Video Girl Ai, known in Japan as simply Video Girl, is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Masakazu Katsura. It was published in Shueisha's Weekly Shōnen Jump from December 1989 to April 1992. It was followed by a short sequel entitled Video Girl Len, published between April and July 1992. The manga was compiled into fifteen tankōbon volumes by Shueisha published between July 1990 and March 1993. A live-action movie of Video Girl Ai was released in 1991. The series was also adapted into a six-episode OVA produced by IG Tatsunoko. The series was released in 1992 by Jump Video. It roughly covers most of the material found in the first three volumes of the manga. In 2018 a live-action television drama called Denei Shojo: Video Girl Ai 2018 ran on TV Tokyo. In North America, the manga and the OVA have been licensed for English-language release by Viz Media. It was formerly published in the anthology Animerica Extra by Viz. As of 2018, the manga has over 14 million copies in print.
Plot
The story starts when Yota Moteuchi finds out that the girl he likes, Moemi Hayakawa, is in love with his best friend, Takashi Niimai. Disappointed by this fact, he decides to rent a video from a mysterious video store that appeared in front of him on his way home. The video store was called "Gokuraku". The unique thing about this video store was that the videos in the store contained "video girls", girls which literally come to life and out of the user's television when the video tape is played to cheer the renter up. Not knowing about the video girls, Yota chooses to rent the video 'I'll Cheer You Up!', starring Ai Amano. Ai comes to life with the purpose to brighten up Yota's life and encourage him to pursue his love. However, Yota plays the video on a broken video recorder, which causes Ai to come out "broken"; among other effects she has the ability to feel emotions. This additional feature of Ai causes her to eventually fall in love with Yota; a feeling which, after giving up on Moemi, Yota begins to return. However, a mysterious man related to Gokuraku known as Rolex enters the story and tries to recall Ai as she is faulty, and the fact that Ai's tape is nearing the end of its playing time makes matters even worse. From this point on, the story changes focus slightly and concentrates on Yota and Ai attempting to overcome the difficulties presented by Gokuraku. Various other complications come into the story; for example Yota's continuing love for Moemi, and his relationship with a new character, Nobuko Nizaki. Initially, Ai spends some of her time teasing Yota mercilessly in various sexual manners i.e. pretending to initiate intercourse, or joining Yota "innocently" in the bath "to help him wash". Yota's resulting embarrassment and attempt to extricate himself from the situation results, as always, in some slapstick humor and more resulting sexual tension.
Video Girl Ai is written and illustrated by Masakazu Katsura. The manga was serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump from December 4, 1989 to April 20, 1992. It was followed by Video Girl Len serialized from April 27 to July 20, 1992. Shueisha compiled the manga into fifteen tankōbon volumes published between July 1990 and March 1993. Shueisha re-published the series into nine bunkoban volumes published between January and May 2003. In North America, Viz Media announced the license of the manga in August 1998. It was first published in the anthology Animerica Extra by Viz until the cancelation of the magazine in December 2004. The manga was originally released in a left to right edition; this version was compiled into seven volumes published between January 2000 and January 2004. The complete series was released in a second edition of all fifteen volumes in the original right to left orientation between May 2004 and April 2006.
Video Girl Ai was adapted into a six-episode OVA produced by IG Tatsunoko. The series was released in 1992 by Jump Video. It roughly covers most of the material found in the first three volumes of the manga. In North America, Viz Video released the OVA on VHS in 1999 and on DVD in December 2001.
Drama
In 2018 a live-action television drama called Denei Shojo: Video Girl Ai 2018 ran on TV Tokyo. The series is set 25 years after the original manga and the main character is the nephew of Yota Moteuchi. TV Tokyo continued the live-action adaptation with a second series Denei Shōjo: Video Girl Mai 2019 focusing on the character Mai, played by Mizuki Yamashita.
Reception
As of 2018, the manga has over 14 million copies in print.
