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History of Ai no Kusabi
History of media releases for the Ai no Kusabi franchise can be a bit confusing so I will try to give a brief™ overview.
1 – Shōsetsu June Magazine (1986-87)
Ai no Kusabi was released for the very first time in the December 1986 edition of the Shōsetsu June magazine. This was the first chapter of six that would come out in this magazine throughout the next year. These six chapters marked the first version of the full Ai no Kusabi story, which is generally referred to as the June edition.
2 – Cassette Drama (1989)
Published in May 1989, this was the first audio drama to come out for Ai no Kusabi. It contained 22 tracks that retold the story, which was adapted for the format of an acted audio drama. Cast included the voice actors that would then go on to voice Iason and Riki in the original anime adaptation: Shiozawa Kaneto and Seki Toshihiko. The other characters’ voice actors were replaced for subsequent adaptations.
3 – Hardcover Edition (1990)
In 1990, the 6 chapters released in the magazine were collected together, slightly edited and released as one single book. This is the edition we usually refer to as the Hardcover edition. June and Hardcover versions are very similar and differ mostly in phrasing and word choices, with some sentences removed or added in the Hardcover edition. (Note: so far I’ve only translated and compared the 1st chapter, so I can’t confidently speak for the rest yet)
4 – 1992 Anime OVA (1992)
In August 1992, for the first time, the story of AnK was adapted into an anime. This is the cult classic that most of us know and that drew many of us to the franchise in the first place. The story was changed quite drastically and focused on the relationship between Riki and Iason. It didn’t delve too deep into the complex and intricate setting of the story, but attempted to communicate its essence through, what would turn out to be, two 1h long episodes.
Along with the OVA came the first Original Soundtrack featuring music from the anime. Most tracks were instrumental, except for 3 (Midnight Illusion, Iason Mink and Riki) which featured lyrics and/or monologues written by Yoshihara and delivered by the same voice actors that appeared in the anime.
5 – Midnight Illusion (1993)
Midnight Illusion was the first side story to come out. It was a prequel, detailing Riki’s time in Guardian and was initially released in Shōsetsu June magazine in 1993. It would eventually be released as a book in 1996 and contained 11 chapters.
6 – Dark Erogenous & Sense of Crisis (1993)
Following the release of Midnight Illusion, AnK‘s second audio drama CD, Dark Erogenous, came out in 1993. It had 20 tracks and featured more or less the same cast as the 1992 anime. The drama focused on the three years Riki initially spent in Eos, which weren’t covered in the original version of the story (june and hardcover).
Ai no Kusabi‘s second original soundtrack, Sense of Crisis, was also released in 1993. It featured 15 original tracks, of which three (Ai no Kusabi, Iason Mink and Riki) had the same theme as their 1992 OST counterparts, but were still quite different. All tracks but Friction and Tenacity were instrumental, while the two tracks, as before, featured monologues written by Yoshihara and performed by the 1992 OVA cast.
7 – 1994 Anime OVA (1994)
The second part of the original anime came out in 1994 featuring the same cast and crew as the 1992 OVA. It closed the story the first episode started.
Along with it, two more original soundtracks came out, Ambivalence and Sympathy. Like Sense of Crisis, these soundtracks featured mostly completely original numbers, apart from Ai no Kusabi, which featured the same theme as the previous two versions. And as before, most were instrumental, with a few exceptions written by Yoshihara and delivered by the original cast.
8 – Oracion (1995)
Oracion was the 5th, and last soundtrack officially released for the series that wasn’t a compilation of older tracks. While every track on it is in fact a remake of a previously released number, they were reimagined and reworked completely, making them unique.
9 – Shiozawa Kaneto Memorials (2000-01)
Tragically, in May 2000, Shiozawa Kaneto, the beloved voice actor who voiced Iason since the beginning, passed away. Needless to say, this was an incredible loss for the world, and the Ai no Kusabi universe of which he became such an integral part, bringing Iason Mink to life so perfectly. In his memory, the Kaneto Shiozawa Memorial was released later that same year. This was a set of two CDs featuring the entire AnK Cassette Drama, various skits and announcements he delivered both as himself and as Iason, and his reading of the story called Tsumakurenai written by Moriuchi Kei (Tsumakurenai is not a part of the AnK franchise).
In 2001, the compilation soundtrack album called Music Best IASON was released in his honour, featuring all the tracks where his voice could be heard, as well as some instrumental tracks that were tied to the character, for the total of 20 previously released tracks.
10 – Expansion and Re-release of the Ai no Kusabi novel (2001-2010)
What is probably the most important moment for the franchise, along with the release of the first two anime OVAs, is the re-release of the Ai no Kusabi story. The entire story was reworked by Yoshihara, and a significant amount of original material was added to it. This resulted in a series of light, paperback novels that most of us are familiar with, and that represent Ai no Kusabi‘s final form, so to speak.
