A.I. Love You

[Kei]

A.I. Love You is one of Ken Akamatsu's early works, just prior to his smash hit Love Hina. I've been reading through this manga recently, (I'm on volume 5 of 8 ) and I've found it to be quite good. It chronicles the evolution of Ken's art from his early style to the style seen in Love Hina, and is also quite a bit more pervy than his other works. It also shows off Ken's talent at drawing fight scenes, which would resurface in the later volumes of Negima.

Here's an example of the art style from volume 1 of A.I.

And here is an image of Saati, the main female protagonist, as drawn in Ken's current art style.

So, has anybody here read this manga? Anybody planning to read it?

[Kagami]

Definitely planning to read it now that you have brought it up, and since I really like lovehina this should be an easy favorite. Have you found a site online, or have you bought a few books?

[Taiga]

Been meaning to read this for a couple of years now. I'll get around to it! x3

[Kei]

Have you found a site online, or have you bought a few books?

I bought the entire series a while ago (since it was by Ken Akamatsu), but just now got around to reading it. Tokyopop's translation is superb, by the way.

[Kagami]

Tokyo Pop translated LoveHina as well and I agree, the translation is fantastic. The translators have left alot of Japanese in the panels as well, which helps me practice...

[Kei]

Well, I finished A.I. Love You... and decided to reread Love Hina. Ken Akamatsu for the win!

[Taiga]

Mmm... I aughta catch up with Negima!, I'm a good 4+ volumes behind now.

[Kei]

Hmm, I never liked Negima that much. Granted, the third volume was kind of awesome (Evangeline FTW), but it kinda turned into a substandard shonen-fighting manga. The harem aspects of the series were also weak, mainly due to there being TOO MANY FLIPPING CHARACTERS.

[Taiga]

Hahaha. The harem thing is also rather countered by there being 2 definite MAIN girls in the harem... and one isn't even schoolgirl age.

[Kagami]

I've been enjoying Negima as well. When the story actually rears its head on one of those rare occasions, in between the brainless but very nice harem moments, its quite intriguing. And its pretty funny, plus I love the art style of Ken as well. So yeah...

[Kei]

If you ask me, Ken hit his stride during the first few volumes of Love Hina. The story was full of raw emotion, the art was vibrant, the dialogue was moving... overall, an amazing experience. However, as the series progressed and the plotlines started to get more ridiculous (mecha turtles and the like), a lot of that compelling emotion vanished. That problem got worse with Negima, as magical battles, robots and inter-dimensional demons dominated the plot.

Don't get me wrong... I'm not saying Negima is a BAD manga. After all, I wouldn't own eighteen volumes of it if I didn't find it enjoyable. I just don't think its as good as Ken's previous work. However, since Negima gave us Evangeline and Nodoka, two of the best characters EVER, I think it can be forgiven.

[Kagami]

Yup I totally agree there, as the LoveHina manga progressed into the last few novels it went into what I like to call 'Negima Mode', i.e. completely preposterous and unbelievable. All that crazy Kingdom of Molmol and running about made me wonder if Ken began Negima before finishing off LoveHina, or he just decided he liked that whole crazy stuff more, thus Negima is what it is.

[Kei]

Also... what's up with the undersized frames/text in the later volumes of Love Hina? All the gags are in these tiny little boxes with infinitesimal pictures and text you need a magnifying glass to read. Now that I think about it, Negima had that problem too... maybe the serialized version was larger?