Anime / Najica Blitz Tactics

Najica & Lila, in a rare moment when you can't see up their skirts.

An extraordinary scent and the fragrance of destiny. Najica Hiiragi, special agent for a secret organization, receives her mission assignments along with a single rose. Glorious missions more lovely than a bullet and more dangerous than love itself; these are what make up Najica Blitz Tactics.

— The Opening Narration.

Najica Blitz Tactics is a 2001 anime series produced by Studio Fantasia. Directed by Katsuhiko Nishijima, it is first and foremost a Panty Shot parade, in which no opportunity is spared to show women's undergarments; this also means that no woman wears any pants ever and miniskirts are considered appropriate mission attire. But at the same time, Najica is an entertaining James Bond-style action show with a surprisingly deep storyline.

Najica Hiiragi works as a perfume creator by day, undercover agent by night. Her ability to solve any case, how hard it may be, has garnered her a lot of respect within the underground agency she works for. The fact that she has a very distinguishing sense of smell also is of great help.

Najica's latest assignment is to rescue a kidnapped girl, Lila, who turns out to be Humaritt ZZZ.^note A Humaritt is a highly advanced android. After the mission, Najica is assigned to be Lila's master and to bring her along on future missions, a task which she grudgingly accepts. Lila not only turns out to be a very formidable partner during her missions, but Najica gradually warms up to her personally as well.

A three-volume manga cuts the panty shot amount by about 90%, as it's quite more action-oriented, ignoring Najica's Character Development in the process.

---

Tropes:

