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Angel Links: Volume 1, Avenging Angel
by Luis Reyes  
Angel Links Volume 1 Box Cover
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review ratings information
synopsis
Episode 1: "Guardian Angel"

Fulfilling her moneyed grandfather's dying wish, Meifon Li organizes and heads a free security service for freighters and ships traveling through space that are in continuous danger of being attacked by space pirates. In this "Outlaw Star" -linked future, the threat of space pirates necessitates the use of security services in the transportation of merchandise. This dangerous trade has opened an expansive market for private security firms, a market that Angel Links, the pro bono protection monolith, has cornered.

The toast of the ball at a formal gathering of business leaders who smooch posterior endlessly when Meifon enters the room, especially the acerbic, smarmy head of Gordon & Co. - a competing, commercial security firm. Cutting the party short, a black-bearded pirate kidnaps a pair of innocents and demands a ransom from Angel Links.

Episode 2: "A Wasted Fairy Tale"

Exasperated with the incessant stream of security requests from less than deserving shysters, Meifon takes a ruminative early lunch. As she ponders the inherent narcissism of mankind she encounters a hard-lucked loving father and husband who's been reduced to taking dangerous shipping assignments to support his small family, a vocation for which his current haul will mark the end. Determined to help him on this last gig, Meifon offers the services of Angel Links and, on the excursion, ends up uncovering security and shipping industry corruption.

Episode 3: "The Proud Dragon"

The proud stoic race of reptilian creatures known as the Dragonites created some much-treasured works of art, art that now must be shuttled safely to a museum. Angel Links, among whose staff is a Dragonite named Duuz, volunteers for the assignment, much to the chagrin of the museum's resident anthropologist who disdains the humanoid lizards and distrusts Meifon's team because of its inclusion policy. As space pirates invariably descend upon the museum ship, Angel Links unveils more betrayal and corruption. And Duuz evinces his own worth to a terminally surprised anthropologist.

Episode 4: "Lief - Living Ether Flier"

A two-mile-long cosmic animal known as the Lief lumbers through the void of space. It is rumored to hold the key to immortality. Angel Links takes it upon itself to protect the defenseless creature and its newborn cub from the unscrupulous efforts of thugs desirous of the Lief's elixir of life, which theoretically rests in the liver of the great beast.

review

As good-natured and big-hearted as their action/adventure series can be, "Angel Links" creators slap-dash through positive messages without a firm grasp of logic. Potent criticisms of capitalist corruption, racial intolerance and natural preservation elbow their way into a script designed to do little more than feature the Angel Links massive cannon at work - a shallow sheen to gloss the repetitious fight scenes.

In the opening of episode two, Meifon goes through a list of prospective clients each of which she refuses free security outright on the basis of their insincerity or affluence. However, other security company presidents, such as the president of Gordon & Co., the competing security firm across the street from Angel Links, complain that the free security service is robbing them of business. If Meifon is highly selective, then it appears that Angel Links' charity service in no way jeopardizes the free market system. However this marketplace animosity is the basis for one of the narrative arcs - a logical conundrum that dismantles the credibility of the creators' argument.

And even though Gordon is being tailored as the central antagonist of this tale, he does nothing that ever positions him as a formidable hurdle to Meifon's philanthropy

The same kind of thoughtlessness dissolves the emotional impact of Liam, a humanitarian optomist, orating on the importance of children in society, or Kousei asserting that gender and ability are mutually exclusive to an assemblage of condescending businessmen, or Meifon's defense of Duuz as a valuable member of her crew. Humanitarian sentiments are shot as full of holes as the space pirates that Angel Links murders mercilessly at the core of every episode.

Some intriguing characters, therefore, carry this weak effort into the hope that future episodes will settle down long enough to let them breath. Meifon and Liam exchange deep, penetrative glances at one another (and the opening credits depict them in a passionate kiss) but no other development of their love affair surfaces in this inaugural offering. Re-current flashbacks of the same moment in Meifon's childhood, though gimmicky, stir questions of early trauma. Valeria, Meifon's blonde, surly second in command, plays the militaristic yin to Meifon's adolescent yang. And Duuz's Commander Worf-like loneliness among a culture so unlike his own only gets lip service in the fourth episode. But all at least hint at a deeper story to come.

And a pervasive dark humor also toys sardonically with more typical dynamics, the most obvious being the passive Duuz standing still, intoxicated with the beauty of a work of art, as humans argue heatedly about how Dragonites are so disagreeable. And Meifon's bountiful bosoms protected by a winged, fanged feline, which leaps from her cleavage whenever dishonorable dexterous digits aim to defile both, shamelessly draws attention to this minor's sexuality and cleverly weaves it into the mystical elements of the story.




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