Agent Aika: Final Battle

Original Title: AIKa
Romanized: AIKa
Literal: N/A

Plot Synopsis

The story takes up six months after the first series ended. Things are going much better for KK Corp. They've moved into a new office building, and have even hired some atractive if dim-witted help. But the remnants of Hargen's miniskirted, color-coded organization are still lurking about and dead-set on revenge.

Quick Review

Rating: 1.5 / 5
Reviewer: Marc
Review Date: 2008-01-22

This three-episode story arc takes up six months after the first series ended. It's largely similar in mood and quality, but it does make a few adjustments on the original. On the positive, Hargan is gone, the villains have just a bit more character than you'd expect, and the anything-goes brawling action is even more plentiful than before. Also good is that the realistically disorganized action is back, even if it is almost entirely an excuse for awkward camera angles. On the bad, the heroes have hired a dumb blonde himbo that is so annoying he makes C-ko look good, and the plot has gone from bad to somewhere between awful and non-existent. And of course the endless stream of exposed underwear is not only back, there's possibly even more of it now.

In all, more of the same--more quality brawls composed entirely of attractive women in miniskirts or less, more non-plot, and even more incredibly, shamelessly gratuitous panty exposure.

US DVD Review

USM's "Final Battle" DVD includes the whole series, a lengthy music video, and that three-part bonus mini-episode, plus USM's standard battalion of DVD-ROM features (cast, scripts, and an art gallery).

Content Guide

Easily qualifies for a 16-up rating; underwear galore, some mildly dirty jokes, plus mature themes and outright nudity.

Violence: 2 - Not overly graphic, but violent enough.

Nudity: 4 - Enough underwear to boggle the mind as well as more traditional nudity.

Sex/Mature Themes: 3 - Nothing explicit, but moderately mature themes.

Language: 2 - Not noteworthy.

Notes and Trivia

There is a sort-of fourth half-episode of this series. The three-part "downtime" promo episode takes place while KK Corp. is moving into their new office space and introduces their new employee. It's worth watching--in addition to a couple of decent jokes, it has a full-length opening and ending of its own.

Agent AIKa is created by Katsuhiko Nishijima, the creator of Project A-ko. In addition to the OAV series and its more recent prequel, R16, there is also a single manga prequel book, Trial 0, that hasn't yet been translated into English, by Ayumi Konomichi (interestingly enough, a woman). It's funny to note that the manga is more or less what Aika would have been without all the nudity and underwear--there are a total of maybe a dozen upskirt shots in the entire 200 page length (well below par for a normal series), and no nudity at all.

Availability

Currently available in the US from Bandai on a 3-disc complete "Anime Legends" set of all 7 OAVs.

Was previously available in the US from US Manga Corps on two bilingual DVD volumes, three dubbed VHS volumes, or two subtitled VHS volumes (the third VHS volume was never released in subtitled form). All are out of print and relatively hard to find as of this writing; you might try eBay, but there are a lot of bootlegs there so buyer beware.

Looking to buy? Try these stores: RightStuf (search) | AnimeNation | Akemi's a(nime)Store