Books like Ai Yori Aoshi Vol. 1

This review is for the series. A sweet romance gets utterly sidetracked by the most unnecessary harem ever. Also, ludicrous nudity.Kaoru Hanabishi is a man who fled his domineering family after years of emotional and physical abuse. While life is hard, he gets on by. One day, he meets a very cute, traditional young women who is at a loss as she breaks her sandal at the train station. He fixes it, and offers to help her find the address she is looking for.To his shock, it's his address. The girl's name is Aoi. As children, they were betrothed. While Kaoru has forgotten her, she has always cherished him in her heart, and has come to find him. Now Kaoru must deal with a very attractive, very traditional young woman who reminds him of his painful past.This is the story in the first volume, and it's pretty good. It's sweet,and a bit melodramatic, but in some ways its better than average. There's one big problem though; the manga-ka decides to toss this out, and saddle them with the most annoying harem in existence.There's Tina, the half-japanese American. There's Mayu, the annoying rich girl. There's Taeko, the clumsy maid. There's Chika, the lolita fanservice. What's annoying about them is that while some of them aren't all that bad (Tina's story is quite sweet,) it forces what was great about the series into hiding for a lot of pointless drama. The series is very good when Aoi and Kaoru act together, and it has a refreshing take on love. Aoi and Kaoru truly love each other, and there's some nice touching moments. Aoi's reluctance to wear a swimsuit in public, among others.Aoi's portrayal has some issues. She's a yamato nadeshiko-a perfect Japanese woman-and at times, to Americans she'll seem codependent and a bit "I'm back in the kitchen and I like it!" The story doesn't go far enough in explaining her mindset either; in my opinion it could have shown more about how her near-obsessive love for Kaoru is a reflection of an incredibly stern and privileged upbringing. Ironically Tina is far more relatable. The three of them would have made for an excellent story.But ugh, the harem aspects and fan service are so annoying. EVERYONE gets naked, and Kaoru and Aoi are forced to hide their love for almost all of the series. Taeko, Chika, and Mayu add little to nothing to the plot, and there's so many bath scenes you'd be forgiven to think that this was a bathhouse manga instead. These volumes have the parental advisory on them, and they earn it to the point you skip over the nudity because it's so pointless. It's sad, actually, because they could have had a strong story about two young people falling in love, and instead they cram in a pointless harem story to take away from it.I'd generally pass on it unless you can get it for cheap like I did (it's 13 volumes plus,) and you can deal with the nudity. If not, just buy the first volume, and forget the rest.