We're all familiar with the fact that some anime is produced based on or around video games in Japan. Sakura Taisen, .hack, Kirby, Pokemon, Final Fantasy Unlimited, and many others are fine examples of this practice, and like them, Melty Lancer is also based on a video game or two. Like Sakura Taisen, it's based on games we never got. There does seem to be an inadequate amount of information available to determine exactly how these OVAs relate to the games, but from the basic plot premise I have ascertained that they probably take place after the games themselves. It does seem that not having played the games ultimately takes away from the experience that is Melty Lancer, unlike Sakura Taisen's retelling of its basic story. In correlation to the games, I suppose the best way to regard the anime is simply as a final supplementary adventure the heroines undergo, rather than a solid main story. Melty Lancer is one of the lesser quality transitions of game to anime. Without having experienced the games, the viewer will be missing something with Melty Lancer.

Starting off, we're introduced to a world in peril, as they introduce the setting of Melty Lancer and we see the Earth military forces dealing with an incoming meteor. It doesn't take long to become apparent that Melty Lancer has the same typical futuristic science fiction setting that we've all seen before. It does have a slight dash of cyberpunk though, making it a little less visually predictable. As we see the meteor hurtling towards Earth, we're introduced to all the cliched heroines who make up the currently disbanded intergalactic police force known as Melty Lancer.

First we have the de facto former leader, Melvina MacGarlen, who's settled into her life as a politician. Then there's Sylvia Nimrod, who doesn't exactly have the personality her name describes, but ultimately comes off as the typical gun-toting girl of the bunch. Then comes Sakuya Lansaihe, the stereotypical overly-religious bishoujo who has men falling at her feet left and right, while she remains ever clueless to the fact that they're more interested in her spreading something else besides the word of God. Next up is the firey Jun Kamishiro, the metal body-suit wearing powerhouse of the girls who looks like she could've been ripped right from Metal Fighter Miku. Up next is Angela, one of the last members of a genetically engineered race of cat people, and an interesting spin on the cat girl cliche. Last but not least, there's Nany Natresionn Neinhalten (Try saying that five times fast!), the stereotypical magical girl that no ensemble of cliched anime girls would be complete without. She possesses a variety of less than eye catching magical powers, most memorable of which being her ability to transform into an older version of herself, in a manner almost reminiscient of Fancy Lala. Given just how many girls there are in Melty Lancer, and the pace at which the show began, I found myself lost from time to time in the first ten to fifteen minutes. It was a chore trying to remember who was who and where they were. Shortly into the first episode, we're introduced to the mysterious Collins - the Charlie to these stereotypical Angels. Then we meet his assistant, a sort of extremely ill-fated Bosley, and see him deliver orders to each of the girls of Melty Lancer to return to Earth.

Everyone do the elephant dance!	In the future, everyone travels by race car.

As Earth continued to deal with the incoming threat, the girls all somehow managed to arrive at Earth and reunite just in time to take on their recurring adversaries that emerge from the asteroid. Enter the terrorist group known as the Vanessars, a trio of mad scientists led by the beautiful egomaniac Vanessa. They're pretty much like a more "evil" futuristic version of Nadia's Grandis and company. After the Melty Lancer girls defeated them, sending them into retreat for the umpteenth time, they learned that Melty Lancer was going to be reformed under Collins' command, much to Melvina's dismay.

The six episode OVA ultimately comes down to Melty Lancer doing one job after the next, which usually involves thwarting the Vanessars. During each of their jobs, they continue to unravel the truth about Collins' past and connections to the criminal group known as the Alphabet, which ironically shows up during virtually every job Melty Lancer takes. While the rest of the girls take their assignments more seriously, Melvina spends most of her time playing detective. Going against orders, she decides to unravel the mystery of this mysterious "IYONESCO" that has been hacking the world's computers and disrupting daily life for the citizens of Earth. While conducting the investigation, she finds herself dealing with some health problems of her own, while recieving oddly presented anonymous tip offs about Alphabet and IYONESCO.

As the story progresses, the plots get a little more bizzare, ranging from thwarting a massive cult to a few tragic moments that didn't come off as sad as they were really meant to be. The plot twists were mostly predictable, and yes, there IS a token cute little mascot animal character as well. The last two episodes came down to wrapping up the two big stories within Melty Lancer at last, but it tries to get overly psychological and artsy at the worst moments, taking an outright surreal turn. Ultimately, this mistake ended up really ruining the show with its conclusion, and even leaving a few plot holes.

Melty Lancer tried to be funny on more than a few occasions, but ultimately failed to be funny. The action scenes were all pretty well done on the whole, so I have no complaint with those. When you get down to it the whole cast is all stereotypes, and the story is one cliche after the next. In the end, you won't find yourself wanting to rember it because it just wasn't a strongly written show. The characters get next to no development - except Collins and some of the people from Alphabet. So the fact that we never got the games here in North America takes a LOT away from the story.

I don't recall if I'd even heard of the people behind Melty Lancer's soundtrack before seeing this series, but it was composed by Masamichi Amano. The soundtrack isn't half bad, either. the background music fits all of the scenes very nicely and generally captures the mood of each scene adequately, but none of the music is particularly memorable either. The upbeat opening (which first drew my attention to this show) is a nice little song that is written, composed and performed by Yuki Matsuura and arranged by the great Taku Iwasaki, called "Flying High." It's fairly generic j-pop, but has a certain upbeat energy that makes it quite an addictive piece. It's a shame the animation accompanying it during the opening credits didn't really match its energy with interesting visuals. The closing piece was performed by Aya and is called "Come Beside Me When I Dream." It's easily as good as the opening, but it has a softer, more relaxing tone to it on the whole. On the whole Melty Lancer's soundtrack isn't too memorable, but as much of a near-train wreck the story is, the music is definitely worth going back and listening to.

Moving onto the visuals, Melty Lancer was the first production from the highly acclaimed studio GONZO, best known nowadays for shows like Vandread, Gate Keepers, and Last Exile. For a 1999 show, GONZO produced some rather astouding visuals. They still hold up pretty well today, but GONZO has done much better since then, and when you get down to it, GONZO's debut in the anime world was probably the high point of this series.

Being that this wasn't exactly a phenomenal show, Bandai had to put effort into the release to make it a release worthy of their name. They succeeded in doing so by including a fair number of nice extras on each DVD. Said extras include (in addition to reversible covers and the usual Bandai trailers): a Melty Lancer glossary on each DVD to explain all of the acronyms and terms that might go over the viewers' heads, a special clip and the creditless opening and closing on the first DVD, an illustration gallery on the second DVD, and mechanical manuals detailing the mecha seen on the show on each of the DVDs. These extras do help - to some degree at least - make the mediocre experience that is Melty Lancer somewhat more palatable.

On the whole, Melty Lancer is a veritable Charlie's Angels-esque carnival of anime cliches and stereotypes that starts out halfway decent but becomes pretty outright contrived and bad by the end. The decent soundtrack and nice extras help bump it up a few notches though, as well as the fact that the animation and character designs look good. Even though it was riddled with plot issues, Melty Lancer showed what GONZO is capable of visually. On the whole, Melty Lancer is no masterpiece, and I'd only reccomend it if you're a big GONZO fan or someone who's seen just about every SF anime series out there and is starved for any SF anime. For the sake of closing on a really awful attempt at humor, they let that lance melt for too long and it lost all its flavor.

Distributor: Bandai Entertainment
Creator: TENKY
Released: 1999

Plot: D
Character Design: B+
Animation Quality: A
Music: B
Overall: C