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Love Hina

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Love Hina
File:Love Hina manga.jpg
Love Hina manga, volume 1 (North America English version)
GenreHarem anime
Manga
Written byKen Akamatsu
Published byJapan Kodansha
Canada United States United KingdomTOKYOPOP
France Quebec Spain Glénat
Singapore Chuang Yi
Brazil Editora JBC
Mexico Editorial VID
South Korea Haksan publish
Poland Waneko
Sweden Bonnier Carlsen
Anime
Directed byYoshiaki Iwasaki
StudioXEBEC
Anime
Love Hina Again
Directed byYoshiaki Iwasaki
StudioXEBEC

Love Hina (ラブひな Rabu Hina) is a popular manga (and anime) series by author Ken Akamatsu. The manga won the "Best Manga, USA Release" in 2002 Anime Expo. The manga consists of 14 books. The anime is 25 episodes long and is supplemented with Christmas and Spring movies and the Love Hina Again OAV.

The manga is published in Japan by Kodansha in Shonen Magazine, in English in North America and the United Kingdom by TOKYOPOP, in French in France and Québec and in Spanish in Spain by Glénat, in Singapore in English and Chinese by Chuang Yi, in Brazil by Editora JBC, in Mexico by Editorial VID, in Poland by Waneko, and in several other countries. The anime is produced in North America by Bandai, in Spain by Jonu Media, and in Singapore by Odex.

There are also two novels from "Love Hina" which have been released in Japan and are scheduled for release in the U.S. later this year. TOKYOPOP, the US publisher of the manga, will also publish the "Love Hina" novels.

