The name of Ao Horie holds special meaning. The A stands for apple, and the O stands for orgy. She hates her name, and she’s not too fond of her dad, who named her. He’s an erotica author and is hornier than a hedgehog in heat. Because of his proclivities, Ao wants to attend college far away so that she doesn’t have to deal with him anymore, so she’s constantly studying to get top marks. Her education plans come apart at the seams when a boy confesses his feelings for her and she begins suffering from a problem many of us contend with: the inability to focus on work because you’re too damn horny.
The Horny Heroine:
Ao going through her sexual awakening is hilarious. Though she hates men because she believes them to be walking husks of unrestrainable libido, she’s her father’s daughter. Sex is constantly on her mind, so she’s always taking simple romantic gestures as lead-up to grinding genitals. One of my favorite scenes is when she finds softcore porn in her crush’s bedroom and calls it boring. Honestly, this manga would’ve been ten times better if it forewent the budding romance and was a collection of moments when Ao tries studying but can’t because she’s got dick on the mind.
The Stalkerish Boyfriend:
It takes two to tango, so it’s natural that Ao would have a love interest she’s wet for. But her best moments with her boy-toy are when he’s naively innocent and Ao’s daydreaming of taking his monster dong, and everything else is shoehorned in. Most of his character is being sweetheart loverboy while occasional pinning Ao to the ground and proclaiming how badly he wants to dry-hump her. Also, he has a bad stalking habit. The typical chapter has Ao out on business, and then her living dildo will show up and blatantly admit that he was looking for her. She could be vacationing in Venice and think nothing when he materializes from thin air to join her for bigoli in salsa. The manga tries painting him as a good boy, but Ao would be better with a guy who respects her boundaries.
The Abrupt Conclusion:
With the premise of this manga, I thought the third act would involve Ao finally losing her virginity, but no such thing happens. Matter of fact, the story just cuts off, with Ao addressing a disdain she never once expressed in any of the eight volumes. Shonen manga cancelled after eighteen chapters have better wrap-up than this, so it boggles my mind why this series died off so suddenly. It’s like this manga came prematurely and then was too embarrassed to apologize, so it jumped out a window.
The Verdict:
From time to time, it had me laughing, but the rest of the time, I was only content or partially disturbed. This manga has points in its favor but puts its stock in some of the wrong places.
CCC Yabbering 