Ranked #633

Aishiteruze Baby (Manga)

This was, quite possibly, the first manga I ever read from start to finish. When I was finished with it it was easily my favourite manga (at that time it was defaulty my favourite) but still today, after reading just a little bit more manga this is still my favourite.

Story: A womanizing idiot has to take care of his 5 year old cousin. It's a frightening concept at first, but it's done amazingly well. The characters fit in perfectly well and the story proceeds at a very nice pace. There are a few side-stories and a few mini-arcs that are a little bit annoying, I found myself drifting off a couple times, but the storyarcs always wrapped up quite nicely. I found myself hating the ending the first time I read it, but after a couple weeks I wasn't as angry as I was the first time.

Art: I'm not a huge fan of the artwork. The faces in this just really tended to bug me. They're just so....bland and stretchy and they just really bugged me. However they were also easy to get used to. It was a much different style than what I was comfortable with, but that's always a good thing.

Character: I honestly don't remember the characters really changing all too much. Except for Kokoro. Kippei is usually useless, he's loveable but he's so completely oblivious to everything that the manga really needs something to pull it all together. And that comes completely from Kokoro. She really is the emotional center of this anime. Her relationship with Kippei and Yuzuyu are absolutely beautifully done, and they really are a reason to read this.

As a male reader I do enjoy blood and guts and swearing and anything else violent and rowdy. With that being said, give me a nice romance story with a happy ending and i'll be completely happy. This is a very beautiful manga, it's heartwarming, but not to the point of being overly corny and stupid. It's definitely something worth reading. read more

Aishiteruze Baby is a Shoujo, Slice of Life, Romance, Drama that deals with the delicate issues surrounded child care and family values.

Just like several other shoujo romance manga, the story is about a cool high school boy (Kippei) who is a bit of a player. However this is until when his is stuck looking after his 5 year old cousin (Yuzuyu) whose mom abandoned her. From here on their relationship grows into something special. Each volume focuses on a different issue to do with lonesomeness and happiness, providing you with a different experience as you progress through the story. There's nothing particularly ground-breaking about the story but it does give the reader a nice warm feeling when reading it, as our unlikely protagonist develops a motherly bond with Yuzuyu.

These two characters are what make the whole experience worthwhile, with plenty of cute and dramatic moments. Kippei also gets into a bit of romance and is able to show plenty of his charm but his overall development throughout the story is what’s important. Apart from the girl he gets into a romantic relationship with, the rest of the characters don’t play much of a role in this sweet story, though each volume manages to focus on a particular character well.

This manga has beautiful artwork with rigid but decent environments and a lot of detail put into the character designs and facial features. However the panels and speech bubble arrangement can get pretty messy at times and one of the girls tends to look somewhat unappealing.

Overall Aishiteruze Baby proved to be a very enjoyable shoujo manga to read. I am a regular guy who, never before, read any shoujo manga and yet I found this story very heart-warming, as it’s full of a lot of social issues and the everyday troubles of looking after a kid. The story never really felt dragged out and it flowed at a steady pace. There’s a decent amount of comedy, romance and drama and none of these elements seemed overbearing, which can be somewhat of a double-edged sword. This manga really isn't for everyone but I seemed to enjoy it, for its casual, heartfelt story.

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