Ranked #1445

Video Girl Ai

Video Girl Ai,

Story:
Another storyline where the impossible becomes possible, giving hopes to a guy who seems to have no luck, this storyline is pretty original and really sucks you into the relationships as it goes along. The seriousness of this anime mixed with the relationship is utterly astounding. A good storyline base and the story just becomes better and better.

Art:
For the time it was made this anime is amazing, truly a classic.

Sound:
Soundtrack is great, character voices are outstanding, really do fit the characters.

Character:
The characters are amazing, and really makes this anime cream of the crop. The characters all become well loved and you feel for them through the harsh and happy times.

Why did I like this anime?
I would say this anime is one of the best, it's love triangles are one of the reasons this anime is so great. The anime is a classic giving you 'Ah I want this to be me' kind of feeling. The plot is good and the relationship bonds that strengthen over time are just a sight to see. If you have a chance, read the manga for this short lived anime just makes you want more. I am still hoping for the day some production crew will remake this anime expanding onto the other manga plot lines. The manga is outstanding aswell so be sure to check it out. This anime is hands down one of the best romances and is purely a classic. read more

I honestly do not know where to start with this review because there is quite a lot to review. Having watched all 6 episodes, my first impression of Video Girl Ai was that the story was fantastic and unique in every way possible. Sadly, the anime did not live up to what could have been a very powerful animation. It makes me cringe when a project such as this shows remarkable potential but fails to live up to it. It truly is a sad thing. Perhaps I am being a little unfair in my evaluation because after all, this animation was made in 1992 and may be due to a low budget coupled with lack of technological advancements it was not able to hold true to it's potential. But then, classics such as cowboy bebop, outlaw star etc were also made at around the same time period yet they did not allow such limitations to hamper their quality so I do not know what exactly it is about Video Girl Ai that I was not happy with. Maybe in an attempt to review this anime step-by-step, I might be able to decipher the reasons.
Story: 8/10
At this point I must reiterate that the story was very good. The premise of Video Girl Ai is based on a high school kid called Yohta who has feelings for his fellow student, Moemi. However, having been told by her that she loves someone else, he decides to rent a video tape from a surreal video store in order to seek comfort. However, this video tape is no ordinary tape. When he plays the video tape, a "video girl" called "Ai" communicates with him and then unexpectedly comes out of the television. Nevertheless due to Yohta's malfunctioning VCR, she has a completely different personality in the human world and she dedicates herself to pleasing Yohta, since this is what video girls are programmed to do. From here onwards, they begin to develop a close friendship together with a seemingly one-sided love, though Ai will only stay in the human world for a limited amount of time. I will not go further into the story. From this, you can probably imagine how incredibly unorthodox the story is and how different it is from other paradigms. When I read the synopsis of this anime I was quite excited despite the ranking on myanimelist. What excited me was the uniqueness of the story. But the anime overall was a let down because it failed to deliver the story in a powerful way. If you have watched hikaru no go, take Sai and Hikaru's relationship. We knew that Sai would leave one day and when he finally leaves, we can instantly connect to the turn of events and we can experience the sorrow that Hikaru goes through. I was expecting this sort of quality in Video Girl Ai but I was unable to find it. Don't get me wrong. There were some powerful moments in this anime but overall, it was a let down for me on many different levels.

Art: 7/10
Considering the fact that this is a rather old anime, I give the art a rating of 7/10. If this standard of art was applied to a new anime, I would probably give it a 4 or a 5 if I'm in a good mood.

Sound: 6/10
The sound/music aspects of the anime maintained a "fair" standard. I was not particularly blown away by any of the music themes used, nor was I highly dissapointed with it. The voices were generally good, especially if you are a fan of hayashibara megumi who plays Ai's voice.

Character: 7/10
My score reflects the character of the anime as well as the quality of each characters portrayed in the anime. The anime did succeed in maintaining a certain degree of character or "presence", and the individual characters complemented the theme quite well. I found Takashi's character to be rather annoying though. Particularly his arrogance towards girls who liked him and the fact that he was consistently speechless when faced with personal questions from Moemi. He really did make me cringe. Other than that, the characters were generally well developed.

Enjoyment: 5/10
Time for confessions. After the second episode, this anime became a chore for me and I find this rather disturbing considering that Video Girl Ai comprises of 6 episodes only (30 minutes each). It was barely entertaining enough to make me continue watching it. If it was a notch less in it's entertainment value, I would have dropped this anime. That is how mediocre the enjoyability factor was. I should perhaps add that if you are a massive fan of romantic animations, then you may find it to be more entertaining than I did. However, I do not dislike romantic themes. Some anime just do not keep you entertained enough to make you want to click on the next episode button and Video Girl Ai just happens to be one of such shows. There was just something very "dry" about the flow of the anime. The ending was an exception which thankfully turned out to be better than what I had expected. Even so, nothing more than a 5/10 in my books.

Overall: 6/10
My overall score for this anime is 6/10 which reflects a "fair" score. I just feel that the anime could have been delivered in a much better way if they had actually bothered to take their time with the flow of the story. Also, the chemistry between Ai and Yohta could have been improved a lot in order to make viewers relate to their level of closeness. This was perhaps something that needed the most work in my opinion. I also disagree with the fact that there were only 6 episodes, which helped me identify the underlying flaw. I was told by some people that the manga is much better because it goes into much more detail, which the anime fails to do so. I am yet to read the manga, but based on this I can understand why this anime failed on so many levels. Rather than wrapping up the story in 6 episodes, they should have focussed more on reinforcing the overall animation over a longer runtime. This IMO would have strengthened the anime much more and it would have given it a lot of character.

I recommend you to watch Video Girl Ai because I did like it on some levels and I feel that everyone should watch this show in order to realize how some highly potential projects can turn mediocre. If you like romantic comedy, then you might appreciate this show more than I did but I am quite sure that you will feel the same way as how I do, that is if you critically evaluate it in a pragmatic manner.


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