steve felt like the writers couldn’t be bothered and turned him into a caricature instead.
Oh, that love triangle. It has to be Voltes V: Legacy’s most egregious fumble. Yes, it was a thing in the original series, but the remake spent far too much time on it at some points, really slowing things down. (It didn’t help that Philippine TV tends to always punctuate romantic epiphanies with the same song—in this case, “Ikaw Sana Ang Nauna” by Crystal Paras.) Perhaps the worst part was the introduction of a new character, Eva, whose only purpose is as a plot device getting in the way of the Steve-Jamie endgame, in a way you do not gain sympathy for: what a waste of Elle Villanueva’s intensity.
In fact, I’m largely surprised that Voltes V: Legacy stuck with how the original portrayed its female characters. The world is clearly trying to move on from variations of how Japan saw its women in the 1970s—and indeed, Philippine television has seen strong female leads. But here, we have Eva, whose only role is to attempt to harm Jamie for… for what, exactly? We have Zandra (played by Liezel Lopez, complete with a wardrobe that’s clearly fan service) just pining for Zardoz—although at least she’s no longer an unrequited lover, admittedly a welcome change with a long pay-off. And we have Jamie herself, who was relegated to damsel in distress towards the end. I think the only strong modern female character the show provided was from those extra episodes: Kylie Padilla’s portrayal of Boazanian fighter Arisa was surprisingly, refreshingly gritty.
Perhaps it’s emblematic of the bigger challenge the series faced: does it remain faithful to the source material, the way its original audience remembers it? Or does it update the show to reflect the sensibilities of its audience 45 years on? It tried to do both, and didn’t quite succeed.
I think the biggest problem Voltes V: Legacy had is that it had to air five nights a week. That messed up with the show’s pacing. Perhaps it’s me and my expectations: having watched American series of a somewhat similar nature, I already have an idea of how I want the pacing to be. Instead, the show is littered with unearned moments, thanks to it spending too much time with some arcs and too little time with others. I thought the writers had the show mapped out, but some episodes, especially in the later weeks, felt rushed—and yet, they heavily used flashbacks to pad the time.
Dr. Hook (played by Neil Ryan Sese) was reduced to a catchphrase when we all know he’s pretty much a slave driver. We spent little time with the Boazanian revolutionaries, or even with Judy (played by Paras), at least outside of her story arc as spy-turned-Big Bert’s girlfriend. I felt the final battle in Boazan could’ve been two weeks long instead of one week of plot twist after another… or, better yet, it could have been two hour-long episodes. But the show doesn’t air weekly. Shame. Voltes V: Legacy could have been a genuine appointment-to-watch program, but GMA is ultimately conservative when it comes to its programming decisions. (That said, I liked the montage approach they took in the penultimate episode.)
And that brings us to what this show says about the state of Philippine television these days, of how it is in the midst of transformation brought upon by changing viewer habits, political vendettas and the need to survive as a business. Maybe now that viewers are more attuned to, say, Korean dramas—which usually have sixteen or so episodes, air twice weekly, and is heavily loaded with character moments and plot twists—that we in the Philippines can consider taking that template with our own stories?
But old habits die hard. Even ABS-CBN, which leads the way in original content for streaming, still has to provide nightly dramas, in part because its business model depends on it: their five dramas also air on TV5, a free-to-air network, which also needs those viewers who turn on the TV and stick to one channel. And that has mixed results. The Coco Martin vehicle Batang Quiapo started promisingly (and aided by a star turn from Miles Ocampo, whose appearance in the pilot is something I will forever cite) but felt flabby five weeks in, something I attribute to its loose, anything goes style of production. On the other hand, you have Dirty Linen, a pulpy and cinematic creature—unusual for Philippine television—that kept its momentum throughout its run. But it says something that the network is compressing 150 or so episodes into a twelve-episode “Prime Video Exclusive Cut” for the international streaming service.
My point is, it can be done, but it takes a lot of imagination and a good amount of risk-taking to do so. Voltes V: Legacy is not a bad series—in fact, I praise it, surprisingly, for betting big—but I will always feel it could be better. Not a wasted opportunity, but not a well-grabbed one either. Perhaps it was doomed to be such by the circumstances in which it was born, and the circumstances it finally emerged to the world in. Still, GMA has proved that it can do such shows, and when it inevitably shoots a live-action remake of Daimos… well, they should consider airing episodes weekly, or twice weekly. But then, that has a love story at its core, so I wouldn’t hold my breath.