Love Hina

Looking for a romance/comedy/harem anime to kill time? Look no more because Love Hina will SERIOUSLY KILL your time.

I've watched Love Hina before way back when I was still a kid and I remember loving this series, but after re-watching this series 10+ years later, I began to question my taste for anime because Love Hina is by far one of the most stupid and ridiculous anime I've ever watched and I can't believe it’s actually possible for me to hate an anime this much.

I'm writing this review at the risk of getting viciously mauled by an angry mob of Love Hina fans who ... will do anything to defend their beloved anime, so I'll try not to be too harsh on this. Okay, time to get started with this rant—I mean review.

*CHARACTERS: 5/10
The characters of Love Hina are soooo darn GENERIC and just downright ANNOYING that I need to punch the wall just to appease my frustration. Let me introduce them.

— Urashima, Keitarou - The main protagonist. He is really dumb and extremely unreliable but he is very persevering (Sounds familiar?) and he makes a good punching bag for Naru.
— Narusegawa, Naru - The main heroine. She's a tsundere on drugs who's got nothing better to do besides beating up Keitarou EVERY…SINGLE...DARN...TIME!!!.
— Aoyama, Motoko - The very typical "Ice Queen" of the harem.
— Maehara, Shinobu - The kind and pure-hearted middle schooler *cough* loli bait.
— Su, Kaolla - The awfully annoying and carefree kid in the harem.
— Konno, Mitsune - The "mature" one.
— Otohime, Mutsumi - The airhead.

I don't have a problem with harems, in fact, I love them (not including reverse harems) so I'm quite used to stereotypical girls, but the girls in Love Hina are just so darn annoying that it's impossible for me to like any of them. The one I have the biggest problem with though is not one of the girls, it's the stupid MC Keitarou! because he is just so fucking useless and unreliable! I JUST FUCKING HATE THIS GUY!!!. He doesn't have any redeeming qualities whatsoever except for his undying perseverance and hard work that leads to nothing most of the time.

*STORY: 4/10
The story revolves around Keitaro and the "promise" but mostly, the episodes are just stupid fillers designed to prolong this stupid anime. The fillers doesn't contribute to the plot one bit and can get really really random, for example, ancient turtle civilizations? seriously? come on, they can do better than that. I wish they focused more on the main plot because I was actually curious who's this mysterious "promise" girl.

Although I have lots of bad things to say about this anime, I can't deny the fact that I did get some laughs watching Love Hina, but the jokes becomes so repetitive (Naru beating up Keitarou) I'm laughing no more.

~Love Hina's formula for comedy~

Keitarou + accidents + misunderstanding = Naru beating the crap out of him

*ART: 8/10
The art is fine, I don't really have much complaints about it because it's a very typical art for an old anime.

*SOUND: 7/10
I actually liked the OP and ED and I kinda felt nostalgic hearing them again. The OP is kinda catchy, although it annoyed some viewers, I'm not annoyed by it at all.

As for the Japanese voice acting, there's one voice that grabbed my attention, the voice of Motoko. Her voice is adorable especially when she is screaming. The voices of the other characters are also good and fits the characters quite well.

*OVERALL/ENJOYMENT: 5/10
I recommend this to you if...
you like generic harem anime.
you like old and repetitive jokes.
you like an extremely violent tsundere heroine and a pathetic loser MC.
you're masochistic.

But if you're not any of what I mentioned above, I suggest you cross this out on your list now, because I guarantee you'll hate this one.

I know I\'ll probably get flamed for trashing this show, but really it\'s probably one of my most disliked animes. It was extremely boring and not to mention a huge letdown from what I truly thought would be a laugh out loud farce, instead it turned out to be a poorly written comedy. It\'s a shame because Ken Akamatsu\'s other series, Negima is actually much better and much more funny than this one. My personal problem is with the characters in this series who I pretty much hate for picking on Keitaro nonstop. But my most hated character had to be Sara McDougal who helped ... heap scorn and hurt on him the most.

I\'m hoping that funimation might redub this series and make it better but to be quite honest, this series is awful and I really didn\'t enjoy this. Probably the only anime show I haven\'t liked.

Was Love Hina good? It spawned a generation of imitations. It's said to be a "classic" harem anime. How much mileage can you get over Naru punching Keitaro over some misunderstanding? Apparently 24 episodes worth! The main character is such a cool guy that every last girl in the story is chasing after him. I suppose it was good enough for me to read the entire series and then watch all the episodes, but it's not something I ever need to see again.

