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AIが止まらない! [AI ga Tomaranai!] #1
AIが止まらない! 1 [AI ga Tomaranai! 1]
Behind every great man is a great Artificial Intelligence. Hitoshi Kobe is a poor student, a bad athlete and may be the unluckiest man alive . . . though he does have a knack for creating Artificial Intelligences. Number Thirty is Hitoshi's favorite A.I. and the only girl he can talk to. But if a freak accident can turn Thirty into a real girl, can Thirty turn Hitoshi into a real man?
202 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1994
About the author
Ken Akamatsu
650 books232 followersKen Akamatsu (赤松 健, Akamatsu Ken, July 5, 1968 -) is a Japanese mangaka from Tokyo.
In his teenage years, Akamatsu failed the entrance exam to Tokyo University, and applied for Film Study instead (it is speculated that this is where he got the idea for Love Hina). Eventually, he became famous as an illustrator featured in Comiket (short for Comic Market, a comic convention bi-annually held in Japan). He used the pen name Awa Mizuno (水野 亜和, MIZUNO Awa). Akamatsu, still in college, then proceeded to win the Weekly Shonen Magazine award twice. His "A Kid's Game for One Summer" was awarded the coveted 50th Shonen Magazine Newcomer's Award soon after he graduated.
After a big hit with A.I. Love You, he finally made a grand success with his new manga, Love Hina. The series appeared in Weekly Shonen Magazine and has been collected in eleven volumes (with fourteen volumes in total), which have sold over 6 million copies in Japan, and received the Kodansha Manga Award for shōnen in 2001.
Akamatsu had added elements of his own life experiences to the story, and this was said to have induced a unique feeling to the manga especially for Western readers, whose lack of familiarity with Japanese culture for the most part added to the effect. The series, published in America in 2002, was especially well received in many overseas countries - Akamatsu was surprised that even foreign readers found Love Hina to be "cute" and to their liking.
He is now married to his wife 'Kanon' Akamatsu, who was previously a singer/idol. He is currently working on his latest manga series, Negima!: Magister Negi Magi, which is his longest running manga so far. Like Love Hina, has also been made into an anime series. A second independent retelling of Negima was made called Negima!?. Both series were produced by XEBEC (Negima!? was produced by SHAFT).
In his teenage years, Akamatsu failed the entrance exam to Tokyo University, and applied for Film Study instead (it is speculated that this is where he got the idea for Love Hina). Eventually, he became famous as an illustrator featured in Comiket (short for Comic Market, a comic convention bi-annually held in Japan). He used the pen name Awa Mizuno (水野 亜和, MIZUNO Awa). Akamatsu, still in college, then proceeded to win the Weekly Shonen Magazine award twice. His "A Kid's Game for One Summer" was awarded the coveted 50th Shonen Magazine Newcomer's Award soon after he graduated.
After a big hit with A.I. Love You, he finally made a grand success with his new manga, Love Hina. The series appeared in Weekly Shonen Magazine and has been collected in eleven volumes (with fourteen volumes in total), which have sold over 6 million copies in Japan, and received the Kodansha Manga Award for shōnen in 2001.
Akamatsu had added elements of his own life experiences to the story, and this was said to have induced a unique feeling to the manga especially for Western readers, whose lack of familiarity with Japanese culture for the most part added to the effect. The series, published in America in 2002, was especially well received in many overseas countries - Akamatsu was surprised that even foreign readers found Love Hina to be "cute" and to their liking.
He is now married to his wife 'Kanon' Akamatsu, who was previously a singer/idol. He is currently working on his latest manga series, Negima!: Magister Negi Magi, which is his longest running manga so far. Like Love Hina, has also been made into an anime series. A second independent retelling of Negima was made called Negima!?. Both series were produced by XEBEC (Negima!? was produced by SHAFT).
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
September 6, 2018
Review for volume 1-5
Hitoshi has never been popular or particularly good at anything - apart from computers, that is. In his spare time, he has been creating AI's and modelling them after his idea of the ideal girlfriend. When thunder strikes, one of his AI programmes suddenly comes to life and is standing in front of him as a real human girl.
