Growing up in the mid-2000s, I woke up every morning to watch Detective Conan on our CRT TV as I ate “hotsilog” (hotdog, egg, and fried rice) for breakfast. On my way to school, I saw gas-guzzling jeepneys painted with Goku and Jesus on their sides, vividly colored. After class, I rushed home to catch however many minutes of Slam Dunk remained before the evening news began.

And on the weekends, I looked through my dad’s countless anime DVDs for the Voltes V collection. Every episode in glorious 720×480, or at least that’s what the shady street vendor who sold it to my dad claimed. At that time, Filipinos were not yet privy to the magic of online video.

This week on Polygon, we’re looking at how cultural differences affect media in a special issue we’re calling Culture Shock.

I slid the disc into our silver DVD player, starry-eyed as Steve, Mark, Big Bert, Little John, and Jamie took flight in their suspiciously robot-shaped combat vehicles. Eventually, Steve would shout, “Let’s Volt In,” lightning streaking across the sky as the world’s coolest combiner robot rose among the clouds. Through all that, one of the catchiest anime themes ever made blared through the speakers.

These memories are dear to my heart. Yet even I could never hope to understand how important Voltes V, with its epic soundtrack and robot action, was to my father’s generation. The series’ electromagnetic grip on Filipino youth began when it debuted on the country’s GMA Network in 1978. Such action-packed animation, adapted from the Japanese anime Chōdenji Machine Voltes V, was breathtaking for a country so new to anime. Today, young Filipinos still sing along fervently to the theme, despite an effort by the government to wipe the series out of existence.

My dad was about as “otaku” as a man of his era could be. In addition to Voltes V, he kept hundreds of anime DVDs in a big binder. I could watch almost any of them; there was an implicit trust that I wouldn’t let the media rot my brain, and I appreciated that freedom.

My dad’s hands-off approach to anime contrasted sharply with the attitudes of baby boomers in positions of authority toward violent “Japanimation” in the 1970s. Many of those strict adults were shocked by Voltes V’s violence, but these animations paled in comparison to the real-life horrors of martial law in the Philippines.

About two decades before I was born, the........

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