AIKa Zero

You have to love a series that knows what it wants to be and never wavers from it. That’s the case with AIKa: Zero, the third installment in the AIKa panty shot franchise. Having seen the previous incarnations of the series which weren’t particularly good, they still manage to provide enough amusement to compel me to view this latest effort. The results? It’s not much better or worse than its predecessors. AIKA: Zero is still a prequel to the events of the original series but serves as a follow up to Virgin Mission. As far as the story goes it isstill paper thin and really nothing story or character wise is adequately explained. We still have no real insight behind Aika's superpowers, the apocalyptic world they supposedly live in, or their supposed salvage operation in which they never actually do anything remotely related to salvaging. But that is not what AIKa is about and a story would just get in the way of what is the true purpose of this anime; panties, tits, and lewd camera angles. The story, such as it is, revolves around Aika and her friends trying to get to the bottom (literally) of a case of missing girls at a high school. The school’s student council aided by an alien, capture and control girls by shooting tentacles into their vaginas... really I am not kidding. Much like everything else, the motivation for doing this and taking the captured girls and hanging them up in a room like sides of meat are unexplained. Of course everything in the plot and every character exists for service of one kind or another and is not to be taken seriously. However it would be wrong for me say that this is not intentional. But for a series that has always been about the low angle panty shot, AIKa: Zero sets a new record I think for camel toe. Honestly though if your offended by any of this why would you even be watching this? Characters though are really the Achilles heel of this series though. Aika still remains as a mostly dull, wooden and uninteresting character. She has absolutely zero personality and fails to stand out of even this lackluster cast. Rejoining her are Karen and Eri from the Virgin Mission prequel as well as a few other younger versions of characters fans will no doubt recognize from the original. Eri and Karen are a bit of the comic relief, much as Rion was in the first series but it is not at all clever and relies mostly on sexual innuendos. The villains are equally stagnant, with their motivations never properly explained. Artistically the AIKa is pretty good. Clearly if you’re going to a series that’s primary purpose is fan service then you better make sure it looks good right? However while the girls all look pretty, they also all pretty much look the same too. Beyond a variation in hair color and style along with slight variation in breast size, everyone looks identical. The clothing is also ridiculous with impossibly short skirts and fashion faux pas. How many times do I have to say that a girl would never wear white panties with a black miniskirt? Mamiko Noto and Ami Koshimizu headline the seiyuu cast which is overall pretty strong. Given the material they have to work with they do about as good as one could expect. Koshimizu sings the OP/ED themes and does a good performance. If you find the AIKa series to be enjoyable then you are going to enjoy Zero as well. Fans of service anime will also want to check this out. It's just not a good show, with far to many faults with the plot and its characters for me to score it any higher than I have. Though it’s entertaining for no other reason than it’s over the top and legendary perversion. I can't say that I didn’t laugh at every up skirt camera angle and face first, ass up shot. And in the end, I think that was the purpose of the anime. Mission accomplished.