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is a manga series created by Masakazu Katsura and published by Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump. It also has an anime adaptation. The manga is published in English by Viz Communications. It was formerly published in the anthology Animerica Extra by Viz. It was started in 1990 and continued until 1993, and fifteen manga volumes were produced. The first 13 volumes tell a story about a video girl named Ai Amano. The last two volumes, which came years later, focus on a video girl named Len, hence the new name for these two volumes - "Video Girl Len". In fact, a pun is present here which is lost in translation; the two video girls' names "Ren" and "ai" combine to form "renai"- a Japanese word used to describe the type of romantic comedy that Video Girl Ai is. Although they have different protagonists, the "Ai" and "Len" sub-stories are not entirely unrelated; they take place in the same setting, with a similar premise and many shared characters. The Video Girl Ai anime is a six part OVA series which was produced by I.G. Tatsunoko. The series was released in 1992 by Jump Video. It roughly covers most of the material found in volumes 1 and 3 of the manga (and some of Volume 2). The character designs for the anime remained faithful to the manga style and the overall animation is excellent. It is commonly speculated that the author, Masakazu Katsura, used this series as what could be described as a pilot; although he wanted to write a straight romantic comedy, he included sci-fi and action elements, so that the series would guarantee to be a success with both his publishers and (teenage male) audience. Video Girl Ai was followed in 1993 with another sci-fi/romantic comedy manga DNA² and by the straight romantic comedy I"s in 1997.
Story (manga) The story starts when Yota Moteuchi finds out that the girl he likes, Moemi Hayakawa is in love with his best friend, Takashi Niimai. Disappointed by this fact, he decides to rent a video from a mysterious video store that appeared in front of him on his way home. The video store was called "Gokuraku" ("Paradise"). The unique thing about this video store was that the videos in the store contained "video girls", girls which come out of the television to cheer the renter up. Not knowing about the video girls, Yota chooses to rent a video starring Ai Amano. Ai comes to life with the purpose to brighten up Yota's life and encourage him to pursue his love. However, Yota plays the video on a broken video recorder, which causes Ai to come out "broken"; among other effects she has the ability to feel emotions. This additional feature of Ai causes her to eventually fall in love with Yota; a feeling which, after giving up on Moemi, Yota begins to return. However, a mysterious man related to Gokuraku known as Rolex enters the story and tries to recall Ai as she is faulty. From this point on, the story changes focus slightly and concentrates on Yota and Ai attempting to overcome the difficulties presented by Gokuraku. Various other complications come into the story; for example Yota's continuing love for Moemi, and his relationship with a new character, Nobuko Nizaki. Initially, Ai spends some of her time teasing Yota mercilessly in various sexual manners i.e. pretending to initiate intercourse, or joining Yota "innocently" in the bath "to help him wash". Yota's resulting embarrassment and attempt to extricate himself from the situation results, as always, in some slapstick humor and more resulting sexual tension. The brief series also relies heavily on ecchi, choosing not to get too carried away with direct male audience targeting, and allowing real emotion to show through. Characters Volumes ISBNs are for the 2nd edition | ||||||||
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