Masakazu Katsura Books

Volume 8 of Video Girl Ai is called Flashback because Yota plans to replay a scene from his life that he didn't get right the first time. Early on in this series, Yota was alone with his crush Moemi and was going to declare his love for her, but instead he found out that she was in love with his best friend Takashi! Now he's taking her back to the same place, with the same plan to declare his love for her, but this time he's going to get it right! The problem is that nothing has changed. Moemi still cares for Takashi, and even thinks he saved her from getting raped, when it was actually Yota that saved her. There is even some implication that Takashi was actually the one that put her in that situation but the author is not exactly clear since Takashi still hasn't come clean about that night. But most of the girls at school are spreading the rumor it was him that set her up. When Moemi finds out the truth, what will she do? And Ai's life is still ticking away. If she doesn't get a man to fall in love with her, she will be erased. But with Yota's attention fully on Moemi, how is she supposed to make any headway?

To me, Video Girl Ai is a manga that is in a temporary, but hopefully not permanent, holding pattern. The character of Yota has become less interesting the closer he has come to his dream of being in a relationship with Moemi. The fact that he is no longer a nerd called "Dateless", but instead has become a more normal highschooler has decreased the conflict in his character. Now he has to deal with the REALITY of being "normal" and all the boring characteristics that come with that. For braving the depths of Hell a couple of volumes back to save Ai's life, he seems to have made Ai into a third class citizen pretty fast. There's JUST enough story here to keep me interested a little longer, but if Katsura doesn't get the plot moving again and bring some comedy back in, I'll be erasing this series from my reading time.

Unless I am missing something here this is a dud/fraud, VIZ US released Katsura Masakazu's I's in 15 Volumes, so what is with with this #20.