 The "All About the
Fan Service"
ROSSMAN & CrewOnly in Japan can an entire genre of entertainment
be derived from the idea of the "panty shot". Even after being
almost literally covered in J-pop culture for over a decade
the people and thought processes of the Land of the Rising
Sun still surprise me.... No, "surprise" isn't the word I'm
looking for. I think I meant "scare the living shit out of
me."
Not that a little peek at an attractive girl's
panties is anything to be ashamed of (just learn to do it discreetly,
guys. Don't crawl around public places on your hands and knees
while looking skyward)... It's just that the Japanese take "panty
peeking" waaaaay
too far, like they do with most good things (i.e. fighting
games,
Pokemon, and pr0n in general). They have actually
built entire anime series around the concept of snatching a
glance
at some white
cotton dainties. To the Western mind, it may be a bit too much
to handle, but by God did I try to understand it!
I took it upon myself, at the MegaPlayboy's constant
prodding, to take in a panty show or two in order to give the
H-genre a chance. My only rule for the Player was "no
hardcore pr0n" in the selection of shows that he was to
present to me (I mean, panty-shot-shows are really only supposed
to be about
the tantalization of the panty, and nothing really naughty,
so I just wanted to judge them for their cock tease abilities
and not get into anything truly smutty... Plus I was afraid
that if any actual penetration appeared on screen that the
MegaPlayboy might give into his urges and start polishing
his cue stick right in front of me.... And after that indecent
incident 4 years ago with the watermelon and the Sear's catalogue
I
vowed to poke my big brown eyes the fuck out if I was ever
faced with a similar situation with him ever again.). And so,
he
brought to our televised ass-covers marathon Agent
Aika, Najica:
Blitz Tactics, and Ikkitousen (aka Strength
of a Thousand,
or as the retarded American company that's releasing it calls
it, Battle Vixens). This is their "Triple
Panty Review".
First we watched Agent Aika. I
was all about making the best of a kinky situation so I advised
that we play
a drinking game with the 7 episode OVA. 1 drink for every panty
shot, 2 for every titty shot, and a full bottle for every full
bodied female nude scene. Lesson number one of watching Aika turned
out to be "NEVER play a drinking game with a panty show
unless you
are
already a raging alcoholic". We were both completely trashed
in only 15 minutes. By the end of the first episode we had
each gone through a twelve pack of Killians. I can still see
little birdies, stitched onto panties, circling my head...
Owwwwww.
 From
what I remember, Agent Aika is about some
leggy chick named Aika who lives in some shitty future world
where the Earth is partially flooded for some reason. She's
a salvager who dives into sunken cities to bring back forgotten
items of yesteryear (for a price of
course). Aika has an annoying young megane sidekick, an old
fat boss,
a too-energetic rival salvager, and eventually a cross dressing,
quietly mellow intern who talks through puppets and dances
when he wants to be heard. I'm still confused about the whole
thing myself,
but it gets even weirder. See, Aika somehow gets involved with
some sick fuck siblings (who fuck sickly) who are determined
to do some bad shit with their army of hot women in short short
skirts (seriously, most of their uniforms didn't even cover
their crotches while they were standing at attention... though
truth be told I'm planning on dressing MY army of hot women
in nothing by spandex and bathing suits when I take over the
world so I guess I can't complain. But I digress). I think
the story involves a satellite or something. Head's still blurry.
Anyway, so Aika and her bubbly sidebitch have
to stop the sinful siblings from doing the nasty and taking
over or destroying the world (I had alcohol poisoning for most
of the show and was distracted by the unending panty shots...
so sue me for not remembering every little detail of the so
called "plot"). We find out that Aika has a magic
costume that turns her into a black lady and gives her even
more kick ass
powers, so that's cool. And then there's that secret agent
chick who interferes/helps the good guys out on occasion,
she was pretty hot. But after the bro and sis are permanently
"spaced out", the focus of the show turns to the
now unemployed uber-army of toned girls in short skirts as
they try to enact
revenge on Aika and her bizarro crew. Yeah.
