GoLion

One!... Plus one!... Plus one!... Plus one!... Plus one!... GoLion!!

Combining Mecha from Toei that aired in 1981. Since shows like this were a dime a dozen in Japan, it unfortunately got overlooked. But elsewhere, including America, where Humongous Mecha shows were still practically unheard of, it got recognition as the lion robot of Voltron.

The show takes place in the then-future year of 1999, and Earth has just been hit by World War III, and all the cities are nuked. Five space academy students come across the ruins, and before they even have time to grieve, they are taken as slaves by ships of the Galra Empire. They manage to escape, are nearly shot down, but are pulled in by a mysterious force from the planet Altea.

Stumbling across a ruined castle, they meet Princess Fala, the last survivor of the planet's royal family after the Galra empire ravaged the planet, and her advisor Raible. They determine that the explorers are there to pilot Golion, a robot that was unrivaled in battle thousands of years ago, but split into five lions after he tried to take on a goddess.

So the pilots form Golion, and become the protectors of Altea (including Fala herself after one of the pilots is killed), and eventually overthrow the Galra empire.

Even though the series never took off in Japan as well as Voltron elsewhere, it does have a cult following, and GoLion appeared in Super Robot Wars W.

Tropes used in GoLion include:

Alien Invasion
Exclusively Evil: There doesn't seem to be a single decent member of the alien species that makes up the Galra Empire.
All Your Colors Combined
Animal Mecha: The series is called Beast King GoLion. What'd you expect?
Animal Motifs: Guess.
Anyone Can Die
Asskicking Pose
Backup Twin: Ryoh Shirogane.
Big Bad
Bishounen
The Big Guy: Tsuyoshi.
By the Power of Greyskull" "Let's GoLion!"
Calling Your Attacks
Cats Are Mean: Honerva's Right-Hand-Cat.
Chest Insignia
Combining Mecha
Darker and Edgier: It never quite matches the works of Go Nagai or Yoshiyuki Tomino, but it's still a fair bit more brutal than most kid-friendly Super Robot shows of its day and downright shocking to anybody who's more familiar with Voltron. It's particularly notable the way the director seems to take perverse delight in causing secondary or unnamed characters to drop like flies, most notably the entire population of Earth in the first episode.
Dropped a Bridge on Him: Takashi.
The Empire
Ermine Cape Effect: Even when not fancied up, even in uniform, Fala still wears her tiara.
Everything's Better with Princesses: Fala, and her cousin Amue.
Everything's Better with Sparkles: Fala does sparkle sometimes.
Eye Beams: GoLion's Eye Flash.
Fairytale Wedding Dress: A dress made for Fala to wear on her possible future wedding.
Family-Unfriendly Death: Why the censoring on Voltron isn't considered outright Bowdlerization.
- Indeed. The Earth itself even blows up in one episode; something WEP really couldn't show.
Faux Action Girl: Fala when she isn't piloting the blue lion.
Fighter Launching Sequence
First Church of Mecha: Golion is just worshiped as one on Altea. When he went up against an actual Goddess, he got a major lesson in humility.
Five-Man Band
For Great Justice: The opening song.
Friend to All Living Things: Fala and the mice. She even knows their language.
Genre Savvy: The first Monster of the Week was actually smart enough to attack the lion robots when they were trying to combine.
- A later Beastman tried the same trick, only to discover that the Lions now had a force field during their combination to prevent this.
  - Which in itself, is Genre Savvy on the part of the Lions.
Gratuitous Greek: The Mecha Beastmen were named for Greek letters.
The Great Politics Mess-Up: World War III, when the US and USSR launch their missiles at each other, happens eight years after the USSR fell.
Hair of Gold: Princess Fala.
Heroic Sacrifice: Ryou, who stabs Prince Sincline in the heart before tackling him off the top of his exploding fortress.
Hey, It's That Voice!: Hiroshi Suzuishi and Honerva are both Tetsuro Hoshino. Five years later, the seiyuu in question would star in the role she is best known for...
- Playing Against Type: Shirogane is voiced by Ryusei Nakao, though this is before he's landed the role of Frieza thereby beginning his awesome pigeonholing of sadistic screechy villains.
