Angel Links (1999)

 

I came to Angel Links with no knowledge this series from Sunrise had never existed, that this was a work set in the same
world as Outlaw Star (1998), a
series with flaws but one with a huge amount of virtues that I admired, able to
overcome those flaws to become something special and see why it gained a fan
base in the West when it came to the Cartoon
Network Toonami slot. Sadly,
adapting both a one volume manga by Takehiko Itō, the original creator of
Outlaw Star, and a light novel by Ibuki Hideaki, I can see now why I had never
heard of Angel Links, but not wishing to just damn the production. For whatever
reason, the production does not gel despite nothing being inherently amiss in
the plan of how this goes on. The one immediate issue, and a huge one to its
detriment, is a really simple mistake, that thirteen episodes, whilst it should
be long enough, really is not in the context of a series, which you need to
carefully use.

The titular Angel Links is a giant ship of a private escort and protection firm
who provide free outer space defence from pirates, headed by a sixteen year old
girl named Meifon Li, taking over from her late grandfather as a group with
comrades. Two of them, a Dragonite (a dragon humanoid of a combat species)
named Duuz, and a human woman named Valeria, made a cameo in one episode of
Outlaw Star, episode 19, with no additional context for them barring being on
the side of security forces against pirates, which makes this a fascinating
mirror to have created. This is Meifon Li's story however, entirely hers as the
centre of its main narrative thrust, and a figure vastly different from how Outlaw Star, fully an ensemble cast,
nonetheless had a cocky fiery male lead, whilst Meifon Li is marketable for a
different reason.

It is creepy she is explicitly
sixteen as, frankly, her costume design and her silhouette is explicitly with
sex appeal, her design exaggerated (and sometimes) depicted with an eroticism,
alongside the fact that, including a cat-bat thing named Taffei as a pet which
can turn into a sword, even her character design stands out alongside having
the most plot, leaving everyone else decidedly the background side characters
despite some background narratives for a couple. Meifon's past is marked from
the first episode, as there is a grave in a cemetery there marking her death at
seventeen whilst she is still alive, progressive a sword of Damocles over her
head. The show for its first few episodes though is very lightweight and
comedic, Angels Links an example of
how the last episode is alien to the first in progression and tone.

It takes a lot of build for just
thirteen episodes to get ahead with this plot, very episodic for the first
quarter. It starts as a broad show, if with the touch that, unlike Outlaw Star, the crew of Angel Links
are more inclined to obliterate space pirates into dust with their super beam
cannon. It has cartoonish villains for episodes, where the rival president of
another protection firm, hiring mercenaries to snuff them out, is a
stereotypical evil large man with a pet pig, or one joke which was funny in
episode 2 with mob bosses, one eating sundaes and the other spaghetti, where
their minions are eating the same in unison on mass before an explosive
argument transpires. The one figure who does carry over from these first
episodes though, introduced in episode one, is Leon Lou, who becomes very
important as a business man rescued by Angel Links. There is a potential
romance with Meifon Li, all in spite of the obvious issue with her age and that
her back-story, and its secrets, is interlink with him and become central to
the proper drama.

Honestly the rinse repeat nature
of these early episodes, very episodic, do reveal the huge problems with this
show, that for all the animation budget still there, the bombastic opening and
closing themes, and that the story of Meifon Li is meant to be eventually a
sombre one where she even questions who she is, Angel Links takes too long to get anywhere. The tone of the first
half going into the more serious later half has a lot to get through, [Huge Spoiler] that our female
protagonist is an android, built from the real her by her grandfather who was
killed, given the memories and the function as a figure with a temporary
lifespan to kill Leon Lou, who is a space pirate connected to him in the past [Spoilers End]. The issue is that it is
absolutely undercut by this feeling like it should have been twenty four
episodes like Outlaw Star was, but
even under thirteen episodes, most of the episodes of this do not feel
structured to make this work, or that this even with the episodic episodes do
not stand out.

And, honestly, most of the drama just
being ordinary in how it was executed, saying a lot that the stand out episode
from this entire episode for me was none of the drama but episode 4, LiEF〜Living Ether Flier〜,
the one which feels like an Outlaw Star
episode or, to give Angel Links a
chance outside its shadow, one which feels like an exploration of the world
itself. It follows "LIEFs", either absorbing living spaceships which
are effectively sci-fi space whales, an endangered species protected and
watched by tourists when they travel with their young as incredible ethereal
behemoths, but are targets for poachers for dragon stones in the body, a fuel
source, or in the episode itself for a presumed immortality remedy. This
episode works, as a more comedic story which yet expands the world beyond the
stars, with a completely unnatural form in the centre, and with space action
still a central part, action set pieces which stand out against a legitimately
fantastical concept that it compelling.

The episode afterwards however, The Rain upon the Stars, manages to
reveal so many of its flaws, including its weight on importance on Meifon's
tragedy, instantly in just the episode afterwards. Episode five introducing a
female space pirate named Jesia, and leads to the male left hand man Kosei Hida and his habit of winning women over becoming a flaw he is meek
enough to feel guilty about, especially as it is explicit he is smitten over
his captain Meifon. Episode five pretty much has Kosei bumping into multiple
ex-girlfriends when trying to appease Jesia, who is fixated on him, but the
episode's twist fully exposes the problems with Angel Links in its lack of weight, in that Jesia after being
introduced is killed in the same episode, which is more out of place when the
killer looks like T-Hawk, a Street
Fighter beat-em-up character, undercutting the emotion fully. It
emphasises, back with Outlaw Star,
how that earlier show had a surprising lack of characters that died in that
show, even grunts, and those who did had impact. There is also the fact this tries
to cram a dynamic narrative into its length with Meifon which is as equally
rushed.

There is enough here to stand out
- between episodes 6, trying to tackle the back-story of Angel Links itself,
which is interesting, and includes the dangers of attacking with ruthlessness,
and episode 7 where Meifong's secrets even unknown to herself become more
prominent. There is even another interesting candidate for the best episode,
another lighter hearted one involving the Outsiders, vagrant pirates without
ships who formed a mercenary group underground ran by a figure named Cyrus, again
another which is expanding the world and the universe in interesting ways. By
its ending however, it is fully the melodrama of Meifong's life, but as much as
it has enough drama to work with, it does not have the time to stand out. [Major Spoiler] None of the
existentialism that Melfina in Outlaw
Star, a bio-android having to accept her fate, is here, and ending your
villain by him abruptly falling into his own trap on purpose seems abrupt as it
is ridiculous, alongside an unexpected escalation involving a virus he will
unleash. [Spoilers End] It feels as
well, to continue as a work without the cruel weight of the previous title, a
science fiction story which does not have a lot which really stood out. Those episodes
which did are outnumbered by those once the drama of the serious story fully
begins which feel squandered, whilst those previous humorous stories fleshed
out the world. Meifong's tale, despite taken centre stage, ultimately could be
told in another science fiction setting and does not stand out.

Angel Links was excessively long to finish. It is strange how this
production, a Sunrise developed
series which still has a considerable amount of budget, can be reduced to this
review which took less time to complete than the protracted time between
episodes, but it was entirely that this struggled to actually reveal good
moments, most of it did not win me over. This is entirely subjective, knowing
the hard work which is put in any of these productions,  but Angel
Links does feel average, and for reasons which are obvious for my personal
tastes but with plenty that could have been successful with structural changes.