Reviews for Ai Yori Aoshi, Volume 1

The average rating for Ai Yori Aoshi, Volume 1 based on 2 reviews is 2 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-02-05 00:00:00 Siegel Regis This review is for the series. A sweet romance gets utterly sidetracked by the most unnecessary harem ever. Also, ludicrous nudity. Kaoru Hanabishi is a man who fled his domineering family after years of emotional and physical abuse. While life is hard, he gets on by. One day, he meets a very cute, traditional young women who is at a loss as she breaks her sandal at the train station. He fixes it, and offers to help her find the address she is looking for. To his shock, it's his address. The girl's name is Aoi. As children, they were betrothed. While Kaoru has forgotten her, she has always cherished him in her heart, and has come to find him. Now Kaoru must deal with a very attractive, very traditional young woman who reminds him of his painful past. This is the story in the first volume, and it's pretty good. It's sweet,and a bit melodramatic, but in some ways its better than average. There's one big problem though; the manga-ka decides to toss this out, and saddle them with the most annoying harem in existence. There's Tina, the half-japanese American. There's Mayu, the annoying rich girl. There's Taeko, the clumsy maid. There's Chika, the lolita fanservice. What's annoying about them is that while some of them aren't all that bad (Tina's story is quite sweet,) it forces what was great about the series into hiding for a lot of pointless drama. The series is very good when Aoi and Kaoru act together, and it has a refreshing take on love. Aoi and Kaoru truly love each other, and there's some nice touching moments. Aoi's reluctance to wear a swimsuit in public, among others. Aoi's portrayal has some issues. She's a yamato nadeshiko-a perfect Japanese woman-and at times, to Americans she'll seem codependent and a bit "I'm back in the kitchen and I like it!" The story doesn't go far enough in explaining her mindset either; in my opinion it could have shown more about how her near-obsessive love for Kaoru is a reflection of an incredibly stern and privileged upbringing. Ironically Tina is far more relatable. The three of them would have made for an excellent story. But ugh, the harem aspects and fan service are so annoying. EVERYONE gets naked, and Kaoru and Aoi are forced to hide their love for almost all of the series. Taeko, Chika, and Mayu add little to nothing to the plot, and there's so many bath scenes you'd be forgiven to think that this was a bathhouse manga instead. These volumes have the parental advisory on them, and they earn it to the point you skip over the nudity because it's so pointless. It's sad, actually, because they could have had a strong story about two young people falling in love, and instead they cram in a pointless harem story to take away from it. I'd generally pass on it unless you can get it for cheap like I did (it's 13 volumes plus,) and you can deal with the nudity. If not, just buy the first volume, and forget the rest.

Review # 2 was written on 2013-03-22 00:00:00 Tim Gordon On his way to catch a train, Kaoru Hanabishi comes across a lost, naive young woman named Aoi. She's decided to find her childhood sweetheart and marry him, and she soon realizes that Kaoru is the one she was looking for. She becomes determined to stay with him and be his wife, but, unfortunately, her family won't hear of it. For the sake of her powerful family's reputation, she must marry someone from a family with similar standing. Kaoru was once the Hanabishi heir, and if this were still the case he could marry Aoi. However, things have changed since they were children, and Kaoru is determined never to go back to the Hanabishi family. Aoi is what I imagine many young men's fantasies of the perfect woman are like. Although she's virginal, gentle, shy, and sweet-natured, she can become blushingly sexy at the drop of a hat, and she always knows just the right moment to become naked. I don't know any real women who are at all like her, but I suppose that's not the point. Judging by this first volume, Ai Yori Aoshi is romance for older teenage boys, and romance is often idealized. Judging by Kou Fumizuki's page in Anime News Network, Ai Yori Aoshi is likely his first published series, and it shows. The way characters are drawn is inconsistent and sometimes a little off. Fumizuki uses what I personally think of as the "Escaflowne style of noses" - when you see characters a little in profile, their noses are long and sharp, with a little blunted bit. It's not a style I like, but I grew to like the story in Vision of Escaflowne enough that I got over my reaction to the noses. However I feel about the noses, Fumizuki does manage facial expressions pretty well, which is important for such an emotional series. I think I'm too much of a woman to ever really like Ai Yori Aoshi - Aoi is too much of a sexy wet washcloth for me to like her, and Kaoru only barely starts getting developed by the end of the first volume. However, I can see why young guys might like this series. There's plenty of fanservice (in the form of nudity in the story, as well as provocative poses, nudity, and the suggestion of nipples through cloth on some of the chapter title pages), the cliched boob-grabbing joke you see pretty much everywhere in this genre, and the ordinary guy who gets the starry-eyed affection of a beautiful woman. (Original review, with read-alikes, posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)