単調である。
許嫁という、旧文化を主題とする点は好感がもてる。ただハーレム臭のある環境に、主人公の曖昧な態度でい続ける継続が面白くなく、一辺倒な循環的ショートストーリーで飽きる。
不思議感覚が足りないのだと思う。
現実に近い環境ながらどことなく習慣の古い異質を加えた様子。ファンタージーでもなく、SFでもなく、青春ラブコメというわけでもなく。わたしは支持をしない。 ( )

On his way to catch a train, Kaoru Hanabishi comes across a lost, naive young woman named Aoi. She's decided to find her childhood sweetheart and marry him, and she soon realizes that Kaoru is the one she was looking for. She becomes determined to stay with him and be his wife, but, unfortunately, her family won't hear of it. For the sake of her powerful family's reputation, she must marry someone from a family with similar standing. Kaoru was once the Hanabishi heir, and if this were still the case he could marry Aoi. However, things have changed since they were children, and Kaoru is determined never to go back to the Hanabishi family.

Aoi is what I imagine many young men's fantasies of the perfect woman are like. Although she's virginal, gentle, shy, and sweet-natured, she can become blushingly sexy at the drop of a hat, and she always knows just the right moment to become naked. I don't know any real women who are at all like her, but I suppose that's not the point. Judging by this first volume, Ai Yori Aoshi is romance for older teenage boys, and romance is often idealized.

Judging by Kou Fumizuki's page in Anime News Network, Ai Yori Aoshi is likely his first published series, and it shows. The way characters are drawn is inconsistent and sometimes a little off. Fumizuki uses what I personally think of as the "Escaflowne style of noses" - when you see characters a little in profile, their noses are long and sharp, with a little blunted bit. It's not a style I like, but I grew to like the story in Vision of Escaflowne enough that I got over my reaction to the noses. However I feel about the noses, Fumizuki does manage facial expressions pretty well, which is important for such an emotional series.

I think I'm too much of a woman to ever really like Ai Yori Aoshi - Aoi is too much of a sexy wet washcloth for me to like her, and Kaoru only barely starts getting developed by the end of the first volume. However, I can see why young guys might like this series. There's plenty of fanservice (in the form of nudity in the story, as well as provocative poses, nudity, and the suggestion of nipples through cloth on some of the chapter title pages), the cliched boob-grabbing joke you see pretty much everywhere in this genre, and the ordinary guy who gets the starry-eyed affection of a beautiful woman.

(Original review, with read-alikes, posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) ( )

This is a graphic novel I picked up on a whim when I was in fire school. I've always been a sucker for a quality non-girly romance manga, and this first volume has some pronounced cultural differences from the western world. What resonates with me so much in the story is that it is a story of true love, despite hardship and opposition. There are certainly some elements of Japanese culture that come through that I could stand to do without, but Fumizuki-sama does an excellent job with the story. ( )

Kaoru Hanabishi, a lonely good-hearted college boy, who has cut ties with his father's family had a "normal" college life living by himself. Now all of that quiet life shattered when he meet a pretty young girl, Aoi Sakuraba, lost in a train station. She is on her way to meet somebody in his town and much to his surprise, Aoi is actually looking for him!

After much flirtations and right out confession of being engaged when they were kids, Kaoru grown attraction to his new found fiancee, along with it, some mature urgings. Then he finds out Aoi ran away from her current arranged marriage and the only way for him to be with her is to either go back to his estranged family, or Aoi to leave hers.

To answer your question, YES! As the front cover shows, this graphic novel IS for 18-SX mature readers, due to the available mature scenes and adult humor only 18+ could actually understand. The artwork is beautiful and dialogs are engaging as well as funny. Plots are simple. I had an awesome time reading this one. ( )