Agent Aika is one of those shows that makes this reviewer despair for the hope of anime. Now don’t misunderstand me–if you read reviews of Agent Aika on a variety of sites, you will find some who love this series of 7 OVAs following the adventures of one Aika and her sidekick Rion. I’m not one of them, however, because what’s wrong with Agent Aika is what keeps anime from going mainstream. It’s the type of show that high school boys and freshman dormies watch when nobody around is old enough to get into the backroom of the video store and pick up the nasty stuff. Although I will give the show credit for making a stab at containing an actual plot, it is too perverse and fetish-oriented for the average person’s tastes, despite a relative lack of actual sexuality on display. If you’ve never heard of fan service before, loyal reader, you’ll know what it is by the end of this article–although it has many characters, fan service is the star of Agent Aika. Unfortunately, fun is not.

Aika is an underwater scavenger in a not-too-distant future where 90% of the earth has been flooded. Her employer wants his business to be completely above board, but times are tough and the competition knows no such ethics. Aika willingly volunteers for a possibly dangerous assignment to retrieve a new source of power known as lago. If she can get her hands on lago and the data surrounding its use, she can help her company get out of the red and repay some personal debts from her past. With the help of Rion, her boss’ daughter, Aika gets into a huge struggle with a megalomaniacal brother/sister team who want to exploit lago for their own nefarious schemes. Will Aika keep her clothes on long enough to save the world? I doubt it, but that won’t stop her.

The infamy of Agent Aika lies within its camera angles. Seriously, this show has more panties than…well, insert your own joke, because other websites have made them all too, but there’s an overwhelming abundance of them. If you see a woman come on-screen and speak in this show, at some point, you will see her panties. (Sometimes, she doesn’t even have to have a speaking role.) Although the story is pretty weak, it is there, and there are plenty of action-packed scenes. However, virtually every frame of the show (even the action stuff) is filmed as if the creative team had just stumbled off the lot of a Hustler shoot. Now fan service generally refers to a throwaway shot or two of cleavage, undergarments, or brief nudity that has little to do with the actual program except to give the male viewers in the audience a bit of excitement. It would be inappropriate to say that this show has fan service. It would be more correct to say that Agent Aika is fan service with a little bit of actual program.

The fan service is so completely embedded in every part of Akia that the fact that it does have a plot simply doesn’t matter. Although the nudity and truly sexually oriented content in the program is brief in comparison to the non-stop upskirt shots, that doesn’t make it any better. Just because we don’t see absolutely everything doesn’t mean that the show isn’t pornographic by definition. Many people will hop on me for saying that. Is it a great looking production? Often, yes. Is the voice acting good and the music reasonable? Yes. Is there much actual nudity or sexual contact? No. But the whole way the show was created was designed to arouse, which is the point of pornography. Whether it succeeds at that purpose is up for grabs–I was just annoyed, disturbed, and bored. But in my opinion, this is at its core a hentai fetish title masquerading as something mainstream. Frankly, if US Manga Corps hadn’t marketed it as a mainstream title, it wouldn’t appear on this site.

What’s sad about the whole thing is that we’ve seen recently how good female-driven action shows can be. The ever-growing popularity of the live-action show Alias proves that. And indeed, Alias manages to be thrilling, action-packed, thoughtful, fun, and sexy while appealing to both men and women. And even fan service can be done right–witness my review of Plastic Little to find a show that got an A grade despite having plenty. Agent Aika, with its female protagonists, could appear on the surface to be similar to both, but instead it’s really dedicated to degrading women. Every woman in the show is an object to be constantly ogled. Agent Aika is just a massive fumble from start to finish.

Agent Aika was directed by Katsuhiko Nishijima of Project A-Ko fame, and some might wonder how he went from there to here. However, knowledgeable fans also remember that Project A-Ko was originally intended to be an adult title before it went into development and in its rewrites became instead a hysterical satire of all things anime. Thus, it’s not all that surprising that he directed this show. Some of Aika‘s fans have said that Nishijima was attempting satire again here–by taking fan service to its utter extreme, they say he was making a point about the anime industry. However, I respectfully disagree–if it’s a satire, it’s a worse satire than it is an anime. For if it was satire, it would be like dropping a two ton anvil on an egg five hundred times to prove it’s rotten–we get the point after the first few drops, but after that, it becomes unbearable.

