Aishiteruze Baby★★ (Aishiteruze Baby)

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Alternative Titles

Synonyms: I Love You, Baby

Japanese: 愛してるぜベイベ★★

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Information

Type: Manga

Volumes: 7

Chapters: 33

Status: Finished

Published: Mar 2, 2002 to Dec 1, 2004

Genres: Comedy, Drama, Romance

Themes: Childcare, School

Demographic: Shoujo

Serialization: Ribon Magazine

Authors: Maki, Youko (Story & Art)

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Score: 7.90¹ (scored by 12,160 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #974²

² based on the top manga page. Please note that 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #803

Members: 22,695

Favorites: 388

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7.90

Ranked #974Popularity #803Members 22,695

MangaRibon MagazineMaki, Youko (Story & Art)

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Volumes: /7

Chapters: /33

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Synopsis

Kippei Katakura is a high school playboy who fills his days with any girl he can. In reality, he only has eyes for one girl in particular—Kokoro Tokunaga. One day, Kippei's family introduces him to his five-year-old cousin, Yuzuru Sakashita, whose mother has abandoned her. Kippei is assigned the task of being Yuzuru's caregiver until her mother returns, and the young girl quickly grows attached to him.

Through Yuzuru's influence and the intimate bond that forms between them, Kippei learns not only about childcare, but also about developing meaningful relationships. As Kippei balances his time between Kokoro and Yuzuru, they all grow together and learn more about each other, their feelings, and the true meaning of family.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Background

Aishiteruze Baby★★ was published in English by VIZ Media under the Shojo Beat imprint from April 4, 2006 to April 3, 2007.

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Characters

Tokunaga, Kokoro

Main

Sakashita, Yuzuyu

Main

Katakura, Kippei

Main

Katakura, Satsuki

Supporting

Marika

Supporting

Sakashita, Miki

Supporting

Katakura, Reiko

Supporting

Katakura, Eiichi

Supporting

Natsumi

Supporting

Ken

Supporting

Reviews

May 13, 2018

CriticalSmash

Recommended

This is an excellent shoujo series that would be a ten in my book if it didn't have an okay ending.

Kippei is a playboy with no real purpose in life but acting cute and sleeping with female students. That is until he is forced to take care of Yuzuru. Through Yuzuru, Kippei manages to grow up and take life a little more seriously. The whole manga has a happy feel so there's not a whole lot of down moments in his period of growth. The girl he falls with doesn't have a lot going for her and seems almost useless to the story as ...

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Jul 16, 2017

chaeronea

Recommended

As someone who made the mistake of watching the anime first, I was slightly disappointed at the pacing of the story. Of course, there is always more time to carry things out in an episode due to the fact that things are always given more time in anime, as they are about 21-25 minutes long. However, I think there is a pacing issue that lies within the manga. Aishiteruze Baby is a wonderful franchise that will touch you right in the heart, but also has a few things that make it not as great as it should be. I am itching to talk about the ... pacing and the ending, but there are a few things I need to get out of the way first.

I have no complaints about the art. It is drawn in a very traditional shoujo style, and I'm a huge fan of things like that. There was not a particular angle that Maki-sensei showed that she was worse at. All in all, things are very consistent. Almost too consistent. It was like Maki-sensei was playing it too safe with this manga. That's fine, though, I guess. It's better than authors who try to draw harder things than what's in their power.

Almost all the characters were quite close, or even the closest a character can be to ideal. Only two of them I thought didn't make the story any better. Those two would be Kippei and Kokoro. For Kokoro, I think anyone can guess what I'm going to say. She's an independent girl with a few underlying problems she doesn't quite talk about. However, something about her makes her a little too bland for my liking. Kippei never really talks about why he likes her, and quite frankly, I don't get it. Well, Kokoro aside, Kippei has a few flaws, as well. Or, should I say, he has no flaws at all. That's what makes him a troublesome character. He's your usual white knight. Like Yuzuyu says... If every family had a Kippei, then everyone would be happy. I also want a Kippei for myself. Everyone would. However, it would make it so much more interesting if he had a few flaws in his personality.

I highly enjoyed Aishiteruze Baby. It's a heartwarming story that made me feel happiness, nostalgia, and grief. For a story to do that to me is... Actually not that uncommon, but let's ignore that. Anyway, I really liked it. I have no complaints.

