Given Ronald Reagan’s September 21, 1987 speech at the 42nd General Assembly of the UN eerily reminiscent of a Voltes V episode, did Voltes V inspire the 1980s anti-nuclear activism?
By: Ringo Bones
It may be such a weird idea given that the weapons and
energy technology featured in Voltes V is a generation ahead and therefore much
more dangerous in the hands of the unenlightened in comparison to the nuclear
energy utilizations and the nuclear weapons arsenal we currently have, it seems
an anathema that the first few episodes of Voltes V seem to hints that mankind
is at a dangerous path when it comes to stockpiling thermonuclear weapons. When
it first aired back in 1977, the prospect of an all-out thermonuclear exchange
between the United States and the then Soviet Union seems inevitable given the
weapons treaties in existence at the time. But, nonetheless, did Voltes V
inspire anti-nuclear activism that led to the widespread anti-nuclear protests
of the 1980s?
For those who remembered the then US President Ronald Reagan’s
September 21, 1987 speech during the 42nd General Assembly of the
United Nations General Assembly in which he said: “I occasionally think how
quickly our differences, worldwide, would vanish if we were facing an alien
threat from outside this world.”The first few episodes of Voltes V which aired
back in 1977 is eerily reminiscent of Reagan’s 1987 speech when Voltes V
inventor Dr. Armstrong did the same in front of the UN General Assembly about the looming Bozanian threat that only Voltes V can stop – which
in the story’s timeline was set at 1989. Sometimes, I too wonder if the then
governor of California saw the first few episodes of Voltes V back in 1977.
Well, it seems that we’ll never know if Reagan was a secret Voltes V fan given
that he never mentioned it in his memoirs.
