Soul Link starts normally enough. A group of young fresh military space cadets arrive at a space station, for some intense space training, oh and did I mention... they're in space. Well no matter how many times I told myself "they're in the vast depths of space", I just don't get the same feeling that same atmosphere I got from the far superior anime Planetes (which you must watch). So the main characters are introduced, along with the space station setting and the training commences; but shortly after the 1st episode, the true nature of this stupidly boring series reveals itself. Ah yes~ if you didn't already know, this is a bishoujo (cute girls) anime and it just makes it obvious that the whole concept of cute girls in the military is the dumbest idea ever. Even though cute girls can help make an anime more enjoyable, in Soul Link they were just plain annoying. Yet that's not all because soon after Soul Link establishes itself as a sort of Police Academy, in space & with moe-lolis; the shit literally hits the fan when terrorist attack. About two episodes later and I decided to call it quits.
Oh! here's a minor positive thing I can say about Soul Link... it had an alright romance theme. It's a shame that the only positive aspect of the show was immediately negated by the utterly retarded story, mixed together with some clichés and the weakest aspect of this anime... the characters. The characters were so forgettable that I don't even remember the stereotypical archetypes they were following But I do remember their actions and the way the characters reacted to certain situations, was so unbelievable, all I could do was laugh. During tense times when the Al Qaeda wannabes could attack at anytime, we have the group of cadets having fun, staring at a frickin' dragonfly and making sweet love. With the worst offender being the male protagonist (Ryouta).
It's just amazing bad certain aspects of Soul Link really is and how the sub-par quality of animation does little to help. It's shocking to think that this was made by the same people who had a hand in making one of my favourite harems (Shuffle!). The action sequences were poorly animated, which it felt like a rushed job to complete this series (on time & in budget) and the character designs were generic with their multi-coloured hair. The music on the other hand is something I can't really judge properly because I spent a lot of time muting parts of the show due to the characters annoying voices.
To summarize, Soul Link turned out to be the worst anime I've seen in a long time and it's close to entering the same realm as the legendary "Mars of Destruction". There was nothing special that set this apart from any other anime, since it just felt like a bunch of recycled material that any experienced viewer is used to seeing. Plus a lot of crap that I'd rather not see. There's absolutely nothing that I could say about the ending because it just wasn't even worth finishing. So this is the kind of show you'll either hate, like I did, or just won't mind watching but either way there's nothing special to attract anyone to this series.
No recommendation coming from me.