Anyway, I found the tone of Aika to be pretty
much on par with what I was expecting. It had some pretty good
action going on, it was kinda fun, it was wacky as all ballz
out, it never took itself seriously in the least, and it had
some really unique camera angles to ensure that the horny viewer
would get at least one panty shot per camera cut or
their money back.
The second show that the
MPB got me to watch was Ikkitousen (that aptly American
named "Battle Vixens", which isn't
even close to its real translation, but a good indication
of what you'll find inside). Ikkitousen is
an odd mix of the Victoria Secret's Fashion show, Naruto, Where
the Boys Aren't (Volumes I - XXVI)
and Romance
of the Three Kingdoms. Only,
unfortunately, Combustible Campus Guardress has
already done it better in the past (just with a lot less panty,
and at least
CCG had characters named "Mr. Pachinko" and "Mr.
Porno Bookstore".). Seriously, I was a little
let down by Ikkitousen's lack of originality.
I was even floored later to learn that
it almost completely ripped off the manga Tenjou
Tenge almost
down to the poses struck before and during fights... That
is until I read Tenjou Tenge and
realized that it completely sucked Yeti ass. But once again
I digress.
 Ikkitousen is
all about a bunch of "Battle High
Schools" that fight each other to control all the other
schools in Tokyo and rule them all like the ancient conquering
emperors of Japan. There's
lots of blood and guts and some violent as all fuck deaths
throughout the whole thing, but there's also PLENTY of panty.
There's even lots of all-out sex going on. There were a couple
of scenes that had me floored when I first watched them. A
girl giving a guy a blow job while he talks school-wartime
strategy, two lesbians going at it hardcore and then walking
around ass-naked, and lots of perverted touching and grabbing
(which even by Japan's standards should have kept it from the
television airwaves and in small spank-theaters in the red
light districts). And the amount of titty shots alone
would make Larry Flynt blush and then slur out a "Holy
sshhhhfuck!"
Jeesus! I was in total awe that something this tittacular was
allowed on J-national TV. Man, it totally makes me realize
what complete prudes we Americans are. Thanks, Janet Jackson,
you
cunt, for setting us back another 20 years with your goddamn
Super Bowl Nipple Show. Bitch.
Okay, now to get into the bouncy world of all
that is Ikki. See, all these Battle Schools
want to lead the others, and so they each have a bunch of super
strong martial
artists as students who each wear a small Blue Seed-like
pendant as an earring. This seed thing supposedly holds the
reincarnated
essence of a famous soldier who fought during the "Three
Kingdoms"
era of real Chinese history. And all of the high schoolers
who possess them today are all forced to replay out the exact
same lives that their corresponding ancestors lived ages ago.
So if one was once
a backstabbing bitch/bastard in the olde days, then one is
bound to be a backstabbing bastard/bitch in his/her new body.
Honestly, that's gotta suck, especially when you know when
you're going to die, and who's going to kill you.
Soon, however, some of the big tittied girlies
and macho men decide that they want out of this terrible circle,
and then the "Is it possible to change one's
destiny?"
questions come alive and piss everyone off, most especially
the viewer. The only thing that was original in the least about
this show was its initial novelty to go well beyond what the
sensors should have allowed to air. The whole "secret
hidden power" in the main heroine reeked of Naruto and
his Nine Tails Fox that he has locked up inside; the whole "high
schoolers fighting in no-holds-barred contests"
was ripped from Tenjou and Combustible
Campus Guardress; and
the ending just really pissed me off even more then when I
found out that the picture of the naked woman that I had
snagged from my old roommate's room one day turned out to be
a photo
of
the
dick's now flabby mother when she was young (I never ever asked
why he had such a thing in his possession in the first place...
