Warning!!! There are spoilers to the end of the anime story below. I strongly recommend that you watch the video first and then come back to this page.

There are actually many ways to interpret the end of the anime which depicts only 12 of the 116 chapters in the manga.

The glass staircase really happened in the manga, but the clock and the closing credits was purely a video addition. During an interview (included as a extra on the R1 DVD) by Animerica, Mizuho Nishikubo, the director for Video Girl Ai, said that the clock could be interpreted to signify Ai-chan's existence. Consider this.... when Youta jumps into the TV screen after Ai-chan, the clock makes its first appearance. The pendulum swings steadily as we get a recap of Ai-chan's time with Youta. Then it stops and we find Youta in the video world. Then, at the very end, the pendulum starts again. Since it was running during Ai-chan's time with Youta, stopped while they were in the video world, and then started again at the end, can we assume that they both made it back to the real world and the clock is once again marking Ai-chan's real world existence?

Then we have the ending credits. Here we see Youta, Ai-chan, Takashi and Moemi-chan, two couples obviously living a happy life. However, the camera pulls back and we see that this is actually a video playing in Youta's bedroom. Does this mean they are living in a video world? Maybe... but the tearful ending theme, To That Day..., says different. The lyrics speak of a happier time as the video is watched by someone alone and unloved. The final line in the video is "can I still rewind, to that day?".

Nishikubo stated during the interview that the video ending was a collaborate effort and was intentionally left vague with the idea that each viewer would make his or her own interpretation. Since that is the case, I, personally, choose to make it a happy one. Youta and Ai-chan are together forever, maybe in the video world as a last concession from Koto, Ai-chan's creator, after losing to Youta; or maybe in the real world. It doesn't matter to me as long as they are together.

If you loved the video story, you would likely love the manga story, currently being released in the US by Viz. Just know that the video ending, since it tells just a small part of the entire story, is very different from the manga ending.

Warning!!! the manga ending is completely described below. Please stop now if you don't want the manga ending of Video Girl Ai spoiled for you.

Youta was writing a children's story with Ai-chan's help about a robot called Kokoro-kun living in a small village. Kokoro-kun loved the town people and wanted to help them and make them happy. But the people had never seen a robot before, so they were frightened and would not let him near them. In time, Kokoro-kun found himself alone, unloved and in the scrap yard soon to stop moving forever.

Ai-chan had made a deal with her creator, Rolex (Koto in the video), to extend her playing time until Youta had finished the book. But this was just a trick by Rolex, who has determined that Ai-chan must be erased since he considers her defective.

Rolex used a video controller made by the old man of Gokuraku to reprogram Ai-chan back into her original 'perfect' Video Girl. This new Ai-chan offered herself to Youta, but he refused to accept her like this. The spell broke and Ai-chan's face went cold with shock when Youta confessed his love. At that moment, she remembered their time together and returned to her old personality.  The old man from Gokuraku was then able to destroy Rolex via that same controller once Youta destroyed Ai-chan's special VCR.

Youta saved Ai-chan's spirit, but without her VCR, she would be returned to the video realm, never to return to Earth again. As the sobbing Youta clutched Ai-chan to his chest, she slowly dissolved out of his arms.

However, her spirit refused to return to the video realm and so remained as a shimmering but silent presence in Youta's room. Over the next few months, Youta fulfilled his promise to Ai-chan and completed the story they had worked so hard on together. When he finally finished his book, he offered it up to her spirit. At that moment, we see Moemi-chan, Nobuko-chan and Takashi look up in three different panels as they were showered with cherry blossoms and sensed Ai-chan's love.

Now that they had met their mutual promise, Youta prepared himself for Ai-chan's final departure as the shimmering cloud of her spirit spun around his body. Then the cloud spun off and coalesced back into Ai-chan's sparkling, nude human body behind him. He turned around as she opened her eyes and they stared at each other in shock and wonderment at this miracle. They fell into each other's arms shouting each other's names as the narrator tells us the end of Kokoro-kun's story. The last panel showed them kneeling on the floor with their arms wrapped tightly around each other.

From the narrator, the final words of Youta and Ai-chan's story are...

Everyone in town cried when they found Kokoro-kun at the scrap yard. "I thought everyone became happy, but we can't really be happy like this. Kokoro-kun is already a member of the town." And they prayed, "If there is a God in this world, please listen to us!" The town people prayed for a long time... devoutly... devoutly... Then, in one flash of light from the sky a voice was heard, "I listened to your wish." The people's wish was accepted by God!

Kokoro-kun became human.