Najica Blitz Tactics: #1
ADV 100 minutes
English/Japanese
English Subtitles
08/19/2003
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Najica Blitz Tactics: #1ADV 100 minutes |
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I can sum up why you wouldn't want to watch Najica just by giving you the description of the show from the very horse's mouth. Super agent Najica uses -- I'm not shitting you here -- "her distinct ability to recognize and classify over 500 smells to build her cosmetic empire and fight the world's criminal and terrorist element". If you don't want to read the rest of the review, that's totally cool too, because this should be about all the information that you need. I mean, there's weird plots for anime and then there's Najica. I don't understand the thrust, the impetus behind someone who's taking out the world's super spies just so she can have the money to upstage Chanel. You might not either, dear reader, and if so I'm very grateful. But for those that desire a little more, I'll give you a basic run down of what, exactly, is wrong with it. Najica takes place in the same world as the woeful Agent Aika and is made by the same people. Similarly to Aika, Najica's title girl has a very fetching character design (white dinner jacket, represent) while the rest of them make me want to throw up, profusely, on EVERYTHING. Frankly, even Najica doesn't get off too easy. Her hair looks too much like she's working on a rat-tail for my tastes, awesome dinner jacket or not. The supporting cast is your standard melange of huge breasts, outrageously colored hair, vapid eyes, and short, short skirts. This is for the women, of course, the men in the show certainly don't dress that way, but I hardly see how it matters. At best there's four male roles in this show, that's including incidental characters, and even that seems like a bit of a stretch at times. |
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Can you blame them? I wouldn't want to see a guy in a skirt, but conversely
that doesn't mean that I have some inbred desire to look at the panties
of as many animated girls as I can. Here's how much I want to see that
kind of stuff: I don't. It was a pretty big clue when the show started
out with an ass shot that it
wasn't exactly my thing, but one might not that a more important clue
would be that it was licensed by ADV
and the "free gift" was a pair of panties. Now, seriously, I'm
a pretty industrious guy so I can find ways to use
this sort of pack-in**, but I don't think the majority
anime populace will. 1) I don't think girls watch anime and 2) If I was
a girl I wouldn't watch anime. Also, these panties say they're a size
two. I don't know a lot about panties, but I know something
and that something I know is that these ain't no size two. I mean, I could've
worn those things.***
The story of Najica, if the wonderful summary above wasn't enough
for you, is as totally useless as one would expect. Najica herself
is a world renowned chemist specializing in perfumes and, though its not
explicitly stated, I'm pretty sure she goes on her super secret spy missions
to fund this business. So, whatever, she gets paired up with Lila who
is voiced by Monica Rial, who is playing yet another emotionless
robot/genetically engineered girl. Najica goes through the standard "You're
cramping my style, but you solved the case so I guess you're okay"
adjustment period. Najica then reneges on her sworn oath to never take
a partner and they team up to fight crime and evil lesbian robots with
the guns stolen directly from Resident Evil 2.
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I'd love to give you a more concise and bulkier description than that, but I gotta tell you the truth. Somewhere in the second episode I started browsing the internet instead of watching the show. It's funny, but even in my half distracted state I was able to guess plot twist for plot twist what was going on in the "mysterious idol scramble!" where one of the members of a popular idol group is suspected of being an evil robot (and possibly a lesbian, sources are unconfirmed). Let me guess, it's the quiet off-kilter one, right? NO! They make you think it is... but it's really the manager! HOLY CRAP! THIS IS THE BEST WRITING I'VE EVER SEEN IN A SHOW, PERIOD. THIS SHOW DESERVES ALL THE OSCARS! If you can't tell by my hilarious capitalization, Najica really gets under my skin. It's got something going for it, with the guns and reasonable animation. As was the case with a Aika, Najica has its fair share of well choreographed scenes that I am positively ashamed to like because they tend to involve machine-gun toting MAIDS falling over and spreading their legs. If all the maids were to be, say, replaced with the man hungry gorillas from Shakma I think the show would be better off. And during all this, despite the gunplay, the show positively refuses to kill anyone; even worse, nobody tells us how this is accomplished! In Najica, all the bullets stop six inches from their target and knock their opponents out by making the air all wavy. That, or all the machine gun maids are equipped with defensive technology like the world has never seen. The one character unfortunate enough to get actually shot survives with just a ding to her shoulder. Look, I don't know a lot about guns and I don't really care to, but you gotta figure that when somebody's shot with a .50 caliber bullet they're gonna lose something! I played Counter-Strike! ...once... |
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That I didn't like this show doesn't surprise me, what does is how much I positively hated it. Najica is obviously a case of talent turned into just so many lesbian maid robots being shot down in a hail of wavey-air-bullet fire. The perfume element is relatively underplayed, which is good, it's just a shame the awful character designs, total lack of an interesting plot, and general perverse nature of the show are still taking the lion's share of the camera time. So they're like one for five. If I could buy a disc with just the first fight scene from Aika on it, I probably would, because that's almost the only thing that's worth salvaging from that show. I'm not even sure I can make that grandiose a claim with Najica. Pack-in panties or not, nothing like this is willing me over. It's just irritating that this, like Aika, really does have so much good stuff about it. The soundtrack is something I'm particularly enamored with, comprised mostly of jazzy saxophones with a real "Help us, we're trapped in 1975!" vibe. The ending theme Body & Mind, in particular, is a pretty good swing-type affair... once you get past the opening riff which is virtually indistinguishable from the Inspector Gadget theme song. The song is sung by one Natsumi Harada, whom I've decided has a very excellent voice, and whom sources show may be a Japanese porn star. You know, I was pretty overjoyed when I heard Melissa Williamson singing the opening theme to Silent Hill 3. In a way this is similar, but in another, more valid way, it's really pretty freakin' weird. D'ffer'nt strokes, or so the saying goes. |
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