As soon as upon a time, a younger girl was born from the goals of a fading rock star, a rising manga artist, and a middle-aged businessman. She was an amnesiac princess with the voice of an angel, misplaced on the streets of Tokyo and caught in a battle between two worlds. Her story was met with modest success, however her creators demanded ever extra from her. Their efforts went in useless and in lower than a decade she had disappeared, remembered solely by those that witnessed her glowing debut.
This story isn’t any fairy story, although. It’s the very actual story of Princess Ai. What started as one in all Tokyopop’s first forays into authentic English language content material grew to become a fandom-wide joke due to the corporate’s more and more determined makes an attempt to make it a multi-media success. Twenty years have handed since its debut, so it’s time to face the music and hint its rise and fall from grace.
A Star is Born, However Who’re the Dad and mom?
Who created Princess Ai? In case you go by the unique announcement in 2003, you’ll suppose it was Courtney Love, the previous lead singer of grunge band Gap. She was actually credited as one in each the books and in Tokyopop’s personal promoting. On the time she referred to as Ai her “alter ego” and talked about how Princess Ai was impressed by her personal time in Japan as a younger girl. It needs to be famous that Love was presenting a sterilized and closely fictionalized of herself by this story, as in actuality she solely briefly hung out in Japan as an unlawful topless dancer earlier than getting deported, one in all many tales from her troubled youth. Princess Ai was primarily meant to function a promotional car for her 2004 solo album America’s Sweetheart, however the collection did little to assist her gross sales or her declining profession. Whereas many jokes have been had at her expense through the years, it’s unfair guilty Courtney Love for the failings of Princess Ai when all she contributed was her title and some borrowed particulars from her life.
In any case, there have been two different girls with extra direct artistic contributions to Princess Ai. The primary was Ai Yazawa, the celebrated shoujo manga artist behind such works as NANA and Paradise Kiss. Her position was fairly small, offering solely a handful of idea sketches for Ai herself. You wouldn’t guess that from Tokyopop’s promotional supplies, as they leaned as closely on her title as they did with Courtney Love. The actual artist behind Princess Ai was Misaho Kujiradou, a minor shoujo mangaka with solely a handful of quick tales to her title on the time. It’s simple to see why she would signal on to such a mission: not solely would Princess Ai be her first serialized manga nevertheless it got here with a assured worldwide viewers. It should have appeared just like the quickest approach to take her profession to the subsequent degree. That mentioned, she was simply an artist for rent—she didn’t create the character or write the story.
The true Svengali behind Princess Ai was its mysterious author, DJ Milky. Their biography was obscure and stuffed with nonsense, and no photographs of them had been ever made public. There was a great purpose for this: “DJ Milky” was in truth the pseudonym of Tokyopop founder and CEO Stu Levy. This was an open secret amongst business professionals of the time, however the common Tokyopop reader wouldn’t be taught the reality till the late Zac Bertschy wrote about it in 2007. This pseudonym served not simply to masks the truth that this story was written by a middle-aged govt but additionally helped to cover the contributions of co-writer Rob Tokar, who was one in all Tokyopop’s senior editors.
Princess Ai took place on the peak of Tokyopop’s fame and market share, after they efficiently pushed their means into bookstores with a lot of best-selling shoujo manga titles and their “100% Genuine Manga” initiative. There’s little question that Stu Levy noticed Princess Ai as the proper bridge between these profitable shoujo manga and the unique English-language (OEL) comics popping out of his model new Rising Stars of Manga program. Because it was drawn by a Japanese artist and ran within the shoujo manga journal Wings, nobody might accuse Princess Ai of appropriating the time period “manga” like so a lot of their OEL works.
But its standing as an authentic work ensured that Tokyopop owned it in full, which suited Levy’s long-term plans simply advantageous. From the beginning, Levy dreamed of changing into a Hollywood producer, and in a 2006 Writer’s Weekly interview he confessed that he yearned to show Tokyopop’s library of titles into franchises of his personal, however working with the Japanese licensors was onerous and that it was simpler to create authentic works with borrowed Japanese components. Princess Ai was in some ways his blueprint of success and Levy was decided to make it the Subsequent Huge Factor. She can be plastered throughout Tokyopop’s books, promoting, and conference appearances, all in anticipation of her debut within the summer time of 2004.
