Ai yori aoshi
Tags: psychedelic, romantic

Plot synopsis:
Kaoru Hanabishi, a university student, is the eldest son of Yūji Hanabishi, the head of the Hanabishi Zaibatsu, and was set to take over the zaibatsu after his father retired. His mother, Kumi Honjō, and his father never married, making life difficult for both him and his mother. Kaoru's father died when he was five years old. Since then, Yūji's father, Gen'ichiro Hanabishi, took Kaoru under his wing and began educating him for the eventual succession. However, Kaoru never felt at home in the Hanabishi family and exiled himself after his mother's death. Day by day he felt alone, thinking that he was living life with no reason pushing him on.
There was, however, a person who loved Kaoru so much that she had to do whatever was necessary to be with him. Her name is Aoi Sakuraba. Aoi is the only daughter of the owner of the Sakuraba Dry Goods Store (later renamed to Sakuraba Department Store). Kaoru's family and Aoi's family had expected for Kaoru to marry Aoi, but after Kaoru left, the marriage was canceled. Both families had a friendly relationship and Aoi had been in love with Kaoru from the start, which Kaoru was unaware of. The Sakuraba family had already been searching for someone suitable, but Aoi was unwilling to marry someone else and walked out, chasing Kaoru.
Both were freed from their families' affairs but did not know how to make their living. Miyabi Kagurazaki, Aoi's caretaker, has Aoi live together in a grand western style summer mansion owned by the Sakuraba family and Kaoru would live in a house for servants next to it to prevent a scandal as with the previous. They are soon joined by Tina Foster, an American expatriate; Taeko Minazuki, a clumsy housekeeper; Mayu Miyuki, Kaoru's childhood friend; and Chika Minazuki, Taeko's cousin. The house is eventually converted to a dormitory and Aoi becomes its landlady.
Eventually, Miyabi helps Kaoru reconcile with the Hanabishis and patch up the original engagement. However, Kaoru's half brother attempts to gain control of the Hanabishi Zaibatsu by proposing to Aoi. After Kaoru foils the proposal, Aoi abandons her family name and Kaoru gives the ownership of Hanabishi Zaibatsu to his half-brother. Five years later, Kaoru and Aoi are married.

Review: Sweet and addicting series, but....
To sum it up quickly, Ai Yori Aoshi is about a college student named Kaoru who meets a sweet, kimono-wearing girl named Aoi. Aoi is looking for a boy from her past whom she has been in love with all her life.
Kaoru helps the lost Aoi in her search, and they both eventually realize that he is the boy from her past.
There is MUCH more to it than that, but let's get down to brass tacks: the first four episodes of this show rule.
They are sweet and touching, and the relationship between Kaoru and Aoi becomes solid in merely these four episodes.
If they kept the series with just them as characters, I would be thrilled.But they don't.Eventually, Kaoru and Aoi are moved to a big mansion, and this great romance series becomes another typical "harem" anime.
Don't get me wrong - the series still rocks, but it GREATLY loses its punch when this happens.
More beautiful females with their own personalities move in, and the relationship between Kaoru and Aoi is mentioned less.
Normally, the harem motif is awesome, but it slowed down this series.
That proves how good this show is.
If only the relationship between just two fictional anime characters can draw you in, that means that Ai Yori Aoshi is a winner..
sweet romantic-comedy about old-fashioned kimono-wearing girl.
I understand Pioneer is going to be releasing the English-language version soon so I will give you a sneak peek based on the subtitled version I've seen.Polite, traditional Japanese girl Aoi has come to the big city looking for her childhood sweetheart Kaoru with the intention of marrying him.
Being naive she has run away from home without even knowing that the boy would accept her.
As it turns out she is the daughter of a wealthy family the Sakurabas and he is from another wealthy family the Hanabishis.
Kaoru ran away during his teens because the Hanabishis ostracized his mother and tried to erase her from the family history when she died.
Since Aoi loves Kaoru with all her heart everything will turn out ok right?
Wrong!
