Arity Mellowlink holding his anti-AT rifle.

Armor Hunter Mellowlink Analysis – Episodes 7-12

So now we’ve come to the end of another entry in the Votoms franchise after reaching the end of Armor Hunter Mellowlink. I keep forgetting to mention in these posts in our watch alongs that we include massive spoilers. So please keep that in mind if you haven’t watched it yet but wish to continue reading. Let’s get into the next part of our analysis of Armor Hunter Mellowlink.

(*NOTE* This is a repost from our old defunct site MatureManga.net.)

I really enjoyed the second half of this OVA series, in the end everything really came together well. If you remember my last post, I was a little unsure about the series last week after watching the first half.

The second half feel less episodic in nature than the first. This is because Mellowlink and us the audience begin to discover who the main players were in the scandal. This allows the story to become more focused and it means the plot of the series really did begin to come to life.

There were also some more good action sequences. My personal favourite being in Episode 7 with the bandits attacking the moving train. The fact that the bandits’ ATs and motorcycles had to keep pace with the battle having to take place at that speed made it a very entertaining watch. Also of course Mellowlink and Boyle’s battle inside of the castle, with Mellowlink making an inventive use of the contents of the wine cellar.

Revelations

Motives Revealed

We found out more about Lulucy’s motives, and that she is part of a noble family. In the last edition of this Mellowlink analysis I mentioned we didn’t know too much about her yet. Her uncle Oscar Von Helmecion was the key player in the jijirium scandal. Also he had her father killed and possibly her mother too in order to take over their estate and steal their money. It’s said that her mother committed suicide, but I doubt this. We don’t find out what she was originally planning. Just that due to the circumstances she was more than happy to let Mellowlink go about his revenge mission.

Helmecion drinking wine in Armor Hunter Mellowlink.
To say Helmecion wasn’t the nicest of people is putting it mildly.

It was in fact Keik who had less than savoury motives. I like how his intentions aren’t really a shocking twist, but one that becomes gradually more apparent the more you progress through the series. It was a clever plan to let Mellowlink do all of his dirty work for him. However after watching him kill most of the people involved, I don’t think Keik really thought through properly how he was going to take out Mellowlink. To succeed, he really should have shot Mellowlink in the head when he had the chance. Instead he changed his mind and shot Helmecion first. The final duel between Mellowlink and Keik was really exciting especially with the war between the Gilgamesh and the Balarant kicking off again in the background.

From this we learn how the war started again after the period of peace. The Balarant realised that the Gilgamesh were weakened and decided to strike Melkia, sparking the war back into life.

Boyle and Schweppes

In the end it was Boyle who ended up being the extra ally to Mellowlink. He was probably his toughest opponent throughout the entire show and was certainly no pushover like some of the others. Again, it wasn’t outright stated if Boyle was a part of the scandal. However seeing as Mellowlink gave him one of the dog tags it appears so. Unlike most of the Gilgamesh officers he still seemed to have a moral compass, deciding to help Mellowlink. He seemed quite disheartened with the actions his superiors had decided to take, and decided to help make amends. To say that Keik showed him no mercy pumping all of those bullets into his injured body is an understatement.

Also we had the revelation about Schweppes. It appeared he agreed to send his men to the slaughter rather than be demoted from his rank.

Schweppes as shown in Armor Hunter Mellowlink.
Schweppes in the end seemed to care more about his military position than his men.

Society in Votoms

The last couple of episodes really reveal more about what society is like in the world of Votoms. With the war having gone on for 100 years and many men probably having to go to fight, it seems as if one’s military rank had become very important. Keik at times did seem like a good person. Perhaps he had become corrupted by his military dealings, in a world where that was all that mattered to many. We can also see this with Schweppes and how he put his military ranking above the lives of his own men.

Keik from Armor Hunter Mellowlink holding a pistol.
Keik’s devotion to the military was ill-advised.

When we do an analysis of Mellowlink you can see how it relates to one of the main themes of the original Votoms. Both series place a lot of emphasis on the idea of authority and when it’s right and wrong to follow it and when you should tread your own path. Like Chirico, Mellowlink had witnessed the corrupt nature of his superiors and decided to make his own choice. To be honest in his situation he was pretty much forced to. Others like Keik who could have been a good person decided to be party to his superiors’ machinations regardless to whether they were morally just. He could have taken his own path too and not ended up bleeding to death at an army base for the sake General Battentain.

The Perfect Soldier Conundrum

It turned out that the jijirium was for the Perfect Soldier project after all. I think we all guessed that was the case. For the Gilgamesh, a lot of what went on with that project was a complete disaster. The theft of the jijirium needed caused a big internal scandal. Then most of what they had worked on they lost when the Secret Society splintered away after the Lido incident. That said, because Mellowlink takes place at the same time as the original Votoms series, it seems they were still soldiering on with their PS ambitions.

Further Questions

Talking about Perfect Soldiers, it was heavily implied at the end of the series that Mellowlink himself was one also. As you may remember in the last edition of our Mellowlink analysis I suspected this may be the case! It’s mentioned many times how low the odds were for him to survive what happened to the Schweppes platoon. And again when he survives the explosion of Kerama City. Boyle said that he would have only about a 0.01% chance of survival, and survive he did. Looking back to Roots of Ambition, extreme survival statistics were one of the signs of Chirico being a PS. In the final episode he was also able to dodge a bullet at point-blank range just like Chirico had done.

Mellowlink escaping from Kerama city.
Mellowlink pulling himself to safety after Kerama explodes.

This raises more interesting questions about the PS project. We know the Gilgamesh approach involved jijirium. The Balarant ended up using more cybernetic techniques as we saw in Big Battle. Chirico seemed to be a better, more organic type and it seems there is another now in Mellowlink. I imagine Wiseman had something to do with their creation, and we still don’t have an answer for what Pailsen saw in that tank. Apologies as I can’t remember where I saw it and would like to give the person credit, but I remember reading an opinion in a discussion forum that perhaps Wiseman was responsible for multiple PSs. Chirico was the one he chose to succeed him. Mellowlink was perhaps one of the others.

Final Thoughts

Now all has been said and done I really enjoyed this series. To those who are big Votoms fans I may be being blasphemous here, but I actually preferred Armor Hunter Mellowlink. The difference for me despite the shows being quite similar was that I think that the characters are a little more well-rounded. Over the 12 episodes that are less than half of Votoms’ 50, I feel we get to know the characters’ personalities a lot more by comparison as well as having more fleshed out goals and ambitions for most. Together with the same level of intrigue to the overall plot.

I hope you enjoyed this analysis of Armor Hunter Mellowlink.

What did you think, did you enjoy Armor Hunter Mellowlink? It it your favourite part of Votoms so far? Put your thoughts down below.

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