The Complicated Adventures of a Tokyopop Princess
Contemplating its cynical origins and the variety of creators concerned, it’s not shocking that Princess Ai was a moderately flawed comedian. Most of its issues lie with its agency three-volume size, a restrict Tokyopop imposed on most of its OEL titles. Regardless of the creators absolutely being conscious of their very own limitations forward of time, there are quite a few pacing points as many plotlines from the primary two volumes needed to be unexpectedly resolved within the third (in the event that they had been resolved in any respect).
For instance, Ai spends a lot of the primary half of the story attempting to recuperate her reminiscences by a mysterious guide and an equally mysterious man, and the small, golden heart-shaped field she possesses. This plot thread involves a screeching halt in the midst of Quantity Two as Ai out of the blue declares that every one of her reminiscences have returned. This allowed the writers to shift all their focus onto Ai’s rock star antics, the machinations of her managers, and her insipid romance with the delicate librarian-turned-songwriter Kent (who bears a suspicious resemblance to Courtney Love’s late husband, Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain). Readers obtained solely a cursory rationalization of the interdimensional civil warfare Ai fled from within the first place, a backstory meant to be revealed in a long-promised (and ultimately canceled) mild novel. The entire collection has the cynical reek of a narrative assembled fully out of selling buzzwords to promote again to manga-reading millennial teen women. There’s romance! J-Rock! Angel wings! Tokyo! Goth-lolita trend! Woman energy! The one factor lacking is GIRUGAMESH.
Then there’s Ai herself. From starting to finish, there’s no clear thought of what sort of character she’s meant to be. Is she an harmless misplaced in an odd new world? A tough-rocking insurgent who doesn’t take guff from anybody? An inspirational messiah whose voice touches the hearts of tens of millions? Her persona shifts to regardless of the writers want her to be at any given second, rendering her an completely hole heroine. She’s solely marginally extra complicated than the remainder of the solid, which is stuffed with bland supporters, sneering bullies, and mustache-twirling villains.
The worst of the lot needs to be Hikaru, Kent’s roommate. He’s a sissy who tearfully clings to Kent, views Ai as competitors for his affections, and presumably can also be a drag queen as a result of he inexplicably possesses a closet stuffed with goth-lolita clothes for Ai to steal (and trash). He’s a really minor character, however this type of homosexual stereotype was no much less offensive then as now and it stands out like a sore thumb. The one factor extra cringeworthy than Hikaru are the lyrics to Ai’s songs, which include the worst high-school degree pseudo-goth poetry that “DJ Milky” might conceive.
Regardless of its many faults, there’s something compulsively readable about it and Princess Ai did briefly discover a receptive viewers. In keeping with the 2005 Bookscan year-end charts, the primary quantity offered 20,000 copies and its second quantity offered 10,000. That viewers shrunk quick, nonetheless, as the ultimate quantity didn’t chart in 2006. A sensible individual may have a look at these numbers and pull the brakes on a potential franchise, however all Stu Levy noticed was the justification he wanted to launch Princess Ai as a multi-media phenomenon.
The Ai-Volution Can be Merchandised
The wave of Princess Ai merchandise started as quickly as the primary guide hit retailer cabinets. Tokyopop slapped her onto notecards, jigsaw puzzles, coloring books, T-shirts, trend dolls, and statuettes, all of them obtainable at a serious bookstore or mall media store close to you. Naturally, there have been additionally loads of Princess Ai tie-in books. Some had been promotional autos for the Rising Stars of Manga program, such because the quick story assortment Rumors From the Different Aspect or Encounters, a set of crossovers with the likes of A Midnight Opera and The Tarot Café. There was additionally Princess Ai of Ai-Land, a prequel cartoon printed in 50 main newspapers. The strip itself has the appears to be like and humor of Child’s First Webcomic and its reliance on the viewers’s familiarity with the unique story would have made it baffling to most newspaper readers.
