I had always thought that Ai Yori Aoshi was in this weird space where the show’s premise doesn’t work on a fundamental level, but if the show were shifted just a teensy bit, it could have been this kind of deconstruction of the harem comedy genre. It’s a common belief that it’s usually “obvious” which girl is going to win in these kinds of series due to things like prominence in promotional materials, book/DVD covers, etc., but here it’s explicitly obvious in the storyline without the need for air quotes.
don't lie. it's your favorite vegetable, too.
Which is why the series kind of doesn’t work. Kaoru and Aoi were brothed since they were kids. She’s “won” before the first season even started, and “won” in the generic sense at the end of the first season. But for some reason, everyone keeps up this whole harem charade. It’s completely impossible for any other character to “win”, but everyone still routinely acts flustered around Kaoru or get incredibly embarrassed when Chika goes around randomly being like “HAY GAIZ DO YOU GAIZ LOOOOOOOVE KAORU?!”
At the same time however, I kept feeling that there could have been this inkling that the series could have pursued some kind deconstructive aspect. It could have been about the whole futility of “ZOMG WHO WILL HE PICK!?” when it becomes pretty obvious to all the characters very early on that he has “picked” Aoi. Or perhaps, about how the series loses any kind of “what if?” shipping capability when there really isn’t any possibility for the other characters? For example, nobody will ever choose the loli, because she is always literally half the guy’s age. One other possibility: showing the inherent futility in many of the stock character types in these kinds of shows.
The latter was why I couldn’t actually care about Tina’s story at the end of the series. Along with the aforementioned reason that Aoi won before the show even started, Tina’s an exchange student. She will be leaving sooner rather than later, so she can’t even have the ability to “win”. Rather than feeling pathos, I wondered why she would get so emotionally involved in something that so obviously wouldn’t work.
Also, when she was telling her tragic backstory to Aoi about how she couldn’t fit in culturally in high school in America because of having lived in Japan, I laughed and thought “Cracka, please. Don’t even start with that. You have white privilege!” That and the fact that the weeaboos in her school would’ve been ALL OVER THAT SHIT once they spotted the oversexed blonde with giant boobs that acts Japanese.
Would I watch it even if I weren’t forced? I was indifferent about continuing after I finished the first season.
I feel sort of the same way: that somewhere in there is a potentially good show that got buried under a pile of harem comedy cliches. (Though I guess the Ai yori aoshi manga helped invent some of the cliches).
I’m not sure deconstructing the harem comedy is the right answer. Was this formula even established enough to be deconstructed when this was written?
It just seems like Aoi and Kaoru don’t even belong in the same story with the foolish haremettes.
Maybe if they had gone with the Romeo and Juliette story set up in the first few episodes things might have worked out better. What happened to Kaoru’s evil grandfather anyway? How can you set up a character like that, and never bring him on stage?
i think the problem is this is a sequel. the only reason sequels to shows like these are made is for fanservice and stupid cliche harem antics
What’s weird too is that they don’t really even focus that much on harem stuff or on fanservice. There’s the occasional hot springs episode, but it’s not like everything that happens in the show is an excuse to show everyone’s panties or whatever. The rest of the harem is just like…there.
There was one good thing about the second season and that was the catchy J-pop ED song.
I’m reading Jonathan Tappan’s comment and just continuously nodding because that was pretty much what I thought. Here was a story that could have been an interesting romance between two people who had to deal with all sorts of obstacles because of the disapproval of their respective families. It worked pretty well for the first two or three episodes and then they introduced Miyabi as the anally retentive look-out for Aoi’s family. Fair enough… that ties the conflict into the reality of the Sakuraba household. Next thing we know, they’re in a giant mansion and SUDDENLY HAREM. I mean, what the hell happened? Did the author think the story was too serious, and needed to come up with some way to cheapen it?
Looking back on it now, I’m thinking the other girls were pretty much there to stall any romantic development between Kaoru and Aoi, but there was no suspense because, as you say, the coupling was obvious (and any other relationship would have made no sense). It made it frustrating viewing. But, oh no, we can’t have shounen romance series with momentous relationship development, people won’t buy them unless they have 15 volumes of utter pointlessness.
Shin would say go for the loliz.
I’ve never watched this show but the whole stretching the series out long despite obviousness about who wins in the end sounds absolutely Ranma 1/2 to me
Aren’t teenagers allowed to be irrational anymore? ;_;
I could have being a really sweet romantic story, if they took only certain 10 or so chapters, instead it got blown up with lots and lots of ridiculous nonsense. When i first tried reading it i couldnt continue past the point where they started living in that large house, it was like a completely different story has taken over the narrative.
Romance is kinda nice, though it would be even better if Aoi had some more self-interests. Its nice to have subservient and mellow girlfriend, but Aoi was too much of a brainwashed slave.
I cut Aoi a little bit of slack with that. My high school calculus teacher (who was Indian, although Christian rather than Hindu) had an arranged marriage when she was young. Basically, both sides understand that their families chose their partner in good faith, so they work to be devoted to each other because the whole thing is “supposed” to work out. Not “supposed” as in “I MOST HONOR MY PARENT’S THROUGH FILIAL DUTY!”, but rather “supposed” to in the sense that you’re both compatible with each other. After all, it’s not like Kaoru is one of those eminently hateable harem leads who doesn’t have a single positive, noteworthy aspect to himself.
“But, oh no, we can’t have shounen romance series with momentous relationship development, people won’t buy them unless they have 15 volumes of utter pointlessness.”
^I HEAR YOUR PAIN. It’s a well established fact that some of the male chromosomes are in charge of detecting romance-ish development in the plot of any work of fiction and quickly eliminating any interest and/or inclination toward that work of fiction, to prevent DNA mutation in the male that will result in him becoming gay. IT’S A SCIENTIFIC FACT! (How else do you explain Bleach?)
WTF…
Then I propose we should eliminate men and have a female only race!
The really weird thing is that all this was pretty apparent in the first series too, and I far from liked that one. In fact, I am now very much questioning why I watched that and this in its entirety without even being forced too. I must’ve hit my head hard and watched really horrible crap that even I can’t like during that time.
I guess that yes, it could’ve been a decent show if a lot of things were different. Too much emo backstory though.
The manga was a heck of a lot better than this “Filler” season of AYA…
Kind of reminds me of the other sequel that paled to the original(Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu?). It had promise, but ended up w/ a ton of fanservice.(and not deal with the reason why everyone liked the series in the first place)
Back in the day I really like AYA but yeah, the second season wasn’t all that great. It’s like nothing *really* happened in particular.
Like what Jopchan121 mentions it is a lot like the case of Nogizaka Haruka. Pretty decent first season but then has a bad second season.
“The manga was a heck of a lot better than this “Filler” season of AYA…”
Riiiiight. Because it has absolutely nothing to do with manga….oh wait, it was a perfect manga rendition page by page, so no, manga was exactly the same.
Not to mention the manga just got pretty shitty after a while since the mangaka just lost interest and almost was just going to leave it unfinished.
I love his new manga though, Umi no Misaki
I think I only watched AYA because of Ayako Kawasumi :>
I think I read the final volume of manga of this once just because it was wrapped in plastic. Or something like that. Hmm…