Ask John: Is Agent Aika a “Perverted” Anime?

Question:
What is your opinion of Agent Aika? Do you think it’s sleazy and/or perverted?

Answer:
As a totally devoted fan of Japanese animation, it’s my personal tendency to forgive a lot of faults with anime simply because it’s anime. Also because anime is such a broad and complex medium, I don’t feel obligated to consider every program seriously. I think that a lot of Western viewers have a tendency to unknowingly critique anime based on the underlying qualification that it’s “cartoons,” or feel a need to justify anime as a medium worthy of critical analysis rather than critiquing anime either based on its own production quality or on the basis of anime being cinema. Programs like Aika (the original Japanese title is simply “Aika.” Central Park Media added the “Agent” to the title for the American market.) and Shadow Skill are commonly criticized for being too shallow or superficial or “sleazy,” but what are these programs being compared to? With the idea that these are “cartoons” in mind, Aika may seem quite perverted, and Shadow Skill may seem like superfluous fluff. When considered entirely for its own merit, Aika succeeds quite effectively in being exactly what it tries to be.

There’s no question that Aika is exploitive, but the series never seems tawdry or sleazy because, while women are visually presented as pure sexual objects, their characterizations establish them not as victims or sex objects, but competent, cognizant women who feel no shame or outrage over their dress or sexuality. From a feminist perspective, Aika superficially seems like little more than male sexual gratification, but closer inspection reveals strong, willful female characters more competent, intelligent and uncompromising than their male counterparts- the very role model of feminism. Furthermore, besides providing risqué but non-pornographic titillation, Aika is also an action/adventure series, and in that regard also succeeds brilliantly featuring excellent character design, high quality OAV animation, effective direction and cinematography, astute attention to background and mechanical detail, and simply thrilling frequent action sequences. The intentions of the Aika OAV series are quite clear, and the production succeeds in those goals brilliantly.

Like all cinematic genres, anime is created to entertain and enlighten, although not necessarily both at once. And like all cinematic genres, from Hollywood studio films to network television, not all anime is intended for all viewers. These facts must be considered in any review of an anime film. Essentially, not all anime is Graveyard of Fireflies, and not all anime is Doraemon. It’s not fair to point out the lack of depth or substance in Aika compared to Evangelion just as it’s not fair to point out the weakness of Tomb Raider compared to The English Patient. Criticisms of anime are only justified and accurate in the context of comparison to objective, technical standards or comparison to other similar works. In a far comparison of Aika to other escapist action anime intended for mature viewers, including Jubei nin Pocho, Kakugo no Susume, la Blue Girl and Kotetsu no Daibouken, Aika holds up very well. In a comparison of Aika to an objective scale of technical quality for escapist adult entertainment, the writing, direction and animation quality of the Aika series also prove themselves quite competent.

In summation, Aika is not a children’s program. It wasn’t created for young viewers, should not be watched by young viewers, and likewise shouldn’t be criticized for being unsuitable for all viewers. Aika may be called exploitive, but to harshly criticize the series is to examine only the utmost superficial layer of the program and ignore the underlying feminist empowerment on display. Essentially Aika is what it is. It’s intended to be fantasy entertainment for men, and it succeeds very well at that. There’s no question that Aika is risqué and exploitive, but the respect shown and power given to the female characters in the series is far from degrading and excludes Aika from legitimately being considered “sleazy” or “perverted.”