That's it, I give up. I started this series in May and have just managed to read a volume per month. I can't get myself to finish it as it is shockingly trashy. I can't see how the last three volumes could make the story any more interesting or Hitoshi any less of the ass that he is.
I've always had mixed feelings about Ken Akamatsu. I love his art, it's so pretty. And although I know of several girls who read his works, I do realise that the intended audience is actually male and that rules me out. His stories are always very formulaic - if you've read one, you've kind of read them all. His works are purely comedic with very, very few serious scenes and a lot of the jokes are sexual. One can take it in good humour and still enjoy the crazy storyline.
This, however, was not the case for A.I. Love You. Despite being an older work, I read it much later than any of his other works. First of all, I was fooled by the beautiful cover art; the artwork inside is nothing like it - as an older work, it is to be expected that the artwork is dated but the covers are clearly newer works. But the artwork aside, the humour could only make me laugh at how pathetic it was. There isn't a single scene without a sexual joke and, unlike his other works, I can't take these in good humour. They are tasteless, disturbing and just downright insulting.
Hitoshi is a terrible main character and just a terrible person. For someone who is supposedly so poor at everything, he has quite the ego. He's got his devoted girlfriend who he treats as though he owns her - complaining about her faults e.g. not being able to cook and just constantly acting as though she owes him something. He is openly interested in any other female character around and has constant perverted thoughts. He grabs his girlfriends chest whether she likes it or not. He simply had no redeeming qualities that could have made me like or understand him in any way.
And while all of Ken Akamatsu's works are heavily comedy based, they do still have an overreaching plot. A.I. Love You just doesn't have a plot. It's just about this idiot Hitoshi with his artificial girls in his house (of which his parents are conveniently absent) doing one perverted experiment after the other. It's a very episodic series but I saw no plot progression at all - every chapter was an effort to get through. Eventually, I realised that I couldn't care less even if there were some kind of showdown in the final volume. One of the worst manga I have ever read and have had the misfortune of spending money on. My only comfort is that at least I bought the volumes second hand. Now it's time to get rid of them myself.
September 17, 2018
Rating: 2 out of 10
Violence: None
Fan Service: Very High (Explicit Nudity)
Sexual Content: Very High (Talked about all the time)
Type: The Loser and the Beautiful Girl
Read: 1 Volume
More?: No, fan service
Plot Analysis: Introverted boy with a talent for creating Artificial intelligence has one of his creations brought to life via a freak lightning storm. She is, of course, completely naked, completely devoted to him, and has no idea of how to really do anything. Hi-jinks and an incredible amount of fan service ensue.
Review: The first volume is chock full of nudity, underwear shots, bikinis and towels being pulled and barely covering anything in the first place. There’s the fairly predicable “nemesis” trying to ruin everything while only managing to embarrass herself. The hero feebly attempts to get physically involved with his creation, only to be defeated by her naivety.
Violence: None
Fan Service: Very High (Explicit Nudity)
Sexual Content: Very High (Talked about all the time)
Type: The Loser and the Beautiful Girl
Read: 1 Volume
More?: No, fan service
Plot Analysis: Introverted boy with a talent for creating Artificial intelligence has one of his creations brought to life via a freak lightning storm. She is, of course, completely naked, completely devoted to him, and has no idea of how to really do anything. Hi-jinks and an incredible amount of fan service ensue.
Review: The first volume is chock full of nudity, underwear shots, bikinis and towels being pulled and barely covering anything in the first place. There’s the fairly predicable “nemesis” trying to ruin everything while only managing to embarrass herself. The hero feebly attempts to get physically involved with his creation, only to be defeated by her naivety.