Would
YOU want to know?!). Nobody who did bad shit got their just
deserts. And some of the fighters who were built up so much
during the course of the short show never actually did any
fighting. That really blew. It had an ending, but it didn't
clear up
1/2 of the mess that was originally laid out for us. Pisser.
What's odd though is that everything I had read
about it online was like, "Ikkitousen was okay and all,
but it would have been a GREAT fighting drama
if it
wasn't for all the panty
shots." But all I kept thinking was "It
would have been an incredible panty show if it wasn't
for all the drama." Go fig. It
took itself too seriously at times. It should have just gone
all
the way into pervert heaven and made itself a T&A smorgasbord
of titillation. Instead it failed on both accounts: it was a
lame panty show, and it was an annoying action/dorama. It just
had
too much of one or the other to be successful at either.
The final panty show I'll
cover (today) is Najica Blitz Tactics. Man, by the
time this one rolled around I had grown so immune to the
panty shot that I didn't even
notice most of them. And despite that fact I was still seeing
panties wherever I looked and wherever I went for days afterwards.This
is a serious and untreatable ailment, my friends. But now
on with the review.
 What's there to say about Najica?.... Nothing
at all really. If you've seen Agent Aika you've already seen
Najica. From what I can tell it takes place in the same world
as Aika, the heroine herself is a clone for Aika, and both
Najica and Aika have annoying sidekicks to say random (supposedly)
funny things. Oh, and they both have panty shots out the ass.
Najica is a secret agent, like Aika, who goes
out on missions dictated to her by an older man, like Aika;
is lusted after by some horny schlong, like Aika; and kicks
a lot of hot female booty in skimpy outfits..... Like Aika.
But, to her credit, Najica has a real job outside of her secret
agent
crime
fighting. She's a perfume maker. I'm serious, I can't make
shit like that up. She sniffs perfumes all day and then fights
international robot chick terrorists at night... Hmmm, maybe
she only thinks that she fights all those robo-babe
terrorists at night. Maybe that's just a byproduct of the perfume
sniffing.
That would answer a ton of questions, like "Why?" Why
do the Japanese even feel the need to make these panty shot
shows?
Seriously, there's really not all that much titillation to
them. After seeing five pair of panties flashed at you in a
minute
you kind of get used to them. Then, where's the fun in that?
Why not just take the money that they would have spent on less-than-soft-core
spooge like this, and instead invest it in a true porno? That
would make a lot more people happy.
Not to get too far down on Najica,
as it was my favorite of the three series I saw. It's just
the panty show in general that I
question. I mean, yah, Spielberg would be amazed at the inventiveness
of the camera angles (On more than
one occasion the camera would be on the ground looking straight
up a skirt, with maybe a little
bit of the head of the girl speaking peeking out from behind
a massive pair of gazongas.
Now THAT'S
some pantyriffic anime for you), but that's really all any
of these series had going for them. Sure Aika and Najica would
have
still been kinda fun even without all the "A" and
some of the
"T", but there's no way that they would have been
able to compete with real shows that have a comparatively small
amount of fan service
like Vandread and Kiddy
Grade.
Those shows at least have a plot and three dimensional characters.
Sigh... But I guess as long as the
MegaPlayboy and his fellow pervs keep buyin' this lace-stitched
stuff,
those kinky Japanese will continue cranking them out. And,
well, I guess the panty shows are not even 1/10th as scary
as the tentacle shiznit. I don't even want to go anywhere near
those in this review.
What
did I think of the Tres Panty Experience?
In the end I find that I must give Agent Aika a
14 out of 20 Stripper Panties, Ikkitousen 13 out of 20
Stripper Panties, and Najica 15.35 out of 20 Stripper Panties. Right
now I am totally totally burned the fuck out on panties.
I don't even want to think about them for a loooong time.
Karen better not be wearing any when I get home or she's
going to be getting a very naughty spanking. Naughty, naughty
Karen. GrrrrrrOOOwl!
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