Aoi Sakuraba haunts bloggers
August 22nd, 2007 by AuthorJeff dealt with the central question masterfuly. He defeated the other camp by setting constraints for an unattainable goal:
Without a doubt, you can count me among those fans who love the harem. However, I’ll admit to being sympathetic to those who feel otherwise. Aoi and Kaoru make a fine couple, indeed, and I can definitely understand why a hardcore shipper would find the presence of Kaoru’s harem an annoyance. I’ve heard the, “If only the entire show was like the first four episodes [in which Aoi and Kaoru play house],” lament time and time again. It’s a legitimate complaint. After all, those first four episodes are quite lovely. They’d make for a great OAV series. Unfortunately, Ai Yori Aoshi is a 36 episode TV series, adapted from a long running manga. I don’t think I’d be able to put up with Aoi and Kaoru gazing passionately into each other’s eyes for that long.
And he’s right, in the sense that the strawman he constructed is quite pathetic. I would not take 36 episodes of gazing either. On the other hand, it’s not all about gazing. Gazing along would be quite tedious, but remember the succession… the clans… Romeo and Juliet with a twist. And love is not just gazing either. I would say, 13 episodes easy. 26, maybe. Oh, well, no point wishing for impossible.
UPDATE: Woops, forgot the link.