Ai no Kusabi 

by YOSHIHARA Rieko,

published by JUNE. 

Article by Jeanne Johnson

 For all of you who have asked about the order info for Ai no Kusabi OVA:

VHS, 2 volumes. 60 min each, 13,500 Yen each.

The Ai no Kusabi OVA is released privatedly by JUNE. So you can not special order it from an anime dealer. It is only available directly from JUNE publisher, and it can be ordered in Japan using the form available at the back of any JUNE magazine. 

-MZ 

Way back in '95 a friend asked me 'Just what's Ai no Kusabi **about** anyway?' The following comments are taken from a series of letters in which I attempted to answer that question. I can't guarantee the accuracy of the information enclosed. If anyone has any corrections to offer, please feel free. I, and a number of other people, would like to hear them. 

The good news: it's not just us and our imperfect Japanese. The video really is completely uninformative about basic details of the story, like 'where are we' and 'who are these people?'. That's because AnK began as a novel which was made into two voice dramas which were made into two videos. By the last stage, the producers naturally assumed that everyone had read the book- or had talked to someone who had read the book- and knew all the background, so they didn't need to waste time telling you things you already know and could concentrate on more important matters, like Iason bonking Riki. I mean, which would you rather have- a discussion of the class structure in Tanagra, or a scene of Iason bonking Riki? Yeah; and the Japanese too. 

But if you still want to know what's happening, you have to read the novel. Which is what I did. Sort of. 

I read the book, or half of it: to where the first video ends. Then I was interrupted by other things, like packing up five years of Tokyo acquisitions and sending them home. It's not hard Japanese, just harder than I'm used to. So there are absolutely no guarantees that all of the following information is 100% accurate. You have been warned. 

The location is a planet called Amoi, twelfth from its sun, which was a barren untenanted hunk of rock until a "think tank" (the author is addicted to katakana readings of her obscure kanji) of scientists landed with a plan to create a perfect society centered around their giant computer, Jupiter. Jupiter did a Hal, achieved consciousness, grabbed power, and begat, by means unspecified, an elite group of genetically engineered supermen. They're bigger, stronger and smarter than the ordinary human (IQs over 300); physically complete in all details except they're sterile. But, apparently, hung like horses. They're divided according to function by their hair color: from bottom up- black, red, green or blue, silver, and at the top, gold- the Blondies. The top rank  alone can communicate directly with Jupiter, and of the Blondies, Iason is especially favored, Jupiter's number one son. (Sorry. But he is: the book says so.) 

The main city of Amoi is Tanagra, controlled completely by Jupiter. The elite live in an area called Eos, but periodically go slumming in the pleasure city of Midas, a suburb or satellite city. Inside Midas is the bottom of society, the Slum or, properly speaking, Caress, where only mongrel humans live, mostly male. They spend their days getting stoned on "stout" and bonking each other for lack of more congenial female partners 

(Plot synopsis of the first video, from June magazine)

"The mechanical city of Tanagra, ruled by the giant computer Jupiter. The satellite city of Midas is the center of pleasure and sexual enjoyment. Riki grew up in the middle of Midas, in the despised slum of Caress (? The video keeps calling it the 'slam', which is most confusing). In  this slum where everyone is powerless, Riki succeeded in fascinating the members of the 'Bisons'-Guy, Luke, Norris, Sid-with the force of his personality. 

"Riki said "I'm going to get out of the slum" and disappeared for three years. Now he's back. Riki seems different to Guy, his "pairing partner" ('fuck buddy' to you) since they were kids. He doesn't know what to do. Then Kirie, the new member of the Bisons who had only heard about Riki from the others' stories, takes against him. The change in Riki comes from the realization of his own powerlessness, that is the result of the three years he spent in Tanagra as the kept pet of Iason ('a little English is a dangerous thing') Mink, a Blondie- the upper elite man-made humans. (A word on 'jinkoutai'-a man made body: No explanation of how or why, but obviously the top class is genetically bred for superior excellence, unlike the rutting lower levels.) Kirie, who knows nothing about the connection between Iason and Riki, is seen at an auction by Iason, who flatters him and gets him to do some underhanded jobs for him. ('underhanded'- not above board, illicit in some undefined way) 

"Then one day, Kirie, looking quite prosperous, comes to offer the Bisons some work. The Bisons are overwhelmed by Kirie's posh turnout (J note: sorry, can't think of what else to call it) but Riki is astonished to see him wearing a ring used by the pet dealers of Midas. In order to find out who's behind Kirie, Riki goes to a black market dealer called Katse and asks about him. As he thought, it's Iason. Katse used to live in Eos as Iason's 'furniture' (the Japanese explanation: living furniture, eunuchs who see to the Blondies' well-being and look after their pets.) He says he got the scar on his cheek for  having accessed (OK, the Japanese is 'touched', but you know he did it by computer) the secrets of Tanagra and warns Riki "Don't be too secure about Iason"don't despise him, don't think you're a match for him, etc. 

