You might find the title for this post a little odd, but trust me, it has bearing on the series. I don’t think I’ve actually really slated an anime on this blog, but there’s a first time for everything.

While watching Aika, you’re probably going to have a fair bit of trouble figuring out what the series is actually about. I’ll give you a brief run through the list of possible options:
1. It’s about Aika
2. It’s about a plot to destroy the world
3. It’s about panties.

All three options are equally viable actually. In a semi-post apocalyptic world, where much of the land surface is sunk underwater, Aika is a salvager, whose job, among other things, consists of salvaging things from cities that are now underwater. Sounds straightforward enough – until Aika’s company gets approached by some shady bloke to rescue something of dubious importance that possesses the ability to destroy the world. And of course, someone else wants it too and this someone is – as tradition demands – an evil, slightly disturbed maniac who wants to destroy the current world and rule what remains. Of course, from his point of view, he’s being quite sensible about the whole thing.

It is here that you learn that Aika isn’t just any normal girl out doing a job; this chick has moves. She fights well, she fights dirty, and she isn’t someone you want to cross. In summary, she kicks ass.

You'll be seeing a lot of this in Aika

But I see the question hovering in your minds: What has all this got to do with panties? Just this. The male population in this anime consist of about 10 people – more or less – and none of them in anything approaching a major role, except of course for our homicidal maniac. Anybody and everybody who fights is female. The entire crew of the homicidal maniac’s base and ship are female. And of course, at various points in the series they have the misfortune of running into Aika’s fists.

The next point is that, apparently, it’s illegal to wear anything more than a short skirt of about 5 inches in length. Of course, wearing less seems to be quite okay.

So, you should see where I’m going with this. A 99% female cast, fighting each other, wearing really short skirts. Which gives the show more than ample opputunity to flash the crowd, as it were. And this is where you’re going to end up having trouble focusing on the first two options I mentioned earlier.

Really, the amount of fanservice in this series is amazing – and later, jawdropping – to behold. Any and every opportunity that could possibly be used to show panties is used. And if there wasn’t an opportunity to show panties,

Conversations take place with the camera at, or near, floor-level

that was used too. Plenty of times during a dialogue between two characters, your hypothetical cameraman would be lying flat on the ground to provide viewers with the best possible angle. After all, who wants to look at faces when people are talking. That’s just boring.

And here we had the trouble with animation as well. The already short skirts worn by our dueling divas had the magical ability to randomly shorten and lengthen, of course maximising our ability to view the show’s most pertinent plot point. Panties. Gravity and physics were also optional – any girl who got knocked down invariably ended up either with her ass in the air (really, I’m serious), or flat on her back with her skirt flipped up. Hardly necessary, given the length of the damn things.

Our hypothetical cameraman, being the consummate professional that he is, was of course always in the best possible position to record … errr … the facts.

So – good or bad? It’s going to take a lot out of me to admit this show was good in any sense. The amount of fanservice was massively overdone, and unneccesary, from my point of view. It actually became a bit annoying. There was a plot, for the first four episodes of the seven episode series, and it seemed like the next three were added on as an afterthought to maximise the exposure time. But as a whole the series seemed rather contrived.

Users on Anime News Network seemed to share my sentiments, with the majority of them giving the series a middling vote – the show rated 5.7/10. Still higher than I would have expected. If I were inclined to give ratings – I would’ve given a 3 or 4.

There’s no accounting for taste however – 35 voters between them gave the series a 9 and 10 rating.

My advice – give this show wide berth. Even if you enjoy high levels of fanservice – be it panty-shots, cleavage, nudity or whatever – there are plenty of other shows out there which you’re likely to enjoy more. Give the romantic comedy Kanokon a shot – it’s funny, delightful, and much less of a pain to sit through.