Aoi HouseFollow

Got the first omnibus yesterday, finished it last night, and found the rest online this morning; finished it 3 minutes ago. Short plot summary: two guys get kicked out of their dorm their first semester in college and need to find a place to live. They wind up at "Aoi" House... although the "Y" in front of Aoi has fallen off. They get a place there without realizing its true name and (SPOILER ALERT!) that it is actually the setting for a reality TV show. The house holds a bunch of lovely ladies, and hilarity ensues.

Probably my favorite manga I have read since Love Hina (yes, I am a harem manga fan...). It references tons of anime, manga, and games; when they mentioned Love Hina AND Chobits within the first 10 pages, I knew I'd like it. Voraciously devoured the omnibus (which had the first two books), which left off at a great cliffhanger. Unfortunately I had some problems with the second half of the series.

1. It totally dropped the Elle/Alex plotline. Too bad, it made a great cliifhanger at the end of book 1.
2. In the last book, the Silent Hill (Twilight, I think the chapter name was) part was just weird. The book started off somewhat like Genshiken, in that it was hilarious while being MOSTLY realistic. It completely threw that part out in this book.
3. The season finale. While I like montages, it felt like a total cop-out. All we REALLY got out of the book was one semester. I understand that finding ideas for an entire college career would be tough, but I would LOVE a good harem manga series that did just that. Love Hina came close (14 books, lasted, what, 2 - 2 1/2 years in the story?), but that copped out by skipping 6 months and later jumping years into the future at the end too.

Maybe cop-out isn't the best phrase. I'm mostly disappointed that it was a really enjoyable series, but it felt like it ended way too soon. 3 1/2 more years of college left for the characters, it could have been extended for many more books, provided they would stay good.

Anyway, anyone else read it and have opinions? Don't get turned off by the premise, there is more yuri than yaoi in the book (and by "more" I mean guys never kiss but girls do; other than that, just fan service of a mostly heterosexual kind... besides Carlo... *shudder*).

Edited, Mar 16th 2009 11:20am by LockeColeMA