"In the meantime Iason has been summoned by Jupiter to explain about Riki. Iason's friend Raoul Am is worried about Iason's attachment to Riki and warns him as well, but Iason refuses to listen. In the end Riki, urged on by his friends, agrees to do Kirie's job, but he can't hide his apprehension. What is Iason really planning? etc. etc." This is an advert, after all, so it isn't going to tell you that he's planning to massacre the Bisons and his tool Kirie as well. 

Have bought the book  and waded through the first scene which is a fairly common set piece (I wish I was being sarcastic, but I'm not) with Riki, still unnamed, tied to a bed and being tortured not only by his uncomfortable suspension but by being aroused and not allowed to come. (Many Japanese women seem to think this is a standard part of male sexuality. I'd have thought one might go soft instead, especially if you were really being tortured. Any information you have on this subject.) He's wearing a cock ring, which  might be his pet ring. Anyway, Iason says he can come eventually, but not until he's been properly punished for having fucked one of the females in the house- evidently another pet who's being kept for breeding purposes. Suggestions as far as they go are that pets are exactly like animal pets. Riki's crime isn't the indiscriminate sex with a female; it's having refused to obey Iason's orders to have sex with one of the male pets, evidently. Riki is willing to admit to himself that he only slept with the female in order to make Iason jealous. More details as they appear. 

The story of AnK the video (hereinafter denominated as 'vid' differs from that of AnK the novel ('nov') in a number of respects. But vid does indeed begin at the beginning, go halfway to the end and there stop, while nov jumps back and forth. In nov, Scene 1: When Riki Met Iason, Riki is picking pockets. Iason sees him doing it and tells him to cut it out. Riki says 'The police station's over there if you want to turn me in', Iason says 'I'm not interested' and turns to leave. Riki goes after him, saying he isn't about to owe anything to anybody let alone a Blondie; and Iason accordingly takes him to a high-class but recognizable Tanagran version of a love hotel, where he strips him and jerks him off. Riki goes with Iason partly because he indeed doesn't owe anything to anybody, and partly because street-talk is that Blondies don't do it, and Riki wants to know what Blondies do do and partly because he's already feeling the attraction, but that you have to deduce yourself. 

In the vid, all this is changed. Riki in the first scene is slouching the slum of Ceres, casing cars, vandalizing property, and seeking that which he may devour-when he's jumped by a bunch of vigilantes who've had their sights on Riki of the Bisons for some time.  As they're beating him up, Iason appears and rescues him. This is the first encounter: Riki doesn't know Iason from Adam, and for all one can glean from the vid, Iason doesn't know Riki. True love, or true lust, apparently calls even through the windshield of a Blondie's car. 

Next scene has us in a much lower-class version of the love hotel. Suggestion may be that Riki took Iason there. Riki's actually saying that he won't be in anyone's debt, and that the only way he can pay Iason is with his body (yeah-seems to be a set phrase, probably from Edo times, for prostitution to pay one's bills.) Iason says that's exactly what you'd expect a slum mongrel to say, and proceeds to jerk him off as per the novel. Riki asks why he doesn't get undressed as well, and Iason says it isn't necessary when you're training a pet, which is a line from the nov. Blondies don't do it but they do lend a hand, so to speak. At the end, Riki gives one of those male-Japanese indecipherable snarls, which may mean "Who the fuck are you anyway?" or possibly "May I at least be allowed to know to whom I owe the pleasure?" and Iason says "Iason Mink. (Yes, you can hear the last name if you're listening for it. The Voice (fannish nickname for the voice actor who does Iason) knows when to drop his voice.) Just your average Blondie." 

Suggestion in vid is that Riki became Iason's pet then. In the book there's a second meeting. Riki spots Iason and follows him where he's going- to one of his houses, evidently, where he has the bejasus scared out of him by some android-type monster watchdog. Demonstrates the force of the attraction, I suppose: not much is said in the scene, but the implication is that Riki then went to live in Iason's house as his pet. 