I thought I knew what I was getting into when I picked up this title, but I really had no idea. Despite its huge amount of fan service, if Agent Aika had been interesting or fun, I could have forgiven much. But it wasn’t, and I feel some serious wrath coming on. There are many anime fans, I’m sure, who will not only get past the extremes of what fan service can be but will also think that Agent Aika is a blast; there will probably be many more who lambast me as a stick-in-the-mud. I really don’t care. Agent Aika was created by a dirty old man to entertain impressionable boys that will likely grow up to be dirty old men.

P.S. To add insult to injury, the DVD of the show has many visual problems, including line shimmering and rainbows throughout. If the rest of the content doesn’t bother you, those might.

Agent Aika — enough fan service to gag a goat, nudity, brief sexual situations, mild violence — F

Samuel L. Jackson is the definition of cool. Or is he? With Pulp Fiction over a decade gone, he still has plenty of mojo working for him, but not all of his decisions have been great. Snakes on a Plane, the internet phenomenon and box-office mediocrity, made it look like Jackson might have jumped the proverbial shark. Black Snake Moan, due out soon, looks for all the world like an exploitation film out of the ’70s. It could be cool, but who knows? Lending his voice or his credibility to a show doesn’t automatically spell success or quality. Nevertheless, it’s his larger than life persona that fuels the advertising for Afro Samurai, an American/Japanese co-production backed by Spike TV. The question is, does this festival of gory revenge need his tie-in?

In a apocalyptic retro-future world that combines ancient Japanese styles with cell phones and cyber technology, a gruesome war is on. Numbered headbands denote the hierarchy of the land’s greatest combatants, and only the man who bears the #2 headband can challenge the #1 to a deadly duel. Legend has it that becoming the #1 can lead to unimaginable power. The warrior with the #2 headband, then, is in constant danger from those who aspire to greatness by killing him off and swiping the band so they can challenge the world’s toughest living warrior.

Afro is only a young boy when his sword-wielding father, the #1, is beheaded in a duel with a lisping gunslinger. Afro, goaded by the gunman to confront him once he’s ready to duel a god, leaves the scene with only a sword and his father’s noggin. The story unfolds as the much older Afro, now the #2, seeks to return to the mountain where his father’s killer waits for the inevitable confrontation. Accompanied only by a shadowy motormouth who comments on every situation, Afro finds himself up against a bevy of killers that range from simple clods to a robotic carbon copy of himself. Afro’s biggest threats, however, will come from his past, and his youth is explored in flashbacks as his former friends become his darkest enemies.

One thing is certain: Spike TV got its money’s worth. Afro Samurai is animated to be a spectacle, and that it is. Although its artistic style is a little dated — intentionally, I believe — you couldn’t ask it to look any better. Every slashed neck and severed limb (didn’t I mention this was gory?) is rendered with care. As far as the English voice acting, it’s uniformly impressive. Jackson only has a few lines as Afro, seeing that he’s the strong and very silent type, but he switches up his voice nicely to play Afro’s wacked-out conscience of a friend. It’s not a stretch, and Jackson is here to sell DVDs, but he does fine. While the show is not aimed at a high-minded audience, the dialogue flows far better than most anime adaptations (probably because this was intended for an English audience in the first place). Most genre fans will want to see the work on display here, even if they don’t care for the other elements.

The program itself is about as simple as you can get — it’s a revenge story even less complex than Kill Bill (though perhaps even gorier). Is this a criticism? Not exactly. The characters themselves are the story, and the backstory of Afro becomes a compelling tragedy. For a man who says little, Afro makes a striking protagonist…much like Kenshiro and Vampire Hunter D before him. It’s clear to me that the creators of Afro Samurai weren’t looking to modern anime for inspiration; instead, there’s clear homage to ’80s source material like Ninja Scroll and Fist of the North Star. Those films were hardly plot-oriented; they were all about gory action splayed large on the screen. Afro Samurai is a show for 20-and-30-somethings who grew up watching Streamline tapes over and over again, not sophisticated fans of anime who grew up having every show on Japanese television just a mouse click away. I admit that I found Afro Samurai had some of the best raw action I’ve seen in an anime for a long time, and I thought it was enjoyable…with a few caveats.

