Synopsis: A catastrophic earthquake has left Tokyo, and most of the Earth for that matter, under the sea. Aika is a salvager who retrieves various remains from the watery ruins. When Aika accepts the dangerous mission of locating and obtaining the mysterious Lagu, she discovers that she's not the only one after it.
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This is the first ecchi anime I have reviewed, as well as the first I have seen (as far as I can remember anyway). For those of you who do not know what ecchi is, it is anime that has vague sexual context, but at the same time does not show outright sex/pornography. I have seen a few hentai anime (yes, anime porn), so, thankfully, I was prepared for the ridiculousity that is ecchi.
Ah, Agent Aika, an ecchi classic. A silly, mostly female, 007-style comedy. Beautiful art, and great music. What can I say? PANTIES! Yes, hundreds of panties are what Agent Aika is most known for, and for good reason. I mean, yes it is ecchi, and fanservice upskirt shots are quite common in anime, but seriously! Panties in the first few minutes, and a never-ending ridiculous display of them throughout the rest of the show. If you are easily offended by upskirts and crotch shots depicting tightly fitting white panties, do not, I repeat, do NOT watch this one.
Okay, now that I have gotten that out of the way...
I suppose I will start with sound. I was impressed with the opening theme song. It has a catchy '80's punky metal sound with lots of electric guitar that shifts to a more uplifting rock sound near the end of the song. The background music is also quite good, giving the anime a jazzy, spy movie feel and building up to dramatic effects at the right times. The ending theme song is fun, something you can dance to, with an almost techno-like beat and some elements of rock. In episode 4.5, which is pretty much stupid filler--I was glad it was so short!--, there is a different opening theme with a nice amount of dramatic tension and interesting use of trumpets to add that cool spy movie sound. Please, do not bother putting yourself through the ending theme of this episode. Sadly, 4.5's ending theme becomes the opening theme for the remaining episodes, this time a rock version that does not sound much better. The ending theme for the remaining episodes was so bad I did not even want to listen to it.
I watched the English dub, since I could not find any good quality episodes with subtitles that were not fuzzy. The dub was pretty terrible, but I expected it to be bad. Voices do not match the characters very well, and actors often miss the intended goal in expressing certain emotions shown in the characters' facial expressions. Also, the volume seems lower for certain characters than others, as if they were recorded in different studios and the volume was not adjusted.
The animation was beautifully executed! Lovely use of vivid colors, extremely smooth movement for 1997, an interesting array of comedic facial expressions, and creative character designs. (The one character design I really hated was Neena, when she transforms using Alternate Metal. She becomes entirely gray, including her hair, which I might add is styled very unattractively. In contrast, I loved the darker-skinned version of Aika when she transforms using her Alternate Metal. Very pretty!) Agent Aika is well-known for its creative use of camera angles to achieve maximum panty exhibition, and it certainly lived up to its reputation! I was in awe of the immense variety of creative camera angles and different perspectives used throughout the show. Fight scenes are flowy, skillful, savvy, slick, and well planned out--well planned if girls flying through the air or falling over in the perfect way to show their panties is your thing, of course. Girls who are knocked unconscious either wind up with their butts in the air or their skirts flipped up or their legs spread. Every time, without fail. The designs of the technology in the show is decent. I did not give it too much thought, other than thinking a slapstick fight using the grappler arms of ships was completely awesome!
The story is solid enough to keep you interested, which is not a common characteristic of ecchi, as far as I have been told. It is not an amazing story, but, then again, most people are not viewing Agent Aika for an amazing story. If you keep in mind that it is a silly, dirty, Bond-influenced comedy, then you will probably be quite satisfied with the story. Readers might want to be aware that this show does contain possible incest. I say "possible" for a couple reasons. In anime, female characters often refer to older male characters as "Onii-chan" or "Older Brother" even though they are not actually related. Therefore, the fact that Neena calls Rudolf "Big Brother" could just be a direct translation of her nickname for him, and not something that implies they are related. To help clear this up, out of curiosity, I consulted Wikipedia, of course. Wikipedia says this of Neena Hagen: "She is a test tube baby like Rudolf [Hagen]. It is unknown if she is the blood sister of Rudolf." These are the two reasons I say "possible" incest.
