Introduction

This rundown of the story is bascially gleaned from a few things I've read, watching the film several times and my own impressions of the film. Expect that it will be rife with my point of view and the occasional snide comment.

The version of Ai no Kusabi that I have seen was subtitled by Lupin Gang anime. They placed some explanatory information at the beginning of the tape, unfortunately this covered up some pretty amazing images of character designing. Without that information it is unlikely you'd know what's going on though, the OAV assumes previous knowledge of the book and the radio dramas.

This is the world of Amoi, a place controlled by a supercomputer known as Jupiter. In order to control population and uprising Jupiter has somehow tinkered with the populace. Very few women are born but there are men everywhere. The men have been divided into classes according to hair colour: gold, silver, green or blue (?), red and brown/black. Gold being the highest rank known as Blondies. The Blondies are genetically engineered, stronger and smarter than the lower classes. Taller too oddly enough. There isn't much to be seen of the planet, mostly just the slums of Ceres and the city of Tanagura. The basic rules of the place are Blondies rule and that's it. If you're a dark haired guy born in the slums then you have no real identity. It is rather fascinating, that this comes from a country where the people are generally neither tall nor blond yet the ones in control are both and the "hero" is a short dark guy. Makes me wonder what the author thinks of the gaijin.

Then there's the whole sex issue, which in many ways is what this whole thing is about. Who's having sex with whom, who can, who can't and who's not supposed to. The underlying theme of this film is all about sexuality and what happens when you toy with it. The Blondies supposedly do not engage in the vulgar rutting of the lower classes, apparantly it is much tidier to be a voyeur of all things bodily fluid related rather than muss your perfect hair by participating. Basically this means they sit back and watch as their pets go at it on a regular basis and in all sorts of spine popping configurations. The one thing I find confusing in all that is they state that the Blondies are sterile so they don't have sex. It's an odd way to put it. Sterility does not mean lack of equipment or the inability of said equipment to function but rather that they have a low or non-existant sperm count. Somehow I have a hard time picturing a great group of gorgeous guys who can't get anyone pregnant then not taking advantage of that. The idea that Jupiter may have created a world of gorgeous men who are impotent is just too criminal to contemplate. There's no hint of what they feel when they watch really, no clue if they're there in the shadows jerking off or if they do that later if at all. Kinda sad when you think about it.