Love Hate Hina
~by Nuriko

Once upon a time I was naïve enough to think that there were at least good qualities in everything. You know, like how 'Captain Planet' had the sexual tension, or 'From Justin To Kelly' had Kelly Clarkson, and 'Final Fantasy VIII' has great music and a kickass card game. However, even with my great love of all things bad, I cannot tolerate Love Hina. For the purposes of this review, I will recap the first episode. Now, before you send me emails stating "How dare you judge my favorite anime, you should see more than one episode -- etcetera, etcetera, etcetera..." please realize that I actually did. I saw all of it. I even picked up several volumes of the comics to see, quite possibly, if it was better than what was presented in animated form. I'm all about giving things a fair shot, but Love Hina failed on all counts. It failed miserably.

We first open to the premise of the entire series in a nutshell: A young boy is lead to believe by a girl, relatively around the same age, that if two people in love can both get into Tokyo University (Todai, as it will be referred to from this point on) they'll live happily ever after. What the story doesn't explain is that people falling in love at Todai is the equivalent of two nerds falling in love with each other and going to MIT to fulfill some magical nonexistent myth created single-handedly for this story. We're then greeted with the young boy (the protagonist) getting his first kiss and consequently his cute little girlfriend moving far away, hopefully never to be seen again. This girl departs with him the message that they will meet again, at Todai. Fast forward a bunch of years to the now adult male lead's delusional dream of actually getting into the University. He's dedicated to getting in to Todai. Obsessed with it, even; he really wants to go to that college. This is, however, intended to mislead the audience into thinking he actually has any redeeming qualities. Really, we discover that the lead character is a twenty year old loser who refuses to try for any other Universities because he's so hung up on a girl he CAN'T EVEN REMEMBER THE NAME OF that he met when he was six. I mean, seriously - the only reason he's so hung up on this one girl is because no one else will give him the time of day. For that matter, the only reason he'd possibly be able to snag the 'mystery' girl is because he'd guilt her into following through with the promise that she made when they were barely old enough to form coherent sentences. My stalker buzzer would be going off right about now.

Within the first three minutes of the program, we learn that not only is he obsessed with this unattainable dream that he obviously isn't capable of achieving (despite being obsessed with this dream for the last fourteen years of his life, he didn't bother to study or work hard BEFORE he was out of High School or anything like that), but he's also got a creepy hobby of collecting sticker-pictures of himself and he's some kind of artist. The last quality is almost the one redeeming factor for Keitaro Urashima, except for the fact that in the comic he's not even a bloody artist. He's just a total loser there. Score one for the anime over the comic. Oh, and he really really wants a girlfriend. Anime: 1. Comic: 0.

We are then introduced to the core plot of the series. Keitaro is such a loser that he's spent the last two years supposedly STUDYING; studying so much, in fact, that he hasn't been able to get a job to support himself. He's been mooching off his parents instead of actually going to school. You'd think after the first year, he'd have gotten a clue and tried to help them out somehow; 'initiative' isn't Keitaro's middle name, here. So the exposition-God-in-the-form-of-Keitaro's Grandmother decides to retire from managing her Hot Spring that just SO HAPPENS to have become a girls dormitory. We're treated with a brief introduction to the cast before Keitaro steps in and screws up their collective lives. First is Naru Narusegawa (my, what an ORIGINAL name), who's the first one to speak up about Grandma Hina's retirement. So, obviously, she's the leading lady of the series. Second is a quiet, soft-spoken girl, Motoko Aoyama, who murmurs something about practicing Kendo as she runs past a fleet of fangirls and screams for them to stay away from her. She had her own FLEET OF FANGIRLS, folks. So obviously she's the target of lesbian lust but not actually cool enough to be a lesbian. Next we see a young, dark-skinned blond girl known as Su Kaolla; she's obviously marked as the foreigner, therefore, she's automatically a fucking lunatic. Then Naru runs over to another housemate, a hung-over girl named Mitsune Konna. (She's called Kitsune because she has some medical condition known as lazy-artist syndrome who likes to draw her eyes closed, like a fox. That, and she's evil.) They didn't even introduce everyone. How cruel. Shinobu just got dissed, yo! (But that's only because they drastically changed the story from the comic, so she's not really part of the inn yet.) So far things are getting pretty foul, although we do see Keitaro's way-too-cool-for-this-stupid-series aunt, Haruka.

For some reason, there are these frightening three guys that randomly appear in the anime and say cryptic things. I can only figure this is to create the illusion that the plot is far deeper than it actually is, as if spouting off random advice or non-sequiturs about the general premise of the show or plot of that episode is going to make me like it more. The comic doesn't have these fucktards. Score one for the comic! Anime: 1, Comic: 1. 