The setup follows the pattern of Maison Ikkoku. Take a young man, studying for college entrance ... exams, put him in a boarding house with some colorful characters and a woman with a short temper, sprinkle in a bunch of misunderstandings and watch love bloom. For bonus points, have them both go on vacation at the same time and meet up! Unfortunately, Love Hina lacks a lot of what made Maison Ikkoku work so well. Naru's violence is played for laughs, but Kyoko's outbursts and emotional immaturity are serious character flaws (and she knows enough to try and hide them). Keitaro is a nice guy who is loved by everyone and just needs to get into university, but Godai's outlook is a bit more bleak and he has a lot of real character growth to go through before he can win anybody's heart.

What does work for Love Hina is the cast. The individual characters are tiresome, but as an ensemble, they work very well. The show promises silly adventures with wacky people, and that's exactly what you get. Should you watch it? Maybe. It's a fun show, the humor just hasn't aged well.

To be honest, the only reason i watched this anime was because of the Role playing game of the same name . While the RPG didnt give away any of the plot, i found 3 characters very interesting. So i decided to check it out.

Remember how i said the rpg didnt give the story away much? Well thats because it basically doesnt have any. I'm assuming that you pretty much read the synopsis atleast before this. So you know that the MC wants to get into the Tokyo University . The whole story centres around him wanting to make it to Tokyo U because of ... a promise he makes to some girl he played with as a child( And ofcourse he doesnt remember here face or name even ...Why?? PLOT!! Thats why).

The author throughout the first season and other ovas goes out of his way to exploit this promise and the girl to whom it was made in every way possible. He uses the fact that all possible candidates for this role dont remember what happened when they were young.. but atleast he quickly makes it clear that only 2 girls have a realistic possibility of being her . But he goes a step further in the end by making Naaru say that she " may not be the girl to whom Keitaro made the promise " , leaving the plot open for Keitaro's sister to jump in during the last OVA

The characters were nothing special really. All the usual tropes were used -
1. the tsundere( Naru) ,
2. the shy girl who loves the MC but is too shy to say it ( Shinobu) ,
3. the annoying drunk girl with big boobs for fan service ( Kitsune) ,
4. the totally unnecessary junior high girl who basically is the most annoying of the lot because she is a child and proceeds to annoy you throughout ( Kaolla Su)
5. the smokling silent one ( Haruka)
6. the rich , pervy rival to the MC ( Kentaro)
7. the irrelevant beautiful idiot girl who turns out to be relevant to the story (Mutsubi)
8. the younger sister who has an inappropriate crush for her onii-chan ( Kanako)

and ofcourse 9. the loser MC who somehow always stands up for the girls in moments of need and wins them back ( Keitaro).

But it did feature some characters good characters like Motoko (a swordwoman) , Seta ( an archeologist who just cant be killed by any amount of Road Traffic Accidents) and his Daughter Sarah.

As far as character development goes, its pretty much limited to Keitaro and Naru ..although they hardly get that much development at all

One of the more eye catching parts of the anime was its viokence . The MC blasts off more times than Team Rocket ever did. Its definitely not everyones cup of tea thats for sure.

Another thing was the presence of a flying turtle and a talking cat. Id really have loved it if they had explained the whole lot of mecha turtles multiplying from the scraps in the backyard of the Hinata resort

The author even made a cameo appearance on a couple of occasions , so that was kind of fun.

The only thing that was more annoying to me than Kaolla and Kitsune was Naru's inability to just confess how she truly feels for Keitaro. Neither does she say she loves him nor does she want other girls to get near him (*at which point she punches him out of the room) It really gets really frustrating for the watcher .

Overall id rate it at a 6 . Same as Girls Bravo.. just a fine one time watch .

Story: 5

Let me pose a question to the reader of this review. Does a good storyline need obscene humor to make it good? No, what it needs is good plotlines. To say the least, I felt the overall concept of Love Hina, a guy getting stuck in charage of basically a bording house and not able to pass the entrance exams to be an awsume storyline.

However, I found the execution of the storyline to be overiddled with panty shots, panty humor, and to be a tad bit sexist. Actually... make that a lot sexist. Then again, I am a female who ended up watching this ... because of a bunch of boys at my school, and I know that while a few panty humor scenes are funny, to many are derogatory and can lose the charm.

If you want it for the panty shots and such, then this storyline is definatly for you, but truth be told, what could have been a really good storyline gets overloaded with this kind of stuff, which is a dissapointed. I think there is ten at least in each episode, if not more. Not to mention I hear the English version was edited.

