Ai no Kusabi

On the planet Amoi, a person's status is primarily dictated by the color of their hair. This society is run by the AI supercomputer known as Jupiter and its governing board of perfect blondes, referred to as Blondies, living in the capital city of Tanagura. However, the darker-haired humans live out their lives in the golden "pleasure city" of Midas and its outlying slum Ceres. They are known as "mongrels," and most cannot progress out of the slums.

Three years ago, a boy named Riki disappeared from the slums of Ceres. Once the revered leader of the gang Bison, a sudden encounter with an elite Blondie, Iason Mink, forced Riki to abandon everything he had cultivated. The boy was snatched from his home and forced to become Iason's pet. Riki has spent the past three years enduring numerous blows to his pride, his time in Tanagura nothing but a form of torture.

Now that Riki has returned, Bison once again rallies behind him. The risk he finds himself in, however, is much greater than ever before—there is always someone ready to sell him out.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Mink, Iason Main

Shiozawa, Kaneto Japanese

Riki Main

Seki, Toshihiko Japanese

Katze Supporting

Tanaka, Hideyuki Japanese

Am, Raoul Supporting

Hayami, Show Japanese

Gai Supporting

Tsujitani, Kouji Japanese

Kirie Supporting

Nakahara, Shigeru Japanese

Daryl Supporting

Sid Supporting

Hori, Hideyuki Japanese

Jupiter Supporting

Kyal Supporting

Kashiwakura, Tsutomu Japanese

Hasegawa, Yasuo Producer

Akiyama, Katsuhito Director

Nishimori, Akira Director

Iwanami, Yoshikazu Sound Director

Reviews

May 9, 2024

MickeyMinaj

Recommended

Timeless & ahead of it's time. It's been more than 30 years since this came out (1992), and no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't force myself to like the 2012 version over this timeless piece of work. You know the shows that don't let the animation alter your thoughts on the plot, characters, acting, and an overall vibe. Ai no Kusabi is exactly that.

Finding solace the non-conventional way, with two men from extreme opposite ends of the society and the journey to feel accepted and sacrifices made to make that happen. It encounters multiple societal issues that we are STILL facing ... today, racism, colorism, slavery, financial and authority level based on your birth and the fight to be freed from it all.

If you're into BL, this is highly recommended. I keep coming back to watch this every now and then, that's the magnitude of impact it still has on me (hopefully on y'all too)

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Dec 3, 2023

Sagaiko

Mixed Feelings

It tries to be all deep and meaningful, but it kinda trips over its own feet? The story, with its dystopian backdrop and themes about class differences and relationships, can feel like it's trying too hard. It's got this heavy, dramatic vibe that might be a bit much for some.
Now, where it scores some points is in the looks department. The characters have this cool, distinct design. Buuuut the characters, despite looking cool, sometimes feel a bit cardboard. The focus on their appearances kinda takes away from giving them more depth. And the relationships? Well, they can feel a bit forced, like the story's pushing ... them rather than letting them naturally unfold.
In the visuals department, this anime is doing its thing, but the storytelling could use a bit more "flavor"

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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Nov 23, 2023

bizarreparadox

Not Recommended

Spoiler

i don’t usually leave reviews on this website, mostly because in general i don’t tend to feel the need to state ‘this was good’ or ‘this was bad’ after watching something, but after reading other people’s positive reviews i felt it necessary to leave my negative one.
frankly, this felt like a waste of my 100 minutes. to be fair, my friend and i weren’t taking the idea of watching it entirely seriously, but once i was strapped into the rollercoaster ride of the story, i was hooked, except… not in a good way.
when i say i found this endlessly frustrating to watch, i mean ... it. it’s not that i’m not willing to engage with media that delves into darker topics, or that sympathizes with bad people. but this just… wow. i’m honestly incredibly confused by how people are giving this such good reviews. to be fair! the backgrounds are quite nice, great coloring, and decent small bits of animation throughout, even if the version i watched had very low quality.
but even then the story itself just… it’s not that it’s hard to follow. it’s actually very easy to follow. and it’s not that i don’t get what it’s *trying* to do, it’s that i literally just can’t agree with what it’s trying to do.
i cannot take it seriously at the end when it tries to frame this as some tragic yet beautiful love story. maybe *i’m* the idiot, but if there’s some nuance from the manga here im missing, or maybe i just “watched this wrong” but im just not seeing whatever everyone else is.
lots of yaoi is toxic and, frankly, compared to others, this isn’t even technically the worst that exists, morally. but just because the OVA itself likes to justify it by comparisons, i’m not going to excuse unethical romance just because there’s worse options out there.
ultimately, i cannot take it seriously. it tries to paint the slaveowner, as the one who’s just misunderstood and while possessive, he’s just a guy in love, he only treats riki like shit and not a human being cause he’s so in LOVE with him. god, i could vomit.
i know plenty of yaoi has the whole rapey thing going on, but christ, it never gets more comfortable to watch a character get treated the way riki does throughout this entire thing. i was so incredibly miserable for him the entire 100 minutes, and was frankly incredibly annoyed with the author clearly trying to get me to sympathize with his abuser and dislike the guy who’s trying to save him- it feels EXTREMELY obvious as they try to go ‘see, the guy making riki his slave isn’t SO bad!’ and ‘see, the guy who wants to save him is ACTUALLY not as good of a person’ as if this is some kind of deep nuance when it felt silly to watch. not even that i couldn’t believe the characters were realistic, but rather i couldn’t buy what the OVA was clearly trying to peddle me.
all in all, the world these characters live in is a miserable and unethical one, in which the story is trying to convince me the “”love”” between a master and slave is *ACTUALLY* something tragic, beautiful, heartbreaking, etc. i just could not buy it. and nothing about the characterization of the slave owner was making me go ‘oh wow, he’s not so bad AFTER ALL!’ honestly, i doubt anything could have, but certainly not hearing the other characters talk about his allegedly good personality traits. like sorry no, i’m not going to take you waxing poetic about how it lowers his standing in society to have a ‘mongrel pet’ is actually a ‘risk’ for him, and use that as some ridiculous reason as to the way he treats riki is actually BEAUTIFUL in a way. like give me a break lol!
maybe one day i’ll understand why people like this. it’s not that i’m against the idea of complex, nuanced, dark topics but this just felt like 100 minutes of an unethical, frankly miserable-to-watch experience. i don’t even my media to be ethical, or even good. but something about it has to work for me, and other than the music and some of the visuals, nothing here was working for me.
to round off this, frankly too long review, if you like it because you’re seeing something in the story i’m not, that’s fine. even if you like it just cause it’s what you’re ‘into’ (if you get what i mean) that’s also fine. but for me, i just could not find anything to enjoy about this story and honestly, feel like i was going insane reading all the positive reviews. this is just my personal experience that i wanted to share. thanks and have a good day, if you somehow read a review THIS long.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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	Poll: Ai no Kusabi Episode 2 Discussion suki78787 - May 22, 2009	31 replies	by RenaPsychoKiller »» Mar 27, 8:39 AM
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