December 25, 2023
A very cute and solidly funny rom-com from my favorite Manga artist. Vol. 1 has a lot of good variety and pretty solid ending frame jokes. What makes Ken Akamatsu's stories and characters feel real, even when the fantastic is happening, is that he populates his stories with locations that feel real, time that properly passes, and conflicts that come from the characters' situations. He also has found a wonderful pace to his work. How characters move in a scene and what they say all feel just right, like you are actually watching these characters move and talk in real life. I can't say any anime adaptation ever hit the same proper pace.
December 30, 2017
I have no idea why I started collecting these. I think I bought a few and couldn't stop? My little brother did enjoy them and although I liked these more than Love Hina... I can't remember what it was about. Weird because I can remember what Love Hina was about.
November 5, 2025
Apparently, I like this better than most folks. I can relate to the hero, Hitoshi, and wish Artificial Intelligence was as useful as suggested by this manga. There's plenty of computer info for the uninitiated as well.
June 30, 2015
I finally finished reading all eight volumes of this series and my honest rating is probably around three stars for the whole thing. I came to A.I. Love You through seeing Love Hina, unfortunately, my review may lack the "heat of the moment" aspect as A.I. Love You has been around for quite a while and Ken Akamatsu's style and writing have improved quite a bit. Also, there are far superior anime's and manga's out there, such as Absolute Boyfriend, that have a similar topic. I read this series as a Love Hina fan curious about what Akamatsu's earlier writing was like.
I've noticed that I'm not really a fan of the older 90's style of anime/manga and I've much preferred a lot of manga written post 2000, perhaps this is why the genre never struck that much of a chord with me in my high school years of the 90's. However, this could simply be due to a lack of translations being available back then, but there wasn't a lot of classics that I truly enjoyed even now. I'm saying all this, because my review of A.I. Love You might be harsher than it deserves. In the context and time frame in which it was written it may have been a really enchanting or fresh story.
A.I. Love You is similar to stories like Weird Science or Virtuosity (well... minus the horror). In the interviews throughout the series Akamatsu references Weird Science as an influence. This is the story of Hitoshi, a high school student, who is very good at programming, but, essentially, a failure in all other high school subjects. This has put him in a position of being a major outcast and quite the loner at school. So, he's immersed himself in computers and hentai games in response and has made his own artificial intelligence programs. Obviously, these programs eventually take on the turn of virtual "girlfriends" and he crafts girls that are as realistic as possible and as attractive as possible (naturally, he's a fifteen year old kid). In a freak accident involving lightning the programs begin to come to life and exist outside the computer. In what seems to be typical Akamatsu fashion crazy antics ensue and the manga takes on a form of a typical harem styled anime.
There really isn't much of an overarching story and most of the manga episodes are fairly self contained. It works very much like a sitcom type of television show, which I think was the general goal of this manga. It works rather well, but the writing is merely "okay", which is what I mean when I say Love Hina is a more well written series. You see a lot of influence from A.I. Love You show up in his later series, but I'll cover that in my other reviews.
For me A.I. Love You is where he really got his start and it really follows a lot of weird problems for me. There's the typical objectification of women, but at the same time he tries to create loving and rather memorable characters. There is certainly loads of fan service, which is something I've come to expect quite a lot of from Akamatsu, but there's something about it that makes it feel more "all in good fun" than the creepy leering kind.
Albeit, for some readers you will find the content objectionable, but this kind of work really reads a lot more like a teenage boys fantasy. I think it's from that perspective that actually sort of captures this in some ways. The main character is, undoubtedly, based a little on Akamatsu himself and it is not too much of stretch trying to imagine the author thinking back to when he was fifteen. What launches this into the sitcom realm is the fact that what you dream up in fantasy might not play out so well in practice. This is quite similar to what else happens in the typical "computer gone wrong" scenario... only A.I. Love You is much less horrifying than we see with a lot of other A.I. related content.
So, this series isn't for everyone. Akamatsu certainly isn't an author who transcends to all people, but his stories are quirky and fun. As this series went on the writing got a lot stronger and I rather enjoyed Volume 7, but it became a little drab again in Volume 8 as the ideas started to run a little dry, so the series stood at a solid three for me.
