Romances, I find tend to be something that puts you to sleep, or something that makes you say ‘that was uncalled for!” due to something crazy happening, like ecchi humor. Alternatively, they can truly be emotional stories that even haters of such a genre, would turn their head and say… “Wow, what a great story!” And now and then you get lucky and just find something that is all of the above… minus the falling asleep bit. Today seems to be our lucky day.

The first release of Ai Yori Aoshi has us follow the story of Aoi Sakuraba as she tries to find the young man that she promised to marry. After being apart for 18 years, she leaves her hometown in the hopes of find him. As she struggles to find her love, she has only two clues, a worn piece of paper with directions on it and a picture of her and the young man she’s destined to be with. Will she be reunited with her love?

The first episode starts with Aoi Sakuraba on her way to meet the young man that she promised to marry, but only to have the engagement broken off by her family. After arriving at the Tokyo Subway station, Aoi becomes lost while trying to switch trains. While struggling to find her way, and becoming more and more confused with the busy Tokyo life. Karou Hanabishi comes to the distraught young woman’s rescue, helping to fix Aoi’s broken sandal and guiding her on her way.

Karou, worried that she might get lost again and being the gentleman that he is. He decides to help young Aoi on her way to meet the man that she loves and will hopefully marry. Sadly, the directions that Aoi has lead her to an empty lot. The shattered Aoi breaks down and begins to sob, but Karou being there to help her again decides to allow her to stay at his apartment until she can figure out what to do.

During the stay, Karou asks Aoi if she has any other clues to identifying the man she is to marry. She pulls out a picture of herself when she was a young girl, in this picture is a picture of a young boy, the one Aoi is desperately seeking. Karou quickly discovers he is that young boy in the picture. Aoi is excited to by with Karou, but he is very reluctant to be with Aoi because of past experiences with his family.

The first disc comes with 5 full episodes of Ai Yori Aoshi. The first episode seemed a little dry; the story did not have much to offer. However as you progress through each episode the story begins to take shape rather quickly, and a more focused plot shows up. Some of the things we see are of course, Karou and Aoi’s growing love for each other and the conflicts between their families. Another thing I found, which was surprising, was the sudden increase in humor throughout the disc, and with the addition of a few new interesting characters that bring a whole lot of excitement and trouble with them. Without trying not to give anything else away, as you watch the story progresses, it just becomes more and more hilarious, with some serious undertones. With almost a Love Hina feel, but I will try not to say anything more than that.

The animation for this series was very well done, very clean, very crisp all the characters and the scenery is very well drawn. There is not any use of CG in this, but I don’t think that would be appropriate in this anime series. The video quality of the disc, is top notch overall. Then again, this is expected since this series came out in Japan less than a year ago.

I found the video quality on this DVD, well for lack of a better term. Perfect. It was crystal clear; I saw no micro blocks or aliasing of any kind. The audio properties for the disc support both English and Japanese. I have to say the Audio quality for this DVD was excellent, it was crisp and clear, with no hint of scratches or static in the stereo mix.

The menu features for the DVD were excellent; the opening selection screen included a picture of the main characters, if you wait a few moments you begin to see the picture morph to show other moments in Karou and Aoi’s life, from small children to adults. The music for the menu selection is very appropriate a soft, romantic melody really helps to set the mood for this series.

Sadly, the only thing that I was disappointed with in this DVD, were the extras. Do not get me wrong, they were decent, providing us a music video for the opening song, a conceptual art gallery for the two main characters being Aoi Sakuraba and Karou Hanabishi. The trailer (US Version), and previews for upcoming Pioneer releases. I found they just didn’t offer enough, I would love to have seen interviews with the voice actors or artists. I hope that on the future discs, we will see some cast interviews. Perhaps even some behind the scenes work on series.

So far, Ai Yori Aoshi is a great series, it has everything necessary to be a very memorable one, hopefully I will have a chance to see the next DVD so I can learn more about the story and what will happen to Aoi and Karou. I would have to say this is a good buy for those looking for a good laugh, while watching a group of interesting characters as they try to get along.