Keitarou Urashima is in a fine fine place, albeit in a not-so-comfortable situation. But being in an onsen (hot spring) dorm surrounded by a lot of bijin makes him the envy of various men. True enough that men everywhere will most certainly wish to be him because Keitarou is not perfect. He is in fact, at the other end of the spectrum when it comes to a smart bijin’s ideal mate — small, puny, nerdy, poor and a rounin who seeks to enter Toudai for the nth time. His clumsiness even gets him into various mishaps, especially with sexy student Narusegawa, who sends Keitarou’s ass flying through Hinata Sou for accidentally stumbling in front of her when she’s half (or almost) naked. Oi oi… not only Narusegawa, but also bumping onto the mischievous Kitsune’s enormous chest or the fierce kendo master Motoko (who has no qualms at all, sending Keitarou to orbit everytime she trips…and he accidentally sees a whole lot of her.) Yep. For all Keitarou’s mishaps, he has an unbelievably huge supply of luck, which happens only to clumsy, not-so-perfect, and good-intentioned men like him.

But you would not really enjoy Love Hina for all the fanservice it gives. Surely there are a lot, as such type of anime would in many ways exploit its female characters. Thankfully, it’s not going to be a reluctant Hanaukyo Maid ruse. Every single bijin in Hinata Sou gets to have her own piece of the limelight so that you will get to know each one’s personality and have a favorite. What’s really nice is that each girl would not only have an endearing story but will be involved in some comedic action as well. The humor in Love Hina is actually good in that it isnt afraid to get into the absurd. (Flying turtles and a jungle in the room?) And like each girl in the story, it will not fail to amuse you with its own distinct charm every episode.

Most importantly, the story unveils piece by piece the developments in the relationship between Keitarou and Narusegawa. This is one proof that Love Hina is not just for fanservice. The story is about Keitarou’s search for a girl he cannot forget and will go through whatever it takes to find her. One nice thing for girls to know that guys with good intentions truly exist, and guys to know that even not-so-perfect boys can be someone’s dream boy.

Individual Rating: Art/Animation 9; Story 8; Characters 8; Sounds 7

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 12th, 2002 at 12:20 pm and is filed under Love Hina, Anime. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.