Back to the episode: Keitaro is in some delusional hallucination again where he is imagining he's smart, that a miracle upon miracles happened and he scored the top on a mock Todai entrance exam. He starts running around accosting people in the hallway to shake his hand. His two toolish friends, Tweedle-Dumb and Tweedle-Dumber (now to be referred to as Dumb and Dumber) snap him out of this walking daydream by reminding him that he is, indeed, a total loser; they do this by displaying his abysmal test score. A girl that he's practically hand-raping (Naru, though frankly, he was apparently grabbing random girls), shrieks "OMFG YOU LOSER LET GO OF MY HAND! RAPE!" Well, not really. She just doesn't want to catch his stupidity from him. Yeah, like that's a real epidemic in Japan. He gets a good shot at her knickers and she decides to lay him out the good old fashioned way, with her fist. This is but the first time of many in this show in which Keitaro gets laid out with fists of justice, by every girl in the series, especially Naru. Hey, Naru: Akane Tendo called; she wants her shtick back. Keitaro manages to bum enough money off of Dumb and Dumber to hitch a ride over to his Grandma's Hot Spring Dorm-place. He sits down quickly to draw out a picture of his mystery-dream girl, but can't recall. So he changes his mind and sees a twelve year old girl crying and decides to draw her instead. However, he draws her happy. Weirdo. Then there's a freaky interaction with the three-hot-spring-unnecessary-to-the-actual-plot guys taking his notebook and playing keep away from the geek. Oh, hahaha, wait a minute... that IS funny. Because not only is Keitaro a loser, but THREE EIGHTY YEAR OLD MEN can make him look even more like a loser by showing that they have far more agility than him. The notebook falls in front of the crying girl and she's all like, "Why you being so mean, yo?!" and he acts goofy, slaps his hand, and runs very far away. Freak. The sad-girl looks at the drawing and attempts to gain feelings from it. Sad-Girl attempts, but doesn't quite get a smile. Perhaps she is a robot. No, that'd make this series more awesome than it really is if she were. :(

Back to the story -- though this entire episode (YES, THE FIRST EPISODE) is essentially filler minus about five minutes to establish the intricate and complicated plot of Love Hina. Keitaro finally arrives at Hinata Inn where he realizes nobody is home. So, what's a guy to do? Put himself in an awkward situation! He gets nekkid and swims around excitedly around in the Inn's own hot spring bath. As plot convenience would have it, someone DOES come home... and decides to get into the bath as well! I wonder, for the sake of logic, if there's like a sheep mentality when it comes to bathing in Japan. Like, do they all have a radar in their brains that goes "I must use the bath... NOW!" or is it just super-coincidence!? I think my theory is far more spot-on than the premise for what happens next. So Keitaro is all, "What the... OMG! IT'S A GIRL!!!" Surprisingly, she doesn't seem to care. Then we're cut to commercial. Holy crap, we're only halfway through this episode? The saddest part is that this is the EXACT first scene in the comic. Score another small victory for the comic. Anime: 1, Comic: 2.

Back to the bath, Naru (the girl who happened to climb in with Keitaro) starts openly talking about her breasts, then goes over and proceeds to grab Keitaro's crotch, giving it a nice tug. Then she pauses... and asks if it's Kitsune. This can only lead me to one conclusion: Kitsune is a man. Or at least a transsexual, or possibly a hermaphrodite. Either that, or Keitaro doesn't have a penis. This could quite possibly be true as well. It's when he speaks that she full on realizes that it's not her good friend the fox. She proceeds to scream and then HOLD ONTO HIS PENIS AS SHE RUNS AROUND THE SPRING. He cries out not to hold onto it. She still keeps her grip on his lack of manhood until she decides to toss him into a large boulder and run off without him. This didn't fucking happen in the comic either. I mean, seriously, in what universe does watching a man get dragged around by his penis qualify as fanservice? WTF, people.

