| In Japan, animation (or anime) covers a much broader spectrum of topics than it does over here. The art form is used for everything from children’s entertainment to pornography to instructional videos on how to do your taxes or write up a will. Viewers interested in anime’s breadth of scope would do well to check out Otafest, a fun two-day anime festival taking place this weekend (see elsewhere in this issue for the lowdown).
Of course, many western viewers like to ignore the rich tapestry of family fare available and focus on the smut. Hey, that sounds like fun! Let’s do that right now!
Actually, Agent Aika (1997) isn’t really smut, it’s just really, really panty-obsessed. You get to see a lot of panties in this show. Like, a lot. The camera angles in every scene are inevitably low to the ground, giving us a pretty much constant view up the female characters’ skirts. Of course, the skirts in question are so short, you could probably see their panties from any angle other than directly overhead. It isn’t just one pair of panties at a time, either – if there are six women in a scene, the camera will be in just the right position to see all their panties at once. You’re never more than three seconds away from a glimpse of white cotton or silk.
The Goldfinger-style villain commands a huge army of fit female henchwomen, all sporting identical tight miniskirts that seem to end at the belt. The slightest tremor or explosion causes legions of leggy cuties to do the splits, or to land arse-up on the ground, straddling the camera lens. I don’t think I’m being clear enough on how many panties there are here. It’s as though each pair of panties were a soft, snug-fitting white star in a vast galaxy.
The heroine in this parade of underthings is the titular Agent Aika, who possesses a magical bustier that gives her superpowers. Unfortunately, it only works for a limited period of time, and then disappears, leaving Aika naked and defenceless in the middle of a perilous situation. This makes her less of a superhero than a perpetual damsel-in-distress. It would all be a bit of a bummer if there weren’t so many panty-clad bums and crotches around to lighten the mood. And believe me; the mood is light – almost buoyant, in fact. The good guys are cheerful and well-meaning, nothing very nasty happens to anyone and the parade of exposed underpants is so constant that it becomes utterly ridiculous. In the world of panty anime (pantyme?), Agent Aika reigns unchallenged, although I hear that the same director’s Najica Blitz Tactics (2001) gives Aika a run for her money.
Other Japanese cartoons occasionally show an interest in panties, although few go as far as Agent Aika. Sometimes a panty enthusiast will turn up in an otherwise innocuous anime for comic relief. Witness "Happosai," the lecherous old martial arts master from Ranma _ (1989). This two-foot-tall geriatric doesn’t appear in the storyline very often, but when he does, he’s an unstoppable hurricane of panty-stealing mania. Picture the Tasmanian Devil on a panty raid, and you’ll get the idea.
His age and status command respect from the other characters in the series, but they can rarely conceal their distaste when he rampages through town clutching a sack full of lingerie, his face concealed behind a knotted handkerchief (of course, when you’re old, wrinkled and shorter than a beagle, a handkerchief isn’t very good at concealing your identity). If you threw a dozen panties into the air, this guy would grab them all before they hit the ground. He’s been known to leap into the path of a speeding train just to retrieve undies.
If you ever showed him Agent Aika, he’d probably explode. |
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