Bikini Blast from the Past: Aki Ross (Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within) (Patreon)

Remember this lovely lady? I can't blame you if you don't, as a lot of people probably weren't even born yet when Aki Ross entered the scene. She's the CG protagonist and main character of the first Final Fantasy film. It was titled Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, released in 2001. This was at the (then) height of FF Fever, with Squaresoft Japan seeking to capitalize on the fame of their world-renowned RPG franchise by breaking into the movie business.

So their first try at a Final Fantasy movie pretty much also was their last- Yep, it was actually FINAL. The movie was a huge box office bomb, closed Square's movie studio and caused the exit of FF creator Hironobu Sakaguchi from the scene. Why did it fail? Well, maybe because for a Final Fantasy movie, it lacked anything about Final Fantasy. Instead of a wondrous adventure with warriors, mages, chocobos, magic and summons, we got a somber, humorless sci-fi film about invincible ghost kaiju, space marines ripped straight from James Cameron's Aliens and a whole lot of spiritual gobbledygook that made for a boring watch. The movie hasn't really aged well and the animations and facial animations are pretty lacking. Not even an impressive voice cast (Ming-na Wen as Aki, along with James Woods, Alec Baldwin, Ving Rhames, Steve Buscemi and Donald Sutherland filling in the roles) could save it.

Anyway, the best thing about the whole thing was Aki Ross, the beautiful lead heroine, whom Square was expecting to become a sort of digital superstar once the movie conquered the world. To promote her, GQ even posted the image above of Aki in a bikini, even though she never appears in this outfit anywhere in the movie (no one ever changes their clothing in the film).

Well, decades later the film is a piece of history that Square would probably rather forget with the eventual true-to-form remakes and subsequent success of the Final Fantasy franchise, but Bikini Aki is still here. Thanks to Grok Imagine, I was able to get some more fan service from this image, so now we can finally see Aki in full, and of course she has perfect, beautiful feet and soles. Hey, if Aki showed up in the movie like this, maybe it would have fared better. Maybe.

So we have three clips here for you to enjoy. The first is a Sexy Dance, with Aki showing she has more talent than just being a scientist. Clip 2 is a Fainting/KO with Aki falling on her back and showing her delicious soles for us. Finally Clip 3 has Aki being cradle carried by a mysterious spaceman, falling asleep in his arms and showing off, of course, her perfect soles. This is one of the best things about image-to-video, every artwork and screenshot is a mine for unique Barefoot KO content, and we can actually revisit moments in movies and shows to find timelines where beautiful feet can be had. I can't wait to show you the stuff I've been able to do so far, but for now, enjoy Bikini Aki and stay tuned for more.