Aishiteru ze Baby - Or Milly Molly Mandy meets 90210

Highschool melodrama/romance shows like Marmalade Boy, Orange Road, His & Her Circumstance are the Anime answer to 90210 or the OC. These Japanese teen soaps aren't aimed at the nearly thirty something set, so intent on reliving their glory years that they're oblivious to the corruption of the tween set, but rather at the teen and tween set directly.

For an adult viewer they can trigger a spun sugar candy tooth ache, or, if you're lucky and the story's solid, a nostalgic memories and simple viewing pleasures. We're used to thinking of fiction in near categories of children's and adults, but of course young adult titles like Harry Potter occasionally enter our consciousness. Really a lot of our more vapid guilty pleasures could safely fall into the young adult category - Star Wars, comes to mind. In the same way that Winnie the Pooh and the Secret Garden span the age ranges of solid story telling for children, Watership Down and Little Women are damn good stories that properly belong in the young adult category.

Aishiteru ze Baby is no Little Women, but it's a solid story for a Anime high school romance, with a clever conceit that's of the type that fascinates me.

Kippei is an average highschool student. He's not particularly focused or ambitious but he does excel at his favorite subject - flirting! Unfortunately his casual ways are interrupted by an unusual family crisis. His aunt has disappeared from home, leaving behind Yuzuyu, her five year old daughter. Now Kippei's family must take Yuzuyu in and in a thoroughly implausible turn of events decide that the best one suited to be her primary caregiver is none other than our pretty boy slacker.

I can think of a half dozen ways in which the setup could have been made more plausible, but it really doesn't matter. Remember this is a highschool romance, and what could be more romantic to a teenage girl (and offer more episodes of unintended hilarity) than an attractive teenage boy, struggling to become a responsible "dad". Frankly it strikes me as brilliant. On the obvious level you two very appealing elements to both the teen and tween demographic - the romance with Kokoro the beautiful but aloof girl who Kippei grows to love, and the hefty dose of serious cuteness in the kindergarten antics of Yuzuyu.

More subtly this setup breathes new life into the formulaic romance structure. There's emotional jealousy and the struggles of balancing romance, friends and school, but the generic romantic rival who we know will go away is replaced by a child who needs attention as well and who cannot be abandoned. The typical treatment of 'modern issues' that provide narrative side stories in this type of show gain an extra dimension by Yuzuyu's reactions. In this case it's the physical abuse of a classmate of Yuzuyu's, Kippei's depressed and suicidal cousin, and Kokoro's anorexia. While we're not seeing the parent's and adults perspective, the view from an actor outside of the teen generation increases the emotional impact.

It's a risky juxtaposition, and implausible enough that if it didn't keep paying off in the stories you'd throw it out the window, but it works and that fascinates me. It's very much of a type with Starship Operator's trying to combine Grognard military geekiness with lipstick wearing bridge crew, or the Matrix justifying absurd gun-fu with hard-cyberpunk. I'm trying to think of more classical examples but they escape me...

Of course the show is slow and the animation is cheap. Don't look for genius in the dialogue or characterization either - 'course you're watching high-school anime, you know what you're getting into. Bottom line, if you're looking for a light teen fantasy with a twist that promises some surprises, this is the best the genre's had for years!

Now if you'll excuse me I hafta go watch The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe teaser again!