Tokyopop additionally produced Prism of the Midnight Daybreak, a direct sequel created by Misaho Kujiradou and TV screenwriter Christine Boylan. It begins with Ai venturing again to the human world to save lots of her beloved Kent from an evil music label that’s forcing him to make music to make folks depressed. No sooner is he saved than the 2 are transported to Ai’s house world, the place a brand new revolt threatens to disrupt the delicate peace of her realm. The world would by no means see the story’s finish, as its remaining quantity was canceled after Tokyopop’s 2011 shutdown. My private favourite can also be the worst of the lot: the ring-bound artwork guide/poetry assortment Roses and Thorns. It pairs the worst of Levy’s embarrassingly, hilariously terrible poetry with Kujiradou’s paintings, all whereas providing the identical three pages of stickers repeatedly with Princess Ai adverts galore.
All of this effort was for naught. The Princess Ai craze was a fleeting one and most of these books and knick knacks went straight to the clearance bin. Even now, there are nonetheless unsold copies of Roses and Thorns obtainable on the Crunchyroll Retailer for the princely sum of $2.00.
Stu Levy had a historical past of manufacturing music for Tokyopop properties underneath his DJ Milky alias, so it was nearly inevitable that he would make music for Princess Ai. He wrote and produced a handful of authentic tracks with studio musicians enjoying the a part of Ai and her band to promote on Tokyopop’s personal compilation albums. He additionally directed music movies for a lot of of them, utilizing them as adverts for the collection or different pet tasks of his. Probably the most notable of those is “Damaged Leash,” which served not only a music video however a proof of idea for Stu’s most formidable plan but: a Princess Ai movie. First introduced in 2005, it was meant to be a mixture of live-action footage and authentic animation by the anime studio Satelight, with Levy as each head author and director.
The animation featured within the video is ok, even when it’s marred by coloured subtitles in an exaggerated Gothic font. The live-action footage is laughably low cost on each degree: the greenscreen, the audio mixing, even “Ai’s” Spirit Halloween-style costume. It’s little marvel that the plans for the movie stored getting pushed again, as issues out of the blue began to go very badly for Princess Ai and Tokyopop alike.
The Falling Stars of Manga
Princess Ai’s time within the highlight was properly previous by 2008, however the Nice Recession introduced all of Tokypop’s plans for her to a swift finish. The corporate had unfold itself skinny over the last decade, and now they had been going through declining gross sales and growing returns from main bookstore chains. Most of their best-sellers had been reclaimed by Kodansha, and whereas Fruits Basket was nonetheless a success it was nearing its finish with no apparent successor in sight. The corporate was shrinking its workforce and publishing schedule to chop prices and keep afloat, all whereas Stu Levy continued to chase his goals of being a big-shot producer by his feature-length variations of Van Von Hunter and Priest.
Princess Ai was successfully deserted after 2008, save for the aforementioned sequel comedian and an omnibus re-release of the unique collection. Her final look was on Levy’s remaining vainness mission, the failed actuality TV collection America’s Best Otaku. Even then, it was restricted to a picture on the present’s tour bus and the reuse of the music video costume for a cosplay problem, a pathetic finish for each the property and its mum or dad firm.
Twenty years later, Princess Ai serves as an abject lesson within the limits of company cynicism. It was conceived not as an authentic murals however a model to spice up one firm’s income and one man’s ego. It was constructed on a money-hungry mish-mash of what was thought of “cool” and marketable to teen women, and launched on the idea that its target market was gullible sufficient to purchase something with “Princess Ai” on it. A lot work was put into hyping it, shoving merchandise onto cabinets, and dreaming up tie-in media, but so little work was put into making the supply materials good within the first place. Princess Ai was a property constructed on the weakest of foundations, and due to that it was at all times doomed to break down on its creators earlier than falling into obscurity.