Template:Spoiler

Characters

Further information: Characters in Love Hina
  • Keitaro Urashima (浦島 景太郎 Urashima Keitarō) is a 20 year-old student at the start of Love Hina, who is trying to get into Tokyo University, usually called by its abbreviation, 'Todai'. Though plagued with constant unluckiness and broken bones, he is well-meaning and friendly, which eventually wins all of the dormitory inhabitants' hearts.
  • Naru Narusegawa (成瀬川 なる/奈留 Narusegawa Naru) is a 17-year old student at Keitaro's cram school with an extremely fiery temper (which is described as "one fuse short of a cannon", according to the official website). Despite that - or rather, in ignorance of it - she is quite popular with everyone, including the manga series' fans. Naru is a boarder at the Hinata House, in Room 304.
  • Mutsumi Otohime (乙姫 むつみ/睦美 Otohime Mutsumi) is a very gentle, very frail, clumsy and soft-spoken 21 year old girl who lives in Okinawa. Keitaro Urashima and Narusegawa Naru meet her while taking some time off for a brief vacation after flunking their entrance exams (in the anime, Keitaro has a brief and near-fatal encounter with her on his way to the entrance exam). Like Keitaro and Naru, Mutsumi had just flunked her entrance exam for Todai, and was also taking a trip to get a hold of herself again. And like Keitaro, she too is a third year Ronin. She gave Keitaro and Naru the flying turtle Tama-chan as a gift.
  • Shinobu Maehara (前原 しのぶ/忍 Maehara Shinobu) is a 13-year old shy schoolgirl who, after a bad start in which Keitaro lied about being in Tokyo University and his subsequent failed attempts to make it up to her, develops quite a crush on Keitaro (or Sempai - a Japanese term for senior - as she calls him). Shinobu is also a boarder at the Hinata House, in Room 201.
  • Motoko Aoyama (青山 素子 Aoyama Motoko) is a 15-year old school girl who is extremely serious, athletic and into Kendo. She has an older sister, who is a master of Kendo and of whom Motoko is´very terrified, and has a phobia of turtles that is left unexplained for the majority of the series. In one of the later episodes, it is suggested that her fear of turtles was due to being attacked by a demon in the form of a monstrous turtle while assisting her older sister in combat as a child. Motoko is also a boarder at the Hinata Sou, in Room 302.
  • Kaolla Su (カオラ ・スゥ Kaora Sū) is a 13-year old foreign transfer student, and - as it turns out at the end of the series - a princess of the fictional Pacific island realm of Molmol. She is very playful, unattentive, and a natural technician, capable of whipping up the most outrageous devices in a jiffy - including various robot versions of Tamago called 'Mecha-Tama'. During certain times - red moon phenomenas - she turns into a more adult version of herself. Su is also a boarder at the Hinata Apartments, in Room 301.
  • Mitsune Konno (紺野みつね Konno Mitsune), mostly called by her nickname Kitsune - which means "fox" - is a 19-year old freelance writer (and is conspicuous in her lack of writing) who is frequently drunk, teasing Keitaro, or both. She is a school friend of Naru, and while jealous of her success with boys, she nevertheless tries her best (or worst) to make Keitaro and Naru tie the knot. In order to maintain her finances, she often bets on horse races. Mitsune is also a boarder at the Hinata House, in Room 205.
  • Haruka Urashima (浦島 はるか/晴香 Urashima Haruka) is Keitaro's aunt. She helps Keitaro manage Hinata and provides sound advice. She is most commonly referred to as Keitaro's aunt; however, there are hints in both the manga and anime that she may be his cousin instead. The confusion seems to arise from the Japanese language term he uses. Keitaro refers to her as "obasan", which can mean 'aunt' when the 'a' is not stressed and 'grandmother' when it is.
  • Noriyasu Seta (瀬田 記康 Seta Noriyasu) is a Tokyo University graduate and professor there who specialises in archaeology, appearing to be a parody of Indiana Jones. Like Keitaro, he was a third-year Ronin. He's clumsy (especially with women), a terrible driver, and an exceptionally skilled martial artist, all partly due to his complete lack of self-preservation. He hires Keitaro as his assistant and has had a sort-of relationship with both Haruka and Sara's mother, which was difficult considering his adventurous and archaeology-fanatical personality.
  • Sarah McDougal (サラ・マクドゥガル Sara Makudugaru) is Seta's adopted American daughter - her mother was a close friend of Seta and Haruka - and initially delights in making Keitaro's life miserable. However, like most of the girls in the story, she eventually warms to him, even if she still calls him a dork.
  • Kanako Urashima (浦島 可奈子 Urashima Kanako) is Keitaro's adopted younger sister. She travelled with her grandmother for some years, and returned to Japan to fullfill her promise to her brother (with whom she is in love), and to change the girls dormitory back into an inn. She is very adept at bondage and disguising - except when it comes to imitating Naru's smile - and has an intense dislike for sweets.
  • Tamago Onsen: AKA Tama-chan (温泉 たまご/卵 Onsen Tamago) is the first mascot of Love Hina, a very rare species of turtle (mostly found in Okinawa). It was given to Keitaro and Naru by Mutsumi when they first went to Okinawa. It can fly, reaching speeds of approximately 60 km/h, and is very intelligent (even once demonstrating the capability of writing, though its vocabulary is very limited). At the beginning of her staying in Hinata, she had a running feud with Su, who'd like nothing more than gobbling her up.

Story

Further information: Love Hina plot summaries
See also: Love Hina timeline

The series centers 19-year old Keitaro Urashima, a young man desperately trying to be accepted into the prestigious University of Tokyo in order to fulfill a childhood promise. His obsessive pursuit of this dream is one of the few shining spots of optimism in his otherwise unlucky life. He becomes manager of the Hinata House (Hinata Sō, also translated as the Hinata Lodge), property of his family and now an all-girls' dormitory. The story takes place in the Kanagawa Prefecture.

After much tribulation he wins their respect and eventual affection. From the beginning of the series, he suffers physical damage and abuse, which continues and increases as the series go on. In the anime the girls are openly shown being less hostile towards Keitaro, many fans have seen this as a weakness saying that because of this the emotional scenes (especially those between Keitaro and Naru) don't stand out as much as they do in the manga.