The final episode was alright; it brought back some characters, which was cool, but it lacked the excitement of previous episodes, which made for a somewhat disappointing finale.
If you keep in mind what Agent Aika was intended to be and are prepared for too many panties to count, an all female army, large breasts, perverted humor, nudity, latex uniforms, lingerie, etc, then Agent Aika will most certainly not disappoint you. It was an excellent production, considering it's goals.
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AIka R-16: Virgin Mission
Synopsis: Aika is a smart and athletic high school girl. She is so competent that she successfully passes the salvager's license test, obtaining a C-class license. Yet, she is young and hotheaded, so much so that Gota still treats her as a child. Due to this personality, no one is willing to hire her for salvaging jobs.
Since she had taken the trouble to get her license, she decides to post an ad in her school to attract clients. She manages to get the attention of Eri, a daughter of a rich family and the leader of the treasure hunting club. She asks Aika to salvage something from the sea and Aika delightfully accepts the request.
However, upon seeing the state-of-the-art submarine loaded onto Erika's private cruiser and discovering their destination, Aika realizes the terrible nature of her assignment. This results in a clash with a group of high school girls in the southern islands.
Who is the mysterious girl named Karen? So begins Aika's newest challenge!
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I am not going to go as in depth about R-16 as I did with the first series. I am just going to write a few things directly from my notes.
The opening theme is good, but not spectacular. I can listen to it with no problem, though. Same goes for the ending theme.
Aika, as a younger girl, has much more personality.
The art is different, but I cannot say if it was better or worse. Just different. The animation may be slightly improved, but the original was so wonderfully animated that it would be tough to improve on. [Also, any improvement would obviously be due to the fact that this one came out after.]
I watched the Japanese version with subtitles, and the voice acting was good. I did not notice any flaws with it.
The story is much better than in the first series, in my opinion, and one you can take a bit more seriously. The humor is also really funny at times! Be sure you watch the ending credits and after them for the true ending of the series.
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AIka ZERO
Synopsis: Aika is now 19 years-old, 3 older than in R-16 and 7 younger than in Agent Aika. Strange phenomena have been occurring at a girls' academy. Slowly but persistently, the cutest and most beautiful girls are joining an internal club, but instead of a sing-in they just get abducted by a strange being that takes control over them by some indecent means. By coincidence Aika was flying-by in her plane when one of these abductions occurred, and she was attacked to prevent her from coming closer. Instead of repelling her, she is intrigued about the attack's origin, and the opportunity shows up when her partners from R-16 decide to investigate the abductions.
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Just as in R-16, I am also not going extremely into detail with ZERO. Here are my notes on it.
Opening theme was once again nice, but not special in any way. However, the ending theme was really good! Pretty, soft vocals and rockin' electric guitar to contrast them!
This series brings back characters from R-16, which I liked, but I was sad that Karen has her hair cut short. She was so beautiful and almost ethereal with it long.
In ZERO, the creators get even more perverted and more bold with the usage of nudity. It borders on the line between ecchi and hentai at times, but does not cross into hentai. Somehow, it still does not strike me as trashy or silly, though. The story, as in R-16, is good and one you can take more seriously. In my opinion, better than the original. If I had to choose which story is better out of R-16 and ZERO, I do not think I could.
This series is rather difficult to rate. If I rated it as if it were just another anime series, I am sure the rating would be rather low. However, I am going to rate it keeping in mind what it is: ecchi, and it was damn good, considering that. I am going to give it an 8, as I found it to be very enjoyable, and the overall experience allowed me to overlook any flaws.
Next on the list is Air Gear!
Feel free to leave a comment with any thoughts, questions, or just telling me you read this. You don't need an account to do so.
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