Anime Review: Angel Links - AKA NOT Outlaw Star

From the universe of Outlaw Star, Sunrise gave us.... not more Outlaw Star.  Don't be fooled though.  This show is worse than it's cover...



In an effort to make a bit of room on my anime shelf I decided to take out all my questionable anime and give it a try to decide on if I should trade it or not.  This was in that pile.  I only have volume one but that was enough to make my decision on it.  I only heard of this anime a few months ago, and of course me being the Outlaw Star fan that I am decided I needed to view it...

I gotta stop doing that...

TRAILER VIDEO

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBsIf6oV49w

Sorry for the link there but Google's being a spoot head and won't let me post the video of it.

Meifon Ri (it was shown with an R but they all say it Li), a 16 year old girl with a bust that could bust her dress, is the president and commander of the non-profit pirate fighting force called Angel Links.  Her English dub voice is one of the most annoying I've ever heard, and there's no way she's 16.  NO POSSIBLE WAY.  Every time she's on screen this is what I see...

Not my best edit but it gets the point across.

Her boobs are so big they can house a cat!  Seriously!  There's a cat creature thing that lives in there!  How does it not get squished under the weight?  How can it breathe in there?  How does it turn into a sword?  Yes!  The cat thingy turns into a sword!  What is going on?????!  This is not my Outlaw Star!

The character art in this show is some of the worst and this was made by Sunrise (Cowboy Bebop, Gundam, Outlaw Star)!  They only concentrated on backgrounds and spaceships in this show!  Which that's one thing this studio is good at so those parts look good but they're the only parts that look good.  They tried some cgi parts with the space ships here and it's so noticeably different that's it's irritating.  By the way, I hope you like spaceship launch sequences.  You're going to see them... a lot.

Two of Meifon's sidekicks include two characters that where introduced in Outlaw Star.  You guys remember Duuz and Valeria?  Yes?  No?  Maybe?

They introduced themselves in episode 19 where they stated they were part of Angel Links...  poor things.  Jim told Gene that Duuz was a Saurion, a creature that was genetically created by science.  In this episode, Duuz was a hot head and Valeria was the diplomatic type...  I can only imagine it was part of their new Links contracts to completely change their appearance and demeanor for the Links series.  Had to be.  Duuz got shafted pretty bad.  He's not a Saurion anymore, he's a stoic Dragonite now... and he's greenish... with a sword polishing fetish.  And Valeria is more apathetic...

So far now, if you count Duuz and Valeria together plus them being in the Oracion system, that makes 3 counts of references to Outlaw Star.  Add in Dragonite Ore (which is now called Dragon Stones) and a cameo from Fred for all of 2 seconds, and we still don't have enough to make this relateable.

Hi Fred!  Bye Fred!

Nothing makes sense in this topsy turvy world!  Nothing!  Meifon doesn't do anything but fire the big gun on the spaceship.  It makes a Sonic Rainboom upon impact.  That gun blast kills people!  Meifon has killed more people than I could count in those first 4 episodes.  I don't understand how Duuz and Valeria in OS detained Gene and the others and they acted as officers but in AL there's no law just kill em all!

I can't begin to describe how bad this show is to you.  It's so heart breakingly bad.  Everyone that made Outlaw Star so great wasn't there for Links and nothing feels the same without Koh Ohtani's soundtrack.  One of the only things this show has going for it is that it's very easy to riff to.  Especially parts where Duuz polishes his sword.  All too easy.

The only other redeemable part of this show is the opening theme.  The song is good but there's one small snippet in the animation that makes it worth the viewing.  Watch the part at :54 - 1:07.

Now that part looked completely different didn't it?  That character didn't even look like Meifon.  Aside from the purple hair it doesn't match.  My guess is that the studio made this snippet for something and it never got used, so instead of letting it go to waste they shoved it in here.  Maybe this bit was made before the series got underway and suffered a horrible change.  Either way I'm upset the rest of the series wasn't in this style.  I found this few second snippet much more engaging than any other part of this disc.


I know I haven't gone into details about the story, or the acting, or the details of the show but it's late and I'm tired and I don't think I can crush anyone's souls with this right now.  Go watch the atrocity for yourself if you want to know the horror.  I've already experienced the mind crush.  I can't take anymore.  It's not even suitable fan service.  What is thy desire?  That I've never laid eyes on this show.  Into the sell pile it goes.

Angel Links DVD vol 1 - episodes 1-4
2  boob cat sword thingies out of 10

Took me too long to make this gif....