|
R2 DVD Reviews
|
|
Written by maehara
|
|
Friday, 08 June 2007 17:00 |
 Love Hina was one of the first shows I watched when I got back into anime after along break away. Shallow, funny, and in some ways just a little bit politically incorrect, it was the ideal show then for piqueing my curiosity and getting me back into what's become a horribly expensive hobby. My online screen-name (and this site's original domain name, back before it became AnimeVision) even comes from my favourite Love Hina character. That was more than 5 years ago, though - does it still have the same appeal now?
Meet Keitaro Urashima, stereotypical anime loser. Many years ago, he made a promise to a girl he knew that one day they'd go to Tokyo University together - the most prestigious university in Japan, and consequently the hardest to get into, so it's no surprise when his first attempt at the entrance exam ends in failure. Faced with having to support himself for a year while he studies to take the test again, a fortunate sequence of events leaves him as the live-in manager of an all-girls dormitory complex, the Hinata Inn - and that's when Keitaro's real problems begin.
See, the girls who live at Hinata Inn mostly aren't what you could call normal. There's foreign girl Kaolla Su, who has a talent for creating gadgets that never seem to work as intended and cause all sorts of problems; kendo-sword wielding Motoko Aoyama, who refuses to accept that a male can be left in charge of the dorms; sweet and innocent Shinobu Maehara, who comes to the dorm after her parents split up and has something of a crush on Keitaro; and sake-swilling & fun-loving Mitsune Konno.
There's also violent and overly-sensitive Naru Narusegawa, who may or may not be the girl Keitaro made his promise with - unfortunately for him, his memory of the time is hazy and he can't quite remember, but there are plenty of hints dropped that Naru's the girl of his promise. Or perhaps it's ditzy Mutsumi Otohime, who bears a passing resemblance to Naru and isn't nearly so keen to beat him up on the slightest pretense. Given the choice, who would you go for..?
So much for the setting. Love Hina's a light-hearted comedy that plays a little on the potential love-triangle between Keitaro, Naru and Mutsumi, but has a lot of fun along with way with assorted trips, game parodies and comic misunderstandings, with a sizeable cast of fringe characters being wheeled out every so often to help the fun along. There's a group of anime fans who give the series a hard time for the amount of abuse poor Keitaro ends up on the end of (it's a fair point that you'd never get away with dishing the same abuse out to a female character), but to me: it's a cartoon, it's cartoon violence in the style of Tom & Jerry, and not something to get worked up over.
The passage of a few years hasn't been overly kind to Love Hina, though. It still looks the part - one good thing about digital animation is that it doesn't degrade in the same way cell animation does - but the story and style of humour isn't exactly original, and other shows have come along over the years and done the same basic idea in funnier or more romantic style. That's not to say this isn't worth watching - just be aware it's not quite the draw it one was. It's also lacking in a conclusive ending: for all the effort that's put into the Keitaro / Mutsumi / Naru triangle, it's all left annoyingly open, as the manga the series is based on was still running when the anime finished.
I still enjoy it, though, although mostly for nostalgia reasons. If you don't already have the same sort of attachment to the show, it's unlikely to appeal in quite the same way, and the general appeal of the show won't draw too many people nowadays. At this price, it's worth a look - but don't expect anything ground-breaking.
|
