Love Hina (Anime)

Aion

Aion

Time-Traveller
Although I could Google/Wiki for the required information, I thought it best to to go for the more interesting and spoiler safe route, which is to ask on a forum. I'm not expecting much when this place is more like a graveyard than a discussion board at this point.

I'm currently into the Love Hina manga. If not for me only owning 5/14 volumes I'd probably be onto volume 6 or 7 by now. It's surprisingly good - I didn't think I'd like it that much when the story is completely predictable and has been done before, it has an endless amount of perverted fun, most of the chapters don't advance anything and the main character is annoyingly dull, but there you go. Naru is probably the main reason I like the series so much; she's hot, smart, violent, a red-head (I think) and funny - pretty much my dream anime girl. :D

Now, onto my question: I notice the anime only has 24 episodes. My math skills are horrible but even I can see that 14 volumes doesn't go into 24 episodes. So, I'm wondering how much was cut and changed in order to fit everything into 24 episodes? I know Love Hina wouldn't be too hard to shorten since a lot of the content could be classed as filler, with little to no relationship progression or character development, but it's still not good that so much (I'm assuming) was to be cut, and possibly altered.
 
From what I remember, which, seeing as Love Hina isn't particularly memorable, isn't much, the anime went the Chobits route and featured a number of original stories that it would be kind to call "filler". In a way I can see the merit in this approach: shadowing the manga would have been impossible given the anime's short run, so the anime staff decided to take it in a different direction, introducing some fantasy elements that feel out of place. But, for me, it's vastly inferior to the manga - and I couldn't bring myself to finish that.
 
I didnt read the Manga, but I do believe that there were originally plans for more episodes, but they ran out of money, or didnt get enough from the first season to warrant making another season...
 
From what i can remember of the anime, it doesn't really do the manga justice. Though i quite liked it at the time and it made me want to read the manga, it really isnt up to the quality of the manga. If i recall correctly there are a couple of original stories and theres a fair bit cut, but it keeps the same basic story and by the end of the Love Hina Again OVA it pretty much finishes the story.

I'd go watch it if you really want more after finishing the manga, but it isnt a must-watch in all honesty.
 
It's best not to compare it to the manga, they are two different animals, especially the further you go into the anime.

The prevailing opinion is that the manga is brilliant, the anime is rubbish.

I don't subscribe to that, although that may be because Love Hina was my second introduction to anime following the Manga Video years.

I found it to be funny, entertaining, and utterly likeable, and yes, I too fell for Naru's fiery personality. But it does make the TV anime cliche of never developing a relationship unless it absolutely has to.

There are 24 episodes of the series proper, an OVA episode 25 which upped the Ecchi a bit. This comes in the UK as an extra on the Christmas Special, which in my opinion is the last decent instalment of Love Hina. It's at the end of the Christmas Special that the first concrete relationship development occurs.

Then there is the spring special, which is in many ways a remake of one of the series episodes, stretched over 50 minutes. This leaves it till the end credits to give us the second relationship development.

Finally there is the 3-part Love Hina Again OVA, which I found to be completely inferior, both in terms of character design and story, with a Maguffin character introduced that makes absolutely no sense, and even messes with continuity.

It's Keitaro's sister (adopted) who has always had a crush on him. Yet when we first meet Keitaro, he's never had a girl like him in any way

But, it does give the resolution for the characters, and underlines the anime.

Personally, I cherish the TV series and the Christmas Special, can take or leave ep 25 and the Spring Special, and sort of wish that Love Hina Again was never made.

EDIT: Incidentally, the dub is a crime against humanity!
 
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Just Passing Through said:
Personally, I cherish the TV series and the Christmas Special...
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Ahh yes! The christmas special is actually the highlight of the whole anime adaption. I really enjoyed that one.
 
I suppose your enjoyment of the TV series hinges on how much you like the characters. I hated all almost all of them.

Keitaro’s a loser of monolithic proportions. Naru’s a bitch. Makoto’s a bitch. Keitaro’s aunt is a chain-smoking bitch. Kitsune's a tease. Shinobu is moe-bait and therefore inherently evil. Koalla-Su is the physical manifestation of annoyance. Mutsume is all right.

