Customer Reviews

Ai Yori Aoshi, Vol. 13

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Tina has been pondering her impending return to America after she graduates and when she looks through a photo album of Kaoru and the gang she feels an urgency to create some great last memories. Of course it also has to do with her cowardice about not telling her friends about her decision. She wants everybody to get along with everyone, including her archenemy Mayu. She plans a trip for the whole cast to Kyushu, which is famous for its hot springs. As all fans of anime and manga know, the hot springs chapter or episode is pretty much a standard feature, where the guys try to cop a look at the naked bodies of their female costars. Ai Yori is a little different for the fact that Kaoru is the only guy in the book, and he's not a pervert, but somehow through no fault of his own, he always end up with one of the girls luscious bodies in front of him. The situation gets a little uncomfortable when Tina corrals Kaoru into a date with only her, and asks him to treat her like his girlfriend!

This thirteenth volume of Ai Yori is a little sadder than most, because Tina's anxieties and fear of change and losing her friends is coming to the forefront, but there are hints that she could make the choice to stay in Japan, even though it would go against the wishes of her parents. We do get to see a more serious side of Tina than we usually do, and even Mayu gets an added dimension as she confronts Tina over her suspicions about her leaving. I get the feeling that when this series ends it's going to be bittersweet because all of the girls have some form of love for Kaoru, and remember, none of them know about Kaoru and Ai's relationship. It's all been kept under wraps. As far as they know, Ai is just another girl in the household vying for his attention. Of course Ai Yori is a complete fantasy of adolescents stuck on the cusp of adulthood which could never happen in the real world. But Ai Yori's enthusiastic fantasy, lively humor, romance, and eroticism make it a fantasy world worth reading.

I can't believe I'm still reading this series. Blessed with a charming concept and appealing lead characters, "Ai Yori Aoshi" devolved into near-porn about four volumes ago when the story absolutely stopped moving forward and the manga largely became an exercise in unnecessary group bath scenes. "Hey, I'm tired, let's all take a bath together. Ah, this feels great. Let me size up your breasts. Gee I hope Kaoru-san doesn't walk in on us naked yet again. Oh, hi Kaoru-san." Once was funny and sexy, but after a few dozen times, it's lost its appeal. I'm now very well aware of what most of the female cast looks like naked, thank you very much. Adding Chika-chan and her fellow first-year high-schoolers makes this not just boring near-porn, but boring near-child-porn. Eww.

At first, I thought the nudity was entirely appropriate for a romantic story - after all, eroticism is something to be enjoyed and admired, not something to be ashamed of. Problem is, the two characters who are supposedly in love -- Kaoru and Aoi -- never get together, and instead he's seeing the rest of the cast naked in comic situations ad infinitum. Every now and then, there's a promise that the central tension of the story, Kaoru's unwillingness to rejoin the Hanibishi family that he fled and the Sakuraba's need for Kaoru to be part of the Hanabishi to allow Aoi to marry him, will move forward and develop, but it rarely does. The most interesting development was Tina's falling in love with Kaoru (not knowing that Aoi is his fiancee and Tina being a gaijin anyways) and having to leave her friends and return to America, but that came up, what, five volumes ago at least? Even that storyline is repeating the same emotions over and over again.

So appealing and charming when it started, this story is hopelessly stalled. I'm giving up as of this volume. I expect Aoi and Kaoru will someday work out their family problems, profess their love to all, get married, and have great sex... I just don't know if I'm going to live long enough to see it.