There are two problems with Afro Samurai. First is the sheer amount of extreme violence on display. Watching the five episodes within a day or so, as I did, becomes exhausting as the carnage continues on and on. In fact, the action almost becomes dull by the end. There’s so much destruction on display that by the time the final confrontation came, I was ready just to get to the end already. Related to this is the second issue: its brutal hopelessness. There are a never-ending stream of cruel competitors for Afro to fight with leering grins and stark-mad eyes, and that’s just the start of it. Afro’s past is tragic, and the decisions he makes lead to stark, sad outcomes. And though it might be spoiling something to say it, the ending is not really an ending at all. There is no end to the cycle of viciousness. While I thought the show was well-made and entertaining to watch, I felt perhaps a tiny bit less of a person by the ending. It displays all too realistically the truth that revenge might seem sweet in the short term but leads to a never-ending circle of death. In fact, the resolution to the show really dampened my enthusiasm for the whole.

My recommendation of Afro Samurai is based on the skill and care put into the presentation. Much of it is incredibly impressive. If you love samurai action and slash-and-hack features, then you will adore this show. If you’re a Samuel L. Jackson fan, you might get a kick out of his work as the lead character. But if you’re easily disturbed or disquieted, it’s one to avoid. It’s a dark story with an unhappy ending where the ends, bleak and harsh and cruel as they are, justify the means.

Afro Samurai — extreme and gratuitous graphic violence, language, brief sexuality — B

Coming as less surprise to otaku than to series voice actress Asami Sanada (who played teacher Sawako Yamanaka), the homepage for the K-On anime franchise has confirmed the development of a feature film now that the 26 episode second TV series has just ended. Considering the tremendous popularity of the anime franchise, it’s difficult to imagine the franchise not getting a movie.

Source: Anime News Network

The homepage for next month’s Bakuman anime television series has added a short streaming teaser. The drama about two high school boys who aspire to become a professional manga creator team is based on a manga by Death Note creators Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata. The series will premiere on October 2.

Source: Anime News Network

The homepage for next month’s Arakawa Under the Bridge *2 television series has added a streaming teaser. The series is a sequel to this past spring’s first TV anime adaptation of Hikaru Nakamura’s bizarre gag manga. The new series will premiere on October 4.

Source Animenation

The current, highly rated Japanese anime television series Kaidan Restaurant will get its first theatrical film this August. Masayuki Ochiai (Parasite Eve) will direct the film, which will be a combination of anime and live action.

Source:animenation.net

The official Japanese homepage for the Pocket Monster movie franchise now hosts a Flash trailer for this summer’s 13th Pokemon theatrical film, along with two teaser trailers. Pocket Monster Diamond & Pearl: Genei no Hasha Zoroark (The Phantom Champion Zoroark) will hit Japanese theaters on July 10.

Source:animenation.net

The homepage for the Trigun: Badlands Rumble motion picture is now streaming a new trailer. The movie will shoot into Japanese theaters on April 24.

I’ve been wary of the previously released trailers, but there’s something about the composition and pacing of this trailer that feels more substantial and less like it’s trying too hard. There’s definitely a nice balance of humor, action, and drama in this trailer, not to mention a few really nice scenes.

Source:animenation.net

Tokyopop has announced that the entire 51 episode “Rave Master” (Groove Adventure Rave) anime television series is now available as an English dubbed DVD-on-demand collection retailing at $39.99 from Amazon’s CreateSpace DVD-R retail service. Tokyopop released three DVD volumes of the 2001 television series in 2003.

Source:animenation.net

FUNimation has announced its acquisition of digital, broadcast, and home video distribution rights, and merchandise rights to the current Baka to Test to Shokanju and Dance in the Vampire Bund anime television series. The English subtitled first two episodes of “Baka and Test – Summon the Beasts” and the first four English subtitled episodes of Vampire Bund are streaming on the FUNimation site now. New weekly episodes will premiere online next week, just days after Japanese TV broadcast. Streaming viewing for both series is free. Episodes will be available for permanent download at $1.99 per episode.

Nice shows, although Vampire Bund could certainly be better. Free simulcasting is nice, although it seems almost pointless considering that both shows are scheduled to end later this month. I wonder if the bizarre half-translated title “Baka and Test” was a licensor demand.

Update: Yes, we’re getting Vampire Bund, but not all of it. FUNimation has confirmed that it will only release the series in America in a censored version.

Source:animenation.net