:p
 
Just Passing Through said:
I found it to be funny, entertaining, and utterly likeable, and yes, I too fell for Naru's fiery personality. But it does make the TV anime cliche of never developing a relationship unless it absolutely has to.
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When I was quoting you, I saw glimpses of your spoiler.

Putting the glimpses together: Ketaro's sister is the one he made the promise with as a child.

This was meant to be the safe, spoiler free option. ;___________;


Naru is pretty much what makes the series so good. Without her constantly smacking Keitaro around for seeing her naked/panties/ripping her clothes off/accidentally getting taken advantage of when drunk it would all be a bit boring. That's probably why Maison Ikkoku never made me want to finish it; the female lead didn't have the same sort of fiery/cute personality as Naru.

And, of course, my love for Naru has nothing to do with her boobs, the ecchi or anything indecent. My feelings are caused by her personality alone.


Once again, I have to say that it is strange that I like Love Hina so much. I've seen Keitaro's useless/pathetic character type before, I've seen stories involving idiotic virgins ending up studying surrounded by hot teenage girls before and I tend to dislike series with lots of filler and small amounts of plot progression. The loveable characters and funny perverted goings on just seem to make me overlook everything else.

Although I dislike plain/pathetic Keitaro (jealously?), the girls are all awesome. Naru is the fiery red-head type I have a fetish for; Shinobu (sp?) is cute, innocent and often amusing; Motoko is overly serious and attacks Keitaro with her sword skills; Su is an insane foreign girl who kisses women and transforms into a woman; Kitsune is the sluttly 'older' type this sort of story requires and Mutsume is insanly likeable and kisses girls. All in all, the cast is pretty much perfect for Love Hina.


By the way, thanks for your replies. I have Vol. 1-3 (plus the xmas and spring specials) on DVD, so I might check 'em out while waiting for my new volumes to arrive.
 
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Just Passing Through said:
Aion said:
Cool, you put 2 & 2 together and got 16... :p

Yui Horie is awesomeness embodied as Naru...
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I did say I suck at maths in my first post. :)

Yui Whorie? I don't think I've heard her before... I'll go and check on MAL to see what other roles she's played. But, going on her name, I'll take your word for it.
 
After watching the first 4 episodes, I'm disappointed with the anime adaptation - the manga is waaay better. Too much needless filler was added, too many events were changed, the ecchi has mostly gone and Naru looks fugly most of the time. It's trash in comparison to the manga.

The first episode did stupid stuff wrong, such as allowing Keitaro to meet some of the cast early, adding crap back-story and making it so certain characters weren't at Hinata House when Keitaro made his entrance, which resulted in the chasing scene being far less funny. The second episode was horrible, it being 90% filler, the plot being about Shinobu not having gone to Hinata House yet (filler), her not having ANY friends at school (filler) and her parents fighting over her (filler). The third was a little better since it followed the manga better, but even that seemed rushed.

Only the forth episode was quality, and that's because it was fairly faithful to the source material. I could tell it was rushed after reading the manga but it was at least watchable enough for time to pass fast.

The lack of boobs is one of the main things damaging the anime at the moment. For example, it's stupid for the girls to all wear towels in water and it seems even more silly how Naru seems to over-react to Keitaro simply seeing her with a towel wrapped around her. And, when Naru's face looks a little too round and usually unattractive, the combination of cut/altered dialogue, lack of light fan service and her face is making her far less likeable in the anime.

To be honest, the only real plus point so far has been the excellent opening. Everything else has been poor to good. I can only see it getting worse when more and more stuff is obviously going to be either butchered or removed...

/strokes his manga volumes and Naru doujins
 
Love Hina is the anime is a fantastic show in it's own entity. When you start complaring it to the manga it ruins both experiences. Don't do it, it wrecks it completley.

Also the printed english manga is a bastardised translation.

To be honest, love hina and the christmas special was a fantastic viewing experience in my opinion. I liked the dub on the anime, haven't listened to the sub yet.

