President Ferdinand Marcos Versus Voltes V

The idea might be too kitschy for some, but historically, it did happen. A dictator picked a fight with a Japanese anime. Guess who won?

By: Ringo Bones

If it wasn't for the martyrdom of Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino, Jr. Filipinos would have been rallying around Voltes V. Certainly a somewhat too kitschy rallying point for some tastes when it comes to standing against one of the 20th Century's most notorious dictators and his wife that had unfairly stereotyped Asian women as having a preexisting unhealthy shoe fetish. Believe it or not, there was really a time in Philippine history that the now deposed strongman named Ferdinand E. Marcos really did pick a fight against a somewhat kitschy Japanese gigantic anthropomorphic science fiction robot anime called Voltes V.

By issuing a "Presidential Decree" that no one - other than himself- could possibly veto, Marcos managed to ban Voltes V and related gigantic anthropomorphic cartoon shows - like Mazinger Z, Mekanda, Daimos, UFO Grendaizer and their ilk - citing that the shows entices violence in impressionable kids and makes them harbour "rebellious" ideologies. But to the point of view of the Voltes V fans and fans of related giant robot anime shows, it is probably due that an overwhelming majority of this shows revolves around the toppling of a delusional dictator.

Not surprisingly, then President Marcos managed to ban such Japanese anime shows near the end of 1979. Worse still, Marcos issued a kangaroo "Presidential Decree/" yet again around 1981 banning coin-operated video games like Pac Man and Space Invaders. It was not until the great dictator was ousted near the end of February 1986 that video games and Voltes V and his pals went on air unmolested by "dictatorial" media censorship. To this obsessed Voltes V fan, Ferdinand Marcos will always be forever remembered as the delusional dictator who picked a fight with Voltes V.