Najica Blitz Tactics

Review by Matthew Anderson

12 Episode TV Series

Company: ADV Films

Running Time: 100 minutes (4 episodes)

Region: 1

Rated: R (Violence, partial nudity, language and adult situations)

EXTERNAL EXAM

Najica Hiragi is a perfumer and the leading designer for CRI Cosmetics. Her job is to find the perfect elements to make Sunday, the last in the "Day Series" line of perfumes.

Oh, and she moonlights as a special agent.

Recently, she has just been assigned a new partner, the very cute Lila. Najica learns that Lila is a Humaritt, a humanoid construct designed to be a super soldier. While her skills are impressive, her mind is closer to that of a child. It has fallen on Najica to train her the finer points of being a spy.

With lesbian terrorists; rich, bored playboys; and mind controlling pop idols coming out of the wood work, these two lovely agents are going to be busy!

DVD VISION TEST

VIDEO: A great looking transfer. The colors are perfect, there are almost no pixels, no wrinkles, and only some slight edge enhancement.

AUDIO: All English 5.1 audio track will knock your socks off. The sound during the action segments hits you from all sides. You really can hear the details of Junichi Kanezaki's musical score.

The Japanese 2.0 is able and full bodied, but lacks the punch of the English 5.1.

EDITS: Clean open and close animation are used. No edits to the episodes have been made.

EXTRAS: We have the clean open and close, original Japanese trailer, and production sketches. You also get an hilarious audio commentary with stars Kira Vincent-Davis and Monica Rial.

WIDESCREEN REVIEW

STORY: There's a plot? Actually, there is. The story by the Studio Fantasia writing staff does weave a tale in between the panty shots and action scenes. Instead of going the "Hentai" route, they made Najica into an action/comedy blockbuster, with lots of fan service. Each episode is pretty much stands alone so you can jump in at any point.

ACTING: The Japanese cast is excellent. You don't get any sexier than Yumi Touma powerful voice for our lovely Najica. Juri Ihata is perfect as the cold and emotionless Lila.

The English cast is also superb. Almost as sexy as Yumi Touma , Kira Vincent-Davis plays Najica as a calm and cool professional. I love how she almost growls when she is angry.

Monica Rial uses her "cold unfeeling killer" voice from "Noir" for Lila. Her deadpan delivery works well during both action and comedic scenes.

FAN SERVICE: As they say in the commentary "Panties, Panties, and more Panties!" A fan boy paradise, you will see enough white cotton panties to give you a nose bleed. Some have lace, some are plain, none are thongs....bummer.

Like true fan serve, you almost see full nudity, but not quite. You do see a lot of Lila's butt though.

FINAL EXAM

Like all typical males, I loved "Agent Aika". It had everything a red blooded, hot anime fan boy can enjoy. Great action, cool animation, interesting story, and fan service that makes you thankful to be a man! It was a sad day for me when Aika ended. I thought that the days of gratuitous fan service was gone.

Then Najica Blitz Tactics came along.

Like it's predecessor, our protagonist is a lovely and deadly agent. She has an impressive rack, and quite the little arsenal. Aika may have just had her MiG, but Najica has not only a MiG, she has a Hind, and a hot little red sports car. Also, she prefers to use plastic bullets that incapacitate, not kill. It may not be as cool as Aika's rocket gun, but hey it works.

While there are plenty of similarities, Najica has a lot more style than Aika. If you put Aika's rather loud red dress to Najica's professional appearance, you will see the difference. Perhaps it's because she gets paid more, and has a higher profile job than our hot salvager.

I'm glad that this partner isn't a total ditz like Rion. Lila is everything that Rion was not; calm, cool, and skilled. True, she is nothing more than a doll, but at least she is handy with a weapon. Her blank personality is used for comedic effect, which helps to break up the serious moments. Well, as serious as a show like this gets.

The fan service is absolutely wonderful! Everything that makes fan service what it is (bouncing bust lines, panty shots, shower scenes) is represented in full, living Technicolor! Thanks to the absolutely beautiful character designs of Noriyasu Yamauchi, not only is Najica a guilty pleasure, but aesthetically pleasing as well.

There is a high action quotient to go with the high panty count. Every episode has at least one all out blitz (hence the title of the show). All this can be directly attributed to writer/director Katsuhiko Nishijima of "Project AKo" fame. With his penchant for over the top violence and frantic pacing, Nishijima truly knows what the audience wants.

I totally love the retro feel to the opening and closing themes. "Najica" by Diligent Circle of Ekoda is a great swing tune, reminding you of the days of cool 70's action shows, that promised hot action and hotter women.

"Body and Mind" by Natsumi Harada is a wonderful counterpoint to the brash "Najica". While it also has the swing/jazz club sound, it has a elegance, a refinement that demonstrates the key element of this series, style.

ADV's presentation for this volume is well done. The video and audio is great, and the extras are entertaining. I totally loved the commentary with Kira Vincent-Davis and Monica Rial. Put these two together, and I feel sorry for any guy who gets in their way. They have way too much fun busting on everyone from the ADR director to fellow voice actor Chris Patton.

Here is a special message for Kira and Monica. Don't worry about the color, we like them all. In Japan, most underwear is your basic colors (blue, white, tan) so not a lot of variety. Besides, you can't mistake white panties for bloomers!

Off to a strong start, Najica Blitz Tactics vol 1 is a worthy successor to Aika. Any show that starts off with a shot of Najica in her undies is a-okay in my book!

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