Ok, lore on pets to date gleaned from nov. Only the slum types breed naturally; everyone else does some kind of genetic engineering. Obscure passage suggests that this is part of the policy of Jupiter or the elite class to keep the number of women down- presumably to control the human (middle class) population, because, it says, in natural breeding the birth rate is 50/50 and that's not what the elite want. Why they want the population to be male-heavy isn't said. Seems an invitation to social unrest to me. (The book has almost nothing to say so far about anyone who isn't a slum type or a Blondie, but they must exist. They're sitting there in the auction audience in the vid.) Further obscure references in nov are made to harems, with both male and female members, presumably the source of the genes from which replacement humans come. 

Pets are not part of the harems. They're young types, just around puberty, who are owned by the elite class, and whose main function seems to be putting on sex shows for the elite-who don't, in fact, do it themselves. 

The best pets are bred and trained by the science academy and put up at periodic auction. All that pets are good for- all that pets are bred for - is to have sex with other pets. There are laws governing the circumstances under which he can be acquired, the terms of his contract, the conditions under which he can be punished. He must be registered, and his registration number is encoded on his ring. When a master removes a pet's ring, the contract is finished and he must let the pet go: to what, is a very good question, because pets have no skills. Katse the black market dealer says some of them are shipped off to other owners, and presumably some go to the brothels of Midas. A big thing is made about pet laws in both nov and vid, because slum types are never made pets and so Riki is legally a dubious case. Slum types don't exist in the official system- they have no ID, which is rather like having no social security number, which is rather like being one of the homeless: you're a non-person and not qualified for full-time employment. It's still every slum boy's dream, even if impossible- a nice comfortable existence in some Blondie's house. In any case, the rules on freeing pets don't apply to Riki. Raoul says (during that billiard game) that now Iason's taken off Riki's ring he has no further claim on him, and Iason points out that it's not so. He intends to hold on to Riki, even though having a slum mongrel as a pet threatens both the laws of Tanagra and the prestige of the Blondies. 

Nov says everyone who's eligible wants to be a pet, but it's not much of a life. Pets are kept for a year or eighteen months at most. Part of the scandal of Iason and Riki (aside from the constant and correct rumors that Iason is Doing It with his pet) is that Iason has kept him for three years. As nov describes it, pet life sounds a lot like The Persian Boy: harem politics crossed with catamites. The pets are always at each other's throats, occasionally murdering each other when jealousy and rivalry get too high. They take drugs to slow down their maturity; a broken voice and body hair is the end of everything for them. 

If pets are like harem members, 'furniture' (the authors uses the English word in katakana) are the eunuchs who look after them Quite literally: they're all castrated. Furniture are always slum kids, and is obviously what good looking slum adolescents become. They're slightly older than pets, being recruited from the orphanage where slum rats are raised when they reach the turfing-out age of sixteen. Their job is to are for the pets but they're expected to be decorative as well. (Cf. the flashback of Katse in his furniture days, wearing very brief briefs and not much else.) Katse says that even when they find out the basic requirement for becoming furniture, most guys don't hesitate to accept the position, castration being a minor price to pay for freedom from the slum. 

Ok, back to vid. After Iason/Riki motel scene, we cut to Guy on his bike talking to Riki in his head. It's three years later and Guy hopes the vanished Riki is making out OK, like he said he would. This  scene and the one of Riki's return isn't in nov, or not yet: the book goes back and forth a bit, and the scene may yet appear, but I doubt it. In vid the Bisons have clearly done something to get themselves in dutch with the police: there's a chase scene, and they're rescued by the lone rider who turns out to be Riki. They go back to the headquarters, and Riki catches up on what's happening- which, as he says, isn't much. Nothing's changed at all.' He meets Kirie, the new kid in the gang. Kirie clearly resents having the leader of the gang back, presumably because he had eyes on the position himself. Kirie suggests they go to the pet auction because there's a chance of heisting a load of some kind of alcoholic or drug stimulants that presumably will be served to the guests. I'm guessing at that last, because it's not in the book, where Kirie only wants to go to have a look at the pets. Riki says he's the leader and decides where the Bisons go. Kirie suggests settling the question with their bikes. Race? Fight?) They start up but Riki doesn't move. When Kirie goes over in a rage to see what the fuck he's doing, Riki trips him and beats the shit out of him. Having established ascendancy, he then agrees to go to the auction after all. 

