From the beginning this manga is easily comparable to other heartfelt romance about a guy falling in love with a cute, not-so-human, girl. However unlike the ever-so-popular Chobits, this manga story is fairly saddening because the main character’s fates are already sealed. So all you can do is see how the story progress, which is great however the back-story and the side-story (apocalypse) just complicates matters.
The characters may be well-defined but they lack some form of depth to their stale personalities. On the other hand, their developments throughout their mundane lives are able to make up for that. The character designs are pretty good and the artwork used was able to bring forth various emotions. But strangely enough the artwork doesn’t dynamic imagery to portray emotional moments but relies on pure dialogue.
Overall Ai-Ren is an interesting manga that has plenty of happy moments to go along with the sad moments. The manga would have been more enjoyable because of its amazing premise but whenever it deviated from Ikuru’s and Ai’ story it felt more like a distraction than building up to something big. Nonetheless this manga is a good read but it is really meant for someone who feels like reading something different.
^_^