In October 2001, the first volume of this new, paperback edition, which corresponded to chapter 1 of the June/Hardcover edition was published by Seibidō Shuppan. In total, between 2001-2007, 6 volumes of this expanded version were released, however they were incomplete and didn’t cover the entire story.
But in 2009, Seibidō Shuppan sold the publishing rights to Tokuma Shoten. Under Tokuma Shoten, the previous 6 expanded volumes were released (although released as 4 volumes), and two more new volumes were added, for a total of 6, thus completing the Ai no Kusabi story.
11 – Audio Drama Trilogy: Destiny, Nightmare and Resonance (2007-08)
In 2007, the franchise was once again revived with the production and release of an Ai no Kusabi audio drama opus. A whole new cast was recruited, and the plan was to retell this new version of the story through a cohesive set of audio dramas. We can’t be sure how many releases were planned, because after the third CD (Resonance) came out, the work on these dramas was discontinued. Destiny (2007), Nightmare (2007) and Resonance (2008) cover the period from the beginning of the story, to the point Riki was released by Iason for his “one year of freedom,” after spending the 3 years in Eos.
12 – Ai no Kusabi Anime Remake (2012)
The talk of an AnK anime remake started way back in 2008. The initial report said that it should come out in 2009 as a 13 episode anime based on the paperback novel edition. Several previews and trailers were released in 2009, teasing the release and confirming that the cast would be same as it was in the audio drama trilogy. However, due to various circumstances including the global economic crisis and production issues, the anime was postponed to 2010. Numerous promotions and events were held in anticipation of the anime, however, the actual anime itself was nowhere to be found and eventually it was clear that nothing would come of it. The project seemed to be scrapped.
Fortunately, in September 2011 news came out that the anime would finally be released, starting from January 2012. Sadly, due to various issues that compounded with the problems from back in 2010, it was decided the anime would be scrapped after 4 episodes.
The 4 episodes that came out are very loyal to the paperback novel, with most scenes being taken directly from the novel, and even dialogues being almost identical. However that also meant that the 4 episodes covered only a fraction of the story and ended abruptly, offering no meaningful ending.
13 – Ai no Kusabi Side Stories (2010-12)
Since Midnight Illusion came out in the 90s, there have been no side stories published for the franchise. That changed when several of them came out in the period between 2010 and 2012. They were mostly part of various promotions and celebrations.
Illusion Night (2010) is a short story that takes place around the time Riki was in Apathia. It was given as part of their publisher’s Obsessive Love Fair promotion as a free gift to people who bought the publisher’s BL novels.
Cal’s Sighs (2010) is a short, three part story from Cal’s perspective, given as a bonus to those who bought the then freshly completed AnK novel set.
Musk (2012) is a short story that takes place while Riki is in Eos, published in volume 25 of Chara Magazine in anticipation of the remake’s first episode’s release.
File-0 (2012) is another short story released as part of the remake promotions. I has 4 chapters which cover Daryl’s perspective around the time Riki came to Eos.
Kizu (2012) is a short story released to commemorate the release of the audio drama trilogy set. It was included with the Resonance CD and is set right after Riki meets Iason for the first time.
14 – The End? (2023)
The cancellation of the anime marked the end of all things Ai no Kusabi, at least officially. There have been no releases of anything since 2012, we didn’t even get a soundtrack along with the anime. All that’s left is for us to hope that eventually it might get picked up again. Until then, at least we have many lovely fan works to keep us going.
Well. I guess watching Ai no Kusabi would make anyone glad that we've got things a lot better here right now?
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Personally, I think it's pretty much required for the author to praise the illustrator (and, in the case of manga, for the illustrator to praise the author). It doesn't necessarily mean all that much. Since there is erotic content in the story, yaoi conventions dictate that there have to be illustrations of those scenes.
The general tone of the books is dystopia and doom, though. Not exactly sexy.
But I do agree the translation is awful! Sublime manga has licensed another story by Yoshihara Reiko and the writing is so much better. Either their translation team improved it greatly or the folks at June did a piss poor job.
Hey guys I started reading In the Space between!
I tell you what, I hope it’s just a poor translation because I find this prose fucking infuriating.
Nothing screams masturbate to this quite like the usage of the word bowels.
This author must think that her shit smells like flowers because the buttholes are delicate widdle flowers comparisons are UNCEASING!
Hmm. I always got the impression that they had functioning junk (for the sake of being "perfect") but no sex drive and that the pets were less like sex slaves to the androids and more like, you know, pets. As in breeding dogs, for example, to see what kinds of interesting traits you can get by mixing this and that. There were the sex shows or whatever but weren't they like entertainment to actual non-android-people? Maybe I'm misremembering that part though and any sense was thrown out the window for the sake of porn. Ah, yaoi...