• 12-Episode Anime: This is the amount of episodes the series has.
• Action Girl: Just about every major female character.
• After the End: From the visible scenery, the world was apparently flooded and at least one big war happened, seeing how some of the missions take place in destroyed cities.
• Amazon Brigade: Many villains' armies are composed mainly of this. This is strangely averted for the good guys, which are mostly men in proper combat gear.
• Artificial Human: Lila and later others.
• Author Appeal: Character designer Yamauchi Noriyasu likes panty shots.
• Badass Adorable: Lila may have all the qualifications for a little-sister-type, but she packs huge guns and has incredible physical strength, which she puts to good use.
• Badass Normal: Najica, who can hold her own against some very tough opponents.
• Bait-and-Switch: In episode 4, Najica and Lila investigate a pop group called the 4C'zNs to determine which one is actually the Humaritt Triple I. Much to their shock, none of them is Triple I. It turns out that their manager, Ai, is actually Triple I.
• Beach Episode: Sort of. While it's still a mission, the protagonists do wear some very revealing swimwear for most of the episode.
• Between My Legs: Being the Panty Fighter that it is, this series has several of these to make the panty shot easier on skirted characters.
• Beware of the Nice Ones: Serina is a Humaritt that has a kind and loving heart. However, if anyone tries to get between her and Yoshiki, she will end them.
• Black-and-White Insanity: Even after learning enough from their masters to think and act for themselves, Humaritts can have difficulties understanding gray areas, especially when what they were taught and their masters' actions conflict with one another. This causes Elith to kill her master Athena when she chooses to surrender peacefully to avoid pointless casualties, thinking that she's betraying the ideals of fighting with pride and faith she instilled on her.
• Blasting It Out of Their Hands: Najica and Lila usually do this when they are engage in a firefight.
• Bling-Bling-BANG!: Dr. Ren and Triple X, who are actually the same person, have a pair of gold plated P-38.
• Bound and Gagged: Not as much as one would expect coming from a mistress of infiltration using Non-Lethal Warfare, but it happened a few times. Notably in Episode 9, Najica and Lila infiltrate a base dressed as soldiers, leaving the two women they Mugged for Disguise bound and gagged in their underwear.
• Character Development: A lot for both Najica and Lila:
  • Najica starts out hating to play caretaker for Lila, putting blame on her for everything she does wrong (it's not like she could help it), but later starts to genuinely care about her. In the end, Najica allows Lila to go her own way with Alpha. However, on the way to that, she became routinous and, at times, less human than the various androids.
  • Lila, on the other hand, develops away from an obedient, barely self-preserving automaton with the mindset of an 8-year-old to a young woman who can not only decide things for herself, but also questions Najica and the world around her, going as far as adopting the only male Humaritt, Alpha. She also semi-openly challenges Najica to a duel about his caretaking and thus her own future.
• Clothing Damage: Sometimes employed every now and then. Not that the series ever needs it to show the panties of the female characters anyway.
• Cold Sniper: The assassin in the second episode is packing an anti-materiel sniper rifle. It turns out that the assassin is actually a pair of twins.
• Compelling Voice: The power of Humaritt model Triple I, who is actually Ai, the manager of the 4C'zNs. The reason that the 4C'zNs climbed the charts very quickly despite their very recent introduction was due to this. Even better, the entire members of 4C'zNs was under its influence so that they behave as if they are the Humaritts, to throw off suspicion and giving them the same ability to entice would-be fans with their singing.
• Cool Plane: Standard fare, considering this is a Studio Fantasia title. For example:
  • A custom-modified Mil Mi-35 "Hind E", of which Najica is an Ace Pilot of. It is apparently modified such that it can fly autonomously.
  • A Blackburn Buccaneer in Episode 8, a 1950s British attacker aircraft that was restored to flying condition. So cool it was that it shot down the next example.
  • The Boeing X-32 JSF Prototype, which, in this anime, is now the Oboro, a Japanese creation instead. Having a V/STOL capability and stealth, it capably outmaneuvered the Buccaneer until the pilot was distracted, allowing Najica to shoot it down. Later, in the last two episodes, multiple X-32/Oboro aircraft take part in the bombing of Dr. Ren a.k.a. Humaritt XXX's hideout.
  • The air force of Gilda uses a lot of MiG-21s.
  • Various aircrafts from World War II to present day aircraft is part of a minor villain's collection in Episode 3 (which included the Dornier 335 Pfeil and SAAB Draken. When Lila blew up all his aircraft, instead of safeguarding the laser satellite controls, he went to extinguish the flames before getting engulfed in the explosion himself.
  • The assassins Fanc and Lady were planning to leave the Zeuva mountains by way of using VJ 101, a German experimental VTOL tiltjet aircraft. Pity Najica blew it to smithereens before it could take off.
• Covert Group with Mundane Front: CRI Corporation, the organization that employs Najica, is also a perfume company, and a successful one at that.
• Deconstruction: The series follows the "super-powered android created to serve a master" to its uncomfortable possibilities. Even if they do have a master, how the Humaritts grow and behave varies greatly case by case.
• Decoy Protagonist: Possibly. While Najica defines most of the early episodes, after Lila comes back in episode 7, she takes more screentime and becomes much more active and self-conscious. Her Character Development helps the case.
