An explanation of why the romantic comedy Ai Yori Aoshi is unlike other "harem" comedies, including "Tenchi Muyo" and "Love Hina".
One standard plot common in manga and anime is the "harem" fantasy. The young, ordinary, somewhat nerdy hero finds himself surrounded by more women than he ever dreamed of--and all of them are voluptuous, talented, and scantily dressed. The best-known example is the Tenchi Muyo franchise, in which Tenchi Masaki finds his life invaded by beauties from outer space (it turns out granddad was an extraterrestrial). Ken Akamatsu's comic Love Hina makes its hero the landlord of an all-girls college dormitory, complete with a hot springs in the back yard (I did say scantily clad).
At first glance, Kou Fumizuki's romantic comedy manga Ai Yori Aoshi (a pun too complicated to unravel here) seems to fit nicely into the harem structure. Kaoru Honjou, a college sophomore, living alone in a rented room, starts collecting girls in his life like souvenirs collect dust. The girls themselves are predictably wacky, including Tina the American who speaks flawless (if accented) Japanese, the hopelessly clumsy Taeko, and a couple of high school girls.
But he first has the "cute meet" with a girl he'd met as a child--and, it turns out, he was engaged to: Aoi Sakuraba, the daughter and heir to a major department store chain. However much money the family may have, though, she doesn't flaunt it. Instead, she dresses in traditional kimono and speaks a very formal, stilted Japanese. Kaoru meets Aoi when her sandal breaks in the middle of a train station; he repairs it since he, too, used to be part of a traditional wealthy family (hence their betrothal). She's journeyed all this way to find the boy she fell in love with as a child, which was the last thing Kaoru ever expected to deal with.
The harem plot requires some question as to which member of the harem the hero ultimately hooks up with: does Tenchi prefer Jurai Princess Aeka or Space Pirate Ryoko? Which of the boarding house residents will Keitaro hook up with? This is all irrelevant to Ai Yori Aoshi; we saw him meet Aoi in the first few pages, and her almost operatic declarations of undying love pretty much set the tone. So we don't have to guess too hard, especially when Tina describes Aoi as the embodiment of "Yamato nadeshiko", the classic Japanese beauty.
And yet the whole thing--fan service at all--is done with such sweetness and earnestness that you end up accepting the retro-romance and cheering the young lovers on. Even in its anime incarnation, the whole thing is, like its heroes, nice. And worth checking out.
