Love Lab

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.

Much to my dissatisfaction let me start off saying despite a few other reviews I saw this show is not shoujo ai. The opening also points to this possibility however don't get your hopes up. It's not there so if you're looking for a cutesy yuri don't go for this, but that doesn't mean you should drop it either.

If you like moe shows you'll like this and if you like comedy this is also a winner. At its core Love Lab is a comedy and no matter how serious the tone it always delivers a joke and never misses the punch line. It delivers plenty ... of fun moments and does a good job of not deviating too much from the main goal of keeping you laughing.

The plot itself is not going to blow your mind or set new lines for what a comedy should be so just expect the common place cute girls doing cute things and trying to learn about boys, but actually hilarious in comparison to something like K-ON! The main characters are your standard fare of cookie-cutter archetypes don't expect much on this front. That is not necessarily a bad thing though because the show works and flows nicely this way and will deliver at least one or two characters you'll like.

The art for this show is very familiar and nothing too new or impressive. It does keep the same style throughout. On the animation side of things Love Lab starts off with some pretty visuals and nice flowing scenes that are very well animated and looks surprisingly good for a moe comedy. However the animation doesn't keep this quality through all the episodes, and falls off quickly. It seems only the more emotional scenes get this treatment and it's a shame because it looks awesome.

The sound in Love Lab is also nothing too impressive, but it's good enough to not take away from the rest of the show. The voice actors portray the characters well. The only thing is that they're the same voices you hear in all moe comedies. The music is nice and accommodates the scenes nicely, but is overall forgettable outside the OP. The ED isn't anything that great either, and I found myself skipping it a few times just to get to the next episode.

Overall Love Lab is just another moe comedy with not too much going for it, but at the same time seems to hold something special that not all the others have. It's funny and it doesn't stray from this path other than once or twice to add drama and even then it's always just setting up the punch line for another joke. Its fun and entertaining if you like innocent, romance themed humor or cute girls interacting with each other.

I give Love Lab a 6.5 out of 10 but MAL won't let me do that so 6 because I round down.

Love Lab,as seen in the preview,is about a group of middle school girls as they try to prepare themselves to eventually fall in love.

Story:
The series has a very good start,it is very neatly paced.Nowhere will we feel that it is progressing at a fast or a slow rate.Riko is mistaken to be an expert in matters of love and she has to maintain that facade due to her rather proud nature.This seemed interesting,but the later episodes brought this up too much for the shows good.After some point,it all does not ring true,and we are not that interested anymore as to how this issue will ... be resolved.Many characters are not given much screen time and they seem underdeveloped.If there is a season 2 planned,this may be rectified in it,but as this series stands now,it is quite weak.

Art:
I won't dwell much on this but it quite good,one of the best characters of this anime,in fact.

Sound:
Nothing memorable,but it works.

Characters:
Even though it feels as though we have seen all the characters somewhere before in other anime's,the interactions between them are quite refreshing at times,so much that the fact that they seem cliche does not seem a bother.Some characters were not adequately developed,and i hope a 2nd season will address this issue.

Enjoyment:
I really enjoyed the first half of the anime,but for some reason,the second half was not as enjoyable.The jokes just do not seem as funny.The main reason i rated this a 6 was the ending.I was disappointed in it.I expected so much more.Maki's character lost it's freshness for me around the middle of the series.Only sayo seemed interesting as the story progressed,and to a lesser extent,yuiko.

As for my final verdict,this is quite good,just does not have the 'something special' to elevate it to higher position compared to other high school comedies.

***Spoiler free review***

Love Lab is one of those many (and when I say many I really mean millions) cutesy girl anime that revolve around a school setting. Furthermore it takes place at an all girl’s high school where everyone is petrified to even be near a man thus bringing us to Love Lab quirky but somewhat plausible premise. It is a flawed show...but I still love it.

Story: 4/10

I found the premise of the show extremely superficial since I find it hardly believable that these girls would have almost no experience even being around boys. Basically these girls start up a “Love Lab” as a part ... of the student council. They would take questions on love (which they have no clue about) from students that asked and somehow answer them. This however was easy to look past (for me at least) since the characters were really the stars of the show. You can draw comparisons to K-On in this setting; you didn’t watch K-On for the music aspect of the show but rather the character interactions. The same applies here as if you are seriously watching this show for the plot then you have very low standards.

Animation: 6/10

This just may be my weirdness but I swear at one point in the show the animation quality dropped down. I feel as if things like how the character’s hair flowed or the clarity of background objects just suddenly lost effort. Regardless the show sports some okish visuals. Each character is very appealing to look at (eyes yum) but other than that I feel as if everything else was just passable.

Sound: 4.5/10

Nothing really stood out here. Some ok tunes but I didn’t find anything over the top. Didn’t like the OP or ending stuff either.

Characters: 8/10

I LOVED all the characters except the annoying vice president Maki. Other than her, all the other characters really flowed well with each other and brought some sort of enjoyment to what was going on. My personal favorite was Enomoto since she eventually starts to open up to the club and provide some helpfulness.

Overall: 5.6/10

Overall the show was pretty bland but I did end up enjoying it. Loved the character interactions and there were some moments of awesomeness on the animation front (though VERY limited). I would recommend this anime as one of those rainy day type stuff you watch when there is literally nothing left.

Enjoyment: 8/10

Thanks for reading my review! If you liked my writing style, would like to see some other reviews, or just want to talk, please stop by my page!

Sincerely,
Awesome Drummer