Aki

Creation

Aki was not part of Ian Fleming's 1964 novel. Roald Dahl's screenplay originally named her Suki, and The James Bond Films describes her as "Dahl's tribute to the Japanese woman of the Sixties". Mie Hama was first cast as Suki, but struggled with English. To resolve this, she and Akiko Wakabayashi, who had been cast as the nearly silent Kissy Suzuki, exchanged roles. Wakabayashi then persuaded director Lewis Gilbert to rename her character Aki.

Character

Aki enters the story when James Bond 007, played by Sean Connery, meets her at a sumo wrestling event. Bond is there to find a contact who can lead him to Dikko Henderson, the man M has recommended in Japan. He confirms Aki is that contact by saying the code phrase "I love you" to her. Aki then drives Bond to meet Henderson. After Henderson is killed during their meeting, Bond fights and kills one of the assassins. He takes the dead man's place and is driven to the Osato Chemical Works headquarters, where the villains discover him. Aki rescues Bond by using her driving skills and takes him to her boss, Tiger Tanaka. Later, wearing a bikini, Aki invites Bond to spend the night, famously saying, "I think I will enjoy very much serving under you," before Bond carries her to bed.

The next morning, Bond returns to Osato Chemical Works and meets Mr. Osato, a henchman for Ernst Stavro Blofeld. After the meeting, SPECTRE gunmen chase Bond, and Aki rescues him again. The gunmen pursue Aki's car, and she leads them into the countryside, where an SIS helicopter uses a giant magnet to lift their car off the road and drop it into the sea. Aki then takes Bond to a quayside to investigate a ship he suspects the villains are using. While searching the ship, Bond and Aki are attacked by SPECTRE henchmen. Bond orders her to leave and report to Tanaka; she initially refuses but eventually does so.

Aki reappears after Bond is captured and nearly killed by Helga Brandt. She meets him at Tanaka's headquarters, where Bond is about to embark on a mission she cannot join. When Bond returns to the base in Kyoto, Aki meets him to discuss the plan to disrupt SPECTRE's scheme. She had hoped to pose as Bond's "wife" in the cover operation, but this was rejected because she was not a native of Ama island.

Reception

Aki has appeared on several rankings of the best Bond girls. Zimbio placed her tenth in 2008, Postmedia News ranked her ninth that same year, and WagerWeb put her eighth in 2009. UGO offered mixed opinions, once finding her chemistry with Bond disappointing and lacking the right look and attitude, but elsewhere calling her "Bond's super-hot guardian angel." Den of Geek included her on a 2008 list of Bond characters deserving their own spin-off. Esquire described her as both "the Girl Friday of Tiger Tanaka" and "Tiger's Pussycat."