For as innovative as they may have wanted us to think the animation is, it's just bad. I know cel animation anime that flow far more smoothly than this. It jerks, the characters are often disproportioned, character movement is erratic and often impossible even by anime standards. Backgrounds are nice looking but that's about it.
The BGM had my ears bleeding. It's an example of why amateurs shouldn't be playing with artificial synthesizers. It's all over the place, never appropriate, and nothing you would ever want to hear stand-alone. The only decent thing the series manages is a very catchy OP sequence, but with repeated listening, even that will beging to grind on your eardrums.
Enough about the technical aspects, Love Hina is based off the manga by Ken Akamatsu. It's a fantastic romantic comedy and the series roots itself in the concepts that made the original very popular. In fact, many of the main story is well scripted and executed, but then manages to make everything likeable about the story horrible. The comedic timing is off, the dialogue is laughably awful, and of course there is no nudity. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not some horndog wanting to see the girls nude, but don't have twenty-thousand bath scenes and all the girls bathe wearing towels. IT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE. Either make an ecchi series or don't!
But that's not the worst part, oh no. What really makes this series near-unbearable is the godless amount of filler. 1/3 of the series doesn't even correspond with the story, introduces meaningless characters who serve absolutely no purpose, and only serves to annoy the viewer who slowly realizes what he or she has been cheated out of.
Speaking of characters, the core cast stays very true to the original idea whether you like them or hate them, but when the series devolves to filler it feels like the characters become stereotypical versions of themselves. Not only that, but the spotlight is put on meaningless filler characters who only add minor and inconsequential conflict for the allotted time of the episode they're in. Development is slow and often unrecognizable for the majority of the cast, sans Keitaro, Naru and arguably Shinobu. It's just very unsatisfying given the length of the series, and what is done with the characters.
You know, the first time I watched it, I wanted to like it but the more I watched, the more I realized I was watching crap. My 12-year-old cousin who watched the series with me lost all interest in anime after finishing this I kid you not. Let that be a warning to anyone who thinks that because this anime is popular, that it's also good.
Overall, Love Hina gets a 4 out of 10.
