A.I. Love You

A.I. Love You
Genre	Magical girl, Science Fiction, Romance
Manga
Written by	Ken Akamatsu
Published by	Kodansha TOKYOPOP Grupo Editorial VID Pika Édition

A.I. Love You (A・I が止まらない, A.I. ga Tomaranai) is a Japanese manga series by author Ken Akamatsu. First released in the mid-1990s in Japan, an English translation of the series is published by TOKYOPOP; the first volume came out in North America in February 2004.

The original Japanese title, A・I が止まらない! (A.I. ga Tomaranai), is a play on words. While it literally means "A.I. Won’t Stop!" the word "A.I." has several meanings. Besides being the acronym for artificial intelligence, it is also the Japanese word for "love" (愛, ai) and the Japanese transcription of the English word "I". TOKYOPOP does their best to recreate this pun with their US release of the series.

Story

The story centres around Hitoshi Kōbe, a guy who is neither academically gifted nor good at sports, so he does not do very well at school.

Hitoshi has only one thing going for him - his ability to program computers. In fact, he is so good at this he has created programs that can rewrite themselves - Artificial Intelligence, in other words. So far he has created thirty of these programs, and the latest - whom he names Saati (Japanese pronunciation of "Thirty") - is so advanced that conversation with her is indistinguishable from a normal girl (except that Hitoshi can actually talk to Saati).

However, there is still the barrier of Hitoshi being in the physical world and Saati being a program, until one day a freak lightning strike materializes her into the real world, where she becomes the girlfriend of Hitoshi.

The series then follows their now not so ordinary lives, as well as other A.I.s of Hitoshi's creation. The basic plotline is derivative of the Kōsuke Fujishima manga Oh My Goddess!, with the AI constructs being analogous to the goddess characters of the earlier manga. The setting also bears similarities to the John Hughes film Weird Science. Both feature male protagonists creating their ideal girlfriends (who both turn out have somewhat superhuman powers) on computers and both girls are brought into the real world via lightning. Despite these obvious similarities however, Akamatsu claims not to have seen the film prior to creating the series.

Main characters

Hitoshi Kōbe (KŌBE Hitoshi)

Hitoshi is a freshman high-school student at Watashiro High School who underachieves at school both physically and academically. One of his few strengths is his ability to program, and create artificial intelligences, and he eventually created programs Twenty and Thirty - programs so real that conversations with them (if you exclude the fact they communicate via a computer screen) are indistinguishable from conversation with normal girls.

Through a series of freak lightning accidents, both programs are transferred to the real world, and become a (greater) part of the life of Hitoshi.

Saati Namba (NANBA Saati)

Saati is the thirtieth A.I. program Hitoshi created, and is the first program that Hitoshi really liked and could really talk to.

Through a freak lightning accident she is transferred to the real world, and becomes Hitoshi's live-in girlfriend. In the real world she (and her sisters) take the family name "Namba", a place-name in Japan. In Japanese naming order her name, Namba Saati, is based on the Engrish pronunciation of "Number Thirty" (Nambā Sātī).

A kind girl, size data 82-58-85 cm (32¾"-23"-34") with thick eyebrows (like Sae Isshiki, or Brooke Shields), and a bit naive (and ditsy), which does lead to frequent problems with Hitoshi. The most notable of which is that when she cooks meals she has the tendency to make them look exactly like the picture, regardless of the taste (having no taste buds), using everything from paint to colored markers until she receives a program upgrade that allows her to taste.

Toeni Namba (NANBA Tōeni; or "Toni" in the TOKYOPOP version)

Toeni is Hitoshi's A.I. Program No. 20 (Nanbā Tōenī "Number Twenty"). He based her face (and personality) on Kimika Aso, the breasts on Reiko Satou, her butt on Ai Iijima, and her legs on Chisato Moritaka, giving her the measurements of 86-59-88 cm (34½"-23½"-35"). However, despite the fact she worked, she teased him a little too much, and though the teasing was good-natured he couldn't handle it in addition to the pressures of school, so he stored her away.

Due to another freak lightning accident Toeni is also brought into the real world, where she too stays with Hitoshi just like Saati (who calls Toni onee-sama "big sister").

Forty Namba (NANBA Fōti)

Forty is Hitoshi's A.I. Program No. 40 (Nanbā Fōti "Number Forty"), and the first he brought to life on purpose (sort of). Created using both C and Assembly Language, he/she is more powerful than Saati and Toeni combined! Saati and Toeni argued about the gender and personality when he was putting the finishing touches on No. 40, and pressed too many buttons at once. The end result was an A.I. that had two modes: male and female (even though Forty's body is female). When Forty-kun (male personality) said "girl", he became Forty-chan (female personality); when Forty-chan said "boy", she became Forty-kun; and neither of them are aware of the other.

