I read recently at ANN that Media Blasters will release the 2012 OVA series of Ai no Kusabi in December.
I actually hadn’t heard there was a 2012 version. I recall seeing an episode of the 1992 OVA series featuring Kaneto Shiozawa as Iason Mink and Toshihiko Seki as Riki some years ago. That series is still much loved among yaoi fans, but fans also seem to love the new 2012 series. So I’m looking forward to this release.
I’m currently editing Ai no Kusabi, vol. 8, the latest in the novel series by Rieko Yoshihara.
Ai no Kusabi is set in a futuristic universe where an elite class known as “Blondies” rules over other humans. Iason Mink, a Blondy, finds himself captivated by a dark-haired “slum mongrel” hustler named Riki. In the course of the story, Iason captures Riki twice and makes him his “pet” or sex slave.
From the illustration above, you might think that Ai no Kusabi has deviant sex dripping off of every page—but oddly enough that’s not the case. There’s sex in the story all right, but Yoshihara is more interested in examining her world of Blondies, aliens, underclass humans and other beings in terms of the power struggle between levels of society.
First published in Japan in 2001, Ai no Kusabi is emblematic of a kind of story you’d probably never see from an American writer mainly due to the racial overtones. (Iason Mink is actually more cyborg than human, but I don’t think that helps.) It’s hard to picture an American writer feeling free to write a story about a “blondy” subjugating “dark-haired” humans. Many of the “pets” are also under-18 teenagers, another reason why Ai no Kusabi is controversial.
My own view is that political correctness should never stop creators at the front end. By that I mean that writers should be able to write what they want and face whatever criticism comes after the fact, but let writers—and artists—have the run of their imagination first.
I won’t argue that Ai no Kusabi is for everyone—obviously it isn’t—but I will say that I envy the freedom that Japanese writers and artists have to write whatever they feel like writing and seemingly without some of the self-limiting “PC” constraints that give American writers pause. I don’t know whether it’s due to Japanese cultural insularity or just that anything goes in boy’s love, but even if I never wound up using it, I wish I had that freedom.