All goes as planned. They disguise themselves, show fake papers and heist the goods. Then they go to view the pets and the buyers. When Iason enters, Riki leaves. In nov, Kirie decides this is a good chance to meet a Blondie and goes after Iason. This happens later in the vid. 

Cut to Iason at work, getting a summons from Jupiter. It's a Japanese mentality that makes the all-controlling power of Tanagra into a  female, and a maternal female at that. Who ran the house? Mom. All those loving scoldings from childhood get recapitulated in this scene. Jupiter wants a word with him about his pet. Iason says Riki's just a druggie (they're called 'trippers' and they drink something called 'stout') from the slum- nothing to worry about. Presumably Jupiter has some telepathic contact with Iason, because to all intents and purposes Iason has let Riki go: only Jupiter and Raoul sense that he's still attached. Iason's last words to Jupiter are "You don't have to warn me about him now", which is very ambiguous. The overt sense is that 'I've let him go', the underlying meaning is that 'it's already too late'. As becomes apparent in the following conversation with Raoul, who says "If I were Jupiter, I'd destroy that pawn of yours." Word comes that Kirie is here to see Iason; Iason sends Katse to deal with him. Katse tells Kirie he has to follow his (Katse's) orders. Kirie gets uppity about wanting to deal directly with Iason, but in the end agrees to do whatever he's asked to, even to betraying Riki and the Bisons. Nov makes a lot of the fact that Kirie resembles the Riki of three years ago, and that's the source of their mutual dislike. Vid seems to make it just a power struggle. 

So we're back in the bar, the guys wondering what's happened to  Kirie and have you heard the rumor that he's getting it on with Katse? Kirie shows up, says he has some work for the Bisons transporting pets. Riki's against it, the others are for it. Riki goes off to ask Katse who's behind Kirie. (Vid doesn't say how they know each other; nov had the young go-getter Riki three years ago making himself useful to the major black market dealer in the slum. Obscure passage says that Iason had asked Katse about Riki, but time of asking is uncertain. Just recently after letting him go? Three years ago, seeing him on a job?) Katse says it's Iason, and tells Riki about his own past. shows him his old furniture ID ring, tells how he started hacking on the household's computer in his spare time and nearly got into the classified part of Tanagra but was stopped by Iason. He tells Riki that if he wants to be free, he'll have to get out of Tanagra entirely. Katse knows that Iason is planning somehow to get hold of Riki, though he doesn't say it, and tells Riki to beware of him. 

In nov, this whole part- Kirie looking for helpers to transport pets and Riki going to Katse- doesn't happen. It's Katse who comes above ground in search of Riki, to see if he can warn Kirie about the  dangers of dealing with Iason. (Riki at the time is playing a sex game called 'Gigolo' which I'll tell you all about some other time.) Katse sees Kirie as being an aspiring slum kid like himself, with the same overweening ambition and riding for the same fall, and wants him stopped before he gets hurt. He tells Riki about being furniture, and how he thought he was going to get a hold of the secrets of Tanagra, but that Iason knew all along what he was doing, and was simply playing with him. 

Meanwhile, (this is the novel's version of Iason's Dastardly Plot) Kirie has abducted Guy and handed him over to Iason, assuming Iason wants him as a pet. Then he goes to tell Riki what he's done, because he can't stand Riki ignoring him and treating him like a kid. Riki goes into a major funk. Lucky lucky Guy gets to be a pet, what a horrible fate, and with Iason who- who- who- Who Riki can't forget getting fucked by, basically. He loved it, he hated it, he can't forget it, so he goes on a bender for a week or so. Wakes one morning hung over, has a shower, when he comes out Iason is waiting for him in his living room. (Slum or no slum, Riki's got a big apartment. And he drinks fruit juice and mineral water for breakfast,=20 Sounds like California to me.) Iason wants to know where he's been- "I've had Guy for a week now, I expected to hear from you." Iason wants Riki back at any cost, and lists all the things he's ready to do to Guy if Riki doesn't come back. Riki points out that he (Riki) is 20 now and why the hell is Iason still hitting on what's basically well beyond pet age; and Iason says Riki is the only man he wants, which is the closest a Blondie is likely to come to a declaration of love. Riki melts; well, Riki goes hard, is what. This scene is basically the same as the Riki-gets-out-of-jail scene in vid, and is as far as I've got at halfway through the book. The two are currently (what else?) fucking, and it is with great difficulty that I refrain from a small discurses on what words the Japanese use for 'asshole' when they're being romantic. K/S 'jade towers' ain't in it. 