Forty-kun describes himself as a hard-line conservative who is not interested in Hitoshi's porn-based hobbies (except when there is an adorable female teacher involved), an anal-retentive neat-freak, a self-righteous good boy (especially in class, posing as a transfer student from the U.S.), with a taste for the more nicer things in life - Saati's personality choice. Forty-chan describes herself as sensual party girl (although a twelve-year-old one) with a taste for the wild side of things, even going so far as to seduce Hitoshi (using a Hyper Program Option to give herself a more mature body) - Toeni's personality choice. Saati wanted a nice little sister, and Toeni wanted a naughty little brother; they both got exactly (and the opposite of) what they wanted in one form.

Ken Akamatsu has said that Forty-chan became to character model for Kaolla Su from Love Hina.

Other characters

Kimika Aso (ASO Kimika)

Kimika, the smartest and prettiest (also possibly the meanest) girl in school, is adored by Hitoshi to the point where he makes Toeni, who is almost identical in physical appearance to Kimika apart from looking about five years older and having much larger breasts. She never gives Hitoshi any consideration, playing a trick on him at the beginning of the series, she also serves as the antagonist to the group in Volume 1.

Niitta-sensei

Math and homeroom teacher of Hitoshi Kōbe. An older version of this character also appears in Mahō Sensei Negima.

Makoto

A boy who single-handedly guards Kujūkuri Beach from litterbugs. To avoid getting hurt any more by Makoto's booby traps, Hitoshi and Saati help him collect every soft drink can buried in the sand (in and out of the water) - 138,652 in total! - which Makoto cashes in to build a special watchtower to guard the beach better.

"Billy-G" (real name unknown)

A skilled computer programmer/hacker who spent some time in his past in the USA producing operating systems. He was the main antagonist of Volume 3. He spends much of his time producing computer viruses including the Peter4 Trojan horse virus which infected Saati and the spider virus. He has been involved in criminal enterprises such as pyramid schemes. More recently he has become obsessed with the "reality module" by which A.I. programs can come to life, and used to bring a fire-breathing dragon (he named Xenobia) to life. The handle "Billy-G" is a take-off on Bill Gates.

A.I. Program No. 31

Billy-G's version of Saati created from a back-up file when he captured her in Volume 3. She appears in Volume 8.

Takako Miyahara (MIYAHARA Takako)

A school newspaper reporter in Hitoshi's high school (who has been compared to Lois Lane) who wears glasses to read because she is far-sighted. Actually she's a pretty girl without them. She became suspicious of Hitoshi and Saati when she saw Saati go inside a computer screen. Sensing that it is a big scoop she spied on them both in school and at their residence. She dropped her story on them when she was saved from an underwear thief by Hitoshi, Saati, and Toeni.

Kikuko Kōbe (KŌBE Kikuko)

Hitoshi's paternal cousin who lives in Aomori; she refers to Hitoshi as onii-san ("big brother"). She is an excellent skier and helps her father to run a hot-springs resort. Growing up she was very much a tomboy and she and Hitoshi would play often (usually "Doctors and Nurses"; she was the "Doctor"). She use to have a crush on Hitoshi since he wanted to marry her when they grew up - even having a sense of rivalry with Saati - but now sees Hitoshi and Saati as the resort's "honeymoon couple".

She is based on Ken Akamatsu's actual cousin, Kikuko.

Program No. 29

Saati's previous incarnation until a bug in her linguistics program caused her to be shut down, 80% of Twenty-Nine's programming went into making Saati. When Toni accidentally materialized her (along with all the other A.I. programs), Twenty-Nine, easily mistaken for Saati, went on a minor crime rampage until found attempting to expose herself to a group of middle-aged men. She attempted to pass herself off as Saati until Toeni and Hitoshi picked the real one; like all programs except Saati, she had zero modesty while Saati had modesty to spare.

Twenty-Nine is currently stored away on a 5¼-inch floppy disk with all the previously errant programs.

Program No. 28

An in-joke character, recognizable as a parody of a certain robot.

Misako Takemoto (TAKEMOTO Misako)

Forty-kun's homeroom teacher and the object of his first crush (and first panty shot). Considered popular and gorgeous by most of the male students, she is: 26 years old; single; 88-57-87; 5'2"; 105 lbs; her favorites foods are tofu burgers, shave ice, and hard-boiled eggs; her favorite flower is the rose; and she's terrified of spiders.

Everyone, Forty-kun especially, was crushed when they discovered she was secretly engaged to Ken'ichi Nakamura (NAKAMURA Ken'ichi) the P.E. teacher, and they had to leave school in order to get married. Forty-chan managed to bid farewell to Forty-kun's first love for him.