Keitaro's primary (and usually exclusive) interest is in Naru Narusegawa, though all the other girls have different sorts of affections for him (including close friend, a playmate, and non-threatening crush object). Keitaro and Naru's relationship is complicated by several girls falling for him, including several "promised" girls in the anime, or girls Keitaro promised a future relationship with while he was younger.

Omake (Bonuses) in the manga

  • Vol 1 contains thumbnail sketches of everyone, with ages and their room numbers.
  • Vol 2 contains the examination calendar.
  • Vol 4 contains a floor plan of Hinata House. It also gives readers a look in the rooms of Kitsune, Shinobu, Motoko and Kaolla Su.
  • Vol 5 reproduces Shinobu's diary record of who everyone's first kiss was.
  • Vol 7 contains the results to a Love Hina character popularity poll (one assumes voted by the readers of Shonen Magazine).
  • Vol 14 contains the final pictures of the Hinata Girls and a two chapter epilogue.

Style

The story is a romantic comedy of the shōnen genre about a clumsy but well-meaning young man with an unparalleled amount of personal drive despite having horrible luck. Love Hina falls under the harem anime genre as well due to the familiar set up of one boy living with a group of pretty but unusual women. One distinguishing feature that sets this series apart from the average harem anime is that, for a very large portion of the manga series, Keitaro is unliked by the girls. Whereas many harem animes initially or very quickly place the main male character at the center of the girls affections, Keitaro is not only initially disliked by the girls, he suffers for a rather prolonged and extended period of time. Keitaro often experiences falls or is simply beaten to a point that would probably kill a normal person, so it is a running joke throughout the series that Keitaro is immortal (thus, everyone is surprised at one point when he manages to break his leg or get a bruise from a 'Naru Punch').

The series is most well known for putting humorously absurd elements into an ostensibly mundane universe, such as Kaolla Suu's destructive mecha, ghosts, and flying turtles as well as hot springs.

Critics, and indeed some fans, of the series often decry the formulaic humor, wherein an enormous percentage of the jokes simply involve Keitaro (usually accidentally) sees one of the female leads nude, or almost nude (such as walking in on them bathing while he's distracted by his own thoughts) and then suffering some form of comically exaggerated punishment for his lechery. Similarly, the series relies very heavily on fan service, which, as the name implies, appeals to certain varieties of fans, but is viewed by critics as a shallow and uninspired method of garnering success.

Animated production

Further information: Love Hina Episodes

There were 25 episodes produced for the animated television series. The story is fairly consistent from episode 1 to 24, where it rises to a climax. Episode 25 begins anew the second half of the story. However this episode is the final episode of the television series. Most viewers feel confused about the newly-began-and-left-unfinished story arc, and also confused about why there was no true resolution to the earlier portion of the series.

While the 25th episode may seem too unexpected and unnatural to the plot, that is because it was meant to be the first episode of another 24 episodes which would generally round out the story of the series. The reason that no more episodes beyond 25 were produced is because the production company unexpectedly ran out of budget to continue the series.

In Japan, a special 26th episode ran after the recording of Love Live Hina, a concert including all the singers who participated in the successful run of the series. The 26th episode was only an entire overview of the previous 25 episodes packed into one episode.

Some time later as profits from the completed episodes came in, several movies were made, each of which took leaps and bounds in the plot in an attempt to bring more of a close to story. This culminated into the Christmas Movie, the Spring Movie, and the final three part OVA series called Love Hina Again which generally brings the animated story to a decent resolution. However, the story covered in the animated television series and movies does not cover all of the manga story and even leaves out some very colorful details, as well as some side stories. Most fans find that reading the complete manga, in its entirety of all fourteen volumes, gives a much more satisfactory story as a whole.

However, the story had not ended at the OVA, for those lucky people who had purchased the Love Hina Again Original Soundtrack, there were drama tracks at the beginning of the CD, which is in fact, the OVA episode 4. It is entirely in Japanese but it takes place where the OVA episode 3 left off. And it ends similarly to Naru's dream sequence in the train in Volume 14 of the Manga. Template:Endspoiler


See also

Official Sites


Fan's Sites

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