Ai No Kusabi, The Space Between, is a series of scifi novels by Japanese writer Rieko Yoshihara, set on a world far away and very different from our own, controlled by an AI named Jupiter who has rigid rules and mores for the inhabitants of this genetically maintained world. This is a place primarily comprised of men – the few women we meet are sex toys, no more – who are rated according to the color of their hair. The Blondys are the top dogs, so to speak, the ruling android elite, who live in the privileged capital city of Tanagura, although they are created sterile and forbidden by their creator to indulge in sexual practices. Their pleasure is to be derived from their "pets" – who are raised to be used by the Blondys, albeit voyeuristically, and lead a very sheltered pampered existence as highly coveted sex toys – while it lasts. Their reigns never last more than a year, and then they are dismissed and thrown into the slums to disappear forever. The slums being Ceres, the dungheap of Midas – the pleasure land – the place for discarded pets and for dark haired boys who are trapped in its mire of existence, and must fight one another for survival in this brutal world. Gangs are the natural order of things, and the survival of the fittest. Being solely male, as well, they pair up with one another, as couples have done from time immemorial. There is no leaving the slums – it is the end of the line, for the inhabitants have no identity anywhere else, and there is nowhere else for them to go, so they must do whatever they can. Riki was the one-time leader of a gang known as the Bisons, one of the strongest and most feared gangs in Ceres. Until the day the dark haired boy disappeared, that is, remaining gone for three years before his unexpected return to the slums, with no explanation for his missing time. He returns to his old friends and his old haunts – including his second in command and one time pairing partner Guy. But Riki isn't the same, and things will never be the same again for any of them.
Highlights
At one time Riki – who is a powerful and sexy and much admired gang leader – got involved in the black market, under the tutelage of the scarred Katze. It was during this time that he caught the eye of a Tanagura Blondy named Iason, who was so smitten with the slum mongrel that he arranged for his capture, and for those missing three years – unbeknownst to any of Riki's group – he was Iason's pet! At the end of that time, Iason allowed him to escape, but only for a while, with the stipulation that he must return, to which Riki agrees. Although Bison is no longer a gang, its reputation still attracts wannabes, and one of these is Kirie, a mongrel with an itch to scratch, who will stop at nothing to rise to the top. He has his eye on Riki and the Bisons, and finds himself rejected by both. As Volume 6 ofAi No Kusabi begins, there is an ongoing manhunt for Kirie, for what reason no one knows, but it has brought the unthinkable into being – the Midas police, who normally never set foot in Ceres, have stormed in with a vengeance, and are taking it out on the former members of Bison, who know nothing of his whereabouts. Riki is taken down to the Midas Police Center and beaten – until they discovered his shocking status as a registered pet and release him! Broke and aching, he makes his way back to his shithole of an apartment in Ceres, only to find a traumatized Kirie hiding in his closet! Guy comes to check on Riki and is adamant that they not turn Kirie in, although Riki would love nothing better. But the once tough punk has been reduced to a mindless mess – and refuses to say what he has seen, but it all stems back to the place where they were raised, known as the Guardian, whence come the pets and the slumdwellers and the so-called furniture alike. (The furniture are the slaves of the Blondy's, who are made into eunuchs at a tender age and put at the disposal of their masters for use with their "pets" and their training. Katze was at one time Iason's furniture, which explains much to Riki, once he learns the truth about him). And all that Kirie can say now is that he loves Riki and begs him not to give him up! Riki and Guy quarrel about what to do with the boy, but before a resolution can be reached, Katze shows up on Riki's doorstep, and fearing revelations which he cannot bear to have laid bare, he gives up Kirie to him, driving a deeper wedge between himself and Guy. And then before it can be resolved, it is time for Riki ito return to his master, Iason, and to Eos.
Overall
The first time he was in Eos as Iason's pet, Riki flaunted a lot of things, having no respect for the system whatsoever. He was a slap in the face, an unnatural thing – a slum mongrel as a Blondy pet! Unheard of! Unthinkable! And his release and subsequent return were, if anything, more scandalous! It isn't until his second residence in Eos that Riki learns just how very shocking Iason's actions in regard to him are, and how far out on a limb he has placed himself, for love of Riki. Although he is forced to bow to the pressure of chastising his pet and forces him to attend his coming-out cotillion, where between the two of them, they become the scandal of society, as the others realize just how entangled Iason is with Riki, and that he has had actual carnal knowledge of him, an unprecedented occurrence indeed! In the meantime, Kirie finds himself in a place of darkness which makes no sense to him, and he latches onto a glowing red ball, his mental facilities lost beyond hope of retrieval, because of the things he has seen at Guardian (having seduced the administrator's son and talked him into taking a voyage of discovery into the depths of Guardian, where its true nature is horrifically revealed to them), and the only thing which he can think of is Riki! And even as Kirie is becoming lost in his own mind, Riki is becoming lost in a world of infinite carnal pleasures controlled by Iason and from which there is no relief!
If you are looking for sweet romance, and a lot of hot sexually explicit scenes, calculated to feed your libido, then Ai No Kusabi is not for you. It is infinitely more layered than the typical yaoi story, and reveals great depths in its carefully structured story. Yes, there is sex, but it is often as brutal as the world which spawns it. The author has thoroughly created a fantastic yet believable world, and set down the rules by which it operates, nothing left to chance. It is not a beautiful world, and there are a great many cruelties and uglinesses inherent within it. Ai No Kusabi explores class structures and moral choices, and the browbeating of the human spirit in great detail. At the center of this tale are Riki and Iason, who are bound by something that transcends mere logic, namely love, as tragic as any Romeo and Juliet – are they just as doomed? I'm afraid to speculate, for I fear there will be no happily ever after for these two, whose love goes against everything that is considered proper and logical in this world. I can only hope that such is not the case, as I eagerly await the next volume.
Comicsonline gives Ai No Kusabi 5 out of 5 cock rings.
