Ai No Kusabi – 01

Metanorn’s yaoi team puts the first installment of this 1990s remake under the knife!

The long awaited remake is finally here! From rumors to 8 minute previews to cancelations; we’ve been waiting a long long time. Lets see if it was worth it.

ASDFGHJKL MY BODY IS NOT READY FOR THIS AWESOMENESS. This is all I can say. I am so totally not grinning like a retard right now.

So the re-imagining of one of the most famous yaoi titles of all time begins with a rather tasty instrumental OP. We see just how real men take off a jacket, not to mention how to go from blonde to purple in a matter of seconds – Oh, I am excited. Okay, I’ll try and leave the sarcasm on the bench until the end, we actually start off with a sequence a lot of you will have already seen in the 8 minute sneak peak that was leaked some time last year. It features Riki writhing about and chained to a bed. As he flashbacks we find out he was caught sleeping with another bondage-slave, who is unfortunate enough to have the voice of a hamster. He is the “pet” of a “Blondie” called Iason, and I can imagine that if you’ve never seen the original you’ll be very confused right now as to what these titles mean. To put it bluntly, read “Blondie” as “Arian Race/Nazis”, and the “pets”…well, you can put it together. Turned on yet?

Heterosexualism in our yaoi? Take it away, take it away!

So love between pets is strictly forbidden, so Iason punishes Riki by being a god damn tease for as long as possible. The scene is pretty tame and we don’t actually see anything, but the implication is there as Iason states that he’ll make Riki “come as many times as it takes for you to regret sleeping with Mimea” (the other pet). Hey, hey, imagine what detention would be like in a Blondie school…actually, no. No. Don’t imagine it. Stop, right now. Ugh.

Now that’s how you “hnng”

Jump to 2 years later, Riki is going about his daily business which consists of staring at the massive butterfly door that leads to the outside in the hope of it magically opening. He dreams of returning to the slums where he grew up and has a crew of equally effeminate-dressing men who ride around on motorcycles all day long – whether they play card games on these motorcycles or not is neither here nor there. They do actually manage to explain some of the setting here and say how pets are merely status symbols in this place called Eos where all the Blondie’s live. And how Iason doesn’t flaunt Riki like the others and only has sex with him in private, kind of defeating the whole purpose.

After that it’s time for some ANGRY CROTCH GROPING. Aw, yeah. “I am so mad that I’m going to squeeze my junk!” Well with the help of a servant opening the big butterfly door for him out of sheer curiosity that will later get him killed – Riki makes a break for it. Unfortunately he doesn’t get far at all before he’s captured and locked up again. This brings further shame on Iason’s name because he can’t seem to control his rebellious pet even after 2 years. Basically, the council have a good bitch session with him laced with blatant sexual undertones and Iason goes to “punish” Riki for his disobedience. What kind of punishment is an orgasm, really?

Subtle

Iason and Riki have corresponding rings. Well, I say corresponding…Riki’s is a constricting/vibrating/agony/pleasure inducing cock ring, while Iason’s is on his finger and looks like one of those mood rings you have when you are ten. Iason can control which “mode” Riki’s ring is in, and to start the punishment he makes it cause him pain, then Iason fucks with his brain some more before finally taking the damn thing off. He takes Riki to the outskirts of the city and tells him to return to the slums, leading Riki to believe that all his stubbornness to not be owned has paid off. Of course, semes aren’t discouraged so easily, and Iason plans to grant Riki only one year of freedom in order to cement in him Iason’s belief that he is and always will be …his pet.

Proof that the puppy-dog eyes really work

HOW MUCH IS THAT DOGGY IN THE WINDOW?

How real men take off a jacket

Sexy transition is sexy

“Where we’re going we won’t need roads.”

Commencing fanservice screenshots~

Iason needs to get himself a body pillow

Cleaned it up as best I could~

END THOUGHTS

Before I talk about the remake I should probably say what I thought of the original. I didn’t like it. It had its sexy moments, but for the most part the voice acting, the animation, and the storyline did nothing for me. Infact I found it distinctly anti-sexy. It was another one of these “twisted” and “tragic” yaoi stories that lacks all the charm of something like Kizuna and doesn’t even have a fraction of the drama of Song of the Wind and Trees. Its main claim to fame was the moderately graphic sex scenes and its fucked-up-to-the-point-of-hilarity storyline. But, I had hope for the remake. At least the animation is a damn sight better. And while I don’t think Itou Kentarou’s voice is particularly sexy, it’s a fucking improvement on the gnarly voiced bastard who voiced Riki originally. Iason also doesn’t sound so much like a greasy pedophile as he did in the original. Hurrah! Well, okay. How about I start by saying what the remake did right? As a first episode at least.

