Agent Aika



"The girls - and their panties - are back!"

- Tagline on a trailer for one of the OVAs

Agent Aika (or AIKa) is both the Ultimate Panty Shot Vehicle and definitive proof that Most Writers Are Male. There is also some plot - and it's surprisingly amusing.

Twenty Minutes Into the Future, the Earth has been ruined due to global warming; lots of places are now submerged deep under the sea. Enter Aika Sumeragi, a beautiful woman who works as a "Salvager" (scuba-divers hunting for valuables under the water) in a little family-owned company managed by the father-daughter team of Gonzo and Rion Anda. Since Gonzo's policy of good service for a low price manages to drive the company to bankruptcy, he decides to accept a high-paying mission: finding a material named Lagu (known in the Latin American subtitles as "Ragg").

After recovering the Lagu, Aika and Rion are captured by an oversexed White Haired Pretty Boy named Hagen, who wants the Lagu so that he can bring about The End of the World As We Know It and repopulate the planet with his own descendants; to that end, he has created an army of scantily-clad and skilled women called the Delmo.

Aika has a secret, though: when she was younger, she was the victim of some nasty experiments, and as a result, she possesses a Super Corset that transforms her into a super-powered version of herself (that is all but naked). When Hagen discovers Aika's secret, he thinks she will do fine in his harem. After Aika rejects the prospect, she takes it upon herself to find a way to defeat Hagen, his even more disturbing sister, and his entire army; with the help of Rion, Gust (a salvager who has a crush on Aika), and the enigmatic spy Miss Maypia, Aika ends up saving the world and stopping Hagen's plans.

That's what happens in the first four OVA episodes; after these episodes proved popular, three more were created to capitalize on the success.

There are two new series of OVA, Prequels where Aika is a teenager, called AIKa R-16: Virgin Mission and AIKa ZERO.

Najica Blitz Tactics -- by the same director of Aika/AIKa 16 (Katsuhiko Nishijima) and the same studio behind all of the Aika OVAs (Fantasia) -- has totally different characters and a wholly different plot, but for the most part displays the same level of Fan Service as that Aika does.

This series provides examples of:

 * Aloof Ally: Maypia Alexymetalia
 * Applied Phlebotinum
 * Badass Normal: Rion, Gust
 * Between My Legs: This shot is often employed for easy upskirt shots.
 * Bifauxnen
 * Bodyguard Babes
 * Body Horror: Nina got it after trying to use the reproduced Aika's nanomachine enhancement
 * Bratty Teenage Daughter: Rion
 * Bridge Bunnies: The bridge of Hagen's battleship is manned by White Delmos.
 * Brother Sister Incest: Rudolf and Nina.
 * Cat Fight: Many times, but especially when Aika vs Rie.
 * Colour Coded Dress Code For Your Convenience: Black Delmo are lowly foot soldiers and menial administrators of Hagen's/the Delmogeny's battleship and outposts, the Blues are highly-trained assault troops and guards, the Pinks are mechanics, technicians and heavy-ordnance operators, the Goldens are a post-Hagen special-ops task force, and the Whites are the Delmo Corps' top-ranking commanders and Hagen's closest personal bodyguards - and (probably out of trust or something) also act as the Bridge Bunnies for Hagen's battleship.
 * Combat Tentacles: One of the Ultranate's powers.
 * Cool Big Sis: Aika
 * Dangerously Short Skirt: Gee.
 * Dressing As the Enemy: Rion and Maypia does this, but so does Michikusa who just think the Delmo outfit is cute.
 * Dull Surprise: Hagen tends to react to everything with a monotone "What?" in the English dub.
 * Fan Service: Dear God.
 * Form Fitting Wardrobe: There's no way these minidresses can get any tighter; goddamn bless your perverse lechery, Hagen.
 * Four Is Death: The four Golden Delmos.
 * Furo Scene: Two of them in the first two episodes of Aika Zero between Aika, Karen and Eri.
 * Gainaxing
 * Handsome Lech: Hagen; see Paid Harem.
 * Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: It's doubtful if those Delmo girls have little, if any marksmanship training. Lampshaded once when Bandora commented if they managed to hit something despite their pansy marksmanship.
 * Improperly Placed Firearms: Those assault rifles the Delmos use appears to be St G-44 rifles, I wonder why they still use those WW 2 grade weapons in the future.
 * Jerk With a Heart of Gold: Gust.
 * Last Episode New Character: Sania and Tonia, the last half of the Golden Delmo is introduced in the final episode.
 * Likes Older Women: Gust, even more obvious 10 years earlier
 * Market Based Title that develops into Title Confusion: The original title in Japanese is just AIKa (yep, that's how it's romanized), but for the English market it was retitled "Agent Aika", which is weird since Aika is not described as an "agent" of any sort.
 * This probably comes from the fact that the first episode of the OVA is titled "Beautiful Agent". (Yes, "eejiento" in katakana.)
 * Meaningful Name: "Delmo" (romanji Derumo) is an anagram of "model" (romanji moderu), as in "fashion model". Don't let the initial connotations fool you, however.
 * Meganekko: Rion.
 * Minion Shipping
 * Morally Ambiguous Doctorate
 * Never Trust a Trailer: Among other things, Rion wore Aika's Corsett of Power in an official trailer but never in the show itself.
 * No Name Given: All but one of the White Delmos are not given name at all, and the one given name is not the leader.
 * Over the Shoulder Carry: Yet another way of ensuring a Panty Shot.
 * Paid Harem: Hagen wants to "cleanse the world from the unworthy" using the Lagu, and "repopulate it with the Delmos' assistance", and he offers the captive Rion a chance to "help" him in this endeavour. Needless to say, she tells him in no uncertain terms that she does not appreciate the "offer" at all. With a good deal of unladylike swearing and cursing.
 * Panty Fighter: Probably the Ur-example.
 * Panty Shot: Do NOT make a drinking game out of panty shots if you are adverse to alcohol poisoning.
 * Hagen deliberately has the Captain's chair on his ship's bridge on a considerably lower elevation than the rest of the room, to give a perfect view of every single passing Delmo's underwear.
 * Picture Drama
 * Quirky Miniboss Squad: The four Golden Delmos, maybe also all White Delmos as well who are supposedly their leaders though they attack Aika in a way of Zerg Rush rather than skill.
 * Roaring Rampage of Revenge: The Delmo's motives after
 * Shower Scene
 * Something Completely Different: The "Special"
 * Spell My Name With an S: The Latin American subtitling aired in Locomotion had Aika looking for the "Ragg".
 * Stalker With a Crush: Gust, no really, he is a good guy
 * Stripperiffic: Justified in the case of the Delmo girls, since Hagen wanted his army that way. Other characters don't have such an excuse.
 * Utopia Justifies the Means: Hagen's motive.
 * White Haired Pretty Boy: Rudolf Hagen.
 * You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Transformed Aika. She also has Ambiguously Brown skin.