Almost Famous Name: There actually is a Tokyo-based singer out there named Megumi Oka.note Her Wikipedia page even states that she's not to be confused with the Voltes V character. Her other names include Megu&ScottyD, Megumi upper-slope, and TUGUMI.
Banned in China: One of the more infamous examples in anime circles, and one that may well have led to its immortalization in the Philippines. The first time the show was broadcast there in the very late 1970s, President Ferdinand Marcos' government ordered the show taken off the air with more episodes to go, alongside Mazinger Z and Daimos, with the official reason for the removal being cited as concern from local Catholic parents' groups over the shows' "brutal violence". The final four episodes of Voltes V, for the record, capped off with the overthrow of a dictatorship. The ban was lifted shortly after Marcos's own overthrow in 1986, but while Voltes V and Daimos came back, Mazinger Z has yet to, up to this day.
In the Philippines, Voltes V has channel-hopped from GMA 7 in the late 1970s, PTV-4 and ABS-CBN in 1986, RPN 9 in 1989, IBC-13 in 1989, GMA 7 again in 1999, and Hero TV in 2005.
In Italy, the anime was originally broadcast on Italia TV, and then Junior TV.
In Cuba, the anime was first broadcast on Canal 33, then Canal Palomitas and finally, Cubavisión.
Cowboy BeBop at His Computer: IMDB's synopsis for the series states that the Boazanians are a "demonic race of aliens". The Boazanians are not demons, they just happen to be a race of Horned Humanoids.
Interviewer: Which character do you have a particularly strong attachment to?
Osamu Ichikawa: I think it's Heinel because his story has a lot of depth. I remember, in the scene where Katherine was shot in the final episode, I cried out "Katherine!", without using any sound effects at all. The back of the studio usually modifies your voice, but for my take, they didn't have to do that. Director Nagahama was also surprised by this.
Cross-Dressing Voices: Hiyoshi is voiced by Noriko Ohara, who also voices Katherine. Even the Greek and Italian dubs cast a female voice actress for him.
When Heinel enters Godol, Tadao Nagahama voices the message that automatically plays.
To save Boazania, Godol grants power to those with purity of intent. By their hand, the enemy shall be destroyed!
In the American English dub, Jangal and Professor Hamaguchi are voiced by William Ross, who founded the dubbing company behind Voltes V, Frontier Enterprises.
Voltes V was once partially dubbed and released in the U.S. as a single Compilation Movie titled Voltus 5. This version used the same name changes as the Filipino version, but suffered from horrible editing (combining episodes 1 to 3 and 9 and 18) and an English dub that was inferior to the Philippine English version.
In the Philippines, Voltes V was re-dubbed twice over in Tagalog in the 2000s, after the old English dub from the 1970s returned to TV (again) in 1999. The first such dub was also with Telesuccess Productions who had done the English dub, and the second dub was with local celebrities for airing on the Hero TV cable channel by rival network ABS-CBN.
As stated in Fan Wank on the YMMV page, it's speculated that Voltes V was a test run for Nagahama's stint as an upcoming director for The Rose of Versailles. In the aforementioned book (page 253), Nagahama acknowledges the similarities between the two anime.
Foreign Dub as Basis: The Greek dub of Voltes V was based on the Italian dub. This led to the Italian Dub Name Changes being adapted into the Greek dub, for example Prince Heinel being called Prince Sirius.
The original Questor Philippine English dub from the 1970s has been seemingly replaced by the more recent Tagalog language version on Philippine broadcast TV. note Thankfully, there's a complete archive of that specific English dub derived from digitized VCD copieshere.
It's also hard to find the American English dub Voltus 5 online, since most of the Google search results refer to the Philippine English dub or Voltes V: Legacy instead. Or even English fansubs of the original anime.note Good thing it has been archived too.
Promoted Fanboy: Kazuhiro Ochinote of Mazinger Z fame was a newbie artist at the time this anime was produced and sent a letter to Tadao Nagahama telling him his dream was to be an animator. Nagahama invited him to work on Voltes V.
Those Two Actors: Greek dub: Heinel is voiced by Ilias Plakidis and Katherine is voiced by Katerina Petousi, who would go on to become the respective voice actors for Shaggy Rogers and Daphne Blake in The Scooby-Doo Show.
The Filipino English dub from 1978-1979 was left incomplete for decades due to the abrupt banning of the anime by President Ferdinand Marcos, which left quite a number of episodes unaired at the time.note It was actually cut short after episode 26 when Marcos banned it in the late 1970s, but when it returned to TV in the 1980s, it only reached up to episode 35.
After the 1986 People Power Revolution that resulted in Marcos' removal from office, the same English dub was re-aired on Philippine television in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but the undubbed episodes still remained unaired.
Although "5" is the series' main number, the magic number is "8." Episodes 8, 18, 28, 38 and 40 clearly explain the main plot without the need to watch the episodes around them.
The word Choudenji(Super Electromagnetic) has been copyrighted by Tadao Nagahama's estate and can only be used in Japanese media with their permission.
Unlike Combattler V, where letter "V" is pronounced as "vee" (ブイ), the "V" in Voltes V is regarded as a Roman numeral and pronounced as "five" (ファイブ) in English.
In the Super Robot Wars series, it premiered in Shin and tag-teamed with Combattler V ever since. It also appeared in the Alpha series, Advance, Reversal, Judgement, L, 30 (With Voltes being part of the first DLC) and DD. Of all those games, Alphas 2 & 3 AND Advance are the only ones that had Voltes teaming up with both Combattler and Daimos (But Alpha 2 and Advance did not give it a crossover attack with Combattler and Voltes unlike in Alpha 3, where it does, but it makes it looks like Daimos did all the work). Poor Daimos.
Voltes V was widely popular in dictator-ruled countries. Although Voltes V saw moderate global success when it launched in the 1970s, it had popular appeal in places like Cuba, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Cuba was ruled by Fidel Castro from 1976 to 2008, while Indonesia was ruled by Suharto from 1968 to 1998. Meanwhile, Ferdinand Marcos ruled the Philippines from 1965 to 1986.
When the anime boom of the late 1990s rolled around with the wider release and/or advent of stuff like Pokémon: The Series and Gundam Wing, etc. breaking into the global mainstream through primetime TV slots, Voltes V and Daimos came back on air again on Philippine TV to ride the wave, while Mazinger Z didn't or couldn't, despite being advertised as returning alongside them. This time around, the return of Voltes V was heavily hyped by GMA, the same network that had first aired the three shows in the 1970s. But GMA quietly ignored that Voltes V and Daimos had already returned through other networks. Milking it further, GMA even refitted the last four episodes of Voltes V into a Compilation Movie of sorts, subtitled "The Liberation" and released it in theaters before the episodes ever aired normally on their network.
The plot and tropes of the Go brothers' search for their father were inspired by Taiga dramas.
.note Her other names include Megu&ScottyD, Megumi upper-slope, and TUGUMI.