great review! i'd say that it seems like Love Hina is your typical comedy/romance anime from the plot summary but the in-depth character developement and great sense of humour make you deeply care about the characters and what happens to them. One of my all-time favourite animes/mangas.
Love Hina tv Review
Keitaro and his childhood sweetheart make a promise: to both be accepted and meet each other at the prestigous Toudai University; however, she moves away and he forgets about her. 10 years later, Keitaro has become an artist and a daydreamer, having ranked 27th from the last in the national practice exam. He comes to Tokyo to live with his grandmother, who owns a hotel that turns out to be an all-girls dormitory named Hinata House.
When his grandmother leaves, Keitaro becomes the residential manager and soon meets up with two Toudai applicants...and one of them just might be his sweetheart. They are joined by other tenants: the young Shinobu, who was in a desperate situation until Keitaro helped her; Motoko the swordsmaster who sees men as evil distractions; Kaolla, the genius child inventor; and the sneaky Mitsune.
This story follows the daily life of the Hinata House as well as Keitaro's attempt to once again enter University.
Description: niomea
Story & Characters
The plot of Love Hina is somewhat predictable. The anime starts off with a flashback of a promise between a boy (Keitaro) and a girl (unknown at the time) to meet at Tokyo U because they're in love. Now, from this already, you can definitely see that Keitaro and the "promised girl" will get together. Seems kind of cliche.
Now here comes all the kookiness. This flashback always looms behind the scenes, but it it actually not mentioned too much. It is, after all, a comedy. Therefore, there is always one central romantic theme, with lots of comedic interludes in between. This style gives endless pleasure to the viewer, because there is never a boring moment.
It is important to note what the story actually is at times. It starts out with the story based on the promise, but then it goes on to the development of relationships between the characters, but in the end, it returns to the central story.
Character development is a big part of the plot, because all the characters change drastically from the beginning of the anime. It is intriguing to see all the differences in their personalities from before. The characters are well-developed and have unique traits that make them different from your average person.
Rating:
Art
Ken Akamatsu is the author of Love Hina, and he is one of the best artists I have ever seen. His drawing style is amazing in the manga, and he seems to make the characters come to life with his detailed drawings. However, in the anime, the quality drastically lowers, mostly because the drawings have to be more numerous in order to show motion in the characters. Therefore, when I saw the anime, I was very disappointed with the art.
Special effects weren't used at all (or I don't think so) in the anime. Each event that happened was carefully drawn, and added to the sense of purity. If you see this anime before you read the manga, you'd like the art. If you've already read the manga, then the art will seem lacking to you.
Rating:
Sound
The sound is absolutely gorgeous in the anime. I love the voices of Megumi Hayashibara and Yui Horie. Hayashibara sings the opening and closing songs, while Yui Horie plays Narusegawa Naru, and also sings quite a lot of songs within the episodes. The OST is a must-have for any person that likes anime music, because of its upbeat melodies and the pretty voices. The various songs that are in some of the episodes express the story and themes of the anime really well.
Yui Horie is my favorite seiyuu partially because of her love hina performance as Naru and her songs in the OST.
Rating:
Presentation
The basic storyline is not too original, but the way that it is weaved together is a style that is unique to Ken Akamatsu. Originality is never a big issue because the more humorous parts of the anime are very original. Since when is there an anime where magical girls, tough tomboys, and cute cooks live in the same place?
This leads up to the humor of the story. This is very important to the success of the Love Hina franchise, because the incidents that Keitaro gets himself in are so hilarious. The humor mostly involves Keitaro fondling, peeking at, or saying stupid things to girls. Then, he always gets beat up (often he's sent into the atmosphere...) but somehow he manages to survive...this is the repeating pun that is seen every episode...
Love Hina is technically defined as a shounen, but there a lot of shoujo elements in it. The focus of relationships is an aspect that is prevalent in most shoujo anime, but the general pervertedness and the good looks of the female characters is seen in many shounens. There's a lot of fights and magic going along too, and mechs are thrown in the mix. I personally think that Ken Akamatsu was just having some fun throwing all these genres into one big, organized pile that somehow interweave with each other.
So if you like a romantic comedy with above average art and awesome music that has a very chaotic storyline until the
end, when everything straightens out...watch Love Hina...
If not...I suggest more stereotypical, mainstream animes like Card Captor Sakura and Gundam Wing
Rating:
Final Verdict
8.0000 (good)
Reviewed by kumori, Nov 30, 2004
Comments
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Gabberjaws Dec 08, 2004
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Neppy Dec 08, 2004
Love hina is an amazing manga (and anime, but I enjoyed the manga more). I haven't read alot of mangas but I greatly enjoyed Love Hina because it always cheered me up. There was a certain warmth to it and the characters were brilliant, particularly Motoko because she changed quite dramatically from the beginning to the end. I don't really care how cliche the story actually is, it's still a great series and I would watch/read it again. Your review sums it up quite nicely overall.
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Jouven Dec 15, 2004
Love hina is one of my favourites mangas. I mean the manga is one the best things I read in my life, but in the other hand the anime is bad, the best thing it have's is the quality of the art, cuz it hasn't "story" like in the manga. Love hina is a great example of the importance of the story just watch the anime and then read the manga, and u will know what I mean.
Conclusion: manga rocks, anime = no story.
waiting for Mahou Sensei Negima :D
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rorikon Dec 19, 2004
Love hina is the first ones I watched when I start to be interested in the anime world. Although the anime version is not very good compared to the manga one, it is a good one to watch. The story is great, Keitaro is someone I wanna be, a determined guy, don't need to be clever or handsome but just a good person.
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hikago Dec 21, 2004
Love Hina was also one of my first anime shows I've ever watched ^^;
Nice review, very well done :D -
Aleks-Kun Jan 31, 2005
I didnt get a word of what you wrote, but i love Love Hina and that's what counts the most! :)
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Crovax Feb 02, 2005
i cant really watch it but i read part of the first manga and (after seeing some of the episodes) it suprised me (the part in the bath) my friend has an online program that had the love hina and i liked it
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harvestfarmer Feb 20, 2005
I agree pretty much with this review, it is almost what I would say agout the series
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d3x135 Feb 25, 2005
If one liked the anime of this one, he/she'll like the manga a whole lot better! But regardless if it's in anime or manga, Love Hina will always be liked. A superb review any Love Hina fan would agree with...
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Xaki-the-forbidden-one Apr 29, 2005
This review is almost exactly what I would have said. Love Hina is one of my favorite series from manga and anime.
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Ky05uke Oct 19, 2005
Fairly accurate review of the series.... even though it still is my #1 favorite and most memorable (... well... at least in Manga Form...)
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Garnet-til-Alexandros Banned Member Jan 19, 2006
Love Hina is hilarious.....I thinks Keitaro is cute in some ways...But has anyone seen Love Hina Again movie and if so can you tell me if it is any good? I own some of the manga 1-4, and the anime 1-5 so i wanna know!
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nainoi Oct 19, 2009
This anime is great.
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