Ai no Kusabi

I actually watched this one blind, so I had no idea what I was getting into here or that it was a yaoi, which is definitely not something that appeals to me. With that said, I think people who aren't into yaoi would probably be able to appreciate this more than most other titles in the genre, especially those who have a taste for sci-fi and cyberpunk; it helps that the animation is often decent, and the early '90s OVA art is solid. Whatever sexual elements there are tend to be delivered quickly and it's all plot-driven. Unfortunately, to appreciate this to the fullest extent,you'll probably have to be into yaoi, or I suspect your appraisal will be low to middling unless you really adore the setting and themes and like obscure 1990s OVAs. While this isn't without artistic merit, it's still on the fetishy side, with a touch of cyberpunk and biker gang b-movie vibes. Ai no Kusabi doesn't explain too much about its world directly, preferring to suggest meaning and to relay information slowly. Not unlike popular cyberpunk novelists like William Gibson, there's quite a bit of jargon: achilles, trippers, pets, furniture, blondie, mongrel, etc. You can probably guess what a few of those mean easily enough—ESPECIALLY pets and furniture—yeah, it's fetishy alright, and there's a master-slave and bondage schtick going on. Most of the surroundings are excessively gritty. It seems every wall is textured and filled with holes and cracks. While it's difficult to have a sense for locations and the world building is pretty compressed, these seem to be the slums, where the mongrels live; they lack citizenship, often living as two-bit criminals or shopped around as pets or whatever on the blackmarket. Perhaps we're served an insular part of the world, but it feels as if this seedbed offers nothing but crime, shady bars and back alleys, and oodles of sweaty buttocks for the taking... There's a strong contrast when it comes to the blondies that control society and are, well, blonde; and the mongrels, who have darker hair and reside at the bottom of the ladder. I'm pretty sure I noticed some blonde pets and some darker haired people of decent status, so I don't think it's a totally black and white setup, but, in a general sense, blondes are in the master relationship and brunettes and the dark-haired are in a slave relationship, and while I'm sure there are those who want to talk about class and artificial distinctions concerning genetics, this is literally just some female author's fetish, to be totally honest... The class setup of the haves and have-nots is just a theme meant to add "depth" to the BDSM play between the main and the "antagonist." There is one question that must be asked when constructing this world, which the authors probably didn't even think of, because their motto, evidently, is to never let a good fetish go to waste. Is hair dye banned and is it even feasible to do so, given the DIY methods that can be used? BOOM! World building destroyed, LOL! I've probably made this 2-part OVA sound like the grimiest gimp suit sleaze fest, but it's actually tasteful enough for most of the running time. It has a dark, depressing mood kind of reminiscent of something like... I guess, Wong Kar-wai's Happy Together, only with the sci-fi trappings of his 2046 and the biker gang from Akira—oh, and don't forget some bondage gear... the imagery is often solid, especially some of the nocturnal scenes drenched in shadow and colored light, replete with plenty of flicked cigarette butts, long stares into the distance with monologue quickies, and characters moping around in the middle of garbage dumps for some reason. The characters are not terribly interesting, but they sulk enough, if you're into that. I can't see anyone buying into the LOOOOVE here, which is pretty vapid and pointless, coercion aside. Blondie will sacrifice everything to be with his boy toy, but the relationship has the depth of a random encounter with a prostitute with bits of chit-chat every week. The main is basically the reluctant piece of meat who plays the tough guy and then gets drawn looking a bit feminine when he's dominated. You have the humorless, stone-faced, tall, blonde bishonen who snaps his fingers when he wants the trousers to drop, while delivering his lines with such disinterest he might as well be reading from a grocery store list. Then there's the other guy who touched the main character once upon a time and wants to touch him again, but only after they rub all the filthy blondie residue off with a bar of soap. They're basically stock yaoi characters injected with just enough "ennui" and depressive chain-smoking to not seem like complete cardboard. Within the context of this OVA, the ending is surprisingly strong. About as emotionally impactful as a banal boy toy bonanza can get, and serviced by arresting visuals and fitting dialogue (ahem, relatively speaking). This is an OVA that ended as a satisfying and complete project, unlike the shoddier looking second adaptation of the source material that came out in 2012. I'd say this is more in the 4-5 range, but perhaps higher if you like both sci-fi and yaoi with a dark early '90s OVA style. I'm giving it a 3 because not only do I not like yaoi, but the OVA is simply too straightforward and slow-paced and thematically a bit sterile. The art to fetish ratio leans more on the fetish side, and while this feels sort of fresh and original in a way, it's really just the same old cyberpunk themes and imagery repackaged with boys love and ball gags.