I've noticed that I'm not really a fan of the older 90's style of anime/manga and I've much preferred a lot of manga written post 2000, perhaps this is why the genre never struck that much of a chord with me in my high school years of the 90's. However, this could simply be due to a lack of translations being available back then, but there wasn't a lot of classics that I truly enjoyed even now. I'm saying all this, because my review of A.I. Love You might be harsher than it deserves. In the context and time frame in which it was written it may have been a really enchanting or fresh story.
A.I. Love You is similar to stories like Weird Science or Virtuosity (well... minus the horror). In the interviews throughout the series Akamatsu references Weird Science as an influence. This is the story of Hitoshi, a high school student, who is very good at programming, but, essentially, a failure in all other high school subjects. This has put him in a position of being a major outcast and quite the loner at school. So, he's immersed himself in computers and hentai games in response and has made his own artificial intelligence programs. Obviously, these programs eventually take on the turn of virtual "girlfriends" and he crafts girls that are as realistic as possible and as attractive as possible (naturally, he's a fifteen year old kid). In a freak accident involving lightning the programs begin to come to life and exist outside the computer. In what seems to be typical Akamatsu fashion crazy antics ensue and the manga takes on a form of a typical harem styled anime.
There really isn't much of an overarching story and most of the manga episodes are fairly self contained. It works very much like a sitcom type of television show, which I think was the general goal of this manga. It works rather well, but the writing is merely "okay", which is what I mean when I say Love Hina is a more well written series. You see a lot of influence from A.I. Love You show up in his later series, but I'll cover that in my other reviews.
For me A.I. Love You is where he really got his start and it really follows a lot of weird problems for me. There's the typical objectification of women, but at the same time he tries to create loving and rather memorable characters. There is certainly loads of fan service, which is something I've come to expect quite a lot of from Akamatsu, but there's something about it that makes it feel more "all in good fun" than the creepy leering kind.
Albeit, for some readers you will find the content objectionable, but this kind of work really reads a lot more like a teenage boys fantasy. I think it's from that perspective that actually sort of captures this in some ways. The main character is, undoubtedly, based a little on Akamatsu himself and it is not too much of stretch trying to imagine the author thinking back to when he was fifteen. What launches this into the sitcom realm is the fact that what you dream up in fantasy might not play out so well in practice. This is quite similar to what else happens in the typical "computer gone wrong" scenario... only A.I. Love You is much less horrifying than we see with a lot of other A.I. related content.
So, this series isn't for everyone. Akamatsu certainly isn't an author who transcends to all people, but his stories are quirky and fun. As this series went on the writing got a lot stronger and I rather enjoyed Volume 7, but it became a little drab again in Volume 8 as the ideas started to run a little dry, so the series stood at a solid three for me.
November 20, 2011
This is from the previous work of the guy that made Love Hina. From what I know he only made hentai before that and decided to go for more mainstream regions.
This work is by no means original. In fact, it is an Ah! My Goddess / Video Girl Ai combo. It plays nicely along the typical harem formula but unlike most, it actually matures and colorizes its cast to some point. Meaning that the characters are the usual bunch but by the end of the series they feel far more than archetypes. So they are likable for a harem story.
The art is rather shabby in lining but makes up for it with the innovation at making virtual worlds that resemble seas and viruses in the form of mad clowns. There are many areas that go beyond the typical highschool grounds and that keeps the reader interested.
The story is both good and bad at the same time. It has a really stupid excuse for chicks to swarm a dork as usual, this time by being mostly AI programs that materialize in the real world. Typically, they are gorgeous chicks who love their creator, the indecisive lead. Well, that at least excuses somehow why they swarm him…
The story could easily turn to hentai regions but the mangaka desided to play it just for laughs, with the lead always trying to help or correct the mess his creations do, while not missing to do the occasional “watched and groped naked skin”. The erotic humor is rather bold, especially for the time it was made, and it can keep the average reader to the end. It still throws in some serious issues from time to time and introduces new characters to spice things up. It also brings back and matures a bit everyone. That is really rare for a harem series.
