Manga Report: Ai Yori Aoshi 12

If there was ever a volume of Ai Yori Aoshi to skip buying and just flip through in Borders this is the one.

Volume 11 actually advanced the main story. So what do we get this time? Chika (by far the most useless of the main cast) and her exhibitionist friends!!!

Chika invites her friends over to study. Of course, they don't study, they help clean the house, get sweaty, and then they take a bath, and they grope one another, and predictably, in walks Kaoru!

It seems like Kaoru "accidentally" sees most of these girls naked on an almost daily basis -- is it really a big deal anymore??

Chika's friends think Kaoru is her boyfriend, and Chika does nothing to discourage that. In fact, she's doing the "I'm secretly in love with Kaoru" bit now, too.

Then we go into a completely unnecessary series of chapters about Chika's swim team, and Tina helping little Chizuru learn to swim. Frankly, I just don't care. It's yet another opportunity for more pseudo-porn.

Aoi, who I was surprised to see in this volume at all, visits Kaoru's university to bring him something he forgot, and meets his academic adviser instead. The professor says that meeting Aoi makes him understand why Kaoru works so hard, but that he's overdoing it, and that she should keep an eye on him.

Aoi is a bit wistful at this, and fantasizes about having Kaoru to herself, instead of having to share him with a houseful of hormone-crazed girls. She vows to try harder to care for him.

But surprise! Aoi's mother drops by for a visit. She's got an ulterior motive -- she wants to ask Miyabi about whether Kaoru will be a suitable husband for Aoi.

Miyabi confirms that there's no chance Kaoru will rejoin the Hanabishi family, but says that he loves Aoi and he's the only one who can understand and care for her gentle heart.

And, possibly to make up for all the useless drek that came before, we learn more about Miyabi -- orphaned as a child, she was adopted by Aoi's mother and raised as a "big sister" to Aoi. This is why she is so devoted to the Sakuraba and to protecting Aoi, even as she looks toward the day when Aoi is fully adult and no longer needs her.