Three fighter pilots become legends the hard way: not through destiny, but through the kind of desperate improvisation that only happens when everything is already burning. The OVA burns through its runtime with the efficiency of a shmup itself, each episode a focused strike that respects your time instead of padding. Opera swells over space combat that actually moves through three dimensions, and by the end you understand why these three mattered enough to get their names on a war that nobody remembers. It's thin as a plot, but thick where it counts: in the moment a person decides to fight anyway.
Across three stories drawn from Konami's Gradius video games, the galaxy faces the Bacterian threat. The Space Dragon Salamander and its war planet lead the Bacterian forces against the planet Latis, laying waste to everything and overwhelming its defenses. With hope nearly gone, three heroes from the planet Gradius join Lord British to protect his world. A prequel shows how those three first became heroes, beginning when a girl from a far-off planet carries a grim warning about the Bacterians to Gradius. The final story moves ahead in time, after a peace treaty has been signed. When one of the heroes is taken captive by the Bacterians, the remaining heroes and the armed forces of Gradius set out to rescue their comrade. The result is a science fiction adventure OVA of space warfare.