Yes there are some glaring errors and some bits do get on your nerves, but it really isn't bad.
 
I found the series quite enjoyable

though there is another reason apart from the abvoius changes they made in the anime

Xebec >>

thats right the same people that worked on Negima! go in partnership to produce this
 
devilrules666 said:
Personally I thought that it was harmless fun. But i did hate the way naru treated kentaro at certain points! She did turn into quite a bitch!
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possibly shes secretly a red head in disguise

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I went on a mini-Love Hina marathon last night. At first my intention was only to watch the two remaining unwatched episodes of the TV series I had on DVD (11 & 12), but I somehow ended up chucking in my Christmas and Spring special DVDs.

My ratings:

Love Hina: TV series (12/24) - 4/10
Love Hina: Christmas Special - 7-7.5/10
Love Hina: Episode 25 (Motoko's Choice, Love or the Sword - Don't Cry) - 8-8.5/10
Love Hina: Spring Special - 6/10

Watching 11-12 confirmed what I knew already: the TV series is awful. One of the episodes I watched last night was a filler episode about Naru becoming a pop star. Now, considering Naru never even sang a song in the manga, it's inexplicable why the animation team came up with such a silly filler story that added nothing. It's the same as how the animation studio decided that Keitaro, a person with no talent at the start, should be an excellent artist in the anime.

The TV series shouldn't be classed as an adaptation when it butchered the manga material like it did. The studio behind it didn't even try to follow the real story, instead they used the same characters as the manga, added a few terrible filler characters and came up with filler episodes that even Naruto team would reject.

After finishing up with the TV series, I moved onto the specials. The Christmas special was an improvement over the woeful TV seies. It very loosely followed the real story, with confessions taking place much earlier than in the manga, but I got the impression the special could only do so much with the story after the TV series ruined the continuity of the manga. I quite liked the filler additions, such as Naru ignoring Keitaro so he could focus on his studies and Naru hunting for Keitaro to confess to him before Christmas eve ended. The last part of the episode, which showed Naru confessing on TV, was quite good, as was the animation that played during the credits, it showing a shortened version of one of the new year manga chapters. I still would've rather seen the real story, though...

I had a nice surprise once I'd got through the first special: an extra on the DVD. The extra is episode 25; an episode that never aired on TV. The episode followed the manga very closely, even using some of the same angles during fights. I can't remember the chapter numbers, but it followed the part of the story where Naru is away in Kyoto and Keitaro has to act like he's engaged to marry Motoko in order to save her from going back with her intimidating sister. Motoko's a loveable character and that part of the manga was great to read, the story being the first time Motoko truly understood her feelings for Keitaro, so seeing a faithful version of those events made me happy. If only the animation had been anywhere near this faithful with everything else...

The spring special wasn't great. It tried to mash the entire turtle island story into 40 minutes, losing many of the comical moments and story build-up by doing so. I didn't like seeing the annoying filler character flying a rocket, I didn't like seeing Nyamo actually speak (and not do her bow and run thing) and the end, which turned into a filler battle against the turtle ruins that, for some unknown reason came to life, was poor. Even though it was more faithful, it wasn't as good as the previous special since it lost too much of the good stuff when it was squashed into the time allowed.

The one thing that's bugged me the most about the anime is how ugly Naru and Koetaro look. Keitaro was never a looker, but in the anime he looks awful, and Naru often looks a shadow of her manga self. Strangely, Motoko always seemed to look lovely in the anime - I don't recall ever thinking she looked ugly...

So anyway, all in all, even though I hated the TV series episodes I watched as much as I expected, the specials and episode 25 did manage to impress me more. It was worth buying the specials just for episode 25, which I suspect is the only good part of the entire TV series.

The one thing that's bugged me the most about the anime is how ugly Naru and Koetaro look. Keitaro was never a looker, but in the anime he looks awful, and Naru often looks a shadow of her manga self. Strangely, Motoko always seemed to look lovely in the anime - I don't recall ever thinking she looked ugly...
 
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