Ken Akamatsu

This series is definately a guilty pleasure. In this volume, I did not like that Keitaro had to turn into Seta II before Naru would fully accept her feelings for him. And the whole subplot with Keitaro's sister is annoying. Still, the characters are endearing and funny and the action never stops. I am sad that there are only two books left in the series.

I'm very saddened that this series has gone so downhill. With the last volume, I was hoping that this dry period in the series was just a fluke, but volume ten was even worse. It was boring, had very little real plot, and seemed to be nothing more than an avenue in which the artist could draw pictures of the girls in revealing cat-girl costumes and diapers. I doubt I will be reading any more books in the series. I really preferred the first 5 or so books over the anime, but now I'm not so show more sure I can recommend the manga series as a whole. show less

The best review / description of this manga is actually contained in the introduction by Adam Arnold in Volume 1, so I suppose I should just copy that.
But that would be boring so I'll summarise, paraphrase, and suchlike instead.
Take the basic premise behind "Weird Science" combine it with a "Hackers" like impression of the internet, throw in seriously out of date computer technology as well as moderately sexist and outmoded views of what typifies the perfect woman; take all this and imagine show more it as the ancestor of Akamatsu's later work "Love Hina" and you basically get the idea.
If you haven't read "Love Hina" read that instead of this. It's better. It's art is better, it's writing is better, it's characters are more engaging, so on and so forth. It is the more mature (well not so much mature, let us say better developed) work of the older man that as a younger man wrote "A.I. Love You". So of course it's better! The guy had years to refine his drawing techniques and writing style between the first chapters of this and that masterpiece of horny loser geekdom known as "Love Hina".
You've probably figured this out, but I really love "Love Hina". I've been reading more of Ken Akamatsu's work lately simply because I couldn't get enough of it. I started with "Negima" which did not disappoint me. It does after all come post Hina. But unfortunately it has been so successful that there are about twenty volumes and counting and no end in sight so I've decided not to get too into it till Akamatsu has come up with some sort of conclusion to the story.
Then I read "Mao-Chan". Somewhat disappointed there I have to say. I gave it two stars but I wasn't really feeling even that much. At most 1 star, and that's being generous. I only gave it two because of all the joy that Akamatsu has brought me with other works. Okay so that doesn't smack of critical integrity but who cares. Who's paying attention to what rating I gave Mao-Chan? Who's even reading this review?
Let's face it, I'm essentially shouting into the void here!
Kind of cathartic really.
But to get back to the point, I do genuinely feel the three stars I gave volume 1 of A.I. Love You, and I genuinely suspect that by the time I get to the later volumes I may be rating them with four. I heartily encourage anyone who has enjoyed Love Hina as much as I to read A.I. Love You as an act of love, to see where it all began. show less

Having started to bog down and feel drawn out towards the end of the last omnibus, things get moving again as some actual changes occur.

In the inevitable way of manga, the romantic plot becomes increasingly complex. I can't really see this as good - it's the usual sort of contradictory, you-promised stuff that tends to feel like it's a device proposed by editors to prolong a popular series. "But what if EVERYONE had given Akira-kun a special ring in their childhood..?" and so forth. Still, show more not egregiously annoying.

I'm still enjoying the antics and interactions of the cast, and now that I've got used to it, the wackiness of the universe keeps things lively. Naru is getting a bit tedious with all this prevaricating though. I'm starting to root elsewhere, and that's bad. show less