Agent Aika is a 7-part 1997 OVA produced by the now defunct Studio Fantasia and directed by Katsuhiko Nishijima, who famously helmed Project A-ko in 1987. Being renowned for ecchi (particularly gratuitous panty-shots), it’s been vaguely on my watch list for a long while now and I finally got an opportunity to watch the whole thing. I honestly went in expecting it to barely hold my attention other than providing serviceable eye-candy but it actually turned out to be surprisingly engrossing on a number of levels.

Unlike ecchi trash produced these days, Aika, being a 90s OVA, is afforded much better production values. The designs are lavish and beautiful and the animation is really well done – from the cute girls in action through to the mechanical designs of ships, boats, guns etc and even the background art. The vibe of the animation overall is reminiscent of Evangelion. Even the music is solid!

In terms of the girls, they don’t get a lot of character development but they’re fun enough. My preference went to the less mature Rion (the glasses-wearing redhead) over the femme fatale style of Aika herself.

It doesn’t disappoint on the fanservice, to the point of hilarity even. The panty shots are the feature-point, and the anime wastes no opportunity to cram as many into frame as possible. They kind of lose their sexual appeal in the end, but it’s all in good fun.

I was happy to find that it delivers more than just panty shots too, with a good dosage of really well-drawn nudity. 90s boobs are hard to beat! (images self-censored for this blog)

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