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© 2001 Viz Communications
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Video
Girl Ai
Volume 3: Recall
By: Masakazu
Katsura
Review
by: Jack
Razumich
From:
Viz Communications
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Video Girl Ai is one of six features that appears monthly
in the pages of one of Viz’s anthology comics, Animerica
Extra.
The story is romance at it’s purest, focusing on the rather
luckless love life of Yota Moteuchi, who’s name, ironically,
means dateless. Yota has no luck with women whatsoever.
In true “loser” fashion, he ends up becoming “just friends”
with the woman of his dreams, Moemi Hayakawa, who has no idea
how Yota feels about her. She confides in him that she’s in
love with Yota’s best friend, Takashi Niimai, who DOES know
how Yota feels, and begs for his help with getting together
with him. Rather than see Moemi cry, even though it hurts
him to do it, Yota agrees to help. On his way home from school,
nearly blinded by tears, Yota stumbles across a video rental
store called Gokuraku and rents what he assumes is an adult
film featuring a young lady named Ai Amano on the cover, which
claims that “I’ll cheer you up.” Yota plays the tape once
he gets home, and, much to his surprise, Ai pops out of the
television. Unfortunately, Yota’s VCR was malfunctioning when
he played the tape, so the Ai that came out was very different
from the one advertised on the box: more crude, more impulsive,
less girly. Ai declares that she’s there to help Yota win
over Moemi’s heart, but, because Yota’s VCR was damaged when
he started the tape, Ai’s program is a little faulty and she
slowly finds herself falling in love with Yota, an emotion
that video girls are forbidden to feel...
That’s where volume three picks up. At the end of volume two,
Yota and Ai confess (well, sort of) their feelings for each
other, and Ai’s sucked back into her video world to be erased.
Yota, despondent at the prospect on losing someone who’s come
to mean the world to him, I on the verge of a complete breakdown
when the man who rented Ai to him in he first place shows
up and tells Yota that he has one chance to rescue Ai, and
that’s to follow her into the video world. Yota accepts, but
the video world tries to discourage him by playing on all
of Yota’s insecurities about love and relationships. Yota
succeeds in rescuing Ai, and before he and the Manager of
Gokuraku start to resurrect Ai, the manager gives Yota an
important piece of advice:
“No matter what we do, Ai will always be a video girl. One
day, she will have to leave you. And when that day comes,
I won’t be able to help you.”
Yota accepts, and Ai comes out of the television just the
same as she was before. Things finally look like they’re finally
going to go in Yota’s favor, but right before Yota and Ai
can finish telling each other how they feel, Ai’s creator
appears, and he, Ai, the Manager, and Gokuraku itself disappear,
leaving Yota alone once more.
The rest of the volume deals with the creation of a new love
rivalry triangle. Nobuko Nizaki is a new student who has a
not-so-secret crush on Yota. This begins to create resentment
in Moemi, who’s slowly developing feelings for Yota. On top
of that, Ai returns, but she has no memory of who Yota is,
but somewhere, buried under her re-programming, she still
has feelings for him. Yota’s trapped, because no matter what
he does, two of the three girls are going to be hurt, which
is something he desperately wants to avoid.
The main appeal of Video Girl Ai is the fact that everyone
can identify with Yota. Yota represents the everyman who just
wants to find happiness, but finds it denied to him regardless
of what he does. Everyone knows what it feels like to not
be the popular person on campus, the person that all of the
girls ignore. We can live vicariously thru Yota, cheering
him when he succeeds and sympathizing with him when he fails.
I don’t know how the series ends, but I can’t wait to find
out. Hopefully, he’ll get the happy ending so many of us everymen
want.
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