Since Aoi is willing to give up everything to be with Kaoru the family governess Miyabi sets up a house for them to live in on condition that the two of them not cause a scandal by sleeping together.
Their cover story is that Aoi is the owner of the building, Miyabi is the building superintendant and Kaoru is a tenant.
Soon we are introduced to the rest of the large cast of characters who are there to provide the comedy.
I've seen the first nine episodes (Destiny, Supper, Separation, Live-in, Friend, Housework, Mysterious Demon, Fondness, One Night) and it looks promising.
Since this show depends on the cuteness of Aoi I think you will like the Japanese-language version best..
A great harem anime!.
This is a great harem anime and I loved how the characters were drawn and the animation but this has some wonderful characters.I liked Kaoru he is still a nice guy despite a very troubled and abused past then there's Aoi a very kind, polite young woman who actually loves him and there is doubt the feelings between them are all too real.They move in together with Aoi's guardian Miyabi watching over them who can be strict but she does have a good heart, really does care about Aoi and does warm up to Kaoru.Then other girls come in and I think making this a harem actually made it all the more interesting because all of the girls of Ai Yori Aoshi are nothing short of likable.
While Kaoru loves Aoi he does care about the rest of the girls and treats them as friends.I loved this anime though I also read the manga which is better and tells a more complete story..
I expected a derivative series, but....
This wasn't a show I'd expected to like nearly as much as I did, but having seen and enjoyed Aa!
Megami-sama (Oh!
My Goddess), I checked it out.
There were a number of obvious parallels here; I wish I could remember which was produced first, AYA or OMG.
In any case, the tone of AYA was more adult, but the underlying characters were quite similar, right down to the two-man-crew who ran the club at the school.
However, that did NOT remain the case for long at all; here, the characters drive the plot far more than the action does, and character development comes thick and fast.
The comedy elements are much more sparse and low-key, and there's a great deal more mature content, mostly in the form of gratuitous panty shots.
Still, somehow, it didn't come off as overly salacious.I was definitely more impressed with the overall quality of the original Japanese dub of AYA, since so much emotion is passed along via voice rather than flowery dialog; you can't help but lose something in translation.The clincher for me was the last episode.
The final, inevitable, emotional confrontation presents TWO twists: it challenges your point-of-view in an unexpected "Boy-Named-Sue" moment, which sets you up for a surprisingly radically break from the genre stereotypes that the typical male protagonist in this sort of series suffers from.
Talk about sticking the knife in and then giving it a good twist.
The whole scene is absolutely marinated in traditional Eastern concepts of family honor, but somehow the rising action leading up to it helped even this inveterate Westerner to suspend disbelief.
I think my jaw dropped immediately before I got some sand in my eye or something...So I went gunning for the original source material.
The books this series is based on actually ramp up the core conflict more quickly, but then put the action on hold while the peripheral developments that were spread more evenly in the animated version take place almost as a separate bloc.
Very little is changed, and a little more is cut by the animated series (although I hear the second season is a little less forgiving in this regard).
However, the edits thus far make sense (again, season two may vary).I give it a 9 mostly for little nitpicks, and for the fact that I left the series feeling like an incompetent writer, a sorry excuse for a real man, and painfully, painfully single..
The Blues and Loves of two people.
The story line is a rather interesting version of Romeo and Juliet almost.
A boy who isn't liked because he denounced his name and a girl who wishes nothing more then to be with him even against her parents wishes.
It's a rather romantic story, and then they have to add everyone else into the mix and well, we get this.
Not to say this show is bad, its just it gets dull after a while with pretty much every trick in the book being done to keep the two apart from roommates that get in a way to time they have separated from each other and even the family problems.
I'm happy it's not a slice of life in a school (and it's not technically) but it sure feels like one.
I most of the time wanted to bash a couple heads together and yell 'GET TO THE POINT!' but yet, I have to sit through some of the slowest moving pieces until someone finally gets to a punchline and then I feel myself sitting there sometimes asking 'how the heck did that happen and where was the fun?' I do have to mention now that this is one of my favorites of the genre, its just does have a lot of flaws though the good points.Ai is so adorable though her personality is a little two innocent.
