~(Review For: 12-14-02)~

Little "Yota Moteichi" is an ordinary guy with some seemingly monumental problems. He loves this girl who's also in love with his best friend, though she does not love Yota. Or, does she instead not love his best friend, and does in fact love Yota? Then again, maybe Yota isn't in love with his friend's quasi object of affection; one which is not given an opportunity to bloom both ways. That is, until an otherwordly instigator takes the arc of love's hand to possibly make things right again. Or, is it indeed very possible that all four people are in a struggle they can never hope to win?

These are the fundamental problems plaguing the four wonderful characters of the anime "Video Girl Ai", well it's not a problem really more or less in the sense of it being a simple twist of fate. The six-episode OAV, which is based upon the often lengthy and considerably more brash "Masakazu Katsura" manga of the same name, proceeds to ask the often complex and harsh fundamental questions surrounding our own lives. A terrain unseen to the palette of most anime romantic comedies, and on that note, most love stories. A quality which is admirable to say the very least.

Video Girl Ai however, doesn't succeed on it's intended view of merit simply because of harsh fundamental ponderousness on the issues of human feelings or emotions. On the contrary it's story seems to draws us in with it's unusually simplistic view of the character love triangle. The only difference is that this time around a unique and energetically caring fourth character has been thrown into the mix of things. Thus presenting an interesting addition to the axiom that is the scenario. Of course it would be weary of me to say that Video Girl Ai is just like any other anime. Truth be told, it's story is unlike anything told before. Sweet, touching and utterly thoughtful. The same three qualities I love most about the romance genre.

However, what makes the anime so different and special from the rest is indeed it's attention to the emotional details of it's characters. Our main hero in the story is Yota Moteichi. A strikingly humble name which literally translates into: "Dateless" or "Can't Get A Date". Yota's problems however, seep further onto the terrain of the monumental. When he innocently comes across a mysterious video rental store (Which can only be seen by certain people of pure heart), Yota is given a video tape containing a mysterious temptress; though this girl is far from any ordinary girl Yota has come across in his life.

She is "Ai", a video girl, so she tells Yota; while not providing the knowledge of her overall, infallability and potential inusablility. Stumbling magically right out of Yota's t.v. screen, engulfed in a band of bright light and a kind of looped hell of video tape; Ai comes onto the scene with an innocent and nonsensical presence within Yota's room. Yota is of course like many guys his age. Emotionally forcefull, a bit frivolously sexually bent, but all-around sincere and curious. However, a chance encounter of truly "shrinking" proportions provides the need for little Ai to a display the hot side of her personality (in more ways than one). Despite all this, it is Ai's occassional ebullience toward Yota, and his all-induced cloying and caring attitude toward Ai herself which makes the story work.

Adapted by Blue Seed's "Takayuki Goto" (of anime romantic heavyweight "Please Save My Earth" fame), Goto once again brings another beloved anime romance to animated life. Utilizing a flare for timing and all-around sincerity, Goto manages to create a story which is at the same time touching as it is heartbreaking. And not just in the thematic sense of things, if I can recall easily, nearly every scene in the anime itself exists within this clever duality of fortune. It is this quality alone which I feel distinguishes anime romance stories from other mediums.

Animation of course gives us the opportunity to display emotions and sides of character which are perhaps not as possible with real actors. The great thriving quality that is anime is given the overall beauty of it's turnpoints, rising them to a level of artistic superiority which levels down into a series of interesting revelations. This is one way to describe Goto's anime, and while containing a peculiar ending which verdges on the surreal, Video Girl Ai is more concerned with emotion and character, and not plot exploits or stunning eye candy.

This is never to say that the animators don't succeed in pulling off a fabulous job. Video Girl Ai boasts a clever palette of artisitc film making. Bringing the manga to life, the animators place together a unique color palette. Primarily composed of more off-set olive tones and metallic blues and earth tones, thus making Video Girl Ai a visually pleasing experience. It looks quite like no other anime I've yet seen, this goes for Katsura's characters as well which are conveyed as both sincere with a dash of uncertain emotion. And saying that about a romance anime is compliment enough for anybody.

Romance animes of course like anything else, have a slight tendency to be overtly cute and sometimes utterly contrived. Video Girl Ai saves itself early on from that terrain, presenting itself with a series of unorthodox techniques. The plot while conveying itself in retrospect, proceeds to fill in the holes left by the expositon early on. Yota's character is shown early on torn with the romantic dilema of his life, a quality in most romance animes which is played out in the latter halfs given one intended idea. What makes Video Girl Ai stand out from the rest is it's clever ability to present several key factors of complications, rather than a linear series of sub-plots.

