Love Lab

At Fujisaki Girls Academy, student council president Natsuo Maki is the epitome of grace and perfection, admired by all the young girls who attend the school. One day, Riko Kurahashi walks into the student council room on an errand, only to discover Natsuo practicing her kissing techniques on a pillow, an act that is neither graceful nor elegant. Riko soon discovers that Natsuo desires more romance in her life, leading her to practice "romantic situations" in secret.

Sympathizing with her, Riko agrees to help Natsuo with her love research. Named "Love Lab," the project practices the essentials of love and romance, such as bumping into each other "accidentally" and holding hands. Soon, the entire student council joins in on the fun in the Love Lab too! Through their research and real life encounters, what will they learn about romance?

Weaving together funny characters and comedic situations, Love Lab builds a story of friendship and romance, while never missing a beat with the laughter.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Background

Episode 1 was previewed at a screening in Tokyo on June 30, 2013. Regular broadcasting began on July 5, 2013.

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Arai, Satomi
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Toba, Yousuke

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Kananiwa, Kozue

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Maruyama, Hiroo

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Kamata, Hajime

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Opening Theme

"Love Shitai! (恋愛（ラブ）したいっ!)" by Fuji-Jo Seitokai Shikkou-Bu (eps 1-12)

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Ending Theme

"Best FriendS" by Fuji-Jo Seitokai Shikkou-Bu

Reviews

Sep 28, 2013

Florete

Recommended

This show is not yuri. I don't want to spend a lot of time on that fact, so I'll just throw it out there immediately and move on.

So, MAL review reader, if you're reading this line, you probably started your trek of this review by checking out the number I dropped in the "Overall Rating" section. Intrigued, perhaps you even clicked those words to bring up the breakdown of numbers I awarded the show for various aspects of its creation. You would then have noticed the number "10" in the story section and probably asked yourself, "What? A perfect 10 in story for a comedy? ...

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May 10, 2014

MAND4

Recommended

Well ... that was a freaking surprise. If someone told me, based on that synopsis, that Love Lab is a hilarious and heartwarming journey all through, I'd have him jump off a cliff into my love lab of death. Glad no one did. Regrets would be far too many.

So, where do I even begin? It's quite hard seeing as I'm still kind of thinking about the anime. I'll just begin by saying this: do not let title or the synopsis drive you off. If you think that this anime is filled with cute girls (it kind of is) doing cutesy things (it kind of is) ... and that's all it is, then you're wrong. Not blaming you though, I only decided to watch this after seeing a short, hilarious clip on YouTube. So yeah ...

The story is surprisingly good. Where majority of anime comedies fail, Love Lab managed to go up a notch. Almost nothing in the anime happens just so "you can have a couple of laughs". Somewhere, somehow, it all kind of ties up to the end of the story and the conclusion. It starts in a light tone which continues all throughout. Yeah, there's some drama, but it's not over the top. It doesn't try to shove tears into viewers eyes or anything. It's simply there to give more depth to already great characters.

The story follows Riko and Mika, two seemingly total opposites when it comes to ... well, everything. Mika is a perfect girl, nicknamed even "Princess", while Riko is a tomboy, nicknamed "The Wild One". They're both admired by other girls in the school but for all the different reason. Fate (and by fate I mean teacher) has its hands in them meeting one another and then the adventure begins. Along the way they're joined with some other (equally hilarious) characters and you're bound to like at least one of them, if not all. To be quite frank, the story is not deep, but it's extremely well executed. It's a story about friendships and how lies sometimes make it hard. Nonetheless, everything that happens is a part of the story. It's not just a sidetrack business trying to make you laugh.

Another impressive part of Love Lab are the characters. There are five main characters (seven if you include guys), and they're all enough unique to have their own charms and likeness to them. Mika is a delusional perfectionist who does everything on her own and wants desperately to have a boyfriend. Riko is her straight counter-part, who's "Master of love", and never fails to make you laugh with her comments. She's not as smart as Mika, but you admire her for what she is. Then you have Suzune, shy and timid but equally enthusiastic about their quest to learn how to seduce boys. There's also another duo of hilarity, Sayori and Yuiko; Sayori being composed, seemingly cold and detached person with quirky remarks and affinity for money, and Yuiko being not-so-annoying tsundere. All of them have distinct personalities and they all bring something to the table when it comes to comedy.