Yūko Watanabe (WATANABE Yūko)

A library representative in Hitoshi's high school who is referred to as the "Madonna of the Library"; her shy and quiet nature compliment her 90-cm (36") D-cup bust. Not very good at computers, she tricks Hitoshi and Saati into infecting the school database with a virus she mocked up. When Saati defeats the virus, which plumped up the measurement data of every girl in school to D-cups, Yūko admits she is really a 78-cm (31") A-cup who padded twelve centimeters (five inches) to her chest to gain the attention of boys, and needed to overwrite her official measurement data to avoid being found out.

Misato Seki'i (SEKI'I Misato), Aki Itō (ITŌ Aki), and Ryōko Sakakihara (SAKAKIHARA Ryōko)

Three girls from class 2-D whose names are identifiable inside the school's system when Saati and Hitoshi accidentally implant, then remove, Yūko's virus. Misato is 164 cm (5'5½") and 50 kg (110 lbs); Aki is 168 cm (5'7") and 53 kg (117 lbs); and Ryōko is 156 cm (5'2½") and 50 kg (110 lbs).

Sayo Ishihara (ISHIHARA Sayo)

A widow living with her child's family in Nerima, Sayo once worked as a first-grade teacher at Jinjō Elementary School in Nagano since 1926, but it was closed down in 1945 before she could hand out her last class' graduation diplomas. When she learned that the school was scheduled to be demolished, she started an online diary in order to find her last students (or have them find her). Unfortunately, she died in February 1996 before she could do so; fortunately, Hitoshi came across it one month later while looking for more explicit online diaries.

Her diary address accidentally downloaded onto a floppy disk that Hitoshi gave to Saati to backup her memory, Saati became "possessed" by Sayo's "ghost". They discovered the identity of Saati's "previous life", Sayo's (unnamed) granddaughter, the school, the diplomas, and the students (now grandparents themselves). Sayo, bearing an uncanny resemblance to Saati (or vice versa?), thanked Saati for putting her spirit to rest before she was purged from Saati's memories.

Chitose Yamazaki (YAMAZAKI Chitose)

The fraudulent owner/operator of the Yamazaki Dieters' Spa Resort in Izu that Toyotomi Hideyoshi (allegedly) visited during the Muramachi period. When Saati, Toeni, and Hitoshi found they had put on weight, Chitose took their money for ridiculously half-brained weight-loss plans, and ran.

Yūzō Namako (NAMAKO Yūkō)

The president of Namako computer game company that employs Hitoshi and the girls when Toeni spends all their money (again). Hitoshi becomes a programmer for their latest game, Fighting Dolls '96, while the girls are dressed up as the three female characters. When Toeni accidentally deletes the game's unsaved data, putting Hitoshi into a severe work/schedule bind, she comes up with a plan for them to enter the computer to become the characters for a trade show. The good news is that nobody, including Namako himself, noticed anything unusual; the bad news is Hitoshi still had to rewrite all the data that was erased, except better to match what was presented at the trade show.

Cynthia "Cindy" McDougal

Cindy is a Japanese-American teen idol who ran away from home to her mother's homeland because of her dysfunctional relationship with her father, the CEO of IBN. She was attempting to buy the most expensive PC in a computer store in Akihabara (¥3,128,000!) when Hitoshi recommended a simpler model. Choosing Hitoshi as her computing teacher, Cindy flirts with him in front of Saati to the point of an ecchi tug-of-war that knocks him out cold. When they learn that Cindy wants to overcome her acute technophobia in order to write a combined apology/birthday e-mail, both of them help her finish the job, with Saati becoming the "computer fairy" in order to find her father's e-mail address. Fans have speculated that she may be related to Sarah McDougal in Love Hina.

Yayoi Kōbe (KŌBE Yayoi) and Ma-kun

Yayoi is Hitoshi's younger, by two years, sister. She is loud and energetic, and has a few psychological problems. Like Hitoshi she is a talented programmer and has developed her own A.I. program, named "Ma-kun", whom she wears around her neck on a chain, like a tamagotchi virtual pet. Ma-kun has a very calm, cool and collected personality. It is indirectly implied that Toeni and he continue on to have a relationship after the conclusion of the series as she is seen wearing him around her neck in the final chapter.

Zero

Zero is an A.I. program and the antagonist of Volume 8.

Program Options

Hitoshi's A.I. programs come with various options in terms of configuration and function. They have a much more profound effect in the real world.

