A.I. Love You, Band 2

AIが止まらない! [AI ga Tomaranai!] #2

by Ken Akamatsu

Egmont Manga und Anime

Genres: Manga, Science Fiction, Graphic Novels, Comedy, Romance, Fiction, Shonen

200 pages, Paperback

First published April 16, 1999

About the author

Ken 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).

Reviews

[Bibliothecat · Rating 1 out of 5]

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.

[David Doel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not only is this a fun manga; I learn something about computers and astronomy while I read it.

[Sianeka · Rating 2 out of 5]

More of Ken Akamatsu's romantic comedy, this is Volume 2. Here, Saati finally learns some cooking fundamentals! This book also introduces A.I. Program 20, aka Toni. When she also springs to life from Hitoshi Kobe's computer, Saati gains a big sister, and Hitoshi gains double the trouble.

Ken Akamatsu is still developing his sense of style in this volume (this series is his first successful manga series) and the drawing and plot is not as tight as he achieves later with Love Hina or Negima series. Still, an interesting read to view his early style, and watch his growth as a manga-ka.

[Levi · Rating 4 out of 5]

in Vol. 2 things are starting to cool down again and there geting into the swing of things. but because of saati finding a floppy disk and a nother freek thunderstorm it brings #20 also to life. #20 calles her self toenii and is a lot stonger then saati is but also she's a bit of a drama qween. so once again hitoshi has another A.I. liveing with him bringing more chaos to the house.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book 2 saw a 3rd main character arrive from the nether realms. Program 20. She added a love triangle dimension to the story for a while, and provides plenty of comic relief. Saati and Hitoshi grow closer together because of this, IMHO. Ready for Book 3!

[Steven Keith]

Leaped off shelf while I was putting other books away. Sucked my eyesballs into reading whole thing at one sitting.