Now, it's finally time for the story and pacing. The idea for the story is not the most original thing someone could come up with, but evidently, it creates results. Especially if the author is someone with Maki-sensei's talent. Oftentimes, other authors using the idea of a person with no experience taking care of a child have no clue where to bring the story, other than your well known Usagi Drop, Amaama to Inazuma, and Barakamon. Other than Aishiteruze Baby and those three, there are countless stories with premises like these. However, you haven't heard of them because the authors probably did not know how to expand upon their story, and make their characters move. It's that simple.

The main issue, however, with this story is pacing. It was as if Maki-sensei was trying to foreshadow, introduce, and solve a problem all in one or two chapters. I would understand if every single one of the chapters were fifty to sixty pages, but each of the chapters are about half that length. Occasionally, if you were to solve a problem in one or two chapters, it still ends up okay, but this is not the case. When you have so much to compact into 30 or so pages, you need to do a lot of explaining with just a few panels. You can't afford to show someone crying and make it take up two and a half pages. That just makes the ending rushed and explaining the problem practically incohesive. To put it simply, Maki-sensei has her priorities upside down.

Lastly, let me talk about the ending. Obviously, there are going to be spoilers in this. Please control yourself if you haven't read the series. After watching the anime, they concluded the story at "Yuzuyu's mother can't pick her up because of her own circumstances". That was completely for a reason. After watching the anime, I felt relieved, and totally satisfied with the ending. However, after reading the manga, I had a bad taste in my mouth for hours. That was likely the least satisfying ending I have ever read. I feel like Maki-sensei tried to add too much, and was given too short of a notice that her manga was cancelled, or something. If so, I don't blame her, but really. Having it end there is almost too cruel. Yuzuyu goes back to her mother, and then... Nothing. It's got to be sad for Kippei. There has to be some healing for both Yuzuyu and her mother, seeing as she chose to completely forget about her after overhearing that she didn't have a mother. Yet, we were given the running and hugging mommy scene, and a letter to Kippei ten years later, and nothing. I know that if Maki-sensei were trying desperately to fit everything in, there's nothing that she could do about it, but then she should have shortened everything else rather than... Well, just reference the above paragraph.

In conclusion... I hate writing conclusions. Goodbye. I am done. Have a nice day.

