Review of Love Hina: Vol. 2

Introduction

Love Hina is one of those anime that eschews uber-action and hyper violence for something a little more sedate, relationships. Of course these are the kind of relationships that only happen in anime like Fruits Basket or Tenchi Muyo. A shy clumsy unworldly teen somehow ends up living with several beautiful girls, all of whom in some way fall in love with him. Realism isn`t exactly a priority in these stories.

In Love Hina, Keitaro Urashima is the hapless young boy, who fifteen years earlier made a pact with a girl to both attend Tokyo University. He soon lost touch with the girl, unable even to recall her name, but he remained determined to attend University just as he had promised. Unfortunately he`s not that academically gifted, and after twice failing the entrance exams, his family urged him to get a job to support himself. Which is how he ends up manager of an all girl dormitory, living with five girls with wildly differing personalities. He`s still determined to get to University though and find the girl he knew all those years ago.

Volume 2 of Love Hina contains four more episodes beginning with…

Ep 5. Wow, A Trip To Kyoto! Exciting
It`s the day of the Entrance exams at Tokyo U, and both Keitaro and Naru are determined to succeed. Unfortunately determination isn`t enough, and disappointed with the results, wanting to get away from the dorm and each other they both decide to take a trip. As luck would have it, they both end up travelling to Kyoto, and one of those wry coincidences sees both their glasses broken, leaving them blurry eyed and unable to recognise each other. For a change they actually get on.

Ep 6. Keitaro`s First Kiss Is With…? Journey
The rest of the girls at the dorm decide to find Keitaro and Naru, just in case they are planning to do something drastic. Meanwhile Keitaro and Naru have met Mutsumi Otohime in Kyoto, another repeat failure at the Tokyo U entrance exams. Keitaro begins to suspect that she may be the girl from his childhood, and finds that thought conflicting with his feelings developing for Naru. Mutsumi is anaemic and prone to fainting, so Keitaro and Naru decide to escort her home, but home is on the distant island of Okinawa, and they keep heading in the wrong direction.

Ep 7. First Date, Keitaro`s True Feelings: Nowadays
Home again, and Naru is preparing to graduate from High School. Keitaro`s trying to summon up the courage to ask her out, but before he can a rich rival shows up to sweep Naru off her feet. Dorm resident Kaolla Su designs a virtual reality device to pitch the two suitors against each other in an effort to impress Naru.

Ep 8. Kendo Girl and The Legendary Dragon Palace: Is This A Dream?
Samurai Motoko is having trouble with her inner calm, and it`s her ambiguous feelings for Keitaro that are the cause, so she tries a little contemplative meditation. Meanwhile Keitaro has unearthed an old games console and everyone is playing an old RPG. Soon Motoko is drawn into a shared computer game dream.

Video

The picture for Love Hina is presented in a 4:3 ratio, reflecting the original television broadcasts. The image is clear and sharp throughout, and the animation is crisp and well accomplished. Like most modern anime while the initial sketches are done by hand, the colouring and animation is done on computer resulting in a pristine animation. Love Hina is certainly dynamic in style and is visually very effective.

Audio

You can listen to Love Hina in dubbed English DD 2.0 or the original Japanese track, again in DD 2.0. As always, I opted for the original language and found the dialogue to be clear and the on screen action adequately represented. There are two subtitle tracks on this disc; the default translates the various signs and captions that appear in the episodes, while the dialogue subtitles are translated rather than reflecting the dub. I must mention the title music, which is somewhat akin to an exploding arcade game, yet foot-tappingly addictive in its cacophony.

Features

Extras are a little light on this single layer disc, though they are appreciated nonetheless. MVM certainly impress when it comes to authoring anime titles, and Love Hina is no exception, looking delightful. There`s the usual jacket picture that displays when the disc isn`t spinning and the animated menus display over that odd theme tune. You`ll find a Photo Gallery for Shinobu Maehara running to 8 pages. Keitaro`s Songbook presents the Romanicised Japanese lyrics to "Legendary Hot Springs Turtle" as well as the translation and an option to play the track. Finally there are trailers for Ah My Goddess: The Movie and the Tenchi Muyo OVAs.

Conclusion

I`m not one to often use words like `zany` but it is certainly applicable to Love Hina. The show has a certain charm to it that is remarkably endearing. I found myself chuckling through all the episodes, and was on occasion startled into some hearty guffaws. This is despite most of the in-jokes going straight over my head, although the RPG homage of Episode 8 hit the spot even for me. When one of the characters undergoes a Sailor Moon transformation then asks, "Did I overdo it?" I was tickled pink. The characters are wonderfully written, and the stories are a little madcap to say the least, but there is an underlying intelligence to them that is universally appealing.

If you think that anime is just big fights and power-ups, with an occasional helping of blood and gore, then Love Hina will go a long way to correcting that misapprehension. Love Hina is charming and it`s fun, and I find that I am unable to fault it in any way. I want more.