Adnash said:ColourWheel said:Without a doubt the original
"Agent AIKa" OVA from the late 90s would be one of them. At the time not only was it considered one of the pioneers to the Ecchi genre, but also the animation was state of the art for it's time period in a general animation sense nearing the end of the strict use of traditional celluloid animation.
"Agent AIKa" basically revolutionized the use of panty fanservice in action Anime ever since from extremely creative perverted camera angles to the explicate attention of detail in portraying action sequences in very creative provocative ways. The panty fanservice in "Agent AIKa" was just so obnoxiously over the top that it automatically comes across as comically sexy to a vast majority of viewers when experiencing it for the 1st time. Either that or it automatically comes across as extremely appalling to those who don't like panty fanservice in Anime. lol
One such as myself can't help but appreciate this flagship from Studio Fantasia when it was still at it's peak as an Animation studio in my opinion.
Though in general most OVAs from the 90s had the best animation in my opinion. The 90s was just a really special time period for me when it came to Anime and a majority of the Anime I was able to get my hands on at the time in the West were mostly just OVAs and Movies on VHS.
@ColourWheel This anime! I heard this name long, long ago, but at some point I forgot it, without giving it a try. I didn't know it was that much influential when it comes to the ecchi genre, even though I think I read about it being fairly popular back when it was released. While I don't watch ecchi shows that much often, I always appreciate watching high quality works.
Your post has motivated me to give it a try at last. Thank you for the recommendation. :) After completing its first episode, I must say that I noticed the things you mentioned in your post. But what grasped my attention the most was production quality of this anime. Really good animation and direction, blending well with ecchi and crazy themes, but without focusing only on them.
Without the existence of
"Agent AIKa", it's likely what I like to call some of the most well known action type franchises with ample panty fanservice wouldn't be the same as they are today. Just off the top of my head with such titles as
"Ikkitousen",
"Kiddy Grade",
"Air Master",
"Rosario + Vampire",
"Sekirei",
"Strike Witches",
"Queen's Blade",
"Freezing", etc... and it goes without saying without the success of "Agent AIka", Studio Fantasia would have likely never produced
"Najica Blitz Tactics" either.
"Agent AIKa" has even influenced well known long running trashy Ecchi franchises from even
"To LOVE-Ru" to
"High School DxD". Basically any time there is any ample amount of detailed panty fanservice in any modern Anime, chances are that Noriyasu Yamauchi was working on the animation team to some capacity. Either that or he has highly influenced the animators working on the projects when there is likely detailed panty fanservice involved. Sadly MAL doesn't always credit every Staff member working on an animation project for each title. I know for a fact Noriyasu Yamauchi has worked on far more projects than what MAL gives him credit for in the Database. It's the one thing that is always extremely incomplete about the MAL database. Though it's likely the average MAL Users doesn't give a shit or even care about the obscure OGs in the industry. lol
Though, it's great to hear my post influenced you to finally watch "Agent AIKa" and I hope you enjoy the rest of the OVA. I own the "Agent AIKa" OVA on VHS tape volumes, Laserdisc set, the OVA ported on DVDs in the early 2000s, the remastered edition released in the late 2000s on DVD, as well as an unopened limited edition DVD box set that supposedly comes with a cheap pair of Aika's nylon panties as swag (I don't even know exactly what they look like because I have never opened it to this day). As far as the best way to watch this Anime, the Laserdisc copies I own are still even better than the remastered DVD edition that I ended up buying in the late 2000s. For some odd reason celluloid animation is still usually 100 times better of an experience watching it on Laserdiscs than even Anime that gets remastered on DVDs or even Blu-ray.