You see them grow closer and closer as friends, and you actually believe in their friendship and you feel worried when it feels as if it's going to collapse. There are some over the top moments, but most of the time it's down to earth funny.

When it comes to the production department, it's nothing amazing but it's good enough looking to the eyes. Anime-only-comedy was done extremely well, and I really loved most of the expressions of the characters. They were cute when they were meant to be cute, and they were extremely ugly when they were meant to be ugly. Backgrounds were lacking but that's to be expected from character-focused anime so no complains there. Soundtrack was lacking as well but, from what was there, it fit solidly.

Overall, Love Lab was extremely well done, definitely above average and on sub-par with some other hilarious comedies. Its drama wasn't there to suddenly shift the tone to dark and try to appear more mature, but to give more depth to already established characters. I really do recommend Love Lab if for nothing else but its hilarity.

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Mar 15, 2022

PixelB

Mixed Feelings

Love Lab is a surprisingly decent comedy that tries to incorporate melodrama when it really doesn't need to. In fact, it only muddies the waters and it makes you wonder what the identity of the show is going for.
Love Lab is built on a comedic premise about girls dreaming about their ideal guy and fantasizing about them in unrealistic scenarios: the childish fantasies fuel the show and characters, and it's what makes the comedy charming. Yet, on the other hand, you have a decent amount of conflict and drama in a comedically themed show.
I never really expected this show to be realistic or anything beyond ... comedic since it's not really what it was aiming for in the first few episodes, and it doesn't fit the theme of the show at all. It makes sense, considering that despite the girls in the show doing research on love, there's no romance at all, and there's just fantasies and imaginary scenarios.
It definitely is strange that there is such an emphasis on drama in this show despite its silly premise. I wonder why there's always shows like these, which can't make up their mind on focusing on a set of genres that don't clash with each other? It's fine if a comedy has some drama, and it sometimes is expected. After all, a show can't always be a pure gag. There's bound to be some story or character development arcs. A good example of this Boku no Tonari. It's a comedy too, but it maybe used a couple episodes of drama at most, with emphasis on comedy. Contrast this to Love Lab, where every single arc after the first in the show has some sort of conflict and drama, with comedy sprinkled in between. There's some intermission scenes with pure comedy, but for the most part, you're going to be seeing some melodrama unfolding.
I'd say that perhaps 30-40% of the show is melodrama, which is a decent chunk of the show, and if I were to judge purely based on that content, then this show would score not nearly as high as I rated it. Comedy carries this show hard, and so I just kind of find it weird that it's not the focus half the time.
If the show wanted to be more serious, it should have taken a more serious direction. Have a show be about research on love and with drama sprinkled in? Why not actually introduce romance or Yuri, so there actually is some sort of drama and conflict that makes sense with the theme of the show? Instead, the show does stupid things like introduce consequences to a light-hearted action like punishing student council members for an unannounced broadcast. Does it really make sense that this would be a problem in a comedy show? Come on. Even the final arc of the show really forces the conflict and is precedented on a terribly predictable misunderstanding that everyone would have figured out. The show could have still resolved the conflict in a reasonable manner if it was framed better, but instead, it drags out the melodrama for no particularly good reason.
Again, and it's like I'm a broken record at this point, but Love Lab would have succeeded a lot more if it decided to go with a theme that it stuck with. If it wanted melodrama, it should have built a cast of characters and introduced relationships and stories that fit it. Otherwise, just focus on the comedy, please.

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Poll: Love Lab Episode 13 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 ) Stark700 - Sep 26, 2013	151 replies	by WELLERM »» Dec 9, 2023 8:33 AM
Poll: Love Lab Episode 12 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Stark700 - Sep 19, 2013	88 replies	by WELLERM »» Dec 9, 2023 8:33 AM
Poll: Love Lab Episode 11 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Stark700 - Sep 12, 2013	66 replies	by WELLERM »» Dec 9, 2023 8:32 AM
Poll: Love Lab Episode 10 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Stark700 - Sep 5, 2013	81 replies	by WELLERM »» Dec 9, 2023 8:32 AM
Poll: Love Lab Episode 9 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Stark700 - Aug 29, 2013	69 replies	by WELLERM »» Dec 9, 2023 8:31 AM

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