The story is more realistic this way, in a sense that it tries to capture true emotions that we often experience, while artistically and intellectually manipulating them to the point where the instances become almost ponderous in themselves. Much in the same manor a presented choice or dilema seeps into our own psyche. Yota's eyes are very much the audience's as well, he is a charasmatic and thought-provoking character who is easily identified with. He feels true emotion and pain rather than being subjected to a decent array of infallable qualities, which present people as contrived and easily remedied.

It's often wonderful to observe the manor by which Katsura proceeds to soften the feelings of these characters, while at the same time surprisingly erupting some brand new ones with some interesting revelations. Yota's best friend "Takahashi" is the popular boyfriend type, who contains a personality which doesn't often present one self as an overtly contrived, frivolously seminal intellect.

Lovably drawn is Takahashi with his hair-doo conveying a 'devilish-like' appeal, those two seeming "hornes" almost suggesting a subliminal quality of the situation. "Moemi" is a girl who Yota has loved all his life, and torn between her love of Takahashi and her endless admiration of Yota, whom she associates with the common courtesy of advice and good will. Moemi is naive and fixated and in every sense a heartbreaking character due to her utter emotional infallability. Played out till until the very end in a kind of wonderful vignette, with Yota's friend on the latter side of things. Thus, leaving a truly heartbreaking scene with Ai consoling Yota.

But the stars of the stage are of course Ai and Yota. Over the course of the story, Ai comes to appreciate and admire Yota for his caring will and always positive outlook of situations, this leads her into a loving relationship with him which could inevitably cause great havoc from Ai's place of origin; a period of the story which is neither fully expressed or explained given a surreal ending of sorts. However, it is the ending of Video Girl Ai which distinguishes it from other titles.

There is another crucial character whom I dare not discuss for obvious reasons, who nonetheless plays a very important role in the outcome of the story but who's name is never given. A brooding and mysterious character who plays an important role in Ai's ever-presently doomfull situation, and that's as far as I'm willing to tread. You'll just have to see for yourself what happens after that (Or what doesn't happen).

Where most love stories would be afraid to wander from the straight line, Video Girl Ai has the haunting ability to mesermizes us with it's striking revelations and beautifully surreal apparations; a burden which both tests and completes the characters' journey, though never really closing it to it's full glory as we might imagine it. This is perhaps what is most admirable about Goto's narrative. Which takes all the best qualities of the manga early on presenting a unique twist, and then proceeding to enlighten the already interesting situation with unique and often heartbreaking revelations.

Ai may not be a real person in her own reality, but she is the most real and emotionally riveting of the four characters. Conveying an overwhelming sense of both vulnerablilty and wise all-caring susceptibility; a quality of her personality which would inevitably becomes elevated and tested with the layout of events. Ai is an extremely complex character, as are the rest of the characters in a series like this we fall in love with instantly.

Yota is also utterly likable as the center piece, an everyman's sort with his own dreams and ambitions; his motives carrying him to places unseen even to him. Moemi and Takahashi are wonderfully realized characters, who display both an inherant sense of emotional weight, but who care to see the happiness and outcome of their best friend's situation as well. A situation which often changes like the cascading wave of a love plight. In light of this, Video Girl Ai never erupts into an emotional plight for the audience, the series is widened with it's unremitting sense of humor and fun.

The ending of the show for some as I understand, leaves much to be desired. And while compared to other titles like it, it's a bit untidy by most standards of conventional film making. But this is what makes the series so classic and special from the rest. It's utter sense of honestly, emotional mystery and the questions which emit from the deepest convines of our minds, are not the anime's scapegoats, but instead it's retreads. It's superiority and intellegence is beyond any of it's kind in any sense of definable human drama; making it a stunning classic to be reckoned with.

In the end, Video Girl Ai succeeds well in delivering the thriving being of it's shortcomings. Providing an, in every sense wonderful ending which contains questions for which maybe even the characters themselves have no certain answers. But this remains to be the most beautiful aspect of the anime's story. With something as engraved and uncertain as true love, it's an existence which beckons it's characters to test themselves in the most heart-wrenching of situations; even if that might mean those retributions and long-unrequited loves and answers have no answers to begin with.

It's quality is unsurpassed in the way it presents it's situations. Characters like Ai and Yota may not always have all the answers, but in watching perhaps the audience can attempt to provide their own. Who knows? They may discover an emotional side the likes of which, like Yota's, was unforeseen even to themselves. Possibly even to be shared with another.

"Video Girl Ai" is a love story for the ages. It asks us to trust both it's story and it's characters; and with it's final steps, it perhaps gives us something which we cannot easily grasp or appreciate to much avail of it's inherant questions. But perhaps that alone is the greatest answer of all; and it is for that reason alone that we fall in love with it.

~This Has Been Yet Another One Of "T.A.O.'s" New Reviews Of Classic Anime Titles.~

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