Anime of Yesteryear presents: “That little ol’ OVA: A.H. Mellowlink Ep. 1-2”

As I awoke from my friday night binge of anime OVA tapes and booze, I happen to see a smoking wrecked robot on its knees as a dark red liquid was leaking out of the main hatch, with a lone figure standing outside the wreckage, holding something in one hand that could be described as a BFG (for you non-Doom fans, look it up). He wore a dark green cloak, ruffled hair in a ponytail and enough firepower to lay waste an entire platoon of Scopedog units. He then turned around and had 4 lines across the lower part of his face, something that could be described as warrior paint, a marking he made before his kill as he showed the eyes of sorrow and vengeance to me in a dead stare. He then walked over to me and began to tell his story, a quest to avenge the comrades he lost in battle, as he begun to prepare for his next hunt.

This is the story of Armor Hunter Mellow(Yellow)link, ok just Mellowlink. Sorry, couldn’t help to throw that in there. In all seriousness, Mellowlink is one mans quest to avenge his fallen comrades, a single order that got his whole squad wiped out, by going after his former commanders and avenging them one kill at a time. This takes place in the Armored Trooper Votoms universe, but happens a few months before the time line in the TV series. This OVA is one part Rambo, one part Platoon and with a hint of Apocalypse Now mixed in. Ok, its actually like 98 percent Rambo in japanese action cartoon reality. From the first 3 episodes I have seen, I can describe it as this: Mellowlink is if Rambo (First Blood: Part 2) was betrayed by Col. Trautman and Charles Napier character together and the movie had Rambo go after every person in the US Army chain of command for issuing the order to leave Rambo behind in the jungle when trying to rescue that one POW guy. Even though the order was done by Napier character (ok he does have a name in the movie, its Murdock) in the movie, “Rambo” Mellowlink would lay waste to Murdock with a hi-power “out-of-date” anti-A.T. rifle to blast him to liquid goo at point blank range. I wanted a review for my sins, and they (AAA Podcast, scratch that, it was me) gave me one. So grab your gun and your balls boys, because were taking a one way trip to the battle torn hellish world of Armor Hunter Mellowlink.

We start Mellowlink off on the planet of Astraglus in the year 7213, where we find Ality Mellowlink on a desert scorched wasteland of a planet with wreckage of fallen mechs and instruments of war, as he takes sights with his large weapon to take out a military truck. Upon destroying the vehicle, he finds the soldier who survived the ambush and hands him a dog tag, telling him the simple message of “Tell Capt. Dogman… I’ve come to see him from hell” It then goes to our man of interest Dogman playing cards with two guest of his, a woman with blue hair and one to challenge Dogman’s bet on the table by the name Lulucy, and Mr. “Tall, Blonde and Handsome” Lt. Cardine, who’s just chilling out watching the game. Dogman is interrupted by the soldier who was given the tag by Mellow and Dogman issues “all-hands-on-deck” because he knows whats coming. By this time Mellow is making the stage for his battle between him and Dogman in the desert and sees a transport coming. He is able to take out the transport and use it to get in the base. Once inside, he wreaks havoc to the base and meets up with Lulucy and Cardine, who all the more want to help him out since they seem to be investigating the scandal behind Mellowlink past known as the Planpando Scandal. Mellowlink is then able to face Dogman outside in a “man vs machine” battle by using the traps he put in place to disable Dogman’s assault, then Mellow is able to take one final charge and stab the cockpit of Dogman Scopedog to seize victory.

Episode 2 takes us to the port city of Tabbing, where Mellow happens to run into Lulucy at a local bar and finds his next target being “shown for display” as a poster ad for the towns “battling” champion “The Silver Fox of Melka” Lt. Fox. Mellow decides to go into the battle arena the same way he took out Dogman, with a big gun and balls of Goliath because this is how he rolls. He gets Lulucy to make her self as the “number one biggest fan ever” and give Fox some roses, before he realizes hes been given dog tags, in which he knows whats about to go down. He knows this because our favorite intelligence officer Lt. Cardine has explained what happened to Dogman in which Fox just shrugs off regardless. There in the colosseum its man vs. machine in a no holds barge to the death. Fox is able to grab Mellow with the Scopedog’s hands and claim victory, only that Mellow has a plan B and is able to thwart Fox plans of crushing him like a bug and jamming a spike in the cockpit, killing Fox and putting another mark in front of the list of names, Kill Bill style.

I think after describing the first 2 episodes you get the gist of what this show is about. This is a 12 episode OVA, so the trail of corpses and the stench of revenge is far from over. To give some back story to Mellowlink, this takes place in the war torn galactic universe of Ryouske Takahashi “Armored Trooper Votoms.” To sum up, Votoms centers around the world of Chirico Cuvie, a former ex- Special Forces soldier who was framed for a mission he knew nothing about. After escaping from his own military, he is on the hunt from his former allies, while meeting new ones along the way, and searching for a certain someone that he encountered on his last mission. That in a nutshell is Votoms. Of course during the review I mentioned things like “Scopedog” a few times. Well for those of you who don’t know, its one of the main mechs in the Votoms universe that pilots like Chirico and Mellowlink pilot. They are not just personalized robots, but as standard military weapons, which is one of the main aspects that makes the Votoms universe so unique.

But if this is something you readers wanna check out, than this is right up your ally. If your like me who lays around on Memorial Day weekend and watches war movies (well they used to do that on TV, I miss those days. I haven’t done that in a long while since Animazement is that same weekend every year) than watching this OVA back to back or in segments is completely up to you. Well readers, until next time, lock and load.

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