Art: 8

What I have to give to Love Hina is it's art style. I will openly admit to being a tad jelous of those girls looks. There is not one ugly one amoung them, unless you count the guys relative. Thing too though... is it actually possibly to have all beautiful women in the same house. I mean, at least one of them should at least be average.

Sound: 8

I remember it being humerous and fitting for the anime. Other then that... I really can't recollect much as it really didn't stand out to me. I am more of an artsy person and I tend to be tone death.

Character: 7

I personally think there are to many characters to keep track of for one thing. Also, while the personalities on the characters are awsume, I would for one thing think that they would get an idea of the true personality of the guy after a certain amount of time, but no... they tend to jump to conclusions. They also seem to run heavily on sterotypes, which runs down the true charm behind them.

Enjoyment: 8

I have to say that Love Hina is addictive to watch, it is no wonder guys like it so much. But it really had no storyline whatso ever and it is very humor driven. And I didn't find everything funny... the raiting is more of for the momments I did find funny.

Overall: 7

I could say that Love Hina is overated, but for the kind of Anime it is supposed to be, I have to say it isn't. One shouldn't go into this anime looking for a good storyline. One needs to go in looking for a good, possibly perverted laugh. Yes... I have to wonder still about how perverted the guys I was with were, and how much they were not after watching this. I see them as the type with playboy bunny magazines and such.

That is who I think that this show is aimed for, NOT for girls like me, but guys that need a hormonal fetish fullfilled perhaps.

This show is pretty decent if you never read the manga. This is basically a story built off the characters and locations from the manga; and has basically no connection at all. this story does have quite a bit of unnecessary episodes in it. that has no relation to the show at all. It's mostly about Keitaro getting beat up by Naru everyday while studying on getting into Tokyo U.

The overall story was an okay experience for me. They portrayed the characters almost exactly like they were in the manga, except the extra ones added into the anime version. Art was fairly well, as with ... everything else, but one thing that was a letdown was the story. In my opinion, I don't think that it was well planned out as the manga was, since there were a lot of things that didn't add any value to the show and somethings didn't make any sense at all.






I'll admit that parts of it was funny, but overall it was a disappointment for me, since I read the manga, and decided to watch the anime, hoping it would have some correlation to the original version.

A remake that follows the actual manga would be GREAT. Too much of the anime didn't follow the manga, or wern't even in it. and more than half of the story wasn't even from the manga. thay basically took all the characters and the places from the manga, and made an entirely new show from it. If you read the manga, i don't suggest you watch the anime, unless you just want to have a ragefest.

It's not as good as the manga I'll tell you that much, but it is a good anime to watch if you absolutely love Love Hina. Most of the story is similar, but there are some changes to the storyline. Though the plot remains constant and the characters still obtain similar characteristics with their manga counter parts. However, I was too pleased with the art, it did lack a sense to capture the true beauty the girls have in the manga. Well You can't expect their too be that much fan service. Overall though I really enjoyed the inclusion of the theme song Sakura Saku, ... it made watching the intro to this anime very amusing and you could probably listen to it over and over again. I can say this anime is a waste of time, but it might not exactly be worth it either. I suggest picking up the manga. :]

Love Hina is a womderful story that is trapped in a poor adaptation. The story follows your typical harem plot. Keitaro, a ronin who is taking his exams again to try to get into Tokyo U inherits an inn from his grandmother, only to find out that it has been converted into a girls dormitory since his childhood all while trying to find the girl he made a promise to in childhood, whose face he cannot remember.

Of course, the typical archetypes are here, the tsundere, the warrior traditional girl, the genki girl, the shy one, the jaded old one, so on and so forth. But ... all of the really nice slow character development that really gave these girls life and made you care about them is stripped from this anime, leaving it lifeless. If you are a fan of Negima, you will know that it is nearly impossible to adapt Ken Akamatsu's work without ruining the charm that makes his works good. And Love Hina does not break this mold. If you are a fan of harem anime, or even if you are not, check this out in manga form. It is a masterpiece in dynamic character development. But as for the anime, give the soundtrack a listen to, cause the girls' image songs are cute and the late, great Ritsuko Okazaki voices one our ditzy girl and sings some songs. But other than that, pass for the manga.