However, back to vid. Guy and Riki are off to do Kirie's job.  They and the Bisons get on the transport with the pets, and then the doors close and the transport takes off while Kirie runs for it. It's a set-up to make it look like the Bisons were planning to heist the pets. The guards open fire, the Bisons are decimated, and Kirie carries Riki off to the waiting Katse who hands him over to the police. "I told you-if you're going to fight, you'll have to take on the whole Tanagra." The Tanagra police are interrogating Guy when the word comes from above that Riki's to be released, even though he's the ringleader of the attack. The guards who release him tell him he's listed as a run-away pet and should return to his master. Riki is flabbergasted. 

Cut to Iason and Raoul playing billiards. Raoul asks why Iason is making Riki come back after letting him go. Iason says he had Riki for three years and has no intention of letting him go now. The suggestion may be that Iason thought he could do without him and found himself wrong; or that, as with Katse, he was playing with him, and when Kirie fell in his lap, he decided to use him to cut Riki's ties to the slum. Raoul tells Iason to give Riki up. Jupiter never warns anyone twice, he says, and next time=85Iason says he's never slipped up in his work, and that keeping a slum pet is a minor matter by comparison. Raoul says he's asking for trouble,  especially with his special treatment of Riki (presumably the fact that he fucks him.) "In this town, Jupiter always wins. Are you listening, Iason?" Iason breaks the window with his ball, and says "If I told you I loved Riki, would you laugh, Raoul?" No he wouldn't. He'd be appalled. He is. 

Riki goes home and finds Iason there, and asks him why he's done what he did after he said he was free to go. Iason says that though he took off Riki's pet ring, he didn't cancel his registration: 'You're still my pet, now and forever," and he puts Riki's pet ring back on. (Same as in nov.) 

And a word on pet rings, from nov. Riki's a cock ring, and acts like one. Iason can loosen and tighten it as he likes. Nov says very little about rings in general; apparently they're a legal device, the sign that a pet is a pet. I suppose turning a pet ring into a cock ring has the same perversity to it as finding an erotic use for an employment contract or possibly one's security badge in a large corporation. I await more info as I read. 

Down in the street Katse waits for Iason to finish and muses that Riki is caught up in the same chains of attachment that (presumably) Katse is. Who Katse's attached to is the question. Hints in nov suggest it's Iason.. "When he cut my face open, he made me his for good." Could be Riki, the other slum kid who fell into Iason's hands. Could be both. 

Kirie shows up to get his thirty pieces of silver; what he gets is apparently the Tarot's death card in a box from Iason who's a disguised android. Android promises to teach Kirie the etiquette of Tanagra. The lesson looks to be final. 

Riki is waiting for Guy as he gets out of prison. They go home in the rain. Guy asks if Riki wants to go back to being pairing partners. Riki says he can't, and tells him the attack was a set-up staged by his master, and that he's a Blondie's pet. Guy has a shit-fit, beats Riki up and throws him out. Riki thinks back to his time in the slum, says "It's all a dream" and hoists his bag, on his way back to Iason. Last line is Katse's voice saying, "If you want to get away you'll have to get out of Tanagra altogether." 

AnK part 2, with many flashbacks, when I get to it. I need to have a closer look at the nov account of Riki's training, with the big kanji dictionary this time, to see what the special bit of physiology is that Iason has. Dare I hope it's a self-lubricating penis, after all those dojinshi? Except that he has no use for it: Blondies are men but not male, as the book puts it. AnK isn't difficult Japanese, which is defined as 'the kanji aren't in the Word Tank.' It's more difficult than I'm used to, meaning 'the kanji are in the Word Tank but that particular compound isn't.' This is usually a sign that the author is making words up by putting two arbitrary kanji together. You're allowed to do this if you give the more standard reading in hiragana beside the new compound. Author gives a katakana word instead a lot of the time. (e.g. kanji for drug plus kanji for drink, read as 'stout'.) Cute literary games in Japanese. Amuse and amaze your friends. 

(Gigolo is played by having one slum kid say to another slum kid, "I wanna fuck you' and second kid saying 'You ain't got the equipment." They then play something like draw poker. If challenger wins first round he gets to kiss challengee. If he wins the second round I think (obscure kanji compound) he's allowed to feel him up. Third round and he can fuck him. Game is played in public, and is over when challenger loses a round or when challengee has been fucked in the ass. There are supposed to be no more ramifications to the games and no hard feelings. There are, of course. )

 -JJ