Imagine We Still Had VHS (Instead of Depressed Trolls like @CfuFreedom) - Agent AIKa - Naked Missions

 *Blog post started on September 29, 2020.

Adulting can be pretty hard. Yes, I know. That is common knowledge. Everything is probably just a blur to me because I have worked everyday since the 21st and even fit in the time to put 180 miles on the car to visit my parents during this stretch.

Sunday cannot come soon enough. Fortunately, the need to use up my vacation days at the bank next month has given me a few sporadic days off. Which means I should not be too annoyed about any long stretch when the retailer puts me on both days of a weekend. Seeing those paychecks further drive the point home. Here is to hoping that I can get my finances under control so that I am ready to pursue the creative scene once Chicago opens back up.

How did Styx ever have too much time on their hands? Perhaps it is because of the lack of social media. Dealing with racist and sexist trolls can take up a lot of time. I could stop, but now I have some of these assholes following me, so it must mean that I am getting good at it. If picking on me is as important as mocking The Squad and Elizabeth Warren, my ego feels good.

That is the last laugh I suppose. If I can get the point where all these sociopathic conservatives with like those below who have no respect for women's rights become followers:

@kayleighmcenany
@robbystarbuck
@Klutzy84
@Alvaroidz

@TheGoldWaterUS

I will thoroughly enjoy ignoring them like all of my liberal heroes. It is all about making them realize their annoying comments have no value, but for whatever reason, my opinions do.

Another distraction to properly using my time is trying to decide what to watch if I do not have a Red Box or a Netflix DVD. We are still two blog posts away from diving back into 90-minute movies, so that disqualifies about half of my options. Most of my remaining unwatched movies really demand a very attentive eye (The Criterion Collection and Terry Gilliam works). This is excluding all the anime.

Because I was reviewing only the first 90 minutes of series, I feel it is best that I not open anything up new and revisit what I had not reviewed. In essence, an entire series is being represented by three episodes, thus I do not want to give the wrong impressions of products that I have yet to have an all encompassing opinion on. The Blu-ray series have all been taken care of in the past four weeks, so lets go through my DVD's, starting at the letter A.

Unfortunately, this leads me to "Agent AIKa" a series I remember for its obscene amount of fan service and objectification of women. The worst thing about that is that I purchased it "used" from an FYI. I do not feel cool just selling it back. If it was a once defective DVD sold at Big Lots or a truck stop, mine opinion about reselling a resell is different.

Those initial statements maybe harsh. I did not have my critical lenses on. Being caught off guard seeing an upskirt shot of every female character, my opinion of the story may have been tainted and I could have missed enduring details. This rewatch should give this series a fair shake. More importantly, it warrants this series being a purchase instead of a rental or a torrent.

Agent AIKa - Episodes 1 to 4 (Naked Missions)

20 years after the great disaster that flooded 95% of the planet's landmass, salvagers serve a vital role for the current society, searching flooded cities for useful resources. One of the best is Aika who is essentially a super spy with her beauty, ingenuity, and combat capabilities. Unfortunately for her, her boss and former partner Gozo Aida's company, the K2 Corporation, is not flourishing because he refuses to take on missions that will definitely put his team at risk. This has allowed his competitors, primarily Gusto and Bandora, to control the industry.

Aika agrees with Rion, Gozo's daughter, that they need to turn their fortunes around regardless of the risks. They first take on an offer from a "government" agency to obtain information and/or samples of a potentially endless energy source called Lagu. Danger presents itself immediately as Neena Hagen and her battalion of maid soldiers attack the meeting. Undeterred and now equipped with her ultranate metal bustier, Aika takes to the skies in her jet to search for Lagu.

Stress is everywhere for Aika. Gusto has also taken of this mission in his far more modern fighter jet and Rion decides to stowaway in her jet. The biggest problem is a military vessel is also en route to the discovery, and they feature a greater armory than that of our protagonists. Gusto and Bandora had been shot down and not long after, a dog fight with Neena leads to a crash landing that the bustier allow Aika and Rion to survive.

 

They are soon captured, but Neena's brother Rudolph seems to be an accommodating captor who has his mindset on bedding Aika or at least find out the true power of the bustier. Rion is far too clever to remain in the Hagen's custody. She soon meets an unlikely ally in a Class A Secret Agent Maypia who may even allow her to complete the mission. Gusto is also on his way to save the day.

 

Are there too many moving parts for their escape to work? Can they afford to escape when Rudolph Hagen's plan seems to be invoking an even greater disaster. In the end, it will probably come down to her and her magical corset.

Agent Aika (1997) - IMDb

 

"Agent AIKa" is the first OVA that I have reviewed since "RG Veda", so it turned out that if I was in for an hour, might as well commit to the end of the disk. It was only an extra 30 minutes. This post reviews the first series of this OVA which was released between 1997 and 1999.

 

This rewatch was needed to be fair to this series. If I was paying thorough enough attention when I first watched the two-disc "Complete Collection Anime Legends", I would have known watching two episodes would have been a suitable amount of this rather misogynistic and rapey action comedy.

The "Naked Missions" (Central Park Media's title of the first DVD release) was definitely a product of the late 90's. Perhaps if I got around to this series when it first made it here stateside, I might have forgave all of this nonsense (Then again, I am not overly forgiving of "Knights of Ramune", another series picked up by Central Park Media.). Now, a series that features an upskirt of a tourist guide whom is only in the opening scene is an immediate turn off. It just screams juvenile. If you want to tease hentai, you need to deliver at some point.