Ok...I had high hopes for this anime. Such high hopes...
I loved it at the beginning. It was funny, I laughed, it was a classic harem anime. Then, things went south. The jokes were repetitive. Keitaro got beaten up waaaaaay to much. It was always a misunderstanding but it didn't even matter. I'll give a few examples:
-Su was in Keitaro's bed. When Naru found out, she hit him. Why was Su in Keitaro's bed? She had crawled in it while he was asleep and he had no idea till about 5 minutes before Naru hit him.
-Keitaro was captured by a female, Su's sister (I forget her ... name), and the sister started coming on to him. He was tied up. Naru walked in and BAM there goes Keitaro
-Keitaro was on the roof and he slipped and fell into Naru's room. BAM
-Keitaro was going to talk to Motoko about him becoming manager. Before he says a word she hits him with her sword
-Keitaro arrives at the Apartments, had no idea it was a girl's dorm, and gets chased around by the residents before he can even explain that his grandma, the old manager, had ASKED HIM TO BE THERE
-Keitaro is closing the hole between his and Naru's room when he bumps the bookshelf and the diary falls down, opening to a random page. Guess who walked in...
I wish I could say that was the end of it but I've only covered about 15% of the instances in the first 11 episodes.....Keitaro is never given the chance to explain himself and always, somehow, manages to slip, trip, knock over, bump, and walk into situations that are always misunderstood and end in a good thrashing. Well now that you know what you're getting into, let's cover the rest of the anime.

STORY: 3/10
Kinda interesting in the synopsis. Enough to make me put it on my list. Keitaro made a promise with a girl when they were kids, who's name he conveniently forgets, to get into Tokyo U when they grew up. So he applies and continuously fails the test. Him failing over and over or forgetting the girl's name isn't why I gave the story a 3. 11 EPISODES IN AND I HAVEN'T FOUND OUT ANYTHING ELSE ABOUT THE PLOT, IF IT EVEN EXISTS!

ART: 8/10
There's not much to say about the art. For an old anime it still looked really good on my plasma.

SOUND: 8/10
Again, not much to say about it. I liked how catchy the OP was. All in all it was pretty standard sound and music for the era.

CHARACTER: 4/10
The characters were all cookie-cutter harem anime characters, which was fine. They haven't got any deeper or fleshed out. I can't say I liked or hated any of them because I don't know anything about them....

ENJOYMENT: 4/10
I enjoyed the first few episodes with all the antics and jokes but, around episode 4 or 5, it got really old really fast.

So that about covers it. I was trying really really hard not to drop it but I just couldn't take it anymore. Around episode 6 I knew it was getting deleted from my HDD but after episode 11 I had to drop it. I really tried hanging on and toughing it out. I wanted to know what happens at the end and who he ends up with but my brain can't take any more abuse.

I had a LOT of high expectations for Love Hina's anime adaptation once I was about four volumes into the manga. Unfortunately, as a BIG fan of the manga, the anime left much to be desired.

Story-wise, you get enthralled the moment you realize how much Keitaro has struggled to get into Tokyo University, especially to keep a 15 year old promise to the love of his life. However, there are many plot holes and re-written story arcs that drive this wonderful story through the wall. For instance, Motoko's dream sequence when she's sick and she gets a look into Keitaro's past - it's originally Keitaro ... dream in the manga, so having that plot centered on her doesn't make a lick of sense. Then there's the awful First Kiss episode centering around Shinobu. That moment was far too melodramatic to the point of being trite, while in the manga it was far more lighthearted and enjoyable as a result.

The characters are all unique, lovable, and quite memorable. However, their character interactions have been muted in the anime in favor of the constant Keitaro sight gags where he's being pummeled and blasted into the air. Yes, they are quite violent to Keitaro in the manga as well, but there are also far more moments of Keitaro being less of a gag and more of a serious, respectable character. And there are also hilarious moments where the other girls in Hinata House also have their own share of problems and even suffer some bad karma for their treatment of Keitaro.

I'd call this part a spoiler if it really was much of a spoiler, but the anime and all of the OVAs combined do not have the answer you're looking for in concern of Keitaro's promised girl. All of the animated series give you no conclusive answer to who the promise girl really is, which makes you wonder what this was all for. The manga, however, has a far more developed plot and, even with some filler towards the ending, is far more emotionally satisfying.

Love Hina is fun to watch if you just like some silly slapstick with some budding, awkward romance, but will leave you hungering for more. If you want a more satisfying bite from the franchise, as well as wondering who the true promise girl is, the manga is very highly recommended.