The music is awesome. I fell in love with the ED theme when I saw the PVs and it’ll be earning a download as soon as. The whole OST boasts this kind of quality, which is kind of surprising but it really helps elevate the show. It gives me faith that they might even pull off the dramatic scenes if they have a good score behind them. I’ve already said the animation style is better, or at least more attractive, and the “sex scenes”, if you can even call them that, are well done – the right amount of hottness and angsty chemistry between our two mains. I only wish they went on longer, they do seem to just kind of fizzle out or are cut short abruptly. It doesn’t do much for atmosphere. Some of the transitions between scenes we’re really nice and really smooth, I’d even go as far as to say creative. The scene where Riki is going down in the lift and the side profile of his face suddenly changes to a flashback of him getting yanked by the chain around his neck is great. I love transitions like that that just melt into each other. It’s visual eye-candy. Now, onto the bad stuff, as unfortunately, that transition was the sexiest thing about this OVA.

MYGOD, that was one of the worst set ups for a story I’ve ever seen. NOTHING was explained or established before we were plunged into the sadomasochistic stroke-a-thon. You can’t do that.; just assume the people watching know the original story. It came out in the 90s for chrissake. I’ll give it to the original, at least HOW they told their shit story was well paced and thought out. This was just a mess. What would have been better is if they went into this wanting to fix the problems with the first one, instead they just make more problems for themselves. I am still interested. I still want to see where they will go with this, and how they could salvage it. I’m pretty confident, due to the already tame degree of actual sex, that the rather grisly culmination of these two will be censored to some hilarious level. Actually, there was another good bit about this OVA. The ending. I’m glad to see they kept at least some of the original speech Iason makes as he sets Riki free. It was by far one of the strongest parts of the 90s version. It has a lot of dread in it, and does create a really palpable atmosphere. Really though, this OVA was okay. It didn’t break any rules or challenge any conventions, but it was a decent start to the remake.

I can’t say much about it right now since it’s just the first episode (I actually wasn’t able to write about this for a while), but it was an amazing first episode. It was just that good in so many ways. First, I want to thank the studio for having that fabulous animation for the setting in 2012’s Ai no Kusabi. Seriously, the animation is great. It’s such a RARE TREAT for yaoi to get such great animation. I can see that they’re putting lots of effort and budget there. It’s far from giving me eye-cancer. It was giving me eyegasm, and so far NONE of the characters look disoriented whatsoever. They were perfect human beings dripping with sex for the whole 25 minutes of this episode *coughunlikeSIHcough* I hope they’ll keep it this way until the last episode.

The same goes for the plot. Well, I know what the story is about and how it’s going to end, but I’m glad that they didn’t skip parts. It has more details in the story, and that’s definitely a plus since it won’t confuse the new audience that haven’t watched the original OVA or read the novels. The story is well-paced, and it doesn’t feel rushed. It would be nicer if they didn’t do the whole time skip thingy because it can show how Iason was slowly attached to Rikuo and vice versa for Riki’s Stockholm Syndrome, but since there’s only 4 OVAs that have time limit of thirty minutes, I guess it’s understandable. It would be a different matter if it’s thirteen episodes (the rumor) though. So far, I’m happy with the story and its pacing.

As for the characters, QWERTYUIOP EVERYBODY LOOK SO SEXY HERE I CAN’T CHOOSE. Though (just like some fans) I kind of miss Iason’s voice from the original OVA, but it can pass because his voice is just so fucking sexy in here. Riki is more fierce and wild, which is a GOOD THING. I don’t know about his abs though. I don’t know men can have eight abs with such slender body. EIGHT ABS MAN, EIGHT SEXY ABS. What’s better, Mimea actually had some quality time with Riki. Lucky girl I want to feel Riki’s EIGHT ABS too. I’m not into bitches-er, girls in yaoi, but I don’t mind Mimea because she was actually pretty important in here. AND SHE GETS TO FEEL EIGHT ABS. NOT SIX, but EIGHT. I know I’m being too much here since it’s possible for a man to have eight abs, but I can’t get over how Riki has EIGHT ABS and still has a SLENDER BODY. Obviously he’s that good at sex.

For once I’m not disappointed with the lack of sex scene. Seriously. I BET YOU’RE SURPRISED HUH. The animation and the story made me forget about it. Well, not really. But my mind wasn’t focused at the lack of skins joining together, and that is a GOOD THING. When I’m eager about sex scenes, it means that the episode is not that great. Are you listening, Studio DEEN? It would be nice to have some sex scene, but it wasn’t necessary. This episode is good enough with the way it is.

About Tag Team

We live, laugh, enjoy and strictly believe on "more the merrier". When together, we usually come up with very chatty, conversation-based episodics and interesting posts.