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Jul 9, 2013

Yuukii_Cross

Mixed Feelings

Okay, so here I go.
It was not brilliant. It was certainely not a masterpiece, but it was better than, let's say, many of the manga out there.
The story revolves mainly around a flirty playboy, Katakura Kippei, who is one day told be his family to take care of his 5-year old cousin Yuzuyu, whose mother has "disappear" (read this as "run off to God knows where"). Other than this... normal family, some other characters are Sakashita Miki, a cousin of Yuzuyu, Tokunaga Kokoro, a classmate, love interest and later even girlfriend of Kippei, and some of their classmates, of which the most ... revelant are Kokoro's two best friends and the new transfer student, Ooga Akari. Not that they steal the spotlight too much, they are pretty much there to create new tensions to the otherwise lacking story. Don't get me wrong, it was a nice read and I did, on some level, enjoy the manga, but that was all. There are so many things that could have been better, better thought, better written.
First, it's the love story between Kippei and Kokoro. It was sweet, something the manga would seem pretty boring without. But, even though it had the potential to be one of those couples where the two lovers suit and complement each other, I got the feeling that it was just thrown in the middle of the story, without managaing to completely fit in. Right from the beginning, it was never really explained why they liked each other. They said they love each other and that they want to be together forever, but it seemed to be more because of the author's wish than for a real reason, like they were together simply because "they should be". Of course, Kokoro said once that she liked Kippei because he's so carefree he seems to have no worries, but I wonder, is that enough? Is it a big enough reason to want to spend the rest of your life with someone? Not to mention that Kippei never said why he loved Kokoro. It could be because she was the cool beauty type, seemingly unaproachable, one of the few girls who didn't fawn all over him, but then again, the same goes for Kokoro's friends. So why did he like Kokoro so much? The best we can do is speculate and hope for the best, as no real reason was given. That being said, the whole relationship seemed kind of superficial, lacking in depth. They said they loved each other, but they didn't really show it. It made me wonder how a relationship like that, where the two parts seemed to have communication issues, could really work out.
Another point in which the plot seems to be lacking is Miki's story. It's said that she had an ordinary, simple life until she saw one of the teachers beating up a boy pretty badly. She told on him, probably to the director of the school, and after that everyting started to fall apart. The teachers and classmates begin to bully her, she begins skipping school as a result, her parents start yelling at her and even hitting her, telling her that she is a shame to their family. And while all this happens, nobody seems to care. Not one of the teachers or classmates tries to help her, and even the boy who was being beaten seems to at least ignore her. This would be a pretty sad and serious situation, but there are no real reasons given as to why everybody acts this way. Why would everyone starts bullying her because she told on an abusing teacher? She seemed to be doing the right thing, so why was there absolutely no one who thought all that was wrong? Are ALL people really that indifferent? If this would have been brought to the police, they could see it as harassement. And why, for God's sake, didn't she tell her parents about all this? It is not made clear wether or not she told them about the beating she saw, but she should have told them about the bullying she was going through. Why didn't she fo it? Because, in her words, "it would make them sad". So she chose to endure it to "protect" her parents, as if they were some fragile, unstable people. This wasn't the case though, and even if it was, she was trying so hard to hold on for the parents she loved, parents who nevertheless didn't seem to notice there was something going on in their daughter's life. Things got so desperate that she tried to kill herself. How can you miss that as parents? Just how wrong can this get?
And after everything was cleared up, the things started to fall back to normal. She was once again happy, and she even said "it's no big deal" about getting therapy. Yeah, because apparently wanting to commit suicide is something every normal teenager wants to do.
And while we're talking about familly issues, let's take a look at Yuzuyu's situation. Her mother got so lonely and miserable after her husband died that she ran away, leaving her daughter in her (the mother's) sister's care. And, after she managed to earn some money and get back on her feet, through the help of some guy she planned on marrying, she of course wanted to take Yuzuyu back, because, hey, she was her mother after all. And she succedeed to do so, because Yuzuyu wanted to go with her. Well, even though I totally understand why a 6-year old would want to be with her own mother, I don't thing it's the right choice to leave this serious matter in the hands of a 6-year old. Even if that's what the little girl wanted, the adults should't have let her go. If this matter had reached Social Service or a judge, I'm not sure the judge would be making the same decission. The mother DID abandon her child after all, and she was pretty unstable to begin with if she ran away like that. Of course you'd be shaken if your husband died, that's no excuse to leave you child behind. Apparantly just because she was sorry for what she had done was enough for her to get away with it and take the child back, from the people who so lovingly and carefully took care of her. Apparently child neglect and abandonment is not serious enough to keep a child away from his/her mother.
Aside from this lack of psychological depth, another dissapointment for me was the ending. After Yuzuyu went back to her mom, the manga fast-forwarded to some time in the future, where Yuzuyu was now a teenager. And that was all. Yuzuyu was writing Kippei a letter in which she told him how she has always loved him and how she never forgot him. Sweet and everything, but it gave me the impression that Yuzuyu didn't visit him again after she left, only there woud be no logical reason to why she wouldn't. He got really attached to her, and she clearly did so as well, so it's safe to say she would have missed him, so she would want to see him again. But if that was the case, then why did she write that letter to him as a teenager? It was probably a way for us to see how much Kippei meant for Yuzuyu (if that wasn't clear by now), but it felt out of place, useless. If you'd see someone you care very much for regularly, why would you write to tell him something that you probably reminded him at each visit about? To me it made no sense. Unless she was talking about a different form of love, a romantic one, but given as she reconnected with Shou-chan again, I doubt that. Not to mention Kippei was probably married to Kokoro by then, which again are only guesses, as the manga never showed what happened to the relationship between Kippei and Kokoro. As far as we know, they could have broken up, or Kokoro died, or whatever else. It's pretty unlikely that something bad happened to them, but I don't think it would have killed the author to say something about the progress of that relationship. Were they still together? Did they marry? Did they have kids? We assume all those happened, but we'll never for sure. That being said, I was pretty dissapointed with the ending, as it let so many things in the air. What about Miki? What about Kippei siblings, Reiko and Satsuki?
All in all, this manga was nice and sweet, not too long, not too short, and that's pretty much all. It's not a manga that's I'll be re-reading very soon. I did like about it that it was told from the guy's POV. That felt fresh and new. And I also liked the female lead, pretty different than those weak, stupid, crybaby, leads we see in a lot of manga. Unfortunately, the manga as a whole didn't manage to reach it's full potential. A lot of thigs remained unfinished, and the serious topics touched by the author could have been much better written, with more care to the psychological aspect. The manga was sweet, I think that's the best way to descibe it, but it also could have been much better, and it's a shame that it wasn't.

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