High-Pressure Blood: The episode with the Red Beret fighters from Galra/Doom. While GoLion in general has a harder edge than Voltron, this episode rivals even the infamous first ten minutes of Elfen Lied. This is one instance where the edits made perfect sense for a syndie kids cartoon.
Homage: It could be unintentional, but Fala's grand dress bears a resemblance^{[dead link]} to Princess Aurora's.
- Right after the title card in the first episode, a Galran ship flies past the screen in a way reminiscent of the Star Destroyer at the beginning of A New Hope.
Humongous Mecha
Kick the Dog: Sincline has many.
Killed Off for Real
King of Beasts
The Lancer: Isamu.
Latex Space Suit: All of the pilot suits.
Leitmotif
Limited Wardrobe: Everyone else has exactly two outfits - his uniform, and one set of civvies, save for Fala, who also has a dress.
Meditating Under a Waterfall
Mentor Occupational Hazard: Averted with Raible, who survived the series.
- Played straight with Hys
Mini-Dress of Power: Amue, after she gets rescued and gets involved in the final battle.
Modest Royalty: Once Fala is a pilot, she usually wears her pink jumpsuit instead of her fancy dress.
Monster of the Week
Oedipus Complex: The half-Galran, half-Altean Sincline has a lot of daddy and mommy issues, especially with Fala resembling his long dead mother.
One, Two, Three, Four, Go
Only Known by Their Nickname: The original five Golion pilots usually called each other by nickname: "Chief", "Quiet", "Moody", "Hothead", and "Shorty". They were otherwise only known by their last names. (The "Princess" manages to fit into the scheme later.)
Overlord, Jr.: Sincline, the even worse then his dad variety.
Parental Abandonment: Fala's parents and sibilings were killed when she was still a baby. Raible raised her since then.
Pimped-Out Dress: Fala's princess dress.
- Amue's princess dress isn't that fancy, but when she wears her battle mini dress, it fits this trope better.
- The wedding dress Hys made for Fala to wear for her eventual wedding.
Pride: As mentioned, GoLion was originally a single robot who thought he was the greatest thing since sliced bread; when he tried to fight a space goddess, she split him into the five lions to teach him some humility.
Princess Classic: Even as a pilot, Fala is like this.
Princess Curls: Fala, although they way they are drawn makes them easy to mistake for sideburns.
Princesses Prefer Pink: Fala wears pink with nearly everything, even her uniform.
Punny Name: Depending on how it's written, "Go" can be Japanese for "five". GoLion is (usually) five lions. Go, GoLion!
Robeast: The Deathblack Beastmen. A group of more powerful, robot monsters called the Mechablack Beastmen were introduced later on.
Rocket Punch: GoLion's Four Lion Attack has it launch the lion heads on its four limbs at the enemy.
Rock Theme Naming: The original five pilots have the names of metals as their surnames.
Royals Who Actually Do Something -- Fala as one of the pilots.
- Sincline is an example, though in most cases it would have been better for Daibazaal and Galra if he was a Royal Who Did Not Do Anything.
Spanner in the Works: Honerva's plan to take down Altea by killing Shirogane falls victim to two spanners- one was Kurogane in Red Lion coming up with the idea to push the Deathblack Beastman Galcia into some magma, and when Galra attacks again before Altea could train a replacement, Fala takes Blue Lion.
Spell My Name with an "S": Before Media Blassters' official spelling, "Fala" was usually romanized as "Farla".
The Short Guy with Glasses: Hiroshi.
Slippery Swimsuit: Happens once to Princess Fala. A high dive while wearing a bikini leads to her top surfacing before she does.
Standardized Leader: Akira.
The Starscream: Prince Sincline.
Stay in the Kitchen: The way Fala's guardians treat her some of the time.
Stock Footage
Super Robot
Theme Song: See here.
Transformation Is a Free Action: Subverted oh so many times, that's what happens when you get Dangerously Genre Savvy villains.
Transforming Mecha: Mecha Beastman Delta went from robot to Drill Tank.
True-Blue Femininity: Amue's main dress.
Unwilling Suspension: Amue.
Villainous Breakdown: Sincline goes crazy and kills Honerva when he found out that his mother was human.
Warrior Princess: Fala, and even Amue near the end.
Wicked Witch: Honerva.
The Worf Effect: Every encounter the titular robot has with a beastman who is a physical threat to Golion is an example of this.