But wait! IT GETS BETTER! He decides to apologize, turns toward her and bows to say "I'm sorry." But through his lack of... common sense? Coordination? Luck?... He manages to place his face right directly between the gargantuan breasts of the seventeen year old. No, really. I wish I were making this up. She punches him and he goes through a few doors and down a hall, placing him before the Kitsune-tranny. (Hey, Naru, Akane Tendou called; she wants her shtick back.) Naru, much like Superman, is able to change into her clothes to chase after the mostly-nekkid Keitaro as he proceeds to run through the Hinata Inn with Kitsune's panty bowl on his head and only a towel around his recently woman-handled dignity. Kitsune (who also has teh quick-change skills) is now after the bandit Keitaro in the ultimate chase!1!!11!one! He gets nailed, climbs up a tree, jumps onto a low roof and runs from them still. You know what, Keitaro? Forget going to Todai, you should become a crash-test dummy or stuntman. By all accounts, he should be unconscious or DEAD by now. Then again, if he was, I'd probably be a happier person. But no, he lives. Crazy foreigner Su commands a small electronic army of tanks to stop Keitaro. Hey, Su! Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivruvsky IV called and wants her schtick back, too. When they finally corner the poor sap, we discover the all important plot point that Keitaro hasn't yet been clued in on: Hinata Inn is now an ALL FEMALE dormitory. So like, is this another one of those wacky Japanese things I just won't get? Do they have dorms that only house like seven people, all of varying ages that should either be in different schools... or, quite possibly, even OUT of High School? With the range of ages between nineteen and twelve, it just seems like a bad idea, like when they have all the American Idol finalists sing live together. But I digress... 

Naru is the harbinger of DEATH.

Aunt Haruka saves the day, then she makes things worse by telling Naru, Mitsune, and Su that Keitaro the fucktard is actually a Tokyo University student. Oh! So now not only does he have to MANAGE a house full of women he's pissed off, but he has to LIVE A LIE. ["Thanks, Aunt Haruka, for adding a convoluted and clichéd element to the story!" -Chiriko] That doesn't last very long, but it was a nice thinly-veiled attempt at plot cohesion. We're treated to a delusional fantasy of Keitaro deciding to stay as the manager so that the girls (aged nineteen, seventeen, and THIRTEEN) cook for him and offer him food, then they ask him to EAT THEM INSTEAD. Seriously. Kitsune interrupts the fantasy by coming into his room, and then she proceeds to come onto him, all because of the lie that he's a University student. Uhm, are women this easy in Japan? I THINK NOT! If all people had to say to get laid was that they were college students, there wouldn't be a need for alcohol. Or hookers. [Or Porn. The great American pastime. -Chiriko] This interaction pans into Kitsune actually making him grope her, then charging him for the service. The cost? Tutoring. Uhm, okay. Weirdo transsexual fox woman.

OH THE COMIC ZANINESS!!!

Either way, plot comes full circle and he can't lie, so he tells his Aunt what's really going on. Naru overhears, confronts him, and she's all "Bitch, you're staying." And he's like "Yes, mistress!" because he's such a pussy. She slips and falls onto him into yet another compromising and almost sexual position. If Love Hina were porn, it'd be like "I'm sorry Naru, my penis just fell into you. SEVENTY SIX TIMES." However, I'd probably have a little more respect for it if it actually were porn. But it's not. And that's just the first episode. Twenty six episodes of this crap was twenty five episodes too many. (Let's not forget OVAs and specials!) ["Twenty-five? More like twenty-five and seven-eighths." -Chiriko] The characters, while they SEEM like they might have something more to them, actually don't. One-dimensional personalities for each and every one of them, except that at one point or another they eventually get tiny-crushes on the loser lead character splashed with a very tiny character background that apparently is the full motivation for that character at any given time (including the lead, zing!).

Supposedly Love Hina is an homage to Maison Ikkoku, being that the similarities are that it's in a building and the lead character is a ronin and there's something about a manager in there, somewhere. ["Calling it an 'homage' means that Rumiko Takahashi won't sue them." -Chiriko] All the same, I never hated Godai as much as I hated Keitaro. Keitaro's not indecisive; he's just stupid. The situations are way too over the top to be taken as seriously, as are the one-dimensional and roundly unfunny characters. Generally speaking, sexual tension shouldn't be spelled out for us with events like the lead character getting the shit beaten out of him at every corner between the very small tender parts of the series and the unwanted groping and panty shots. The overall message presented in the series is that even though you're a loser, if you surround yourself by hot underage women you'll suddenly be the object of their affection AND somehow grow a brain. This would be good and all (well, no it wouldn't), if not for the fact that Keitaro is the worst example of a human being on the face of the planet. Shooting him in the head wouldn't solve the problem, because he hasn't a brain in there to damage. I suppose we're intended to look past every single one of his faults and commend his strength and determination to get into Todai, but as the story progresses (even as far as the comic) he doesn't even gain his own personality, he just becomes a clone of the guy Naru had the hots for. AND IT WORKS! And for that, I think they deserve each other. 

In the end, I went into this series really wanting to like it. So many people claim to enjoy it, so it HAD to have redeeming qualities, right? Nope! Just because the show has a bunch of hot chicks (pretending for a moment it's NOT a cartoon), it doesn't mean it's good. And just because a girl like Naru eventually warmed up to a loser like Keitaro, it doesn't mean she would sleep with you.