It is not a complete failure as an anime. The story is solid enough and if you love an abundance of uniquely drawn anime girls, it may serve as a nice screensaver at a party with some "Block Rocking Beats" or Muse's "Panic Station". Sadly, wanting to shroud our primary protagonist in secrecy and not really developing the other characters leaves us with characters who are stock-photo tropes. That includes our incestuous antagonists.

While the character designs are what every otaku hopes for from gal games and the animation is solid for the most part. It is hindered by never deciding how blond Aika is, but the worst problem is with the presentation of all of the panty shots leading to everything just all blending together. The only means to mix things up are the boob grabs from the villains and the overly aggressive, non-consensual nature of the bustier in "AIKa's " transformation sequences.

"Agent AIKa" does not offer much up to an audience that is not out to celebrate acceptable perversion. That would be an audience with the attitude of, "It is not porn, so do not judge me." If you want to sample this "Anime Legend" (per Bandai Entertainment), I would suggest the Japanese-language track. The English dub sounds like the voice actors know how unimportant their portrayals of these one-dimensional characters will be. It is a generous presumption that that is the case. They may just be the worst team out there.

 

Knights of Ramune: Blast Off...Like Cutey Honey

It is cool that Angelfire is still around. It is also cool that if you look hard enough, you can find most of the GeoCities websites preserved on a server. If only "@Midnight" was still a thing. It is a shame that they will never capitalize on that content.

Angelfire may have kept my post GeoCities/Web Design Certification (icc.edu) site up the past 17 years, but with Yahoo's betrayal, if you have not created an operating system, I am going to put all my eggs in one basket. Thus, I am going to start moving the original AnimeFlow over to the Blogger sphere. So let us get over one repetitive tangent (look at all the It and I) and getting into repeating my earliest critical works.

Knights of Ramune: Blast Off

'Knights of Ramune: Blast Off' (English version)
© 1999 Ashi Productions Co., Ltd. / IDO International Co., Ltd.

VS Knight Ramune & 40 Fresh' (Japanese version)
© 1997 Ashi Productions Co., Ltd

Genre: Sci-Fi (Action themed) Length: 60 minutes (Two TV Episodes) Audience: 16 Up

Opinion: Any anime series that has a adorable slime ball character has some potential.

This is a review of the dubbed VHS release.

Written by Katsumi Hasegawa.

This first two episode volume of Knights of Ramune starts off with our heroines, the two Holy Virgins Cacao and Parfait along with their little slime ball/spiritual advisor Piqu, being sent to find the Fourth Warrior Ramune. Their search begins by them landing on a military space craft that is destroying all possible resistance on a nearby planet. Even more shocking, who ever is in charge has captured hundreds of children that they are running experiments on. With all this confusion, one question is clear. Why were they sent to this ship? 

To get rid of some of the confusion, they free all the children and make their escape attempt. Not to say they had an escape plan, but anyone that they had was immediately scrapped when they accidentally get trapped in a giant robot with one of the children. After surviving a close battle, they crash land on the now desolate planet. Our heroines now must make sense of their situation, figure out how to pilot their robot, and tolerate Piqu and their new travel companion, Lemon.

Ever since I finished watching Iria: Zieram the Animation in 1998, I have prevented myself from purchasing Central Park Media (C.P.M.), an anime and manga (Japanese comics) distributor with its two video divisions being U.S. Manga Corps and Software Sculptors. The reason may sound unjust since I have not seen this company release a bad title, but their titles were being frequently shown on the Sci Fi Channel and their preview reel before their videos stunk. 

Fortunately, my little brother loves watching action animes, and by him purchasing the first volume of Records of Lodoss War: Chronicles of the Heroic Knight, I found out that C.P.M had changed their preview format from a reel to individual previews. One of these previews featured a catchy theme song and cool animation and it was for Knights of Ramune. After finding out that the writer was Katsumi Hasegawa who also worked on the multiple Slayers series (I later realized that she did not work on Slayers: The Motion Picture, the only Slayers release I was familiar with.), this $25 video cassette became an impulse buy.

Even though I was originally excited about who wrote Knights of Ramune, I failed to recognize that the character designer was Osamu Horiuchi who also worked on the only A.D.V. Films release that has a preview which shows nudity out right, New Cutey Honey. This anime turns out to be what I expected New Cutey Honey to be. Unnecessary nudity galore and a surprisingly large amount of sexual exploitation of women. And people wonder why Japanese Animation has not crossed over to the States.

If you ignore all the exploitation of women, you have an intriguing story with some funny scenes with some very likable characters. I guess any anime series that has a adorable slime ball character has some potential. Also, most technical aspects of the series are very good featuring a cute and unique character design and a very good soundtrack.

If you want something to joke around with the guys about, or if you want to see some strong feminine characters (hopefully that sounds like I have thought about the female visitors) try to find a place where you can rent Knights of Ramune. Acknowledging that most of the nudity is for a comedic purpose and look pass the crude sexual segments with the villainesses, this series shows that Central Park Media always seems to release a good, solid product. Will I buy the next volume of this series? Since I only make $55 a week and I tend to treat myself to movie outings and fast food, buying the second tape is not a top priority compared to viewing other titles.

NOTE TO READER: After looking at several other reviews on the 'Net' for this video cassette, I have discovered that I am one of the kinder critics when it comes to this title. This is probably because I interpret almost everything as some form of comedy while other critics consider it to be unjustified excuses for nudity.