#233: Angel Links (1999)

 

Studio: Sunrise

Director: Yuji Yamaguchi

Screenplay: Jirō Takayama, Masaharu Amiya and Yasuko Kobayashi

Voice Cast: Ryoka Yuzuki as Meifon Li; Atsuko Tanaka as Valeria; Hikaru Midorikawa as Kousei Hida; Kazuo Hayashi as Leon; Kenji Utsumi as Duuz

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

 

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.