Now, to begin this review, I want to state that I do not dislike the story of Love Hina. Rather, I read the entire manga first before watching the anime, and I enjoyed the manga, thinking it was a creative and somewhat clever (of course, for its time) story.
However, when they adapted the story into an anime, I was more than shocked to see that the anime decided to not even follow the story (or even try to) of the manga. It's as if the writers only took the cast and "basic plot" of the original story and decided to write their own thing. The ... original story, while faulty and repetitive at times, still manages to hook the reader somewhat and create a funny yet cute tale about Keitaro and his quest for love. The anime, however, chooses to stray as far as possible from the original story, trying to stray and create its own story, even introducing its own characters. While some may praise it for being original and creating some arcs that feel better than the manga, the story does not fit together, and the anime ends up being a mess. The manga, while jumpy and random, manages to stick itself together, as at least character development is shown and the plot doesn't stray too far. However, one cannot forgive the anime as the introduction of too many characters and the lack of developing either of the main characters (as opposed to developing side characters for no particular reason) completely ruins the story.
However, if one looks at it from a non-reader standpoint, the story does look average at most, and the cast of characters, taken directly from the manga, is creative and original. The sound is good for its time, and the art is also pretty good, considering this anime was made in 2000.
As a fan of the manga however, I cannot praise the anime at all due to how poorly it followed the plot. It frustrates me due to the fact that I actually really enjoyed the original story. Therefore I have no choice but to give it a 6, because while it completely disregarded any original story of Love Hina, it would have been at least average on a neutral standpoint.
For readers of the manga, stay away. Others can choose to watch, but be cautious.

I don't understand why this show is so popular. Sure, I got some good laughs out of it, but that's about it. Probably the first anime I would call a "waste of my time". But hey. That doesn't mean that other people aren't allowed to like it. But I'm here to warn you that unless you are looking for a somewhat ecchi comedy that completely focuses on comedy, then you need to find another anime.

Plot: 5

Plot? What plot? You mean 25 episodes of fillers that are only connected by the fact that they share a group of characters, and then a 3 episode ... OVA arc that they label as a "sequel"? Cause yeah, that's what Love Hina is. Fillers. Don't get me wrong, each episode had it's own quirk, allowing the series to keep that "it's funny cause it's random" kind of feel. From an army of Mecha-turtles to Arabian princes to a living doll to a summer festival, this show never ceased to surprise me. But that doesn't make up for the fact that the show had no real plot. So I had to give a 5 here.

Art: 7

I'm still no art connoisseur, so as far as I can tell, the graphics are on par with other series that came out in the same time period. So no complaints from me here.

Sound: 8

Even though I disliked the show overall, the opening theme remains in my top 5. It is unnaturally catchy and upbeat, and for the first time in a long time, I didn't skip the opening. NOT EVEN ONCE did I skip the opening. As for the ending song, it was catchy in a different way. In a somber, guitar riff kind of way. And I couldn't find anything wrong with the music throughout the anime. So kudos on the sound, if nothing else.

P.S. DO NOT WATCH THE ENGLISH DUB! It's just indescribably bad.

Characters: 7

A diverse cast of characters, if I do say so myself. Living in Hinata Apartments, there's our main character, Keitaro, a loser among losers; our main heroine, Naru, a slightly hot-headed girl who didn't hesitate to beat the crap out of Keitaro at any and every possible opportunity; there's Su, an inventor who plays a big role in the "randomness" of the series; there's Kitsune, who's only trait throughout the show is her love of booze; there's Motoko, the strict swordswoman; and there's Shinobu, a character with absolutely no personality. Other characters include Kentaro, who I credit for being the character that prevented me from dropping this anime; then there's Seta, an archeologist who plays a pretty large role in the "randomness" of the series; there's Sarah, Seta's "daughter", and finally there's Mutsumi, who plays the role of secondary love interest, next to Naru.

Now this sounds like a pretty good set of characters, right? A lot of room for development to make for an interesting anime, right? WRONG! As I mentioned in my opening paragraph, this anime focused completely on comedy, so every character in the series is the same from start to finish, with small exceptions here and there(like Motoko doesn't hate Keitaro come the end of the show). As diverse of a cast as it was, I can't give a group of 2D characters anything higher than a 7.

Enjoyment: 5

For a show completely focused on comedy, the comedy wasn't terrific. I chuckled at least once every episode, but that's not enough to make me want to watch the next episode, especially when there's no plot to drive me forward. So a 5 on the enjoyment.

Overall: 6

Ehh, the show wasn't terrible. A catchy opening theme. A solid slew of characters, with some of the funnier supporting characters I've seen. And Love Hina Again wraps up the "romance" the show had rather nicely. If you're looking for some laughs and a barrage of interesting characters, give Love Hina a shot. Just don't expect a plot.

(This is only my third review, so feedback, positive or negative, is welcome!)