Do "red button" and "blue button" mean anything in the GoShogun OP?

Question

This is a follow-up question to this one: Is the GoShogun OP being translated correctly?

The GoShogun OP had a couple lyrics that struck me as strange:

Do you know the red button? Do you know the blue button?

There don't seem to be any special red or blue buttons in the GoShogun anime (at least as far as I've watched it), and it's not clear to me what those lyrics are referring to. Is there some context that Japanese kids in the 1980s would have had to make sense of the lyrics, or are the lyrics just as nonsensical as they appear to be?

Answer 1

The red button is the button to merge with GoShogun, and the blue button is the button to fire the GoFlasher.

According to Japanese Wikipedia,

なお、オープニングの歌詞にある「赤いボタン」とはゴーショーグンへの合体ボタン、「青いボタン」とはゴーフラッシャーの発射ボタンの事である。

This translates to the statement above.

This was also backed up by some Japanese fans' tweets that this was referred to in the anime, although without mentioning a specific episode/event/occurrence.

1. ひふみ @hifumi_x's tweet om 12:43 PM · Jun 27, 2020

   #意外と忘れている設定
   「戦国魔神ゴーショーグンOP ゴーショーグン発進せよ（藤井健）」赤いボタンはゴーショーグンへの合体ボタン、青いボタンはゴーフラッシャーの発射ボタン。[...]

   #UnexpectedForgottenSetting
   GoShogun's OP Go Shogun Hassin Seyo! (Ichirou Mizuki). The red button is the button to merge with GoShogun, and the blue button is the button to fire GoFlasher. [...]

2. レオれお @MJfWBXkRIlbkeql's tweet on 4:39 AM · Jan 26, 2018

   戦国魔神ゴーショーグンOP。[...] 僕はアニソンの本で知りましたが赤いボタンは合体ボタン、青いボタンはゴーフラッシャー発射です。[...]

   GoShogun's OP. [...] I knew about (the buttons) from an AniSong book. [...]

3. ひふみ @hifumi_x's tweet and replies on 11:06 AM · Aug 17, 2019 stating repeatedly that without watching the anime, there is no way to understand the meaning of "the buttons" in the lyric.