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R2 DVD Reviews
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Written by maehara
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Thursday, 25 September 2008 16:00 |
 Fanservice. It can be different things to different people, but say the word to most anime fans and they'll assume you mean a show that makes as much as possible of the female form - usually as a way of hiding its failings in other departments. There are few shows that take fanservice to quite the same level as Najica Blitz Tactics - so can we assume that means it's otherwise rubbish..?
1 - A Magnificent Secret Agent with a Roses in Her Hands
Najica Hiiragi: officially working for CRI Cosmetics, with a particular expertise in the creation of new and exciting perfumes; unofficially, a high-calibre secret agent with a tendency to wear short skirts that leave little to the imagination. Much like every other woman in her world, apparently, but enough of that for now. Her latest covert mission involves the rescue of a young girl, being held in an offshore fortress guarded almost exclusively by other young girls in maid uniforms. Najica must infiltrate the fortress and bring the girl, Lila, back - but Lila's far from being an ordinary young girl, and there's a surprise in store for Najica when she gets back to base...
2 - A Pretty Partner with a Gun in her Hands
Najica's not at all pleased to find she's been handed the care of Lila, and confronts her boss Gento about the matter. What she hadn't expected to hear is that Lila isn't human: she's a Humaritt, an artificial life-form that's almost human, but not quite. Faced with the choice of either making use of her or seeing her destroyed, CRI have chosen to put her to use - she does have super-human attributes, after all, and they could come in handy. None of this makes Najica any happier, and Lila soon picks up on the negative vibes. Their first joint mission, though - an assignment to protect the daughter of a top judge - soon sees Najica changing her tune, even though Lila's common sense clearly needs work...
3 - Ugly Relics in the Jet-Black Darkness
When a military base in the South Pacific is destroyed by a strike from an orbiting laser satellite, it's a major incident - especially as all military satellites were meant to have been disabled some 30 years previously. Najica's called in to trace whoever was controlling the satellite and disable it permanently, so she and Lila head undercover into the world of one Mr Todd, collector of all sorts of valuable items. Najica's hoping that includes military satellites, while Todd has his eyes on adding a certain Humaritt to his collection...
4 - The Fictitious Star with a Sweet Trap-Like Perfume
Lila is quickly becoming a very useful assistant for Najica - she just needs to work on her habit of following orders to the letter when a little improvisation would make life so much easier. Perhaps their next mission will help with that: it's suspected that hit pop group 4C'zNs has a Humaritt as one of their members. If so, the target has mastered human-like emotions very well, and so Najica and Lila are dispatched to see if they can uncover which girl is the odd one out. When spotting a Humaritt relies on spotting a well-hidden serial number, though, Najica and Lila have to get creative...
Najica was produced by Studio Fantasia, who were also responsible for Stratos 4 and Agent Aika - if you've seen them you'll know they're also heavy on the fanservice, and you could almost say that fanservice is their reason for being. In their case, "fanservice" means "panty shots", and as many of them as possible, with Najica being their tour de force: there's deliberately more white cotton and other assorted undergarment material on show here than in any other anime. Ever. The vast majority of the cast are female; they all wear either a very short skirt or a very short dress; and "camera angles" are invariable about 5cm off the floor and looking upwards, all the better to see what they're wearing under those short clothes. It's a veritable fanservice assault, and it's the first thing you'll judge the show on - it'll probably turn off more people than it titillates, but it's such an integral part of the show that you certainly can't ignore it.
Even if you enjoy it, though, you do get enured to it after a while, and that lets the show's main story come through. That's a surprise in itself - fanservice spectaculars usually don't bother with story, but Najica has one, and while it's nothing deep or emotive, it's fun in its own way. Think "female James Bond" with some elements of Noir and you'll be on the right track. Based on these four episodes, there are two main tracks to follow: the ongoing missions to round up the escaped Humaritts (artificial humans who usually have special abilities and are theoretically completely loyal to their programmed masters), and the ongoing development of Lila, Najica's new Humaritt partner. When Lila first appears, she's "empty" - she has programmed knowledge but no lifeskills or common sense to help her make use of that knowledge, giving her a childlike charm and leading to some half-decent comedy as she invariably does things the wrong way. Her learning process, and how she becomes more of a person through that, is a key part of the series.
The fun part, though, is the secret agent action. Najica is set in a futuristic world where sea-level rises have conspired to give the series a sort-of otherworldly feel, and there's use of the occaional little gadget that Q would have been proud of - there's clearly a James Bond influence going on there, and if you enjoy that sort of implausible action then there'll be plenty here to keep you amused. That side of the story is very much Humaritt-of-the-week, with each one having a different special ability that they can use to cause problems for Najica and Lila. That helps to keep the stories different enough not to become too repetitive, and the general feeling of fun that the series manages to exude means that it's very easy to keep watching just out of the pure guilty pleasure of it.
Nothing great, then, just a fun little series that sets out to do something enjoyable and succeeeds in that on several levels. Memorable? Probably not. Entertaining? Absolutely. If you can deal with the fanservice overload, it's well worth a look.
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