Ai Yori Aoshi Volume 17
藍より青し Volume 17 (finale)

SPOILER Summary: Kaoru arrives at the Sakuraba estate and Kaoru’s half-brother is all upset because only the one who marries Aoi will be the head of the Hanabishi family. Aoi-chan is sympathetic to him and Kaoru makes his bowed appeal to Aoi-chan’s parents. Aoi-chan also has her say and so they are allowed to leave, having the official blessing of the family. Miyabi is waiting for them and is happy to see they came through this OK.

Kaoru and Aoi-chan return to the Sakuraba summer home, which has been their home for the last few years. The place is empty with all the girls having moved out. Even the furniture is all gone. However, they decide to take advantage of the time alone by spending some “quality time” together.
The following day, Tina, Chika, Mayu, Miyabi, and Taeko arrive to greet the couple. Kaoru re-introduces Aoi as his childhood friend, betrothed, and fiancée. Aoi confirms her intentions of being Kaoru-sama’s wife and is congratulated by the group.

Sometime later, the group (plus Chika-chan’s two friends Natsuki-chan and and Chizuru-chan) are at the airport to see Tina off. Tina has Kaoru go off to get some souvenirs so the girls can have one final talk. Mayu decides that she’ll just have to steal Kaoru’s love. She calls the other girls out by stating that just because Kaoru and Aoi are a couple doesn’t mean any of them have fallen out of love with Kaoru. They confess and Aoi understands. So when Kaoru returns, Tina takes advantage of Aoi’s understanding to kiss him full on the lips and say she loves him. Mayu and Taeko kiss Kaoru on the cheek, but Chika-chan goes for the lips much to Aoi’s distress.

Four years later, Tina returns to Japan and pays a visit to Chika, Chizuru, and Natsuki at college where she gives them a group photo from four years earlier. She then pays a visit to Miyabi and Taeko, who are working at a Sakuraba Department Store branch. Miyabi is the manager and has been adopted into the Sakuraba family. Tina gives them both a copy of the group photo.

Finally, Tina visits Aoi and Kaoru’s apartment, where Kaoru has taken his mother’s family name of Honjou. Tina and Aoi visit and Tina wonders why Aoi still addresses Kaoru as “Kaoru-sama” since as a married couple, it would be proper for her to just address him as “Kaoru” or other term of endearment. Tina then says she met Mayu in England before coming to Japan. After relaying the story, a somewhat annoyed-looking Aoi relays that Mayu visited them two weeks before and pays a visit to them roughly once a month. Still, Aoi is happy with the group photo and Tina snaps a picture of Kaoru and Aoi when he comes home from work.

Thoughts: I have some mixed thoughts. Since Ai Yori Aoshi is a seinen title, I understand that the levels of ecchi content and nudity will be higher. The anime had ecchi humor, but the nudity was lessened due to the format. Since I loved the romance story of Aoi-chan and Kaoru, I could easily overlook the ecchi content. However, the anime didn’t have the complete story so I went to the manga to get that, where we get all the nudity. After a while, I got sick of seeing all the nudity, especially the underaged naked girls volume after volume once Chika-chan and her friends were introduced.

The last two volumes had the story kinda grind to a halt to me with it clear that things were wrapping up, but Fumizuki-sensei deciding to add one more bit of drama by having Kaoru suddenly have a half-brother and attempt to make Aoi-chan his own, with Aoi’s own parent’s tacit approval, even making her a semi-prisoner in her parents home. However, it wasn’t like I didn’t know that Kaoru would make a sudden dramatic arrival, nor that there would be a scene like the end of the 1st anime series. So really, that whole thing was just tedious and boring to me.

As I said, I enjoyed the romantic story between Aoi-chan and Kaoru. They’ve had at least one moment of implied “quality time” together when they spent the night in a hotel. So while there had to be a payoff to let us know they are now officially a couple, I didn’t need four chapters for it (one to set it up, two for the sex, and one for the aftermath). The 1st and last chapters would have been enough with the implied sexual congress between Aoi-chan and Kaoru. To be fair, the sex is not depicted in an explicit nature as it would be in other seinen titles like Futari Ecchi, but it was enough to have TP actually shrink-wrap the manga and slap a warning on the cover.

OK, so it was nice seeing everything has fallen away and Aoi-chan and Kaoru can be an open couple now. It was also nice with the final chapter showing the characters four years later. I found it interesting that Mayu was still in love with Kaoru, but no longer addressed him as “Hanabishi-sama.” She now addresses him as “Kaoru-san,” which I found most interesting. Aoi-chan still addresses Kaoru as “Kaoru-sama” which was also most interesting and something Tina commented on.

I haven’t decided on if I’ll keep the manga series or not. I usually dump manga titles that are excessively ecchi once I finish reading them. I’ll ponder it for a bit, but having read the manga, I wonder if there will be another anime series.