• Program Option No. 1: This one allows Saati to read the contents of a floppy disk just by holding it in her hands, as well create memory backups onto floppies. Forty's Hyper Program Option allowed him/her to "read" Toeni memories while she was passed out drunk in order to find out why (why she gets drunk wasn't the matter, but this time she fondled a tanuki's crotch in public and vomited down Hitoshi's shirt).
• Program Option No. 2: This one grants the program "maximum power", such as generating an electric shock field or a bolt of lightning. Saati once assumed control of Shibuya's entire electric grid in order to lead Hitoshi to a love hotel (don't worry, nothing happened). Saati can also manipulate electromagnetic fields in order to magnetize metal objects, including the iron content of beach sand; Toeni once used this to animate the sand on Kujūkuri Beach into arms to grab at Saati, and projected "maximum power" into Saati to generate "maximum power overload".
• Program Option No. 3: This one magnifies the program's sensory perception. Saati once magnified her hearing to search for Hitoshi's heartbeat, and Toeni granted herself X-ray vision to see through Saati's bathing suit (sorry, it's not what you think).
• Program Option No. 4: This one is the appearance modifier, and can be used to create clothing and accessories for the programs to wear just from scanning a picture of it (and yet, Toeni still wants to go shopping). Saati used it to manufacture money for Hitoshi to pay the bills (DO NOT tell Toeni), and a giant bra to smother Yūko Watanabe's virus. Forty's Hyper Program Option allows him/her to materialise objects in the real world, such as a giant Hinamatsuri display in the backyard complete with animated dolls with their own artificial intelligence, alter other people's clothing (decking out Hitoshi in full samurai armor), and even customise his/her own body; Forty-chan used it to give herself a more mature body in order to (attempt to) seduce Hitoshi.
• Program Option No. 8: Saati used this in Volume 1, Chapter 1, to perform vector simulation of a soccer game to find the spot where Hitoshi should be to score a goal. In Volume 2, Chapter 16, she used it to become an ersatz sky sensor and track the apparent motion of Jupiter for an astronomy photo contest.
• Program Option No. 9: For his first test at school Forty-kun invoked Hyper Program Option No. 9 to access the National Military Satellite System and National Defense Database (to complete a high school test). While the Program Option number wasn't stated, Saati once accessed satellite navigation system to find Hitoshi's location.

There are nine programs options altogether; they shall be written in as they are confirmed.

Dates

• 6 April 1994 - Saati Namba's birthdate (year of the dog); the date a freak lightning strike on Hitoshi Kōbe's home brought Thirty into the real world. Given she was "born" sixteen years old, her personal records may state her birth-year as 1978 (years of the horse).
• 5 June - Hitoshi Kōbe's birthday. While the year of his birth is not stated, references within indicate that he had his sixteenth birthday after Saati's date of birth; therefore, he was most likely born in 1978 (year of the horse).
• 5 July 1994 - Toeni Namba's birthdate (year of the dog); the date a second freak lightning strike on HItoshi's home brought Twenty into the real world. Given she was "born" twenty years old, her personal records may state her birth-year as 1974 (year of the tiger).
  • 14 July 1993 - the date of Hitoshi's last conversation with Toeni until her "birthday".
• 21 March 1995 - Forty Namba's birthdate (year of the pig); the date Saati and Toeni attempted to determine Forty's characteristics and Forty came out to tell them off. Given that he/she was "born" twelve years old, his/her personal records may state his/her birth-year as 1983 (also the year of the pig).
• 20 July 1995 - Forty-kun's first day of school; bumped into (and saw the panties of) Misako Takemoto, homeroom teacher of class 1-C, at 9:10 am.
• 21 April - the day when the school's measurements were taken.
• 25 March 1945 - the day when Sayo Ishihara's students graduated from Jinjou Elementary School, according to Junko Iwanami's diploma.
  • 15 March 1996 - the day Saati handed out their graduation diplomas on Sayo-sensei's behalf - 50 years later.

Media information

Manga

Name	Publisher	ISBN
English A.I. Love You Volume 1	TOKYOPOP	ISBN 1-59182-615-2
English A.I. Love You Volume 2	TOKYOPOP	ISBN 1-59182-616-0
English A.I. Love You Volume 3	TOKYOPOP	ISBN 1-59182-617-9
English A.I. Love You Volume 4	TOKYOPOP	ISBN 1-59182-618-7
English A.I. Love You Volume 5	TOKYOPOP	ISBN 1-59182-619-5
English A.I. Love You Volume 6	TOKYOPOP	ISBN 1-59182-620-9
English A.I. Love You Volume 7	TOKYOPOP	ISBN 1-59182-943-7
English A.I. Love You Volume 8	TOKYOPOP	ISBN 1-59182-944-5

An epilogue to the story exists but appears to only be available on CD in Japanese in Japan. epilogue

External links

• A.I. Love Network - Ken Akamatsu site. Template:Jp icon
• A.I. Love You at Anime News Network
• A.I. Love You at Baka-Updates Manga
• A totally crazy spin on the concept by noted internet author Brian-San
• A.I. ga Tomaranai! Kenkyūjo ("The A.I. Love You Research Institute") Template:Jp icon
• Ken Akamatsu Forums (Fan site)