• Dissonant Serenity: Lila keeps her default expression, never showing rage or fear even when she is engaged in combat.
• Do Androids Dream?: One of the central questions Lila has about herself is how much she is machine and how much she is a living, emotional being. At one point, she actually says that "[she] is a human". Similarily, Najica often wonders if her treatment of Lila is always the right thing.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Before Lila's Robotic Reveal, it looked as though her female (adult) captor was about to have sex with a drugged teenage girl.
• Emotionless Girl: Lila, due to being a Humaritt. Later, she starts showing signs of feelings, but her expression is almost always blank.
• Even the Girls Want Her: Najica has that kind of effect on her female employees.
• Expy: The design for the four members of the 4C'zNs idol group are later reused as the designs for the four heroines of Stratos 4. Looking at the comparison◊, the only difference is the hair color and the hairstyle for Natsuyo to Karin (second from left).
• Famous-Named Foreigner: Suwanni Kournikova, the escort target of Episode 7, is named after the writer Suwanni Sukhontha and tennis player Anna Kournikova.
• Fanservice: An ultra-serious spy fiction with themes of humanity and issues surrounding Ridiculously Human Robots. There is absolutely no room for fanservice in this series. Interestingly, this is slightly downplayed concerning bouncing breasts since nearly every female character actually has a purely average (and uniform) bust size.
• Foreshadowing: In the first episode:
  Gento: This recovery mission is an important job. I was just a little worried.
  Najica: Recovery? You mean rescue, right?
  Gento: Either way, dear, good luck.
• French Maid Outfit: The female mooks wear these in the first episode.
• Gainax Ending: Lila's fate after she decides to adopt Alpha.
• The Gunslinger: Najica, although she strictly uses non-lethal bullets.
• Hand Cannon: Lila's standard gun, a 10" Desert Eagle VII, is almost as big as her lower arm.
• Hero Worship: Azusa Katsuragi does to Najica when she finds out that the latter saves her life. So much so that she wants Najica to be her personal bodyguard and trainer because she had fallen in love with her.
• Hyperspace Arsenal: The agent Fanc pulls out an Uzi while riding a motorcycle seemingly out of nowhere. But it gets ridiculous when he then does the same with a PGM Hecate II.
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: It is not at all uncommon for Najica to stand in the middle of a hail of machine gun fire from multiple opponents, without moving or getting hit.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: Najica already has some mad skills with guns, but Lila really ups the ante.
• In a Single Bound: Lila and occasionally Najica.
• Innocent Fanservice Girl: Lila needs to bathe in a special water formula to nourish herself as a Humaritt. She doesn't realize why going naked is a bad thing to do. Likewise, when her swimsuit fell off and bares her breasts, she feels nothing is wrong and doesn't do anything until Najica chastises her.
• Instrumental Theme Tune: Appropriately titled "Najica".
• Ironic Echo:
  Triple I, a.k.a. Ai: "I like honest girls."
  Najica: "Unfortunately, I am not."
  • Later, in the penultimate episode:
  Triple X: "You're being stubborn, aren't you?"
  Najica: "I prefer the term 'honest' myself."
• Little Miss Badass: Lila, thanks to her being in the field with Najica.
• Lovely Angels: Najica and Lila.
• Maid Corps: Episode 1's villainess has one that doubles as Bodyguard Babes.
• Male Gaze: The first shot of the entire series is Najica's ass.
• Meaningful Name: Triple I and Ai is read the same way.
• MegaCorp: Although downplayed, several large-scale companies such as Shinba Industrial and Pacific Medical has private armies of their own. Not to mention CRI, which has enough financial firepower to act as the organization that Najica belongs to.
• Men Are the Expendable Gender: From as early as Episode 3, male villains often get killed as their comeuppance, but female villains and soldiers, of which there are plenty, are often only "knocked out". The fact that the death of Elith's master, who is female, in Episode 9 serves as the Wham Episode.
• Minidress of Power: Everyone that wields a gun wears short skirts. In fact, male soldiers that wear full armor are notably inferior to female ones.
• Mugged for Disguise: Since Najica is (among other things) an infiltrator, of course she ends up sometimes knocking a minion out to don her clothes:
  • In Episode 5, while boarding the ship of Ricardo Kidel, who has purchased a nuclear missile in the black market with hopes of staging a coup in another country, Najica knocks out a sailor with plastic bullets and steals her uniform.
  • In Episode 9, Najica and Lila infiltrate a base belonging to a rebel militia group dressed as soldier, leaving the real soldiers knocked out and Bound and Gagged in their underwear inside a guardhouse.
• Mysterious Past: Lila's past is shrouded in mystery for most of the series.
• Non-Action Guy: Gento, the contact person of Shinba Industrial.
• Non-Indicative First Episode: The first episode has plenty of lesbian behavior, which implies that more of it might be seen in the future, especially between the two protagonists. It really doesn't happen.
• Non-Lethal Warfare: Najica usually use plastic bullets that just knock the opponents out cold. Averted in the final episode, when she uses the enemy's gun, which is loaded with a live round.
• The Nose Knows: Najica, being a trained chemist and perfume designer, has a very keen sense of smell, to the point that the resident super-powered Ridiculously Human Robot Lila notes that Najica's sense of smell is better than hers. Najica has used this to identify many characters, such as finding one of the hiding members of the 4C'zNs, since that particular member actually used one of Najica's designer perfume, and realizing that Humaritt Triple X and Dr. Ren are one and the same from their body odor.