She seems way to matter of fact and logical.
She also sounds like a broken record in that she keeps going on about becoming his wife.
She feels much like a Mary Sue character in that with almost everything she does, she does well and the stuff she isn't good at is done in a way that makes her more Moe (and now I'm thinking about Konata's saying from Lucky Star 'Clumsy is sexy') to the point where I just want to smack her.
Luckily, she doesn't go into the realm that I would want her to be attacked by one of the girls from When They Cry, but she sometimes gets close to it.Kaoru though seems well put together or else it's because he is around crazy people.
Sometimes I even wonder if they put him in the middle of all these crazies just to show how bland he really was.
There are times though that I wish he wasn't so easily pushed into doing things he didn't want to do or would hurt Ai if she took it the wrong way.
Unfortunately, both main characters are actually less interesting then the characters around them and the story just seemed to become dull just because I wanted to learn more about the characters and it wouldn't let me.
The arrange marriage thing is hard for me to think of in the modem day sense and makes me wonder if it actually happens still.
There is a lot of fan service in this and it makes me feel really sad because it really didn't need it!
Now we go into the extras and the reason why I call them extras and not supporting characters is this they do not support anything.
They are there to tear the two main characters apart and bring comedy into what could be even more boring story plot.
I think without them, I would never have been able to get into the story.
Their fun antics, although annoying at times, made me smile and laugh to break up the tension of a hard core sad areas.
I do believe without them, the ending would not be as heart retching as it was because it seemed to have more meaning.The artwork is so beautiful and shows a lot of detail throughout the show.
The backgrounds are rich in detail for the most part but there are times that it looks rather low in contrast.
The comical points are really odd looking, where most of the artwork during that time pretty much lacks.
The opening is rather nice in following the sweet music for that.
But seems almost like Ranma's opening in how they made it.The Voices are interesting, and Ai's seems way too breathy.
The English is a little off, almost like it's a exact translation and I wish they would change it a bit.
Some characters were a little creepy in voice and I was a little disappointed in that.
The Japanese is alright even if it's pretty standard for this type of show.
The Japanese and English Ai sound very close to each other.
It's a little nice that way but also somewhat bothersome.The music is so pretty for the opening and closing that I actually looked for the opening music on its own.
The other background music is a little to sappy even for the happy moments and sometimes breaks the mood..
Love Hina...
Neutered..
Geneon (formerly Pioneer) had been on the theme of "anything you can do, I can do better.
And with cute girls at outside baths to boot." "Dual!
Parallel Trouble" is an example since it followed after the popularity of "Neon Genesis Evangelion." I'm not saying that it's true; it's just a thought.With that out of the way, my belief is that there should be something for everybody.
And "Ai Yori Aoshi," which is in the same harem-romance-comedy-drama box as Love Hina, relies less on the comedy and more on the romance.Add one Kaoru Hanabishi; whose sense of gumption is nearly rare for handsome-looking anime male leads during his time.
I'd say he's in the 1/10 ratio that's now being held by Negi Springfield of "Negima(!?)" and Kazuki Muto of "Busou Renkin." Then add Aoi Sakuraba; the female lead who's basically "trophy wife" material (i.e. doormat).
The helping-out Kaoru gave to her during their childhood is carved in the stone of her mind.
She wants nobody else beside her but Kaoru; defying the rules of her parents and caretaker.It's as if the story of "Romeo & Juliet" had been retold without the elongated dialogue.
And even though it raises my suspicion from being hot off the heels of Ken Akamatsu's "Love Hina" series; AYA excludes LH's constant woman-on-man violence masquerading as "slapstick humor."In fact, Kaoru proves that physical violence (inflicted upon him, by the way) is in no way "funny."Other than that, it's a gruelingly lengthy romance drama that's offset by the comedic exploits of the rest of the cast.
Including said caretaker and the pet ermine.