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Title: A.I. Love You
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| CONSUMER ADVICE |
As with all of Ken Akamatsu's series, "A.I. Love You" contains some fan service and (non-graphic) nudity when it comes to the girls. The fan service is not NEARLY as bad as his other two series, but it's still there, and parents may want to take note of it! Fans of Ken Akamatsu in general may initially be interested in this series since it's Akamatsu's first series ever, however it won't take long for them to relise that "Love Hina" and "Negima" are much better series compared to this, and they may ultimately find "A.I. Love You" to be a bit of a let down. Fans of comedies will find a few moments of comical genious here, but these moments are few and far between, and soon people will realize that this series will not contain much inspired comedy in the long run. |
It's no secret that I'm a big fan of Ken Akamatsu. I think he's one of the few underappreciated talents out there that doesn't get enough credit for what he does. His stories are always full of life, memorable characters, and his stories usually end up being much deeper then they originally starte out! However his stories also usually come under attack for relying on too many gimmicks to move certain parts of the story forward, for using the same basis for a story every time, and for the shameless fan service he includes in his art. I won't pretend that these arguments aren't without merit, but I still feel that they are small potatoes when looking at the bigger picture. When I heard that Tokyopop was going to be releasing Akamatsu's first published manga "A.I. Love You," I giggled like a little girl. After all, I have re-read the entire collection of "Love Hina" more times then I can remember, and reading a new series by Akamatsu was okay by me (it should be noted that plans to bring "Negima" to the states were not announced). I have since read three of the "A.I. Love You" books (and downloaded the rest...don't worry, I WILL be buying the rest of the books, so don't worry), and I must admit that not only have I read better works from Akamatsu, but I've also read better works from other artists period!
The series revolves around natural born loser Hitoshi Kobe. Hitoshi is the kind of loser that is bad at sports, every school subject that exists, and he likes the prettiest girl in school (Kimika Aso) that tortures him everyday for the fun of it (yeah, you know what I'm talking about). However no one can be a true all around loser except for Homer Simpson, so Akamatsu gives Hitoshi a gift, in the form of having a natural talent for creating artificial intelligence. His latest creation is an artificial intelligent girl called Program Number 30. Program Number 30 is Hitoshi's finest creation ever. She has the ability to learn, she's super friendly, she's beautiful (as if you'd honestly think she wouldn't be beautiful), and she even loves Hitoshi so much that she calls herself his girlfriend! Sounds like a guys dream come true huh? Well it is...except for the undeniable fact that Program Number 30 is a computer program, and relationships between humans and computer monitors just never seem to work out very well in the long run. Well, that is all about to change. One night during a thunderstorm Hitoshi comes home to find his computers going completely out of control, and then something unexpected happens: Lighting hits Hitoshi's computer and Program Number 30 pops out of the computer in a physical form!
At first Hitoshi doesn't know what to do with Program Number 30 (who he renames Saati), but he comes to the conclusion that since he can't send her back into the computer he might as well teach her how the real world works. But can a walking A.I. survive in a world of sports, love magazines, and an evil Kimika (who all of a sudden becomes very jealous of Saati and Hitoshi's relationship)? Well I'd tell you to read and find out, but chances are you can already figure out where THIS story is heading just by reading the description! Now I'm not one to rule out a cliche story from Ken Akamatsu. After all, "Love Hina's" story started out as cliched as they come, however after the first few books Akamatsu did a 180 flip with the story, and what started out as a cliched and boring series quickly turned into one of the most memorable series I'd ever read! However this isn't the case with "A.I. Love You." Instead of doing a "Love Hina" on us and turning the story into something special, "A.I. Love You" more or less stay's on the path of predictability for the first seven or so books. Yes, you heard me, I said seven. "But Kevin" you say, "your listing show that this series is nine books long!" Yes, this is true, the series is nine books long.
However, near the end of the seventh book (or at the beginning of the eighth book depending on how Tokyopop decides to release the rest of the books) there IS an unexpected twist that takes the story in a different direction then you expect! However this twist comes in too late in the story to make much of a difference, and sadly even this new twist ends in an all-to-familiar sort of way. So that was disappointing. Now keep in mind I'm not saying that this is a BAD series per say, its just that Akamatsu is doing nothing more then treading familiar water here! And he's not only treading familiar water with his later stories, but he's treading familiar water with pretty much everything else out there! Not only is the story familiar, but the characters rely on such basic stereotypes to make it through the story, that they borderline on being boring. The art is also pretty unspectacular, with none of the characters standing out in any real way, and with some of the characters looking more like blueprints for characters that would appear in "Love Hina" (Example: Hitoshi = Keitero, Saati = Naru). I'd like to give Akamatsu a break since this WAS his very first series, and when movie director's make their first movie they tend to make a movie that is more safe then unique, since safe movies are at least guarantied success's (which means more work for the director), so I'm guessing Akamatsu had this in mind when he wrote "A.I. Love You's" story and characters!
However I can't in good conscious give him a break in the grade just because this was his first series, simply because his later works are just so much better that you can't really go back to stuff like "A.I. Love You" after you've read "Love Hina" and "Negima." If you haven't read either of one of those two series yet you might find a few inspired comical moments in here to keep your interest for the course of the nine books, and in that light "A.I. Love You" works as a good time killer, but it ultimately just isn't very memorable. The humor is mostly basic save for a couple of inspired comical moments, the characters are too stereotyped to stand out, and the big twists in the story come in too late to make much of a difference. "A.I. Love You" is not a total failure, but it is Akamatsu's weakest series to date.
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