The main problem here is that the story was left incomplete. The mangaka himself describes at the final pages how the story would go on for many more chapters but saw that it was not appealing anymore and went to make a new series called Love Hina. I don’t blame the guy; it indeed felt a lot like AMG and VGI and would probably never have been a hit with those two around. All I can say is that it was a nice and rather different read on the tired formula which leaves you somewhat disappointed at the end for stopping so suddenly. That also means that you care enough for the characters to want more…Which is a good sign.
For a much more mature and catchy take on the same theme, I recommend checking out “Ressentiment”. It pretty much is like this one, far more naughty and yet far more serious.
This work is by no means original. In fact, it is an Ah! My Goddess / Video Girl Ai combo. It plays nicely along the typical harem formula but unlike most, it actually matures and colorizes its cast to some point. Meaning that the characters are the usual bunch but by the end of the series they feel far more than archetypes. So they are likable for a harem story.
The art is rather shabby in lining but makes up for it with the innovation at making virtual worlds that resemble seas and viruses in the form of mad clowns. There are many areas that go beyond the typical highschool grounds and that keeps the reader interested.
The story is both good and bad at the same time. It has a really stupid excuse for chicks to swarm a dork as usual, this time by being mostly AI programs that materialize in the real world. Typically, they are gorgeous chicks who love their creator, the indecisive lead. Well, that at least excuses somehow why they swarm him…
The story could easily turn to hentai regions but the mangaka desided to play it just for laughs, with the lead always trying to help or correct the mess his creations do, while not missing to do the occasional “watched and groped naked skin”. The erotic humor is rather bold, especially for the time it was made, and it can keep the average reader to the end. It still throws in some serious issues from time to time and introduces new characters to spice things up. It also brings back and matures a bit everyone. That is really rare for a harem series.
The main problem here is that the story was left incomplete. The mangaka himself describes at the final pages how the story would go on for many more chapters but saw that it was not appealing anymore and went to make a new series called Love Hina. I don’t blame the guy; it indeed felt a lot like AMG and VGI and would probably never have been a hit with those two around. All I can say is that it was a nice and rather different read on the tired formula which leaves you somewhat disappointed at the end for stopping so suddenly. That also means that you care enough for the characters to want more…Which is a good sign.
For a much more mature and catchy take on the same theme, I recommend checking out “Ressentiment”. It pretty much is like this one, far more naughty and yet far more serious.
March 26, 2008
This is the breakthrough series for Ken Akamatsu, his first success story. I'd read his later work, Love Hina and Negima Magister Negi Magi. So, I've been looking forward to reading this, his first real manga story.
It is interesting to see how his artwork has evolved. This early work has a much more primitive drawing style, especially when he's drawing his exaggerated SD (super deformed) expressions on characters. I can see Naru and Keitaro character origins in Saati and Hitoshi Kobe.
This story is cute, but not as involving as his later work. Very simplistic plot with cliched story devices, nothing truly innovative here. Still, it's a great opportunity to see the promising beginnings and early work of a successful manga-ka.
It is interesting to see how his artwork has evolved. This early work has a much more primitive drawing style, especially when he's drawing his exaggerated SD (super deformed) expressions on characters. I can see Naru and Keitaro character origins in Saati and Hitoshi Kobe.
This story is cute, but not as involving as his later work. Very simplistic plot with cliched story devices, nothing truly innovative here. Still, it's a great opportunity to see the promising beginnings and early work of a successful manga-ka.
