Video Backlog: "Aika"

Publisher: Bandai Entertainment (USA)
Format: Region 1 DVD, NTSC, Japanese Dialogue with optional English dub and English Subtitles
Length: 7 Episodes x 29 minutes, 1 Episode x 25 minutes (Special Trial)
Production Date: 1997 – 1999
Currently in Print (as of writing): Yes

Nearly 15 years ago, I came across Studio Fantasia’s “Megami Paradise”. This was a short two part OVA series which had a bunch of young ladies in fantasy setting showing off their panties. OK, there was some sort of plot in there as well, but it was pretty hard to concentrate on it when panty shot after panty shot mindlessly happened. I really thought nothing all could top this absurd show. Boy, was I ever wrong. A year or so later and I stupidly decided to take over the local anime club because the guys running it had given up. I was collecting and trading fansubs at an incredible rate (this was the late 1990’s, so no downloading) so I could fill the monthly screening schedule. I happened to acquire “Aika” somehow, and really gasped with disbelief that Studio Fantasia had outdone themselves.

Watching the show again after so long, I’m going to have to admit that this show is really well put together and produced. When you take away the absurd amount of fan service, not limited to but including copious amounts of panty shots, upskirts, nudity, implied lesbianism, S&M and incest, you actually have a decent story. Coupled with the other kind of fan service (i.e. the mecha fetish stuff) is what seems to be a love of old Toho sci fi films of the 1950’s and 1960’s. Though it does seem to me that final episode is ripping off the core plot “Moonraker” just a tad. The animation and designs are gorgeous. The animation certainly looks a lot better than most animation found in modern anime. It’s so crisp and everything is on model all the time.

Of course the elephant in the room which distracts from anything substantial in this show are those damn panties. It wouldn’t be much of a stretch to blame this show, at least in part, for all those dreadful fan service based shows which followed. But at least you could say that “Aika” had a decent plot. Well the first OVA series did. With the departure of the megalomaniac villain, the second three part OVA uses his leggy female corps, Delmo, as the new villains. Except they have no real ambition except to kill the titular character via a very lame and uninteresting story. The addition of pretty boy Michikusa Shuntaro adds absolutely nothing to the series. He ends up as a punching bag for Aika’s offsider, Rion.

Bandai’s re-release has much, much better video than the original CPM release. It also has an uncut up version of “Special Trial” which is nothing but a collection of clean openings and closings, a music video and some adverts wrapped around a short and crappy little story when Aika’s company moves into a new office. The weird one extra here is the live action Aika, which is a 10 minute Japanese promo for the then upcoming “Aika R-16” OVA series. While you may think animated shapely girls falling over and exposing their panties may be funny, in live action it’s not. It’s as creepy as fuck. It’s like watching some low budget niche porn you’d find in the back of some dingy adult shop in Sydney (kids, those hentai and celebrity DVDs they sell are illegal you know. And those X rated DVDs they are illegal too in NSW and everywhere outside Canberra and NT).

“Aika” is like a prime example of what eventuates in a country where you get censorship of certain things such as genitalia. Fetishes become mainstream, like panty shots, because you can’t show a part of the female anatomy uncensored (you taking note of this shit Melinda Tankard Reist?). Not only that, we get to see the outline of the women’s vulvas through the panties. Yup, the show is woefully sexist and a sexploitation piece through and through. However I have to admit at least the first series (first four OVAs) is quite entertaining. The Toho sci-fi and mecha fetishes like the old MiGs I really like. Those damn panites on the other hand... The second series and everything else is burnable trash. 6 out of 10.

Remaining Backlog: 24 months (it's much easier this way than listing the number of discs).