• Odd Friendship: Najica and Lila's is initially this due to the former being forced to take the latter in the field with her.
• The Only Believer: A variation occurs in Episode 9. The Humaritt of the episode, Elith, is The Dragon to the leader of a resistance group. After hearing so many inspiring morale-boosting speeches from her master, once an actual attack on their base happens, the leader realizes that for all her words, they really stand no chance against a real military power, and should surrender to avoid casualties. Feeling betrayed by this action, Elith kills her master. She then assumes the latter's identity and convinces the remaining troops to follow her, but they all abandon her the first chance they get.
• Opening Narration: As written in the page quote.
• Panty Fighter: There are numerous fights that features panty shots.
• Pun: Every Humaritt has an asset number tattooed on their behinds. The Japanese version uses the similar pun of "Serial (pronounced "shiriaru") Number", the pun being "shiriaru" can be read as "shiri (ni) aru" (placed on the butt).
• Qurac: The desert nation of Gilda. Complete with a civil war going on.
• Redemption Equals Death: Triple X sacrificed herself in order to save Alpha.
• Rich Bitch: Azusa Katsuragi, the daughter of Katsuragi Heavy Industries' CEO. She fell in love with Najica after the latter saved her.
• Ridiculously Human Robots: The Humaritts were created specifically to serve a master.
• Robot Girl: Almost all the Humaritts except Alpha.
• Ruritania: The Commonwealth of Kirnovf, the origin of the escort target Suwanni Kournikova, a half-Thai half-Slavic Teen Genius. Zeuva Country seems to be the stand-in for Switzerland instead.
• Shoot the Bullet: In Episode 2, Lila shoots down the bullet fired by a sniper rifle in mid-air.
• Small Girl, Big Gun: Lila uses some heavy ordinance in various missions. Even her sidearm is the 10-inch barrel Desert Eagle VII.
• Spy Fiction: Filled with panties, but spy fiction nonetheless.
• Stripperiffic: Miniskirts and white panties have apparently become the de facto attire for just about any occasion for young women in any sort of profession, including combat-related ones.
• Starter Villain: The countess in the first episode.
• Supreme Chef: Lila, as a part of her programming, has exceptional cooking skills.
• Tamer and Chaster: In spite of the heavy flashing of the same, the art style is almost identical to the late 1990s Hentai Desert Island Story.
• Tap on the Head: There are a lot of knockouts as result of physical force, but none of them appear to cause any real injuries other than a brief nap.
• Tareme Eyes: Lila. This also differs her from most Humaritts.
• A Taste of the Lash: Najica is briefly subjected to this during Episode 9, when she's caught infiltrating the Lion of Gilda's base. Thankfully, the incoming attack from the government's military makes the soldiers realize they have more pressing concerns and they leave her alone.
• Teen Genius: Suwanni Kournikova, a genius mathematician and the escort target of Episode 7.
• Third-Person Person: Lila does this a lot. One notable sign where she shows Character Development has her not doing this at first, before correcting herself.
• Tomato in the Mirror: Dr. Ren is actually Triple X with a split personality. Dr. Ren, as a person, probably never existed in the first place.
• Tragic Monster: BBB, Elith, and later XXX, a.k.a. Dr. Ren, had no masters. Since Humaritts pretty much requires a master in order to "function" properly, they try to deal with their condition in a horrifying way:
  • BBB was activated before she was assigned a master, and therefore lashed out in fear until she could no longer move.
  • Elith killed her own master, and then assumes the latter's identity because she couldn't reconcile what she was taught and her master's action.
  • XXX was implied to have been abandoned by the real Dr. Ren, if she exists at all, and goes so far to create Alpha so that he can be her master.
• Tsurime Eyes: Najica and most of the seen Humaritts and other secondary characters.
• Tuxedo and Martini: Najica is a Rare Female Example, so her tux has miniskirt and heels.
• Underestimating Badassery: Najica finds out why she couldn't spot any security at the countess' castle in the first episode, because the maids are the security.
  Najica: How could I fall for their innocent appearance?
• Weapon Specialization: Najica wields a Stechkin APS automatic pistol, complete with stock. Sometimes, she switches to the silenced version, the APB. Lila uses her superhuman strength to wield a Desert Eagle VII with 10-inch barrel.
• Wham Episode: Episode 9, when the capture target, Elith, kills her own master since she cannot deal with the contradiction of her master betraying her own words. Elith was so caught up in the indoctrination that she became inflexible in her thinking. This is also the first episode to show the death of a female character.
• What Measure Is a Human?: Can Humaritts truly be "human"?
• World of Action Girls: A vast majority of the female characters featured in the series are capable fighters.
• Would Hurt a Child: The sniper in Episode 2 threatened to kill the daughter of Judge Katsuura, and would have gone through hadn't it been for Najica and Lila.
• Xtreme Kool Letterz: The 4C'zNs (read as "Four Seasons"), an Idol Singer quartet whose members were suspected to be Humaritts.
• Younger Than They Look: Lila and other Humaritts. They are androids, after all. Lila in particular looks like she is 16 or so. Mentally, she has the mindset of an 8-year-old in the beginning of the series, and her literal age is only 2 or so.

---