YEAH I never go the whole "here's full sexual functioning - and by the way, you can adjust your penis at will for your partner - oh and by the way, you musn't have sex". Maybe Jupiter tried to test their loyalty to Tanagura- or just likes to stir the shit. It's kinda a shame, the OVAs don't go into the details of the source material, so they present a reasonably competant story.
Yeah what the fuck!? They’re androids so they had to go to a lot more effort to give them functioning junk and sex drives. I don’t believe they can even have offspring, can they? So they went to all sorts of trouble, even give them a whole subculture of sex slavery, just so they can deny them of it later?
I’m beginning to feel that the OVA seemed good simply because it didn’t delve into all the nonsense the book series fails to pull off or puts there for no reason.
Now I really can't wait to see how you'll feel about it by the end. I totally agree that it's about a fucked up society and fucked up power dynamics. What I loved about it though was that the attraction Riki and Iason feel for each other (which is the appeal for me) is doomed from the start because of the social conditioning of both characters and the mistakes they (or mostly Iason) make because of it. It sort of makes it a more socially critical story than most. Well, even though the kink factor makes it kind of weird at the same time. Anyway, I kind of felt like Iason was supposed to be a complete privileged smug douche especially in the beginning. It's only towards the end that the premise is questioned and hard. I guess it's kind of like the fantasy of changing a man through love (a problematic trope, I'll admit) but with the added bonus of the man being fucked up in the first place because of privilege etc. instead of something like a traumatic past (boohoo).
I like that you pointed out Rikki's stupidity.But in the book it also says that Rikki was attracted to Iason.He was impressed by his looks and he knew he was an Elite he had heard the rumors that they don't have sex so he wanted to try Iason on.
Did it mention that? I mean I remember Rikki being curious and thinking about extra excitement and also they talk IN GENERAL about how hot Iason is all the time. Hmmm they could have, but I definitely got more of a curiosity vibe than a sexual attraction one.
However, if he was sexually attracted to Iason it stills seems needlessly risky…especially considering there’s a good chance that a blondy would have him beaten to death over plowing him.
It also seems odd that if Rikki wanted to pick him up, and is notorious for being worshiped as this tough-guy sex-god in the slums that he has 0 confidence when he brings Iason back for banging. Like I get Iason’s intimidating and much higher on the food chain….but Rikki like gets under the sheets just waiting for Iason to do something and get’s all flustered when he has to explain?
Ehhhhh I don’t get it but you do bring up a fair point.
The sexual abuse of animals comparison is quite interesting, though, because the elites are not supposed to personally engage in sexual activities with the pets. In real life, the same goes for people as well. What they do (and are allowed to do) is to breed animals, sometimes to create certain kinds of offspring with features they like. You know, dog and horse shows etc.
I imagine that Iason's treatment of Riki would be considered as animal abuse in that universe if they had any frame of reference for it. As it is, Iason appears to be the first of his kind with these interests so the other blondies are just quite baffled as to how they should react.
I also wonder but can't quite remember if the pet sex shows were arranged for the enjoyment of the public and the blondies only participated. Maybe the blondies were never supposed to get even voyeristic sexual pleasure from the shows? It could have been something that was created for the benefit of the "lower classes." That's the impression I got anyway. It would also explain Riki's super special cock ring. The other blondies would have never thought of something like that if they saw their personal relationship with their pets as strictly non-sexual.
Ugh. This brings a whole uncomfortable aspect of beastiality into the analysis though. Would 'mecha' be considered beastiality from the machine's point of view? Humans are animals after all.
Jason doesn't deserve any punishment for his absolute undeniable shitty behavior because...he's just doing what he's supposed to? I recall the Nazis used that excuse as well.
Phew, you didn’t hesitate to jump into Godwin!
His behavior is undeniably shitty and I personally think he and the other Blondies should be punished. The problem here being that the Nazis were not born and raised in a society that told them it was fine to torture, enslave, and systematically murder other people but the Blondies were.
If you asked a Nazi what he was doing wrong he’d probably say, “Well we do this BUT IT’S JUSTIFIABLE because ~excuse~.”
If you asked a Blondie what he was doing wrong he wouldn’t even be able to answer the question because they have a totally broken concept of right and wrong and can’t even recognize their wrong-doing.
As I understand it, in many criminal court systems if an individual is unable to understand that what they’ve done is wrong they cannot be fully punished. I would say that the trick here is that law applies to people who’s intelligence is too low to understand the gravity of what they’ve done. The Blondies are not stupid but are raised as morally bankrupt. So in my opinion they could be made to understand what they’ve done is inexcusable. I suspect, due to their intelligence and how often they witness mistreatment that many of them may have a feeling that they shouldn’t be doing what they’re doing but justify it to themselves.
TL;DR
I agree with you but it’s a bit more complicated.
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