May 4, 2008
i love this book because of plot. the main story is of a guy named hitoshi kobe who is a high school student. he's realy smart yet not populare one bit. he is the son of two great programers and he has thankfuly gained there ablity to program and he has been working on a A.I that he beleaves would be his perfict and ideal girlfriend. but wile talking to her one day she a thunderstorm starts and a thunderbolt hit the house some how alowing program #20 (also known as saati)alive. this manga is extremly funny from everything they do in it, from trying to teach saati how to cook to geting her into a after school program to fighting a evil virus
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 18, 2016
This is the story of Hitoshi Kobe, a poor student who is excellent at computer programming and creating artificial intelligences. He manages to create a female A.I. that ends up, through a freak bolt of lightening, coming alive. She exits the computer and then the story goes on from there on how Hitoshi finds it necessary to teach "Number 30" about life in the "real" world.
The story is really quite cute. There are a lot of "situations" that Hitoshi has to work through and, as usual, he's totally in love with the girl but is anything but forward in expressing that love to her. Overall a fairly interesting manga.
September 22, 2012
The story isn't very unique but I believe it is back then when it first came out so in a sense it was one of the first in where someone makes a program/robot/android that becomes "human" and becomes its maker's love interest. A.I. Love You is a cute manga that's all about Hiroshi and Saati's relationship. Hiroshi tries to teach the ditzy Saati about how humans do things and there are often hilarious results. It's definitely a good manga to pass the time. I believe the series picks up in the following volumes when Saati's real identity is discovered.
June 14, 2020
Very cool read, I loved the main characters progression through out the story. the art reminds me of love hina. I would like it if he wasn't so obsessed with women, I guess men were obsessed with them a lot in the old times, highly unrealistic now. my favorite parts were when he talked about his passion with learning computers and programing. The little notes and the "Love Talk" section were interesting (talked about the understanding of his art and characters). The computers looked dated, but still interesting.
October 4, 2007
this one is about the great Artificial Intelligence (like chobit). the main figure is a man name Hitoshi Kobe, he is the unluckiest man alive (poor student, bad athlete, ordinary face, etc) but there is one thing that incredible fromhim. He create The Artificial Intelligences, in a girl form ....
January 6, 2013
I have read Ken's work Love Hina in the past, and so it was a no brainer that I would try this series at some point. This reminds me of a classic John Hughes movie, Weird Science. Not a bad thing by any means. Saati, the computer generated "perfect" girl for Hitoshi, becomes a part of his life, and her ability to interface with all things electronic makes for some interesting storylines. Seven books to go, so better start the next one.
January 17, 2013
J'ai commencé cette série car je suis une grande fan de Love Hina, du même auteur. Mais Ai Non Stop est loin d'être aussi drôle!
Le héros, un jeune informaticien plutôt timide et légèrement obsédé par le sexe (pas du tout un stéréotype de manga.....^^) s'est crée une petite amie virtuelle qui, suite à un orage, sort de l'ordinateur!
Au final, le manga est plutôt drôle, mais loin d'égaler le grand classique qu'est Love Hina!
Le héros, un jeune informaticien plutôt timide et légèrement obsédé par le sexe (pas du tout un stéréotype de manga.....^^) s'est crée une petite amie virtuelle qui, suite à un orage, sort de l'ordinateur!
Au final, le manga est plutôt drôle, mais loin d'égaler le grand classique qu'est Love Hina!
December 26, 2011
I borrowed this manga from my classmate. It felt awkward reading this. But anyways, I've read this and I think this was pretty cool. Though I haven't read this manga series for years now. And I think I'm not gonna continue reading the series. But if my classmate would lend me his manga collection of this, then I shall read this. BWAHAHA!
May 27, 2008
[Series Length: 9 volumes / Read: volumes 1-4]
A poor-man's version of "Ah! My Goddess", "Video Girl Ai" and a bunch of other classic dream-girl-visits-a-loser-boy stories.
Bottom line: there's much better material elsewhere.
A poor-man's version of "Ah! My Goddess", "Video Girl Ai" and a bunch of other classic dream-girl-visits-a-loser-boy stories.
Bottom line: there's much better material elsewhere.
July 14, 2008
Not as good as Video Girl Ai. Not as good as Love Hina or Negima. One volume was enough for me.
June 7, 2010
This is my favorite series by Ken Akamatsu it is hilarious and it will leave you wanting for more.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews